Month: June 2018

Irregular Posts

This post is a bit different than normal, but I feel I should explain what’s going on.  It will be a little more personal than normal, but I still refuse to divulge any names.

I’m going to be very busy for the next few months.  Busier than normal, anyway.

Last Friday, I decided to not stay up and finish Daily Check-In 06/22/2018.  Normally, I stay up to finish these posts, but as I was extremely tired and my wife was miserable beyond words, we went to bed.

Ok, let me step back a moment.  My wife, one of the most amazing women on the planet, was justifiably miserable.  She was very, Very, VERY pregnant.  Like, due date within a week pregnant.

Yinz can see where this is going, right?

Saturday morning, the original plan was to wake up, drink some coffee, work out a bit, and finish writing Friday’s post.  Instead, I wake up to my wife wincing in pain.

In my grogginess, I ask what’s wrong.  She tells me that she’s having contractions, and that they were strong and ten minutes apart.  “That’s great,” I thought.  10 minutes apart means things are just starting, and that we still have a few hours before things get crazy.  I get up, and casually get dressed.  About 30 seconds later, she finished what she was saying.

“That was at 3am.  They’re 5 minutes apart now.”

Oh fuck.

Most obstetricians tell patients to get to the hospital when contractions are that short apart, because that means she is in labor, and is going to push a tiny human out of her in a relatively short period of time.

How short of a time?  We left at 07:30, and arrived at the hospital by 08:15.  By 09:00, she was going through triage and they were moving her to a delivery room.  By 10:00, the epidural was in.  By 10:50, she was halfway dilated.  At 12:51, the doc checked her one last time, and said that my wife was “ready to go, I feel a head.”  After one quick push, the doc saw the baby crown.  As nonchalant as possible, the doc said “Ok, I’m going to take a moment to get suited up and get everyone in here, cause you’re going to have a baby in a few minutes.”

The doc wasn’t kidding about a few minutes.  That first push ended at 12:55.  by 12:58, the doc was suited up for work and a platoon of nurses and staff arrived.  At 12:59, the next push got the baby out to her ears.  By 13:01, her head was out.  At 13:03, our daughter was born.

So, in less time than it takes to work a shift at work, we arrived at the hospital and delivered.  In less time than it takes to order and eat lunch, my wife pushed a tiny human out of her.

That was Saturday.  It’s been a whirlwind since then, with multiple trips to the hospital and back, making sure everyone in the family is taken care of, and playing pack mule.  The wife is doing better, the baby is great, and the oldest is adjusting well to being a big brother.

All that craziness at home means that I might not have time this week to post every day.  My goal is to try to get one or two posts covering what I missed, and see how things work from there.

I’m still in the fight, and I’m still gathering stories every day.  Just now, I’m changing diapers while doing it, and I’ve got another great reason to fight for.

 

15-atay-15

 

By the way, don’t expect a bunch of baby pictures here.  I try to keep my family off of here as much as possible, but I felt that I owed something to those that read this every day.

 

Thanks.

Daily Check-In 06/22/2018

Friday, June 22nd

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is seeking to prevent the defense for Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, from arguing to jurors that he was targeted for prosecution because of his role in Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

In a court filing on Friday, prosecutors asked a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, to bar any selective prosecution claims during Manafort’s looming trial on tax evasion, bank fraud and other charges.

“Manafort should … be precluded from arguing that he has been singled out for prosecution because of his position in the campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump, or otherwise asserting that he has been selectively prosecuted by the Special Counsel’s Office,” Mueller’s team wrote.

Prosecutors noted that Manafort never filed a legal motion asking for the case to be dismissed on selective-prosecution grounds.

“Courts have consistently held that claims of selective (or vindictive) prosecution must be presented to the court before trial and cannot be argued to the jury,” the government filing said. “The government’s reasons for initiating a prosecution have nothing to do with whether the evidence at trial proves the elements of the charged offenses, which is the sole question that the jury must answer.”

 

COHEN

Comedian Tom Arnold said Friday that he and President Trump’s former, longtime personal lawyer are teaming up to “take down” the president.

Arnold tweeted a photo with Michael Cohen on Thursday with the caption, “I Love New York,” which Cohen retweeted without comment.

