Daily Check-In 06/21/2018

Daily Check-In

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

Published by noneofthisisnormal

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