Month: June 2018

Daily Check-In 06/07/2018

Thursday, June 7th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Justice Department plans to brief senior lawmakers next week with additional details and documents about how the FBI investigated whether Trump campaign advisers had suspicious ties to Russia — a concession to Republican demands for more information about the politically charged probe.

…

A senior Justice Department official said the briefing will allow lawmakers “to review certain supporting documents that were made available during the prior briefing.” Officials “are prepared to brief members on certain questions specifically raised by the speaker and other members. The department and FBI will also provide the documents that were available for review but not inspected by the members at the previous briefing, along with some additional material,’’ the official said.

The briefing will be for the Gang of Eight — the senior Democrat and Republican in the Senate and House, as well as the senior members of each party on their respective intelligence committees.

Fox News host Sean Hannity encouraged witnesses in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe to destroy their personal phones to thwart investigators’ efforts to view any encrypted messages they might have. The conservative TV personality said on his show Wednesday night that witnesses should perhaps “follow Hillary Clinton’s lead” after Mueller reportedly asked witnesses to turn in their phones for examination. The request came after Mueller’s team accusedformer Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of using encrypted messaging apps to engage in alleged witness tampering. “Delete all your emails and then acid-wash your emails and hard drives on the phones, then take your phones and bash them with a hammer to little itsy-bitsy pieces, use BleachBit, remove the SIM cards and then take the pieces and hand them over to Robert Mueller and say, ‘Hillary Rodham Clinton, this is equal justice under the law,’” Hannity said. He went on to acknowledge this was “bad advice” before repeating it all again step-by-step.

He ghosted after the interview request.  Completely vanished.  Shut down his company, closed the website, the whole nine yards.

An ex-congressman has attracted scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary Committee, as it continues to investigate whether President Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential election.

Curt Weldon, a Republican and former Pennsylvania congressman, lost his re-election campaign more than a decade ago following an FBI probe into his ties to two Russian companies. He has “connections to both Russia and the Trump campaign” that are raising suspicions among senators, a spokeswoman for Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said. Feinstein is the committee’s ranking member, and wants to interview Weldon, the spokeswoman said.

The reasons for the committee’s interest in Weldon are murky, but his ties to Russia are significant. Members of Congress believe, for example, that Weldon may lead to answers about why the Trump administration sought to lift sanctions on Russia in the aftermath of the 2016 election despite a public statement by intelligence agencies that the Kremlin tried to help Trump win. Weldon may also have information about the role a Russian oligarch may have played in trying to influence the Trump administration—though Weldon denied this when I asked him about it.

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officials secretly seized years’ worth of a New York Times reporter’s phone and email records this year in an investigation of classified information leaks. It was the first known instance of the Justice Department going after a reporter’s data under President Trump.

The seizure — disclosed in a letter to the reporter, Ali Watkins — suggested that prosecutors under the Trump administration will continue the aggressive tactics employed under President Barack Obama.

 

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COHEN

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said through a representative on Wednesday that the Treasury Department was not cooperating with his May request for information on Michael Cohen and his dealings with Novartis.

“Treasury refuses to respond to our request, let alone provide key financial documents related to Cohen and Cohen’s business dealings with Novartis. There is no excuse for this kind of stonewalling,” the representative, Rachel McCleery, said. “All other parties are engaging in the Committee’s inquiry.”

 

PUERTO RICO

 

SCOTT PRUITT

Just in case that tweet disappears, here’s a screenshot…

Pruitt Tally

 

ENERGY POLICY WRITTEN BY A COAL BARON

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Ralph Peters suggested during a CNN interview on Wednesday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “some kind of grip on Trump,” pointing to the US president’s documented affinity toward Putin, and his hesitation to speak critically of the Kremlin.

Peters, who trained in Russian studies, the Russian language, and has experience with Russian intelligence officers, indicated that what he sees in Trump’s behavior are the signs of someone who may be compromised by one of the US’s most formidable enemies.

“For years, I was glad to be associated with Fox. It was a legitimate conservative and libertarian outlet. And a necessary one,” Peters told Cooper. “But with the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine. And I don’t do propaganda for anyone.”