Arnold then told NBC News that he met with Cohen as part of a show he is working on for Vice, in which he searches for incriminating videos of the president.

“This dude has all the tapes–this dude has everything,” Arnold told NBC News. “I say to Michael, ‘Guess what? We’re taking Trump down together,’ and he’s so tired he’s like, ‘OK,’ and his wife is like, ‘OK, f— Trump.’”

The idea for the Vice program followed the leak of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape during the 2016 campaign, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women “by the p—-.” The show will feature Arnold’s hunt for other unflattering video and audio footage of the president.

During the presidential campaign, National Enquirer executives sent digital copies of the tabloid’s articles and cover images related to Donald Trump and his political opponents to Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen in advance of publication, according to three people with knowledge of the matter — an unusual practice that speaks to the close relationship between Trump and David Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company.

Although the company strongly denies ever sharing such material before publication, these three individuals say the sharing of material continued after Trump took office.

“Since Trump’s become president and even before, [Pecker] openly just has been willing to turn the magazine and the cover over to the Trump machine,” said one of the people with knowledge of the practice.

During the campaign, “if it was a story specifically about Trump, then it was sent over to Michael, and as long as there were no objections from him, the story could be published,” this person added.

WASHINGTON — When the National Enquirerreported without proof in March 2016 that Sen. Ted Cruz had been caught cheating with five mistresses, Cruz blamed the “tabloid smear” on “Donald Trump and his henchmen.”

When the supermarket tabloid asserted two months later that Cruz’s dad took part in a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy — based on an exceedingly creative interpretation of a decades-old photo of a man who vaguely looked like the elder Cruz handing out pamphlets with Lee Harvey Oswald — Trump gleefully spread the claim to discredit his GOP presidential rival.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that throughout the 2016 campaign, executives from the Enquirer sent copies of its articles about Trump and his opponents — including Cruz — to Trump attorney Michael Cohen for approval before publication.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

ANTWON ROSE

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

George Will, a longtime political commentator and staunch defender of the conservative movement, made a dramatic exit from the Republican Party Friday, citing the party’s support for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

In a speech at a luncheon held by the Federalist Society, Will urged other conservatives not to support Trump as the GOP nominee. “This is not my party,” Will said the speech, noting that while it’s a little too late to find a replacement for him on the ticket, conservatives can “grit their teeth for four years” after making sure that Trump loses.

Will mentioned that he had switched his voter registration from Republican to “unaffiliated” in the state of Maryland. He told the Washington Post, where he writes a column, that he made the change several weeks ago, after House Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed Trump for the 2020 election.

 

SCOTUS DECISIONS

 

U.N. POVERTY REPORT

 

ECONOMY

 

ELECTION 2018 AND BEYOND

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for Friday.  Yes, I know it’s Tuesday when I posted this, and that I added absolutely zero wit, snark, or depth to any stories.  I’m going to post an update in a few minutes explaining why, and why I won’t be as regular with my updates for the next couple weeks.

It’s a good reason.  I’ll also explain why I’ve been so cagey recently.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 06/21/2018

Thursday, June 21st.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday asked a federal judge to use a special questionnaire to select jurors for the upcoming trial of Paul Manafort, arguing in a court filing that intense media coverage of the case is jeopardizing the former Trump campaign chairman’s ability to get a fair trial.

In the 28-page filing, Mueller’s team says “the Manafort investigation … has been the subject of extensive media coverage. A Westlaw search of major newspapers for the terms ‘Manafort’ near ‘trial’ or ‘investigation’ yielded over 3,500 results.

“Similarly, the same search of transcripts of television and radio broadcasts returned over 1,300 hits, including in major news outlets, such as all major television networks and newspapers, but exclusive of social media like Twitter feeds,” the filing says.

The ‘Western intelligence community’ — a nebulous group encompassing Steele, his associates, the US intelligence agencies and many experts in Britain — believe the Kremlin is directing operations to try to shake public faith in democracy across Europe and the US. They think Russia has the same aim as the Soviet Union once did: to break up Nato and the EU, and dominate a continent of weak nations. They view Russia as a criminal state, where the state and the mafia are two faces of the same predatory beast. If that is right, then for the government the choice over whether to back Mueller — and the rule of law — should be no choice at all.

