Thursday March 8th.
STORMY WATCH
Today was a busy day for news about the Stormy Daniels scandal. Here’s a few things that happened:
- WaPo out with a detailed write-up of the history of the affair.
- Cohen filed restraining order against Stormy.
- Stormy and her lawyers fighting arbitration.
- Jessica Drake is one of the women named in the agreement.
- Paul Ryan not interested in investigating allegations of campaign finance fraud at this time.
- Trump is pissed at Sarah Huckabee-Sanders over how she handled the press conference.
In any normal universe, finding out that President likely paid off a Porn Star weeks before the election with campaign funds would be the biggest scandal of the year. Now, I’m worried that this scandal could actually take the wind out of the other scandals, most importantly the breaking Seychelles story.
Well, breaking to the MSM. We’ve been on this like white on rice since at least Daily Check-In 8/18/2017.
TRUMP ACCEPTS NORTH KOREA’S INVITATION TO DISCUSS ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM
So, the Dotard agreed to meet with Kim Jong Un of North Korea by the end of May. No POTUS has ever met with the North Korean President before, for the same reason that they don’t meet with the President of the Klingon-Albanian Cosplay and Diplomacy Society.
Doing so legitimizes them.
I’m hoping that this is Trump’s “Nixon goes to China” moment, but it’s more likely his attempt at distracting the press from, well, EVERYTHING.
Plus, this is likely a Putin Puppet meets Putin Puppet scenario. Trump is Putin’s Puppet, and we’ve seen repeatedly that North Korea gets belligerent when Trump needs a distraction. And let’s not forget that Russia supplied North Korea with missile technology over the last few years to move their nuclear program ahead by a couple decades.
MANAFORT TRIAL SET FOR JULY 10, FORCED TO WEAR SECOND GPS TRACKING BRACELET
You know you’re fucked when you have to wear TWO tracking bracelets.
Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to bank fraud charges today in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). His trial has been set for July 10th. He was remanded to home confinement, and ordered to wear a tracking bracelet.
Now, Paul’s already has a tracking bracelet from the DC District Court, but EDVA can’t use the DC ones. Something like that they’re a different system or brand, or they just don’t have access to it. So, the only solution to that is to wear ANOTHER ankle bracelet.
ERIK PRINCE TO HOST FUNDRAISER FOR ROHRABACHER
Jesus fucking Christ, Erik. The timing on this is fan-fucking-tastic.
The same week that Erik Prince’s role in trying to set up a secret communication line comes out from the Special Counselor’s office, he decides that hosting a fundraiser for his old boss (Prince interned for Rohrabacher). Problem is, his old boss is neck deep in Russian shit, too.
TRUMP SIGNS TARIFFS, FLAKE TO INTRODUCE BILL TO NULLIFY TARIFFS
Trump’s tariffs are set to start in 15 days. It’ll be rough, but I think that Flake could find enough support in both houses for a veto-proof majority.
We’re getting to the end-game of the House Intelligence Committee’s work. Any and all pretenses of bipartisanship left about a year ago, and there has been do desire from the Republicans to do their job.
It’s almost like they’re trying to run interference for Trump, and don’t care about doing their jobs for the Republic.
STATES WITH BACKGROUND CHECKS HAVE LOWER GUN VIOLENCE, STATES WITH LOOSE GUN LAWS EXPORT CRIME
This is from the “No Shit, Sherlock” Department.
These two points help explain each other, and also answer the classic argument used by gun enthusiasts “But what about Chicago? They have gun laws and high crime.”
Let’s say Gary wants to buy a gun, but has a little thing preventing him from getting one in his home state, like a felony conviction for knocking over a convenience store with a gun when he was younger. Gary also has anger issues, and once attacked someone in traffic in a road rage incident. Because of Gary’s record, he can’t buy a gun in his home state because they do background checks. He tries to buy a Glock 19, but they say “No, Nope. No fucking way.” Gary’s mad, and makes a note that he’ll shoot the prick if he ever sees him again.
So what does Gary do? His home state might have a background check, but the neighboring state doesn’t. He hops in his car, drives across state lines, gives the basic info required, buys the gun, ammo, and cleaning kit, then drives home.
A while down the road back in his home state, Gary has another road rage incident, but this time he’s armed and shoots up the car of a complete stranger because of a missing turn signal. In his rage, he kills a young mother and her child with a gun that he legally bought in another state, even though he wasn’t allowed to buy one in his home state.
DAILY CALLER HOSTS OP-ED WRITTEN BY OLEG DERIPASKA WITH PAUL MANAFORT’S HELP
Remember in Daily Check-In 12/06/2017 when Paul Manafort almost lost his bail because he was caught writing an op-ed piece with a Russian Agent?
Well, now the Daily Caller is hosting an opinion piece from Oleg Deripaska.
You know, just so we can get the Russian point of view on one of the largest conservative news sites in the world. Especially one that was founded by Tucker Carlson of Fox News. This is where I would normally link to the “About Us” page on their website, but I’d rather not link to their page. I don’t want to give them any clicks, and I’m honestly worried about what shit they might try to put in your cookies.
SKRIPAL STILL IN CRITICAL CONDITION
The graves of his wife and son have been cordoned off, possibly for exhumation.
21 people, including multiple first responders, have now become symptomatic.
There’s an above zero percent chance that someone either testified about Skripal before Congress, or someone with access to the classified intelligence gave this name to someone in the House Intel staff. That person could have given that name to Trump’s legal team, who forward that name to the Russians.
If so, those people committed espionage, and have earned the execution that the crime deserves.
RUMOR MILL: BURDEN OF PROOF
One argument I saw a couple times today on Twitter and Reddit was about the burden of proof that Robert Mueller needs to get charges through Congress and Senate for Impeachment and Removal from office.
Mueller knows how corrupt the current Republican Party Leadership is, and that he has one shot at taking down Trump through Congress. He has to make an undeniable case. A case that is so airtight, convincing, and damning, that it would be nothing less than political suicide to not vote for impeachment.
That’s one of the reasons why things are taking so long. The impeachment process is a political process. Only two Presidents have ever been impeached: Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. In both cases, the House voted along party lines to advance the impeachment articles to the Senate. Nixon faced two houses controlled by Democrats, but there were enough Republicans in the Senate that were going to vote to remove him from office, due to the overwhelming evidence in the case.
Now, things are different. Republicans hold both houses of Congress, and we are more partisan than ever. We’re fast approaching the end of this phase of the game, when Mueller brings charges against Trump and his coconspirators in Congress, like Devin Nunes and Matt Gaetz, for Obstruction of Justice and other easily provable crimes. If impeachment articles stall because of leadership not wanting to push them forward, expect the next series of indictments to fly, targeting the Republican Party under RICO charges, and going after the leadership directly.
At the same time, we’ll see whether or not a President can be indicted.
Although, I do have a question that I need to research. Impeachment requires a majority in the House, and removal requires 2/3rds majority. I need to find out if those numbers are based off of the total numbers, or the current membership. If a couple Senate seats are left open, are 67 still needed, or does the number drop based on the new total of seated senators? What if more than 33 senators are removed from or leave their offices at once? If there are 50 senators left, would they be able to hold a removal vote with 34 votes required, or are they stuck because they need 67 votes?
That might be my next research project.
That’s it for today.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 