Peters went on to say he believes the network in general and “particularly the prime time hosts” are attacking “our constitutional order, the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI, Robert Mueller,” and other intelligence agencies. “And they are doing it for ratings and profit,” he added. “And they’re doing it knowingly, and, in my view, doing a great, grave disservice to our country.”

Asked by Cooper if the prime-time hosts actually believe their own conspiracy theories about the “deep state,” Peters singled out Trump’s most loyal Fox News servant. “I suspect Sean Hannity really believes it,” he said. “The others are smarter, they know what they’re doing.”

“I want to cry out and say, ‘How can you do this? How can you lie to our country? How can you knowingly attack our Constitution, the bedrock of our system of government, the bedrock of our country?’” Peters said. “And when you go after the Constitution, you best beware, because you are doing a phenomenal, indeed immeasurable damage.”

One thing I truly enjoy from this mess is watching Rudy Giuliani destroy his reputation, his history, and everything he worked for to try to defend Donald Trump.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE AND TARIFFS

 

MORE CABINET CORRUPTION

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

I’m old enough to remember when Republicans argued for Universal Health Care.  Up until 2009, when a black man was elected President and advocated the same thing they’d been asking for for 40 years.

Here’s another take on how bad this is…

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

NFL

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

OP-ED AND COLUMNIST PIECES

Retirement?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Between low employment, stagnant wages, student loans, day care, medical expenses, every other bill, 401(k)’s instead of pensions, and near zero percent APR on savings accounts, here’s the Millennial Retirement Plan.

Hope that you eventually find a job.

Change jobs every couple years because it’s the only way to get a pay raise or promotion.

Keep this up until you get old.

Hope that you die swiftly one day so as to not leave your loved ones with gigantic medical bills.

 

RUMOR MILL

I’m not sure I necessarily agree with Eric’s stance on this.  I don’t doubt that there’s some CI work going on involving the NYT, but I don’t see this case being related to it.  This sounds more like a “traditional” investigation into a reporters’s sources.  Then again, I might be missing something here.

 

That’s it for today.  I’m going to be away from the internet for a while tomorrow, so I might not catch as much as usual, but if anything big breaks, I should get it.

I’ve said this before, but at sometime over the next few weeks, I likely will disappear for a couple days.  I’ll tell you why then.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 06/06/2018

Wednesday, June 6th.  The 74th anniversary of D-Day.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

In November 2015, Ivanka Trump told Cohen to speak with Klokov, according to the four sources. Cohen had at least one phone conversation with the weightlifter, they said. It is not known what the men discussed over the phone, but they exchanged a string of emails that are now being examined by congressional investigators and federal agents probing Russia’s election meddling.

In one of those emails, Klokov told Cohen that he could arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin to help pave the way for the tower. Later, Cohen sent an email refusing that offer and saying that the Trump Organization already had an agreement in place. He said he was cutting off future communication with Klokov. Copying Ivanka Trump, the Russian responded in a final brusque message, in which he questioned Cohen’s authority to make decisions for the Trump Organization. Frustrated by the exchange, Ivanka Trump questioned Cohen’s refusal to continue communicating with Klokov, according to one of the sources.

It looks like Ivanka’s weightlifter friend is either a “Friend of Putin”, or yanking their chain.  If Cohen thought the latter, it looks like Kremlin Barbie didn’t buy his assessment. Cohen is a bullshitting sleaze ball, so judging other bullshitters is in his skillset.  I think she got played, and showed that, once again, the Trump family was desperate to work with Putin and Russia for personal gains, and Putin saw them as a way to help him.

This also establishes that at least 2 of the grown children have ties to “Friends of Putin.”  Plus, Eric bragged about getting a buttload of funding from Russia.

If apps like Signal and WhatsApp are so secure, how can they tell who else in your contact lists has the apps installed?

Not as secure as you’d think.

Konstantin Killimnik, also known as Kostya from the GRU.

Alex Van Der Zwaan is back in the Netherlands.  He’s out of prison, and ICE made sure he was handed over to Dutch authorities.