The delegation will arrive in St. Petersburg on June 30 and spend time there before heading to the country’s capital on July 3 and 4th for meetings with lawmakers, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing an unnamed official.

A group of Republican senators had been planning a visit to the country after an invitation from U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, the Washington Post reported last week.

Those reportedly part of the group included Richard Shelby of Alabama, John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana and North Dakota’s John Hoeven, though those members have not announced any plans.

…

Shelby, Kennedy and Hoeven are on neither the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee or on the Senate Intelligence Committee that issued a report last month saying Russia tried to influence the 2016 election.

 

COHEN

 

IMMIGRATION

Movements Toward End?

 

Stories of Abuse

A 16-year-old boy who said he had lived in Texas with his mother since he was an infant ended up at Shenandoah in September after a police officer pulled over a car he was riding in and asked for ID, which he couldn’t provide. As one of the few Latino kids who is fluent in English, the teen would translate for other detainees the taunts and names the staff members were calling them. He said that angered the guards, resulting in his losing such modest privileges as attending art classes.

“If you are behaving bad, resisting the staff when they try to remove you from the program, they will take everything in your room away — your mattress, blanket, everything,” he said. “They will also take your clothes. Then they will leave you locked in there for a while. This has happened to me, and I know it has happened to other kids, too.”

The immigrant detainees said they were largely segregated from the mostly white juveniles being held on criminal charges, but they could see that the other housing units had amenities that included plush chairs and video gaming consoles not available in the Spartan pods housing the Latinos.

In their sworn statements, the teens reported spending the bulk of their days locked alone in their cells, with a few hours set aside for classroom instruction, recreation and meals. Some said they had never been allowed outdoors, while the U.S.-born children were afforded a spacious recreation yard.

 

Melania’s Trip

 

Fighting Back

 

Protests and Reactions

 

Avenatti

”We are now representing whistleblowers within ICE, outside contractors, etc. They have reached out to us to provide us with info as to what is really going on. We are going to blow this wide open and take the info to the American people so they can decide what happens next.”

 

Immigration Bill

 

Sick Pieces of Shit

Miller himself is reportedly happy with how things are going, which led one fellow staffer to equate his behavior to that of the Nazi SS, Vanity Fair reported Wednesday.

“Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border,” an outside White House adviser said. “He’s a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There’s always been a way he’s gone about this. He’s Waffen-SS.”

 

Yes, It Is Racist

 

Who’s Benefiting?

 

Defending the Indefensile

 

Some Good News

 

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

PROJECTION

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

The White House on Thursday will propose merging the Education and Labor departments into one federal agency, the centerpiece of a plan to remake a bureaucracy that President Trump and his supporters consider too big and bloated, according to an administration official familiar with the plan.

The long-awaited proposal to reorganize federal agencies would shrink some and augment the missions of others. It is the result of a directive that Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, issued to federal leaders 14 months ago. He urged them to find ways to merge overlapping, duplicative offices and programs and eliminate those the administration views as unnecessary.

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS DECISION

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states may require online retailers to collect billions of dollars of sales tax revenue owed to them.

The decision was 5 to 4.

More than 40 states and the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn its 1992 decision in Quill v. North Dakota that restricts states from collecting sales tax from retailers without a physical presence in those states. They said a decision in a case involving mail-order catalogues is obsolete in an era of e-commerce.

 

ATTACKS ON THE CLIMATE

 

BLATANT RACISM

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

A LITTLE EARLY TO TALK ABOUT 2020

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

With how horrible and disgusting the act of ripping families apart is, there’s bound to be some truly sick shit buried deep.

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I hope to have more details for Friday’s post, but it might not be up until sometime Saturday.  Assuming I get to it this weekend.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 06/20/2018

Wednesday, June 20th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

A longtime US lobbyist for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska visited Julian Assange nine times at the Ecuadorian embassy in London last year, according to visitor logs seen by the Guardian.

Adam Waldman, who has worked as a Washington lobbyist for the metals tycoon since 2009, had more meetings with Assange in 2017 than almost anyone else, the records show.

