Daily Check-In 03/23/2018

Friday, March 23rd.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

• House probe overlooked most Trump-Russia contacts, report claims Democratic-aligned group claims Intelligence Committee failed to follow majority of connections
• Mueller just scored a massive win in the Russia investigation
• Controversial lawyer’s role on President Trump’s legal team reportedly remains uncertain

According to reports, Dowd was the main reason that Trump hadn’t interviewed with Mueller yet.  Mainly because Dowd realized that his client would lie in about 7 seconds flat.

A lawyer could lose their license to practice if they know that their client would perjure themselves.  Dowd saw this and GTFO.  DiGenova looks like he might do the same thing.

• Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein Delivers Remarks Announcing Nine Iranians Charged with Conducting Massive Cyber Theft Campaign on Behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
• Iranian Indictments Over Hacking of Universities

From yesterday’s post, (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018), DAG Rosenstein had a press conference this morning, where he announced indictments against hackers working for a government that the United States is on shaky terms with but the Trump family has illicit ties to.

No, it’s not Russia.  It’s Iran.

These Iranian hackers got into more than 100 universities and government agencies, stole research and information, then sold it to the highest bidder.  Often times Russia.

This does a couple things.

First, this says that we will go after people tied to governments.

Second, these actions make it harder to go after Rosenstein and Mueller.

Third, it gives the administration more to hate Iran for.

Fourth, it sets precedent.

Finally, I need to learn to count my reasons out before typing how many things I want to talk about.

• Congress Snuck New Russia Sanctions Into Spending Bill
• Trump Fundraiser Offered to Help Lift Sanctions on Russian Firms
• National Security Council Recommended Expelling Russian Diplomats
• Gowdy: Trump’s Lawyers Doing Disservice
• Andrew McCabe: Not in my worst nightmares did I dream my FBI career would end this way
• ‘You should do it.’ Trump officials encouraged George Papadopoulos’s foreign outreach, documents show.

The emails show Papadopoulos was the first to alert the campaign to al-Sissi’s interest in meeting and then connected top campaign leadership to the Egyptian embassy…. Trump and al-Sissi met the next night at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

George Papadopoulos was not a “coffee-boy” like Mike Caputo claimed.  Coffee boys don’t organize meetings between Presidential candidates and foreign heads of state.

All of George’s actions in regards to Russia were performed with the approval of the Trump Campaign.  He didn’t act alone.

Remember George flipped last summer and is a cooperating witness.  Everything he knows, Mueller knows.

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

• Leaked: Cambridge Analytica’s blueprint for Trump victory | UK news | The Guardian

One of the most effective ads, according to Kaiser, was a piece of native advertising on the political news website Politico, which was also profiled in the presentation. The interactive graphic, which looked like a piece of journalism and purported to list “10 inconvenient truths about the Clinton Foundation”, appeared for several weeks to people from a list of key swing states when they visited the site. It was produced by the in-house Politico team that creates sponsored content.

• The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram
• Cambridge Analytica Misled MP’s on Brexit, Claims Ex-Director
• UK Authorities Get Search Warrant for Cambridge Analytica Headquarters
• Ari Melber: Memo from Guiliani’s Law Firm Advised Cambridge Analytica to not use Foreigners in Congression Campaigns.  They used them anyway.
• Wylie: Foreigners Worked on North Carolina Senate Campaign
• Cloak and Data: The Real Story Behind Cambridge Analytica’s Rise and Fall
• How Cambridge Analytica broke into the U.S. political market through Mercer-allied conservative groups

The headquarters of CA were raided by the UK government on Friday after they finally received a search warrant.  The warrant was requested several days ago, and at least one person posted videos in the last couple days of CA staff packing things up into storage containers.  I’m worried that by the time the cops get there, the really good shit will be destroyed or moved offsite.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

• Demanding Real Gun Control Laws, Parkland Students Reject Mandatory Clear Backpacks That Make School Feel ‘Like Jail’
• George Clooney to Parkland Students Standing Up for Gun Safety: ‘You Make Me Proud of My Country Again’
• The 16-Year-Old Girl Who Was Shot At Her Maryland High School Has Died
• 187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at school since Columbine. Many are never the same.
• Rubio: Students have done more in 5 weeks than has been done in years
• NRA Attacks Student Organizers as Violent Extremists
• Sessions Announced Ban on Bump Stocks
• Boston Globe: 7 Steps. 27,000 Lives.

Once again, the March for our Lives is Saturday the 24th.  Check their website for a location nearby.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

• The Washington Post: Trump says he is ‘considering a veto’ of $1.3 trillion spending bill approved by Congress that would have staved off a shutdown
• Trump Considered Ousting Kelly and Serving as his own Chief of Staff: Report
• Elizabeth Warren Tells Ben Carson To His Face: You Should Be Fired
• Conway now says she’d be open to WH communications director job
• Trump moves to limit transgender individuals from military service

Once again, a modified transgender ban on military service.  At 9PM on a Friday.

20 bucks says this gets challenged in court by the end of the month week Tuesday Monday.

 

STORMYWATCH, FROM THE STORM CENTER 6000 METEOROPORNOLOGICAL CENTER

• Stormy Daniels’ lawyer posts photo of mystery disc in a safe, teasing a ‘picture’
• Ex-Playboy model who alleges affair with Trump: He said I was ‘beautiful’ like Ivanka

I watched the Karen McDougal CNN interview earlier today.  Interesting.  Karen didn’t sound like a jilted lover at all.  The only parts that were weird was when she teared up thinking about Melania.

Stormy Daniels’s interview is on 60 Minutes this Sunday on CBS.  Check local listings for time and channel.

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

• Keith Ellison: The Time Has Come for Medicare-for-All and a Maximum Wage
• GOP chief justice slams Republican judicial impeachment move
• US Congress quietly slips cloud-spying powers into page 2,201 of spending mega-bill
• Too old for 2020? Trump, Biden, Bernie and the politics of age
• Attorney says Roy Moore supporters offered him $10,000 to drop client who accused the Senate candidate of sexual impropriety
• Private Equity Firms like Apollo and Ares Benefit from Spending Bill
• FBI: Hate crimes rose the day after Trump was elected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of Roy Moore’s supporters, under direction from

 

RUMOR MILL: POISONING THE WELL

Earlier today, we learned that PatriotLou was a plant.  More specifically, a cover account in a combination of psychological experiment and an attempt to discredit various members of TeamPatriot, like Ale, TeaPain, and Dr. Dena.

This story pisses me the fuck off.

I’m pissed.  Not just because I hate being duped, it happens..  Not because I don’t like being experimented on, that part I like.  Not because I need a sharp dose of skepticism from time to time, which I do.

I’m pissed because after describing their findings of their A/B testing over last few weeks, he released a bunch of DM’s between PatriotLou and the others.  Selectively chosen for maximum impact.

I fucking hate this “gotcha” mentality.  Oh, you fooled someone.  Whoopty fucking do.

This isn’t the first time that someone pulled a move like this, and it won’t be the last.

But what this does do is it destroys the credibility of UsVsThemBlogs.  By pulling this shit, they’ve destroyed any credibility that they had.  They put so much effort into this operation to discredit TeamPatriot, TeamScooby, or whatever they’re called this week.  Yet, just by their tactics alone, they destroyed the trust they built up.

So, lessons learned…

Keep an eye out for anyone and everyone on Twitter.  Especially newer accounts.

Use your best judgement.

Just because you want it to be true, it doesn’t make it so.

It takes a longer than a few weeks to build a track record.

Even if someone trusted has vouched for the new guy, don’t trust the new guy.  We’ve all seen Donnie Brasco.

 

That’s it for today.  I’m going to start an article on Gun Control and Reform this weekend, time permitting.  I hope to get to the local march tomorrow.  I’ll describe in that article why I care so much about this.  But not now.  Now, it’s almost Midnight on Friday.  I need to get some sleep.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Don’t trust everything you read on the Internet.”

– Abraham Lincon

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur