Wednesday, March 14th. 3.14. Pi Day.
GREAT BRITAIN EXPELS 23 RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS IDENTIFIED AS UNREGISTERED SPIES
Things are escalating across the pond. Prime Minister Teresa May officially called the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as an unlawful use of force. Her first move was to expel 23 Russian ‘diplomats’. The word diplomat is in quotes since they’re actually spies.
Countries are allowed a certain number of known spies in each country that work in the embassies. The countries agree on that number between them, and they’re allowed to do all of the above-the-board espionage in their host country, and even some dirty tricks from time to time. These spies have to be registered with both countries, and usually carry titles like Diplomatic Attaché. They carry state secrets from and to their home government.
Britain kicked 23 unregistered Russian spies out their country.
Later in the day, Britain called a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, where U.S. Ambassador Nicky Haley called Russia out for use of chemical weapons.
One thing with the security council is that every country has to agree with any punishments and any of the charter nations can veto anything they don’t like. Russia is one of the charter nations.
What Russia can’t do is stop the meeting with NATO that Great Britain is calling together this week.
We are in Article 5 territory. Russia used a weapon of mass destruction on British soil to assassinate a British resident and his daughter, and in doing so, exposed hundreds of people to ill effects for decades to come.
Something else about this story. This was a fuck you by Putin. He’s up for ‘election’ this weekend, and decided to pull a big fuck you to Europe. If he wanted Skripal dead, he could have had someone shoot or stab him walking down the street and make it look like a mugging. Even if he wanted him poisoned, he could have used something that wasn’t directly traceable to Russia. The fucker left a calling card, and is playing around now.
Expelling the spies is a proportional response, and Putin can handle it. It’s time for Great Britain to go disproportional. Seize assets of Russians, take their passports, expel them, and go after their money laundering methods. Go full Magnitsky Act on their asses, bankrupt Putin and anyone that’s ever talked to him.
STUDENTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY WALK OUT OF CLASS
At 10:00 AM EST, students across the country stood up, left their desks, and walked out of class for 17 minutes. Every hour, on the hour, for each time zone.
Today is the one month anniversary of the Parkland shooting, where 17 people, 14 teenagers and 3 faculty members, were murdered by a white supremacist and MAGA Redcap terrorist, using an AR-15 assault rifle.
Enough is enough. No more. Not again.
These words aren’t just catch phrases or hashtags, but the beginning of a movement.
These students…these kids, are taking the lead on gun reform because the adults have failed them. The politicians, the parents, the police that were supposed to protect them have failed them. Instead of making it harder to get their hands on weapons of murder, these politicians went out of their way to cater to special interest groups like the National Rifle Association, even though 90% of Americans support some kind of common sense gun control.
We have failed these children. We have failed to protect them. Our job is to protect our children, and we’ve failed. More than 7,000 of our children have been murdered in the last decade by guns.
But we can fix this. And the children are showing the way.
17 minutes for 17 lives lost. Viacom channels like MTV and Nickelodeon suspended programming for this time.
PA-18: CONOR LAMB HOLDS TIGHT LEAD, RECOUNT POSSIBLE
The results are in, sort of. All of the Election Day votes and Absentee votes have been counted. Conor Lamb has a 647 vote lead, with some provisional and military ballots left to count, but not nearly enough to make up the difference.
Rick Saccone has still not conceded, but I’m not surprised. The margin is so small that it would be reasonable to push for a recount, if just to verify the count.
Assuming that Lamb wins, Saccone is planing to run in PA-14. Below is a map of the new districts, and the old one is below that. The midterms will be interesting, but all of Southwest PA could go for the Democrats.
STORMY WATCH, FROM THE STORMCENTER 6000 METEOROPORNOLOGICAL CENTER
- Stormy Daniels starts legal fundraiser
- BuzzFeed tells Stormy to preserve documents for Cohen’s libel lawsuit against them
- Second lawyer from Trump Organization involved in arbitration
- Lawyer is very, well, lawyerly about whether a sex tape exists.
- More women could join her case
Not only is the cover-up getting crazy, but that second point is just pure, unadulterated, karma.
Cohen sued BuzzFeed for libel because they published the Steele Dossier, and he’s an idiot. The threshold for libel against a public official is very high. Not only does Cohen have to prove that BuzzFeed lied about Michael Cohen being a liar, but that they did so maliciously. All BuzzFeed has to do is prove that Michael Cohen is a liar.
That’s where Stormy Daniels comes in. While she’s fighting against the NDA between her and Cohen, BuzzFeed asked her to preserve documents, which is a step lawyers use right before issuing a subpoena.
It sounds like they’re going to subpoena Stormy Daniels either as a witness against Michael Cohen, or use her evidence to prove that Michael Cohen is dirty liar.
SPEED ROUND!
UCLA releases video of students heckling SecTreasury Steve Mnuchin
VA Secretary Shulkin and even more corruption
Gazprom cuts international traders due to sanctions
BitCoin value drops after Google bans paying for ads with the money laundering device cryptocurrency
Department of Defense paid $140k for use of Trump properties
Senate passes partial rollback of Dodd-Frank banking protections
Rachel Maddow is tearing this one wide open on her show. This couldn’t be more blatant of a quid pro quo setup than if Trump and Kushner brought out a wine list giving the prices for political favors.
Seth Rich’s family files lawsuit against Fox News
McCabe might be fired before he retires on Sunday.
RUMOR MILL: SHULKIN, SESSIONS, McMASTER, AND KELLY
It seems like this rumor floats around every couple weeks, but once again Trump is thinking about firing people and moving things around. The current one is that he wants to fire everyone who has disappointed him or is preventing him from being him (read: all of the adults keeping the toddler from killing himself by accident). This includes firing Jeff Sessions for Russia, McMaster for not letting him start wars when he wants, Kelly for being mean, and Shulkin for being an idiot. Jared and Ivanka are on the shitcan list as well, but like everyone else not able to get a clearance, they’ll move to the campaign.
Once again, the rumor of Scott Pruitt becoming Attorney General and firing Mueller is floating around again. As I’ve described before in Lateral Movement, he can’t just move him without Senate approval, and Scott Pruitt would be an accomplice to Obstruction of Justice in about 15 seconds. Not only that, but Scott Pruitt was announced as the the head of the EPA on December 7, 2016, making him a part of the Trump Transition Team, which is under investigation for their ties to Russia.
But, let’s assume for a moment that Sessions does get fired and replaced by Mr. Privacy Booth and Afraid to Fly Coach, and he makes a move to fire Mueller, what then?
Well, Operation Shitstorm takes effect. Indictments get unsealed, people get arrested, and New York and Virginia unleash their cases against Team Trump with state charges. You know, charges that can’t get pardoned by a pardon. See GTKYG-Pardon Limitations for that process.
Once again, those in the Rumor Mill are the voices of calmness. We’ve seen this party before.
That’s it for today. My next non-daily article will be covering the Minority Report from the House Intelligence Committee. It’s a 21 page memo showing all of the things the Republicans wouldn’t let them follow up on, or refused to even investigate. It’s pretty damning. How in the fuck can they say the “fully investigated” the Trump Campaign when they didn’t even call the people that are cooperating witnesses for Special Counselor Robert Mueller? Or say that the Russians didn’t work to get Trump elected without talking to any of the Russians at the June 9 meeting? Or talk to anyone about the Mayflower meeting? It’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’ll keep this memo in mind for if the Democrats regain control of the House. Day 1 will see Adam Schiff as the new head of the House Intelligence Committee starting up the Russian Investigation, and picking up where this left off.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 