It is not clear why Waldman went to the WikiLeaks founder or whether the meetings had any connection to the Russian billionaire, who is now subject to US sanctions. But the disclosure is likely to raise further questions about the extent and nature of Assange’s alleged ties to Russia.

US intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” last year, in an unclassified intelligence assessment, that the Kremlin shared hacked emails with WikiLeaks that undermined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as part of its effort to sway the 2016 election in favour of Donald Trump.

I’ve mentioned Andrew Waldman on Daily Check-In 02/09/2018 and Daily Check-In 02/15/2018.  He was the lobbyist who was in contact with Senator Mark Warner, and had his conversations, which were classified and privileged, leaked to Sean Hannity via Julian Assange.

This tells me a few things.

First, Waldman was a go-between between Oleg working for Putin and Wikileaks.  He was one of, if not the main cut-out.

Second, there is now a new way that JAss got the messages between Waldman and Warner.  Waldman could have given them to Assange directly.  I personally doubt this happened, since the timing of the leak to Hannity went something like this…

  1. Warner and Waldman text.
  2. House Intel wants a copy of the conversation for “their investigation.”
  3. Months pass.
  4. Senate Intel gives House Intel copies of the conversation.
  5. Minutes pass.
  6. Something happens.
  7. Sean Hannity gets banned from Twitter (Daily Check-In 01/30/2018).  A parody account is created, and is so lifelike, Julian Assange messages the parody, offering dirt on Mark Warner.
  8. About a week later, Hannity does the dumbest thing possible and runs with a story AFTER proof of him working with Julian Assange comes to light.

Finaly, this proves the rumor I heard a while back about foreigners using lobbyists to get favorable stories to the press.  A good deal of Waldman’s work was communicating with journalists to set up stories favorable to Deripaska, Russia, and their interests.

Get ready to hear his name more in the coming months.

 

COHEN

I’m not sure what’s more incredible, the fact that Michael Cohen was STILL a senior member of the Republican party WHILE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DOZENS, IF NOT HUNDREDS OF CRIMES, or that he quit because of the child separation policy.

“As the son of a Polish holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy is heart wrenching,” Cohen wrote in an email to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, per ABC. “While I strongly support measures that will secure our porous borders, children should never be used as bargaining chips.”

Whoever had on their Bingo card “Cohen shows he’s not a complete monster”, raise your hand.  You just won a prize.

 

TRUMP FOUNDATION

It’s not unique in that the transgressions were tiny, or minuscule, but that they were so blatant, over the top, long running, and ridiculous.

People will go to jail for this.  And I’ll laugh.

 

IMMIGRATION

Tender Age Facilities

 

Rescinding the Policy

Though President Trump declared that the executive order he signed Wednesday would “solve” the problem of family separation while parents are prosecuted for illegal border crossing, the order is really only good for 20 days, CBS News’ Paula Reid reports, citing a source familiar with the drafting of the order. The order does not override the 1993 Flores v. Reno Supreme Court case, which says that detained migrant children cannot be held in government detention facilities for more than 20 days.

Essentially, this means that after the 20-day mark, children may still be separated from their parents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently separates most families when they are apprehended for illegal border crossing, Reid notes. But now, with the executive order, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will take custody of the entire family. However, at the 20-day mark, under the Flores consent decree, the department will have to release the children from custody.

Nothing in the executive order stops the government from releasing the whole family, Reid says, but under Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ zero-tolerance policy, which states that the U.S. will prosecute all who cross the border illegally, releasing the family is unlikely.

 

Sick Pieces of Shit

 

Shame

 

Political Fight

 

Citizens Fight

 

Kids May Not See Their Parents Again

 

Planned from the Beginning

 

Indefensible

 

Not Cheaper

 

Reactions

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

RUMOR MILL

Yeah, he’s on SIGINT.  Probably used “encrypted texts” from WhatsApp to talk to Julian and Oleg, among others.

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday might be combined into a post, depending on what happens.

I’ve been cagey for a while, but I don’t think it’s finally time I talk about why I’m so elusive about getting things finished, and why I’m not talking as much as I’d like to about the immigration stuff.  Soon.  Very soon.  Likely by the weekend soon.  Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.