Thursday, August 30, 2018
THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION
- Manafort DC judge to let jury hear evidence he knew lobby rules – The Boston Globe
- Mueller Pushes to Uncover Manafort Talks With Lawyer
- Chuck Todd Says Mueller May Drop Something Big: ‘I Wouldn’t Miss Work Tomorrow’
- Did Trump just admit that he tried to fire Mueller and Sessions?
- Judges side with Mueller, nix Russian joint appeal bid
- Trump Says Mueller Investigation Is ‘Illegal’, Trump-Appointed Judge Says He’s Wrong
- Trump Says He’ll Keep Sessions Until November Despite ‘Illegal’ Probe
- The firing of Jeff Sessions looks more likely than ever. Here’s the battle that awaits.
- All the times alleged Russian spy’s lawyer went on Fox News and didn’t say who he was
- Bruce Ohr Is One of the DOJ’s Top Russia Crime Fighters
- Trump, without evidence, says NBC altered 2017 interview on Russia
- Trump Accuses NBC’s Lester Holt of ‘Fudging’ Russia Interview, Provides No Proof
Part distraction, part disinformation, and part NPD, Trump is now claiming that the Lester Holt video was faked, or altered, or fudged, or selective edits to show him admitting that he fired Comey for the “Russia Thing”. He did the exact same thing following the Billy Bush tape, claiming that was faked, too.
It’s interesting why he decided to pick now to make this claim.
COHEN
TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET
- The Trump presidency marks the end of the American century
- There is a man who controls our President. And his name is not Vladimir Putin.
- This Is Fascism, Pure and Simple
- This is the new GOP: Angry and afraid
- ‘Absolutely Repulsive’: After $1.5 Trillion Tax Giveaway to the Rich, Trump Cancels Modest Pay Raise for Federal Workers
- Trump cancels pay raise due federal workers in January
- Trump Cancels Pay Raises for Federal employees
- Trump says government won’t give civilian employees raises in 2019
FIXING THE INTERNET
- You Did It: California Net Neutrality Passes State Assembly
- Trump Says Google, Facebook, Amazon May Be ‘Antitrust Situation’
This statement, at least the headline, reminds me of the old phrase “A broken clock is right twice a day.” I agree that those companies are too large and should be broken into smaller companies, but definitely not for the reasons Trump says.
For the young kids out there, clocks used to be analog and had these things called hands that would move. When the clock would break, the hands stuck in the same spot. Eventually, twice a day, the broken hands would match the current time, hence the phrase above.
FIGHTING BACK
- Al Gore to Trump: ‘My only message would be resign’
- Donald Trump has said 2436 false things as U.S. president.
- Donald Trump just keeps claiming things he said on tape aren’t real
- New Evidence Suggests Trump Was Vulnerable to Even More Blackmail and Was Well Aware
- Trump Is a Snob Who Secretly Despises His Own Supporters
- Trump makes 67 false claims in 5th-most-dishonest week as president
- Winter is coming’: Allies fear Trump isn’t prepared for gathering legal storm
McCAIN
- John McCain Sounds the Alarm on Trump and Russia in New Documentary ‘Active Measures’
- Lindsey Graham says Trump’s stand on John McCain “pisses me off to no end”
- McCain’s choices for days of tributes deliver a symbolic final rebuke to Trump
- Obama to urge rejection of ‘authoritarian politics and policies’ in speech
- Trump says Sarah Huckabee Sanders is ‘having a nervous breakdown’ over his behavior toward John McCain after his death
- Bill Browder: John McCain Helped Target Putin’s Cronies and for That Reason He’ll Always Be My Hero
IMMIGRATION
- DNC rips reported crackdown on passports: ‘This is a disgrace to our democracy’
- US Denying Passports for legal Hispanic-American citizens
- El Salvador: 3 kids separated in US were abused at shelters
COLD WAR 2.0
- Five Country Ministerial 2018
- 911corlebra777: The FVEY Conference being held in Australia has just released its official communique. This puts in black & white what was essentially already in effect. Russia, China, North Korea & Iran are on notice
- Trump administration to end U.S. funding to U.N. program for Palestinian refugees
- The Hidden Russian Hand Behind Germany’s Violent Right-Wing Riots – Observer
- The FBI Launches a Combating Foreign Influence Webpage
#NEVERAGAIN
- DeSantis Moderates Hate-Filled Facebook Group That Attacks African-Americans, Parkland Survivors and Muslims – American Ledger
- Her daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting. She just won a seat on the county school board.
- Judge Rules Against Alex Jones and Infowars in Sandy Hook Lawsuit
- Why the Jacksonville attacker was able to legally buy guns
- Education Dept. released incorrect school shooting data — without checking for errors
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE
- Fox News Host: Republican Party Would Have ‘Explosion’ If Obama Spoke Like Trump
- All the times alleged Russian spy’s lawyer went on Fox News and didn’t say who he was
- Trump Accuses NBC’s Lester Holt of ‘Fudging’ Russia Interview, Provides No Proof
- Donald Trump has said 2436 false things as U.S. president.
- Donald Trump just keeps claiming things he said on tape aren’t real
ATTACKS AGAINST JOURNALISTS
- Sources: NBC Threatened Ronan Farrow If He Kept Reporting on Harvey Weinstein
- Man charged with threatening to kill Boston Globe employees in response to editorial blasting President Donald Trump’s media attacks
- Tom Winter on Robert Chain, man who allegedly threatened reporters at the Boston Globe
- Renato Mariotti: This man threatened to kill journalists, calling them the “enemy of the people” and asking why “don’t they call Mueller” to save them. Words matter. The hatred stirred by Trump against journalists is having an effect, and over time, it could get someone killed.
ENVIRONMENT
- As temperatures keep trending up, ‘heat belt’ cities maneuver to stay livable
- The tropical Atlantic is waking up as the peak of hurricane season approaches
WHITE HOUSE CHAOS
- White House lawyer Passantino planning to leave
- Education Dept. released incorrect school shooting data — without checking for errors
- Education Department considers greater rights for students accused of sexual assault, officials say
- Mike Pence Believes God Told Him He’s the ‘President-in-Waiting’
- White House role in FBI headquarters plan detailed in watchdog report
PREGNANCY
- A group suggested pregnant women can drink. It’s funded by the alcohol industry.
- Cardi B, Serena Williams, Pink: New celebrity moms are changing the game by getting real
NFL
- Here’s how brazen and aggressive feds say LB Mychal Kendricks was in alleged insider trading scheme
- Colin Kaepernick’s N.F.L. Collusion Case Can Continue, Arbitrator Rules
From this comment in the NFL Subreddit /r/nfl
A reminder, since there’s some misinformation that pops up in every single one of these threads:
• If Kaep win this, it does not immediately void the CBA.It doesn’t void it at all. There’s an almost infinitesimally small chance it would even open the door to the CBA being voided.
• This is a labor grievance as laid out in the CBA, similar to appealing a suspension.It is not currently a lawsuit against the league, like Brady and Elliot’s cases were.
• Just because there may be a legitimate reason that people wouldn’t hire him doesn’t mean collusion didn’t also happen.
editing to add
• If he wins this, he only wins “the amount by which the collusion damaged him,” i.e. whatever the impartial arbitrator thinks he should have earned had he been signed.That’s going to an especially the interesting part of the case, if it gets that far. My guess is it would be somewhere in the realm of the average cost of a serviceable backup’s contract, like a McCown or a Fitzpatrick.
• The burden of proof for Kaepernick is “a preponderance of the evidence,” or 51% of the evidence.This is the “more probable than not” phrasing that the league used in the Brady case.
• Kaep does not need to prove collusion between all 32 teams.He needs to prove it between any two of 33 parties: the 32 teams and the league office.Two teams agreeing that neither would sign him would constitute collusion. A single team agreeing with the league office would also constitute collusion.
• Whether or not Kaep turned down contracts is irrelevant to whether or not collusion happened.He could say no to thirty straight offers, but if the last teams in the league got together and said “well, no way in hell we’re signing this ingrate,” that would constitute collusion.
• Even if he turned down contract offers from all thirty two teams wouldn’t mean he wasn’t colluded against. If every team agreed not to offer him anything more than the veteran minimum, and they all did, and he turned them all down…that would still be collusion.
• It’s true that Kaep opted out of his contract with San Francisco, but he did so after being told explicitly by John Lynch that if he didn’t the team would be cutting him even later in the year.There was absolutely no reason for him not to opt out to get a head start on free agency.Regardless, that point is irrelevant — see above.
edit 2:
I’m aware that the New York Times article says his damages could be tripled.Based on the language in the CBA (defining compensatory damages as “the amount by which any player has been injured as a result of such violation” and allocating “compensatory damages shall be paid to the injured player or players” and “non-compensatory damages, including any fines, shall be paid directly to any NFL player pension fund, any other NFL player benefit fund [or other charities]”) implies to me that that’s not the case.It reads as though teams can be subject to escalators if they’ve been found guilty of collusion under this CBA at least once already.To my recollection, none have, so it’s unlikely that punitive damages would be awarded, and it’s certain that that money would not go to Kaep.
I’m not a lawyer, though, so I could be missing some nuance — in particular with regards to the Times’ reference to an “open hearing.”Feel free to set me straight.
TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY
- Trump threatens to withdraw from World Trade Organization
- U.S. trade talks yield positive rhetoric but no concrete deals. Yet.
- GDP grows as new report shows nearly half of all Americans can’t afford basic needs
- Senate Democrats want government to say if GDP growth helps middle class – Vox
GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD
- The GOP Has No New Ideas Because Elderly Billionaires Own Its Brain
- GOP nominee exposed as moderator of racist Facebook page
- In-N-Out donates $25,000 to California Republican Party, angry Twitter users call for boycott
- California Dems call for boycott of In-N-Out Burger after donation to GOP
- This is the new GOP: Angry and afraid
DOXXING
- CIA Analyst Turned Candidate Fears She’ll Get Doxxed Next
- Ex-CIA officer’s full personnel file released in ‘human error,’ Postal Service admits
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- Sources: NBC Threatened Ronan Farrow If He Kept Reporting on Harvey Weinstein
- Archbishop who wrote pope bombshell claims to be ‘at peace’
- Former Texas police officer sentenced to 15 years in prison for fatally shooting teen
- Child-abuse charges in New Mexico compound case are dismissed after prosecutors’ lapse
- California abolishes cash bail, aiming to treat rich and poor defendants equally
- Pennsylvania prisons are locked down after ‘unknown substances’ leave 29 hospitalized
- Lawsuit: Oregon construction worker fired for refusing to attend Bible study
- Justice Department criticizes Harvard’s admissions practices in affirmative action case alleging bias against Asian Americans
#METOO
- Actor Gérard Depardieu accused of rape
- Amazon may have thrown away $25 million on Woody Allen’s latest film after sex abuse allegations made him ‘toxic’
ELECTION 2018
Florida
- Spicy Mic on Ron DeSantis
- Gillum’s Campaign Raises Over $1 Million In One Day After Winning Democratic Nominee
- Lawrence O’Donnell: Note to media: please stop treating @AndrewGillum like he’s a Bernie Sanders clone just because @SenSanders endorsed him while you ignore the fact that Mayor Gillum was a @HillaryClinton delegate who was on her list of possible VP candidates.
- Post-primary Dem poll shows Gillum leading DeSantis by 5 in Florida
- Florida GOP gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis was admin of racist, anti-Muslim Facebook group
- Ron DeSantis is an admin of a Facebook group that promotes racism and deep-state conspiracies.
- DeSantis Moderates Hate-Filled Facebook Group That Attacks African-Americans, Parkland Survivors and Muslims – American Ledger
- GOP nominee exposed as moderator of racist Facebook page
Texas
- Beto O’Rourke’s rock-star status is cemented by Texas GOP, handing Dems an icon they desperately need
- Texas Republicans are trying to use Beto’s punk rock days against him – Vox
- Twitter Justice: Ted Cruz Tries to Shame Beto O’Rourke; Hits Self In Nuts
- Viral video of O’Rourke defending NFL player protests racks up more than 44M views
- GOP’s Meme War Attempt Backfires As Old Ted Cruz Mime Pic Goes Viral
PROGRESS IS PROGRESS
- FDA pushes for development of non-opioid pain medications
- California abolishes cash bail, aiming to treat rich and poor defendants equally
- Senate Democrats want government to say if GDP growth helps middle class – Vox
- William & Mary calls for a memorial to the enslaved people who helped build the school
RUMOR MILL
- Angry White House Staffer: *cough*IndictmentsComing*cough*
- Angry White House Staffer: He’s privately been saying the Holt tape was “doctored” for awhile now. As far as I’m aware, this is the first public assertion of that lunacy.
- Countercheckist: “POTUS” is tweeting away attacking @CNN. Every time he gets this obsessive about attacking them, is when they have a bombshell report they’re waiting to break and he finds out about it. 🙂
- Countercheckist: tRUmp is attempting to discredit a very specific piece of evidence for a very specific crime— firing DIRFBI then admitting on live TV that it was over the “Russia thing.” I can’t imagine why he’d want to discredit that interview… 🙂
- Lincoln’s Bible: Judges and the Mob – Thread
- Lincoln’s Bible: McGahn’s Mob Connections
- Tom Arnold: I sat next to Rupert Murdoch & sons at the Fox commissary Monday lunch. Rupert is still very involved at Fox News. Asked how much Trump nonsense is too much Trump nonsense & was told when Rupert does respond his response will be swift & immediate & Trump will be done. #TrumpTapes
That’s it for Thursday. There are some rumors floating around about something big happening on Friday, but those are still just rumors.
I’m changing some of the section headings around and checking to see what stays, what gets moved around, and what goes. Each one has a reason for being included, but there’s not always stories for it for the day. Plus, with all of the headings, this post gets longer every day.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 
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