Bruce Baldinger, the lawyer who worked with Paul Manafort on several of his alleged money laundering related real estate deals, retained Mark Garfinkle as his personal legal representative.

MAGA:  Make Attorneys Get Attorneys

 

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

A Cambridge Analytica director apparently visited Julian Assange in February last year and told friends it was to discuss what happened during the US election, the Guardian has learned.

Brittany Kaiser, a director at the firm until earlier this year, also claimed to have channelled cryptocurrency payments and donations to WikiLeaks. This information has been passed to congressional and parliamentary inquiries in the UK and US.

Cambridge Analytica targeted the ads that appeared on social media, and paid Julian Assange in BitCoin with money gained from donations from the Mercers and various Republican politicians and their related PAC’s, like Ted Cruz, Steve Bolton, and Donald Trump.  These payments were for services rendered while Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway were on the CA Board of Directors.

If you thought the Cambridge Analytica saga was over with the company’s shut down and filing for bankruptcy, you were definitely wrong. According to The Financial Times, the company’s former CEO Alexander Nix has been accused of stealing $8 million dollars from Cambridge Analytica before its demise.

The theft reportedly occurred after journalists started digging into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, but before the company shut down for good. Investors want to rebrand and relaunch the firm, but The Financial Times reports that Nix has refused to return the money.

Despite its shutdown, Cambridge Analytica is still facing investigations from the FBI and DOJ about its financial practices, as well as the firm’s misuse of Facebook users’ personal data. The UK is also looking into the firm; Nix is supposed to appear in front of Parliament for a second time today.

Investors who backed a rebranding of Cambridge Analytica are in a stand-off with former chief executive Alexander Nix after he allegedly withdrew more than $8m from the scandal-hit data company shortly before it collapsed.

Several people involved in the dispute told the Financial Times the withdrawal came shortly after Mr Nix learned British media was reporting on allegations about his company’s role in a massive leak of Facebook user data in March. Mr Nix did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

According to these people, the investors are pressing Mr Nix to repay the money to Cambridge Analytica employees and investors.

They said Emerdata, a company set up last year to acquire and rebrand Cambridge Analytica, and a related company, SCL Group, had raised $19m from powerful international investors in January to expand the company’s services and bid for more commercial work.

The money ran out quickly, the people said, because of outstanding bills to advertisers and other suppliers, and because of the alleged withdrawal by Mr Nix. According to some of the people, Mr Nix has indicated that he intends to repay part of the money. One person added that Mr Nix said the withdrawal was made in exchange for unbooked services.

Bankruptcy filings in New York show that Cambridge Analytica received an $8.8m loan from Emerdata before it entered administration, though it is not clear what the loan was intended for. Documents show the debt is classified as an unsecured “non-priority” loan that might not have to be returned.

Now we’re getting to the “Evil Eats Itself” phase of the program.  Alexander Nix either robbed them blind or is the scapegoat.  They’re going to turn on each other to avoid life sentences and death penalties.  Shit’s gonna get crazy.

 

COHEN:  COLLUDING WITH … EVERYONE

The filing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday alleges that Beverly Hills lawyer Keith Davidson “hatched a plan” and “colluded” with Trump attorney Michael Cohen to get the adult film actress to go on Fox News a few months ago and falsely deny she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago.

Want to read Cohen’s Text Messages to Keith Davidson? Here’s the PDF

These are damning AF.  They show a pattern of Davidson and Cohen communicating, likely working together, and doing so with the knowledge of other people.  The last text in the document took place while Cohen was briefing the First Lady about what was going on.  Depending on what Cohen told her, she could be a witness, if not a co-conspirator in these actions.

And it’s not like this took place back in 2016.  These texts took place mostly from Daily Check-In 01/17/2018 to Daily Check-In 03/02/2018.  From the time InTouch Magazine announced they were going to release their interview with Stormy Daniels to the day she hired Michael Avenatti and details of her story and the payment process became public knowledge.

From the outside looking in, the best case scenario for Keith Davidson is disbarment.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

PUERTO RICO

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Dennis Rodman, Sean Hannity, and Sebastian Gorka.  A former basketball player, a fake journalist and real creep, and a fake doctor and real nazi.

The simulation is in QA mode.

 

SCOTT PRUITT AND THE EPA

 

DID PAUL RYAN GROW A SPINE?

I’m still waiting for Paul Ryan to slink away and collapse like the invertebrate he is, but he may have finally reached the No Fucks to Give/Pushed Too Far line.  A lot of people are having their Waylon Smithers moment.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

NEW YORK (AP) — Members of a group of outside experts required by law to meet twice a year with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau say the group has been dissolved by CFPB head Mick Mulvaney.

It’s the latest pro-industry action by the Trump administration since it took over the bureau seven months ago.

Mulvaney, acting director of the CFPB, told the 25 members of the Consumer Advisory Board on Wednesday morning that they will be replaced and the board will be reconstituted, according to two of the members. These people requested anonymity since the announcement was not official yet.

Under the law that created the CFPB, the CAB is required to meet twice a year, but meetings were repeatedly cancelled since Mulvaney came to CFPB.

 

TRADE AND TARIFFS

 

#NEVERAGAIN

An ‘F’ from the NRA is a badge of honor.  It means you put the lives and safety of children above the profits of gun manufacturers.

 

ELECTION 2018

So many good stories, but here’s the deal with California.  They operate in an Open Primary format.  Everyone from all parties run on the same ballot, but the two top vote getters face each other in the General Election.  What often happens is that the top two finalists are from the same party.  If the Democrats have any chance of taking the House this fall, they needed a contestant in all 53 congressional races in California.

And for the first time in a long time, they have it.  All 53 races have at least 1 Democrat running in November.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE?  IS THIS JUST FANTASY?

 

GOP: THE “HOW DO YOU FUCK THAT UP?” EDITION

A Georgia Congressman tweeted and deleted a D-Day blunder.

Rep. Drew Ferguson, who is running for reelection in Georgia’s Third District, marked the 74th anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy with an image of soldiers for Nazi Germany and a tank with the Iron Cross, a symbol of the German military.

The tweet also featured a quote from Harry Truman, who was not yet president on June 6, 1944.

The tweet, from Ferguson’s campaign Twitter page, was posted to his campaign twitter at 9:57 am and deleted within an hour, but not before users spotted it and mocked it online.

“The problem is that it is an amazingly stupid mistake to make, and should have been caught by any kid nearby who has played Call of Duty for more than five minutes,” one Twitter user said.

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

The draft of Horowitz’s wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources. Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.

 

OP-ED PIECES

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for today.  I added a new section today for Op-Ed pieces.  Sometimes I get caught up with all of the different stories, and the opinion pieces get swept up in the net.  I think you deserve transparency in knowing when a story isn’t news, but just an opinion about it or a spin on it.  I admit I won’t always catch it, but I’ll do my best.

Like I’ve said before, we’re in the desperation hour, where a lot of shit flies against the wall, seeing what sticks.  In the next 3-10 days, Paul Manafort will either have been sent to jail and charged with even more crimes, or would be at least in the process of striking a deal with Mueller against Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

Shit, I just realized something.  June 15th.  That’s the deadline for both Cohen’s team to have their privilege review completed, and Paul Manafort’s main hearing date for these witness tampering claims.  That’s also the Friday of the week of the planned Singapore Summit with North Korea.

The next week is gonna be nuts.  Welcome aboard the Crazy Train.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s all just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 06/05/2018

Tuesday, June 5th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Once again, Paul Manafort shows that he’s an old man.  Just like how he got busted committing fraud by asking for Rick Gates to make a PDF for him (Daily Check-In 02/23/2018), Paul is up shit creek because he doesn’t understand technology.

Paul used WhatsApp’s encrypted text feature to communicate with former employees to suborn them to commit perjury.  WhatsApp includes a lot of features, including automatic backups to iCloud.

That’s right.  Paulie Walnuts was unknowingly uploading his encrypted, illegal communications to the cloud.  That’s where the FBI, literally, read his texts and mails.

We thus respectfully request that the Department of Justice confirm, in writing, by no later than 5 p.m. on Monday, June 11:

(1) that the following parties have not been given access to the classified information, which executive branch agencies briefed to the “Gang of 8” on May 24, 2018:

  • Rudy Giuliani, Jay Sekulow, or any other attorney who represents or has represented President Trump in his personal capacity;
  • White House staff, including attorneys from the White House Counsel’s office;
  • President Donald J. Trump;

(2) that DOJ and FBI have no plans to convey such information in the future to the President and his attorneys outside of an appropriate judicial proceeding; and

(3) that going forward, DOJ and FBI will not brief additional Members of Congress who are not part of the “Gang of 8” on these matters.

The stakes for McCabe’s appearance, however, are particularly high. The former No. 2 at the FBI is entangled in a separate criminal investigation stemming from an earlier report from the inspector general’s office that concluded he lied to internal investigators. McCabe has steadfastly denied wrongdoing, but any congressional testimony he provides could have serious implications for his criminal case.

“Mr. McCabe is willing to testify, but because of the criminal referral, he must be afforded suitable legal protection,” Bromwich wrote to Grassley. “This is a textbook case for granting use immunity. . . . If this Committee is unwilling or unable to obtain such an order, then Mr. McCabe will have to no choice but to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

 

IMMIGRATION

WASHINGTON — Border agents and child welfare workers are running out of space to shelter children who have been separated from their parents at the U.S. border as part of the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, according to two U.S. officials and a document obtained by NBC News.

As of Sunday, nearly 300 of the 550 children currently in custody at U.S. border stations had spent more than 72 hours there, the time limit for immigrants of any age to be held in the government’s temporary facilities. Almost half of those 300 children are younger than 12, according to the document, meaning they are classified by the Department of Homeland Security as “tender age children.”

 

#NEVERAGAIN

The family of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg was “swatted” Tuesday morning, causing police to respond to their Parkland home.

A call came into the Broward Sheriff’s Office claiming a hostage situation at the home.

…

Swatting is the action of making a prank emergency call to bring about a response of armed law enforcement officers.

Since the shootings at Stoneman Douglas, Hogg has been a prominent advocate for gun safety. However, Hogg has been a lightning rod for controversy as some do not approve of his methods, such as holding a “die in” at a Coral Springs Publix last week.

 

NFL AND TRUMP’S FASCIST ‘CELEBRATION’

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTT PRUITT

Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, with an unusual request: Would Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”?

A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with someone from the company’s legal department. Only then did he reveal the “opportunity” on his mind was a job for his wife, Marlyn.

“The subject of that phone call was an expression of interest in his wife becoming a Chick-fil-A franchisee,” company representative Carrie Kurlander told The Washington Post via email.

Marlyn Pruitt never opened a restaurant. “Administrator Pruitt’s wife started, but did not complete, the Chick-fil-A franchisee application,” Kurlander said. But the revelation that Pruitt used his official position and EPA staff to try to line up work for his wife appears to open a new chapter in the ongoing saga of his questionable spending and management decisions, which so far have spawned a dozen federal probes.

Pruitt’s efforts on his wife’s behalf — revealed in emails recently released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club — did not end with Chick-fil-A. Pruitt also approached the chief executive of Concordia, a New York nonprofit organization. The executive, Matthew Swift, said he ultimately paid Marlyn Pruitt $2,000 plus travel expenses to help organize the group’s annual conference last September.

Multiple current and former EPA aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pruitt told them he was eager for his wife to start receiving a salary. Two said Pruitt was frustrated in part by the high cost of maintaining homes in both Washington and Oklahoma.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox declined to comment on Pruitt’s overtures on his wife’s behalf to Concordia and Chick-fil-A.

 

In any normal universe, not only would Scott Pruitt have been fired by this point, but his criminal corruption trial would have already started.

In today’s episode of “How corrupt is Scott Pruitt?”, he used his office and staff to try to get his wife a job as a Chik-Fil-A franchisee.  This violates several federal statutes, including a few felonies.

What I really don’t like about him is that he’s not even the most corrupt member of the cabinet, but he’s taking the brunt of the attacks from the press, letting the rest of those crooks rob us blind.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

MITCH McCONNELL

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

TARIFFS AND CORRUPTION

 

PUERTO RICO

 

#METOO

 

ELECTION 2018

James Allsup, 22, attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville,Virginia, where white supremacists chanted anti-Semitic slogans and one allegedly drove a car into a crowd, killing a protester and injuring more. Allsup was filmed marching with Identity Evropa, an anti-immigrant alt-right group. Fallout over the rally led to Allsup stepping down as president of the Washington State University College Republicans, a group he once boasted of taking over. Now he claims he’s on the way to taking over the local GOP.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

How does one say “Daughter Fucker” in Russian?

 

That’s it for today.  This is me taking it light.  It’s been a long day, and the days are only going to get longer from here.  I’m not burning out, but I’m in a bit of a rut.  This is what my weekend writings are usually used for, but I’ve missed the last couple to freshen my style up.  Unfortunately, I have no clue when I’ll get back to that rhythm.

June is going to be nuts, both personally and in the news.  We’re a couple days in, and so far we’ve seen a blatant attempt at becoming a despot, a former campaign manager about to get charged with even more crimes, and a fixer getting bitchslapped by the court.  It’s only Tuesday of the first full week.

I might need to skip a night or two in the next couple weeks.  I’ll have to play things by ear.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 06/04/2018

The weekend to Monday, June 4th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who has been indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, attempted to tamper with potential witnesses, Mueller said in a court filing on Monday.

Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, asked the judge overseeing the case in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to revoke or revise an order releasing Manafort ahead of his trial.

Witness tampering, that’s a felony.

According to reports, Manafort called, texted, and used an encrypted WhatsApp messages to talk with potential witnesses, in multiple attempts to get the witnesses to lie under oath to benefit Manafort.

 

ABUSE OF POWER AND CRAPPY LAWYERS

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.

In a brash assertion of presidential power, the 20-page letter — sent to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and obtained by The New York Times — contends that the president cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

Two letters, both from Trump’s legal teams, made their way to the New York Times this weekend.  They both have about as much legal standing as Cersei’s proclamations against the Targaryens.  In other words, it’s straight fantasy.

Which is precisely the larger game that Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and California Congressman Devin Nunes have been playing—undermining the F.B.I.’s reputation as a way of undercutting Mueller’s eventual findings. Rosenberg, though, wonders if the strategy could boomerang inside the bureau. “The attacks are unfair and unprecedented, and it gets tiresome,” he says. “But it can have an unintended effect. Imagine you had a bunch of special agents in the New York field office looking at certain real-estate developers and their deals going back to the 1980s. Maybe they were working six days a week—and now they’re working seven.”

Pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment,” is vested in the President. This raises the question whether the President can pardon himself. Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative.

So, here’s where we’re standing today.  The President of the United States of America is openly contemplating and arguing for a position where he is an absolute ruler, capable of ending all investigations into himself, and capable of pardoning each and every crime, no matter what.  At the same time, he’s calling the Special Counsel’s work unconstitutional, while simultaneously calling for another Special Counselor to investigate the Special Counselor.

These are not the actions of an innocent man.

Fuck Ted Cruz.  There are some days I’m not sure who I despise more, him or Paul Ryan.

Ted Cruz lied to the press today when confronted for his reaction against Trump’s Cartman-esque rant on pardons, claiming he never gave the issue much thought.

Remember, Ted Cruz was a major player in the Cambridge Analytica saga.

 

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered this in GTKYG-Pardon Limitations, but even Nixon’s own lawyers said he couldn’t pardon himself.  Three days after they returned their decision, Nixon resigned.  I’m counting down the days.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COHEN:  LACK OF PRIVILEGE

162 privileged items out of 300,000.  That’s 0.054%.  If he were a baseball player, that’s a .000 batting average.  If Cohen manufactured cars, this wouldn’t be a high enough failure rate to qualify for a recall.  That amount is a statistical anomaly.

Remember on Daily Check-In 04/13/2018 when Cohen’s lawyers claimed they had millions of pieces of privileged information?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I feel like being a dick, so let’s do the math.  If 0.054% of pieces of evidence are privileged, for Cohen to get to “millions”, in this case at least 1,500,001 for rounding purposes, Cohen would have to have…2777779629.63 pieces of evidence.  Rounding that to the next integer up gives us 2,777,779,630 pieces of evidence.  2.77 billion, with a B.  If each iPhone and iPad had 150,000 pieces each, that would be…18,519 phones.

Or 18,504 more phones than the FBI seized from Cohen.

 

SCOTUS:  NOT AS BAD AS THE DECISIONS LOOK

In the unsigned opinion with no dissents, the justices threw out the appeals court decision on the grounds that the dispute became moot once the unnamed teenager had the abortion.

The justices, however, declined to take up the administration’s request for disciplinary action against the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who represented the girl, who underwent an abortion in Texas last October. The administration had accused the ACLU lawyers of misleading the Justice Department over when she would have the abortion.

In this case, the Justices decided to throw the case out since it was a moot point after the girl had the abortion.  The lawsuit was for this specific girl, not any others in her situation.

On the surface, this seems pretty bad, but it’s not.  The SCOTUS took a very narrow part of the case, and ruled on the constitutionality of that.  In this case, they studied the initial civilian review board, and whether or not that board was biased for or against either of the parties.  In their findings, they determined that the board in Colorado was biased against the bakery ahead of time.

That is all they ruled on.  They did not rule on whether or not a business can legally discriminate, or whether a class of citizens can withhold services and goods from another class, but only on whether or not, in this specific instance, a review board was impartial as was required by the law.

So, let’s put the pitchforks down.  At least for this case.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

The First Lady was seen from a distance, as the press were not allowed in the event.  She’s still cancelled her foreign trips, though.

Time to get ready for the first Presidential Divorce.

 

BLATANT CORRUPTION

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

“I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.”  – Senator Margaret Chase-Smith, in 1950.

 

PUERTO RICO

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Barring an act of Congress, the responsibility of the Secret Service to protect a former president or first lady would not disappear because that person had been convicted of a crime.

This has never happened, though, and any potential details of such an arrangement are mysterious even to Secret Service veterans and other experts on the agency. A spokesman for the Secret Service refused even to address the issue. “It’s a road we would have to go down if it ever happened,” he told the Explainer. “It’s not something we’re going to think about unless it happens.”

 

BLATANT RACISM

 

TARIFFS AND ECONOMICS

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

NFL

This shit pisses me off.  I hate the Eagles.  Out of all of the Philadelphia sports teams, the Eagles might be my favorite, and I HATE the Eagles.  Shit like this makes me feel for them, and Philly sports fans don’t deserve any sympathy.

I’m still bitter about the 15 year long Penguins losing streak.  And the Flyers just being general asshats.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Something’s off with Joy Reid.  I’m not as suspicious as Countercheckist is, but something just seemed off.  Maybe it’s the bots swarming around her and Malcom Nance that I don’t trust.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  And the weekend.

I didn’t publish a story last night.  Unlike most other nights off, I planned on writing.  I had the laptop ready, started writing up a post about the differences between the two parties, but I couldn’t go through with it.  I couldn’t get in the right mood.  I needed to be angry, but I just couldn’t get there.  There’s one person that is impossible to stay angry when they’re on television…Fred Rogers.

Last night, PBS showed a documentary about Mister Rogers hosted by one of Fred’s former employees, Michael Keaton.  Yes, THAT Michael Keaton.  He got his start doing puppets and voices on Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Fred Rogers was the nicest, sweetest, calmest human being of the last century, and the world needs more of him today.  Especially today, with how crazy things are getting.

Trump talking about pardons like this is some desperate shit.  Something big is coming, and not just Cohen’s June 15th deadline to review the evidence.  His rants are some high-level projections about his crimes.

We’ll see where this goes.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur