Month: August 2018

Daily Check-In 08/08/2018

Wednesday, August 8th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial, Day 7

Day 7 of the Manafort Tax Evasion trial began with Rick Gates in cross-examination.  The defense tried to blow up his credibility even more by alleging that he had multiple affairs and lied about it.  During rebuttal questioning, he outlined that if he lied, the Special Counselor’s office would destroy their plea offer and recommend that he serve every charge against him consecutively, not concurrently.  In that case, he’s looking at over 100 years in jail.

The next witness was Forensic Accountant Morgan Magionos.  He testified about how he was able to trace offshore bank accounts back to Paul Manafort. That included tracing wire transfers from the accounts to high-end luxury vendors.

After that came Michael Welch from the IRS.  He testified that Manafort didn’t pay taxes on at least $16.4 million in unreported income.

Remember, this is a tax evasion and money laundering case.

Counteroffers?  This isn’t a fucking house purchase, this is a goddamned investigation.

The longer this shit drags out, the more I’m convinced that not only will there not be an interview, but that Mueller wouldn’t interview him anyway since Trump is a target, not a subject.

Here’s the thing with the report…

The moment that it hits the House and Senate leadership, it’s up to them whether or not to release it all, release a redacted version, or keep it under wraps.  It’s not a consensus choice, but if even one of them wants to release it, they can release it.  If all but one of them says keep it up under wraps, but one says “fuck that, fuck you, and fuck anyone who looks like you, I’m posting this shit on Twitter now”, they can do that.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Chris Collins

Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from upstate New York, surrendered to the FBI on Wednesday morning on securities fraud-related charges, prosecutors said.

Collins, 68, faces insider trading charges along with his son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’ fiancée, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

The case is related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech company, on which the elder Collins served on the board.

Collins, one of Donald Trump’s early supporters in his bid for president, is expected to appear in federal court later Wednesday in Manhattan.

Wow.  Here’s a link to the indictment.  Chris Collins is a Republican from New York, and was a leading member of the Trump Transition Team.

This sounds like a pump and dump scheme.  The way it works is that a group hypes a company up, selling them as the best thing since the invention of the wheel, puts stock out there, sells a bunch of it to a bunch of marks, then right before bad news hits, all of the principal parties sell their stock at a high price, leaving everyone else with now worthless stock.

Chris Collins telling the world that we should leave Trump’s taxes alone while he was lying to investigators.

AdamParkhomenko: Womp, womp Chris

Here’s Chris Collins at the White House at the time the email was sent.  Here’s a tweet to the actual picture from the call mentioned in the indictment.

Yeah, that happened.  Part of the indictment indicates that Chris called his son at 7:16 PM on the night in question.  The call lasted a little more than 6 minutes.  At 7:17 PM, he was seen walking out of the White House while on the phone.

 

Four other members of Congress, not including the former Secretary or Health and Human Services Tom Price invested in this company at a discounted stock price after talking to Chris Collins.  At best, he stole their money and cost them a small fortune.  At worst, they’re accomplices.

 

Rand Paul

All of them are Republicans.  ALL OF THEM.  Not a single one of those senators was a Democrat.

 

3336

Gee, I wonder how it is that the Russians got their hands on a United States Senate bill that hasn’t been made public yet, that only members of the Senate and their staff would have access to.

I mean, it’s not like a certain Senator from Kentucky with a long history of always taking Russia’s side delivered anything to Vladimir Putin.  Oh, wait…

 

Devin

Going for the Trifecta of Fuckery today is Devin Fucking Nunes.  I’m not surprised that he spoke freely in a room without the press, or that he openly admits to obstructing the Russian Investigation or serving as a firewall for the traitor known as Donald Trump, and not even that even he has his problems with Trump’s tweets and stupid comments.  The only thing I’m surprised about is that someone thought bringing him in to help fund raise was a good idea.

 

Omarosa

Oh, FFS.  The day when 7th or 8th craziest story of the day is that Omarosa wrote a book is truly a screwed up day.  Ok, enough with the joke about her being able to read and write.  I’m surprised that half the people working for Trump are not functionally illiterate.  What’s really shocking is that she worked at the White House for almost a year, constantly recorded meetings on her phone, and NO ONE CAUGHT HER OR STOPPED HER.

 

RUSSIAN ATTACK 2018

I’ve got a bad feeling we’re going to hear more stories like this heading into the election.  This isn’t “meddling”, this is an Act of War.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

FCC

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Sanctions over Skripal Poisoning

I’m not a betting man, but I’d put good money that this was done without Trump’s approval, sign-off, or input, and that he’ll lose his shit and go all “Putin’s a good guy” like the traitorous shit he is.

 

TRADE WAR

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY…

 

RUMOR MILL

From Claude’s tweet about the Iran Deal, $20 says that the adult children include Jared Kushner.  From yesterday’s post (Daily Check-In 08/07/2018), Kushner’s family sold 666 Fifth Avenue to Brookfield for enough money to get out from underneath their upside down loan.  Brookfield is owned by the Emiratis.  Half of $3.6 billion is $1.8 billion, which is how much Kushner’s family owed on their loan.

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  The Manafort Tax Trial continues on Thursday, and there’s an update on the Sinclair-Tribune sale.  Also, Space Force.  I’m trying to not laugh while typing that shit.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/07/2018

Tuesday, August 8th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

Day 6 continued with Rick Gates testifying all day.  The first few hours were spent with him guiding the prosecution through everything from how the bank accounts were set up to the use of shell companies to hide payments to corroborating the evidence of other witnesses like the accountant and bookkeeper.  The bank accounts and companies were purchased “off the shelf” by their Ukranian partners, and were set up by their lawyer in Cyprus.  The Ukranian Oligarchs would pay one shell company, then that company would pay Manafort’s shell company in Cyprus, then Manafort would pay himself from the shell companies.  Over time, there was a crackdown on Cyprus bank accounts, so they set up accounts in The Grenadines to use as a stopover.

Rick Gates also explained the fake invoices.

Rick Gates explained several apparently fake invoices from vendors who did work for Paul Manafort: He created those for banks in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

When Manafort moved his banking from Cyprus to the Grenadines, Gates explained, they required more documentation. “They asked for invoices” that had the name of the companies Manafort was using on them, Gates said. So at Manafort’s direction, he would make a “modified invoice.”

“The payment was legitimate,” he said. But “it had to have the name of the company itself” — and the vendors hadn’t provided those.

He said he took the information on the invoices from Manafort — suggesting any typos were his boss’s fault. The vendors never actually saw those invoices.

So they created fake invoices from real companies for real dollar amounts to give to their new bank to justify the withdraw of large amounts of money.  The invoices never made their way to the vendors, so when they were shown them on the witness stand, it was the first time they’ve seen these fakes.

The cross examination was tense.  Rick admitted that he committed crimes with Paul Manafort, and stole from him as well.  He also admitted that it’s possible he may have stolen from the Trump Campaign and the Trump Inauguration Committee by submitting false or exaggerated expense reimbursements.  Not really surprising, considering he stole from a mobbed-up criminal like Manafort.

Also, we finally heard about Federal Savings Bank and Steve Calk.  We’ve talked about Steve before (Daily Check-In 02/21/2018, Daily Check-In 02/22/2018, Daily Check-In 02/23/2018, Daily Check-In 07/23/2018) but for a brief refresher, he’s the head of Federal Savings Bank in Chicago, a bank that mostly offers mortgages to veterans.  I say mostly because FSB also approved a loan for Paul Manafort.  An illegal loan, that was a complete farce, as has already been entered into evidence.  It’s been rumored that this loan was part of a pay for play scheme involving Steve Calk becoming the Secretary of the Army in exchange for giving Manafort this loan.  Rick Gates just admitted it was under oath.

One thing that will likely further back up this claim is that two of the witnesses granted immunity in this trial are employees of FSB.  Steve Calk does not appear on the witness list.  He’s probably getting ready for his own date with the FBI.

 

 

COHEN

I just made this joke the other day (Daily Check-In 08/02/2018), but once again the neglectful parent of the Russian Investigation is back, this time with a gift card for his kids after he forgot to pick them up from a school dance and they had to get an Uber home.

According to several reports, Investigators are looking into Cohen’s taxes for possible, fuck it, likely illegalities.  They’re doing this with the help of Cohen’s old business partner the “Taxi King” Evgeny Freidman (Cooperating Witnesses).  Freidman pleaded guilty to Tax Evasion.  Freidman and Cohen used the same accountant.

 

ROSS

Wilbur Ross could be “among the biggest grifters in American history,” according to Forbes magazine, amid new allegations that he may have wrongly siphoned off more than $120 million from business associates. An investigation, citing 21 people who have worked with the man who is now President Trump’s commerce secretary, claims Ross stole “a few million here and a few million there” from various companies. Forbes reports: “All told, these allegations—which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements, and a Securities and Exchange Commission fine—come to more than $120 million.” Ross’ former colleagues offer very unkind words about him. “He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,” said New York financier Asher Edelman, while another of Ross’ former colleagues said: “He’s a pathological liar.” They say he is obsessed with money, with two former colleagues recounting that he took handfuls of Sweet’ N Low packets from a restaurant near his office, so he didn’t have to go out and buy some for himself. (A Ross spokesman disputed that claim—and denied that he sweetens his coffee.)

Each time I hear about Wilbur Ross, he sounds like a bigger thief.  There was his appearance in the Paradise Papers that linked him to Putin’s son-in-law (Daily Check-In 11/06/2017).  Then there was the insider trading (Daily Check-In 12/12/2017).  Then there was him not selling his stakes in a company co-owned by the Chinese government while serving on the Cabinet ( Daily Check-In 06/18/2018). Now, we get another report of him not just being a cheapskate, skinflint, and thief, but a petty one at that.

Really, $120 million?  That’s twice the amount that Manafort laundered for Deripaska over the years.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Here’s the pic, in case it disappears from Twitter

RU Allies

For those of you that don’t read Russian, neither do I.  But I recognize the faces and can decipher symbols.

Top Row, Left to Right:

  • Dennis Kucinich (D)
  • Dana Rohrabacher (R)
  • Ron Paul (R)

Bottom Row, Left to Right:

  • Bernie Sanders (Independent but one time Democrat)
  • Michael Flynn (R)
  • Rand Paul (R)

All of them have historically defended Russia to a fault.  Mike Flynn was indicted for lying to the FBI about his ties to Russia, and I’ve talked more than once about his affinity for Putin.

The other five are all examples of Horseshoe Theory.  Dennis and Bernie have always been on the edge of the left wing for years, having long been the faces of the Progressive Socialist movement.  Rand and his father Ron are the faces of the Libertarian movement.  Dana is the most normal out of these five, and even then most of his colleagues think he’s a Russian stooge.

 

While financial terms were not disclosed in the announcement, theWall Street Journal reported that the Kushner Companies will use the money from the Brookfield lease to buy out Vornado, according to the Journal. Brookfield will also pay the entire 99-year rent up front in order to allow Kushner Companies to deal with the debt, typically 99-year lease structures include an annual ground rent according to the Journal.

Brookfield agreed to an investment in the building early in the year, but the sale of the 99-year lease is a much larger deal than originally expected. According to the Journal, the sale will ensure that the company is able to repay the debt from the building, but it’s not clear if it would net any profit.

Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and husband to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, helped run the Kushner Companies at the time of 666 Fifth Avenue’s purchase. Kushner’s real estate interests were placed in a trust controlled by other members of his family when he joined the White House.

Originally, the Kushner Companies planned to use $7.5 billion in capital from Chinese insurance giant Anbang to remodel the aging tower into a mixed-use retail, condo, and hotel space. The deal eventually fell through.

Brookfield will sink $600 million into renovations for the building according to the Journal.

 

FIGHTING BACK

Regrets

There are a lot of people out there who are coming around to acknowledge what they did and how terrible Trump is.

Welcome them to the party, there’s punch and pie in the back.

 

INFOWARS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

During the presidential campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety took note of Pence’s role in the gun pipeline that threatens cities like Chicago: “Rather than strengthening public safety laws—even as Indiana continued to supply crime guns to cities around the country—Governor Pence has parroted the gun lobby’s talking points and promoted their extremist agenda of pushing guns everywhere, for everyone, no questions asked.”

Pence received NRA endorsements in all of his elections between 2002 and 2012, and received an “A” grade for opposing gun safety legislation during that time as well.

As governor, Pence signed legislation increasing immunity from liability for gun manufacturers and repeatedly signed bills that increased the variety of guns that could be used in Indiana.

In its most recent survey of gun flows, Indiana was by far the biggest source of guns to Illinois. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), 1,366 guns recovered in Illinois could be traced to Indiana. The next closest for a neighboring state was Missouri, with 434.

Conservatives have often cited Chicago’s problem with gun crime as an argument against gun laws, but ignore the role of lax gun laws in allowing the flow of firearms.

Chicago is also often invoked by the Right due to its large black population. But as the protests after the shootings show, that populace has often spoke out in favor of action — it’s just a series of actions that the NRA and Republicans oppose.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

FCC

The reason for the supposed DDoS attack was John Oliver telling all of his viewers to contact the FCC and tell them how they felt about Net Neutrality.  The turnout was so great that the FCC comment website went down.  Instead of acknowledging the outpouring of support, that worthless fuckstick Ajit Pai claimed that the site was hacked and under attack, because there was no way that many people could comment about Net Neutrality.

Fuck Ajit Pai.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

CALIFORNIA FIRES

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

Deep in the thread above is a piece of RUMINT (Rumored Intelligence, or high-level gossip) that I didn’t catch about Jared Kushner flipping and cooperating for the last few months.

Looks like things are heating up.  That’s the second time in less than a week I’ve talked about FEATHERS.  Keep an eye out.

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Wednesday has some fun stuff on the agenda.  The Manafort Trial enters it’s seventh day, results from some elections are coming in, I have yet another reason to hate the Green Party, and a Congressman gets arrested for Insider Trading.

In the Rumor Mill section, there’s a tweet in there about how Jared Kushner might have flipped after December and has been cooperating ever since.  I personally don’t buy it yet.  If this is the case, it’s an extremely well-kept secret.  Not that I’m the end-all be-all on secrets, but this isn’t even floating around the normal parts of the mill.  Jared is an extremely high-ranked target, and there’s enough out in the press to nail him for tons of financial crimes, conspiracy, espionage, and treason.  The only two people above him in this cavalcade of fuckery are Trump and Pence.  The only way that he gets a deal and accepts it is if he personally delivers Trump on the worst of the accusations.  While that is possible, I still doubt that it’s happening.  If I hear more that he is cooperating, I’ll post it here.

 

That’s it for today.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/06/2018

Monday, August 6th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Day 5 of the trial began in the late afternoon with Cindy Laporta being cross examined.  The basis of the defense came down to two main points.

  1. Rick Gates did all of the bad and intentional stuff.
  2. Paul Manafort wasn’t criminally evil, he was disorganized and procrastinated, and that’s why documentation always came in at the last minute.

Both of these are pretty flimsy points, and don’t look like they provide enough benefit of the doubt in Manafort’s behavior.  Blaming the assistant is one thing, but saying that someone forgot they had a bunch of foreign bank accounts and owned companies because it’s tax day is a bit too much.

Following Cindy on the witness stand was Paula Liss of FinCEN.  She testified that neitehr Manafort nor his wife did not file any reports of foreign bank accounts from 2011 to 2014.  The defense tried to muddy the waters, but the prosecution cleared them up on redirect.

Last up for the day is the star of the show, Rick Gates.  He took the stand, and described his relationship with Paul Manafort (employee/employer), how long he’s known him (since the 90’s), why he’s testifying against him (he cut a plea deal and hopes not to go to jail), and did he commit any crimes with him (Hell Yeah), and whether or not he committed these crimes at Paul Manafort’s request (Hell Yeah).

By the way, he also admitted to embezzling a couple hundred thousand dollars from Paul over the years.

While that might seem like the big news of the day, here’s the piece I took away as the bombshell: Gates met with investigators 20 times during his plea deal process.

20 meetings.  That’s a lot of time spent talking about tax forms.  Too much time, in my opinion.

Let’s do some math.  Assume that these meetings last, on average, 2 hours a piece.  I think that’s pretty low, but let’s run with that.  That’s 40 hours, or one work week, Rick Gates spent in interviews with Mueller’s team, telling them everything he knows.  40 hours seems like a lot of time to spend verifying that Manafort and his wife didn’t check a box on a tax form.

I think Rick Gates gave up a lot more than just Paul Manafort.  Remember, Rick was Tom Barrack’s Chief of Staff on the Trump Inaugural Committee (Cooperating Witnesses) and was the Deputy Campaign Manager under Paul Manafort.  Everything that Paul was involved in, Rick was involved in, and Rick stayed on after Paul was fired in August 2016.

 

Gee, what a surprise, the Russians helped Jill Stein.  It’s not like she had any ties to Russia or Putin, or spouted off Russian propaganda during and after the campaign.

That above paragraph was sarcasm.  Here’s how deep in this she is…

img_5419

Like I said yesterday (Daily Check-In 08/03/2018), Trump will absolutely throw Donnie Jr. under the bus to save his own ass.

 

INFOWARS BANNED

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Fuck you, Alex!!!

Alex Jones isn’t just a monster making money on spreading lies and filth about murdered children, but he’s also a traitor to the United States of America, and deserves the fate reserved for them.  InfoWars has long been a tool for Russian propaganda, where they have shared and rehosted well over a thousand stories that originated from Sputnik and Russia Today / RT (Daily Check-In 11/08/2017), not to mention spouting countless Kremlin talking points like the Seth Rich Conspiracy, their love of Wikileaks, and countless crazy attacks against the government over the years.

As much as he deserves to lose his media business, his livelihood, family, and freedom, I feel that I do need to defend one point and that is his right of free speech.

Yes, he has the right to say whatever crazy horseshit he can come up with in his twisted mind.  He can scream it from the rooftops, from the streetcorner, or from his own website.  That right does not, however, mean that the rest of us have to listen to it or have to broadcast it.  It also doesn’t mean that other people have to amplify it for him.  Content providers are no under no legal obligation to distribute everything that’s created, especially hate speech.

Apple is under no legal obligation to host content they don’t agree with.  Neither is Google, FaceBook, Spotify, or any other company.  If WordPress decided to yank my website for repeated violations of the Terms of Service, that’s my problem, not theirs.  They are responsible for what they share.

Besides, from what I’ve seen in the Rumor Mill over the past year plus, this could be the best consequence to happen to Alex Jones.  I hope for far, far worse.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

I’m curious.  How much of Rand Paul’s stance is based off of kompromat they have on him, how much is based off of kompromat they have on his father, and how much is him willingly going along with this.  Remember, in all of those 98-1 votes and 97-2 votes on sanctions against Russia, he’s always on the wrong side of that vote count.

 

FIGHTING BACK

What makes QAnon different from other right-wing conspiracy theories, University of Miami professor Joseph Uscinski told The Daily Beast, is that it was born at a time when Republicans are already in control.

“Normally you don’t expect the winning party to use them, except when they’re in trouble,” Uscinski said.

In a new twist, BuzzFeed News published a look into whether the theory was actually invented in an attempt to trick right-wing, conspiracy theory–pushing Internet users, particularly of the Baby Boomer generation.

In screenshots of forums published in BuzzFeed’s piece, one user writes, “Q is just a huge prank on boomers.” Another wrote, “…look how many normies and boomers got sucked into our lulz chaos. Good job anons, looking forward to our next big prank.”

Some believe the QAnon conspiracy theory was invented by leftists or anarchists as a way of proving the alt-right’s gullibility, or, as BuzzFeed reported, “to make the far-right look deranged.” In fact, BuzzFeed noted, there are similarities between the theory and the plot of the Italian novel Q (yes, really).

Q (the novel, not the possible prank) is thought by many to be a manifesto for activists looking to disrupt society. Its authors told BuzzFeed, “We often described it as ‘playbook,’ an ‘operations manual’ for cultural disruption.”

Elaborate “gotcha” or not, there are people who truly believe the QAnon theory. And it’s having real-world consequences beyond computer screens.

 

Former “Doctor Who” actor David Tennant slammed President Trump “on behalf of the Scottish nation” over the weekend.

“When he was over here and he was talking about England and he was saying ‘I’m going out to Scotland for my golf course in Scotland cause people in London are protesting but obviously [in] Scotland they really like me, ‘ ” Tennant said on a British TV show, “can I say on behalf of the Scottish nation, we f—ing don’t?”

My third favorite Doctor basically telling Trump to fuck off.  Ok, third favorite sounds bad, but there have been 12 Doctors, 13 if you count John Hurt’s War Doctor.  Being third on this list is like asking what is my third favorite movie or third favorite Penguins Stanley Cup Championship.

For the record, first is the 9th Doctor, Christoper Eccleston.  He was the first one of the reboot series and I loved the dark optimism that he showed.  Second is the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith.  I enjoyed his whimsy, and he was my son’s favorite for a long time. Third was the 10th Doctor, David Tennant.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CALIFORNIA FIRES

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for today.  Tuesday will have Rick Gates continuing his testimony, and a breaking story about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross being accused of stealing $120 million.

Let’s see how this plays out.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/03/2018

Friday, August 3rd and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

Day 4 began with Manafort’s tax preparer Phillip Ayliff returning to the stand to state that Paul Manafort did not disclose any foreign bank accounts on his taxes.  He then discussed a suspicious loan that Gates and Manafort, at Manafort’s instruction, said shouldn’t be considered income.  Phillip asked for proof, but was given the flimsiest definition of proof.  It mostly consisted of a letter from a company that Manafort is accused of owning.  They then covered his “rental properties”, which are basically This is carryover from Daily Check-In 08/02/2018.

Manafort’s defense team made the brilliant defense of “if he intended to break the law, why would he leave this information lying around?”  He said this of the man accused of witness tampering by backing up his encrypted WhatsApp messages to his iCloud account AFTER the feds had a warrant to monitor that account. (Daily Check-In 06/04/2018, Daily Check-In 06/05/2018, Daily Check-In 06/06/2018)

Following the preparer was Cindy Laporta, the first of five witnesses granted immunity in exchange for their testimony.  (Daily Check-In 07/23/2018)  Cindy was Paul Manafort’s accountant, and took over for Philip after he retired.  She testified that she didn’t believe them on their claim of the loan either, but went along with it because she was afraid to confront Manafort.  She also testified that later on she falsified documents at the behest of Manafort and Gates to allow Manafort’s company DMP (Davis Manafort Partners) to qualify for more loans.  By doing so, she opened herself up to legal ramifications of felony wire fraud and other tax avoidance crimes.  This is why she was granted immunity for her testimony.

 

Alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina talked openly about her contacts with Russian intelligence officials when she got drunk, CNN reported Thursday.

According to people who knew her at American University where she attended graduate school, on at least two occasions Butina bragged about her Russian government connections after she had imbibed and even said the Russian government was connected to her Moscow gun rights group. According to CNN, classmates were unnerved by her comments and reported her to law enforcement twice.

Other classmates told CNN that in classes she was a constant defender of Vladimir Putin and claimed that she was a middleman between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

Why can’t we get a better quality of spy in this story?  It’s like they sent the Cleveland Browns of spycraft to attack the United States.

Not only do we have Maria Butina getting drunk and bragging about being a middleman for Putin and the GOP, but she did it enough times that her classmates as American University called the cops.  Repeatedly.

Remember the timing on this, too.  She didn’t start school until getting her student visa in 2016, but was in the U.S. before that.  And, don’t forget, but she met with Donnie Jr. at the NRA convention back in May 2016. (Daily Check-In 07/18/2018).

Gee, I really hope Donnie Jr. doesn’t have more bad news coming at him from this weekend.

SPOILER ALERT: IT GETS WORSE, SEE NEXT BOLD SECTION.

This might be the strangest part of the Russian Investigation so far, but as I’ve said before, it’s only going to get weirder from here. (Daily Check-In 07/20/2018).

How weird?  Does a tweet from Tom Arnold saying that Roger Stone was crashing on the Madam’s couch while Al Franken was being attacked sound weird enough?  Maybe not as weird as Steven Segal becoming a diplomatic envoy for Russia weird, but still pretty damn weird.

 

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Sunday that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was misleading.

Mr. Trump made the comment in a tweet on Sunday morning that was intended to be a defense of the June 2016 meeting and the role his son Donald Trump Jr. played in hosting it. The president claimed that it was “totally legal” and of the sort “done all the time in politics.”

But the tweet also served as an admission that the Trump team had not been forthright when Donald Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children.

That statement is being scrutinized by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining a broad array of Mr. Trump’s tweets and public statements to determine whether he made them as part of an effort to deceive investigators.

Yep.  That just happened.  The President of the United States, after years of saying that there was “no collusion” from his campaign with Russia, just admitted to it on Twitter.

The goalposts have moved.  We’ve gone from “No contact with Russians” to “No one that was on the campaign talked with the Russians” to “People contacted the Russians but it wasn’t collusion” to “Collusion isn’t illegal, but it still didn’t happen” to “No senior members of the campaign colluded” to “My son met with the Russians, but it wasn’t illegal” in a little over a year and a half.  I think the next steps are below:

  • Senior members colluded, but it wasn’t illegal.
  • Trump didn’t know about the collusion until after it happened, but it still wasn’t illegal.
  • Ok, it might have been a little illegal, but only in a technical sense.
  • It was illegal, but the campaign did it to stop the evil HRC.
  • There was only bad collusion that one one time.
  • Trump only knew about it the day before and thought it was a joke.
  • Trump knew about it but didn’t call in to the June 9th meeting.
  • Trump called in, but wasn’t an active participant.
  • Trump called in, but only asked a couple questions.
  • Trump called in, but was only involved in this episode of collusion.
  • Trump didn’t know about the NRA work, the RNC work, the Mayflower Meeting, the December meetings in Trump Tower, the meetings in the Seychelles, or any other meeting that hasn’t been discussed yet.
  • Trump was involved, so what?

I don’t like to talk about Trump’s tweets here because most of the time it’s a distraction from the real news, but every so often he wakes up in a panic in the middle of the night and unloads his narcissistic projections on the world, simultaneously accusing his enemies of his crimes while trying to play the victim card.  In this case, he managed to not only destroy each and every talking point that his team has used for the last year, but also threw Donnie Jr. under the bus.

Correction.  He didn’t throw his son under the bus.  He dug a whole, hit Donnie over the head with a shovel, threw the body in the whole, covered it up, hired a road crew to lay asphalt over the whole, painted lines on the fresh asphalt, chartered a bus, then drove the bus over the fresh road.

After studying narcissistic personality disorder for a while, the sense of self, I’m not surprised by this one bit.  Trump only cares about himself.  If he cares about his children at all, it’s about how their actions affect him.  They exist to him as tools and resources, not as individuals.  His mentality never progressed to the point where sense of self can coexist with the idea of others.

By the way, getting dirt on an opposing political candidate isn’t illegal, it’s how one comes across it that determines the legality.  Getting it from the Intelligence Services of a foreign nation is illegal.  Having someone hack into their computers is illegal.  Getting that information from a foreign government pretending to be a hacker from another country is illegal.

 

 

 

COHEN

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Hope Hicks is back in the news, this time it looks like potential witness tampering.  Hope left the White House as the Communications Director earlier this year (Daily Check-In 02/28/2018), after interviewing Mueller’s team about her role in various activities, including the cover-up of the June 9th meeting.

At best, this just looks bad.  At worst, this is a blatant attempt at witness tampering.  Hope is a witness and participant to the investigation that Trump is a subject of.

I’m waiting for all of the Republicans that bitched about Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton on board his plane to scream from the rooftops any time now over how this is inapporpriate.

Anyone?  Anyone?

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

ATTACKS ON THE VOTING SYSTEM

Here’s the thing when it comes to voter fraud: it doesn’t happen, at least not the way that it’s portrayed.  The way that most **coughwhitecough** people think voter fraud occurs is that buses full of dark-skinned people get shipped from one polling place to another, show up at the polls, then vote as people who didn’t bother to show up.  Never mind that the logistics of this are completely bonkers and raise more questions like “How could thousands or millions of people being paid to vote keep their mouths shut?” or “Who paid for the buses?” or “Who has such a pathetically weak ego that the only way they can justify losing is to blame non-existent Hispanics?”

The reality of the matter is that this kind of Voter Fraud is damn near non-existent.  What does happen is that the bogeyman of voter fraud is used as a justification for making restrictive voter ID laws that target minorities, poor, young, and other groups that typically vote Democratic.  Every state that has implemented Voter ID laws saw a spike in the Republican polls on the next election after they were implemented.  I’ve covered ad nauseum how the vote difference in Wisconsin was reportedly less than the number of voters prevented from voting.

The sole purpose of the Voter Fraud panel was to make a report that would be used to recommend to every state to enact their own forms of Voter ID laws, and would use states like Wisconsin and North Carolina as the template.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Either the NRA is losing money hand over fist, or they lied under oath.  If they lied, screw’em, they deserve whatever punishment befalls them.  If they are bleeding money, I’ll send them thoughts and prayers.  You know, the same actions they take each time a bunch of innocent children are murdered because they want to oppose every kind of gun control.

Fun Fact: The NRA supported a ban on open carrying firearms back in 1967 when the Black Panthers “invaded” the state capitol.

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

DISTRACTION TIME: TRUMP INSULTS LEBRON JAMES, DON LEMON

 

HATE RALLY IN PORTLAND AND NAZIS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CHRISTIAN FASCISM

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

Claude Taylor on Matt Gaetz:

Call me old fashioned but dicking around with the intern when you’re a 36 year old member of Congress used to be frowned upon. Have things changed ?

Can we talk about ? He has his own live in “Intern-with-benefits”. Yep…brace yourself…the intern IS A GIRL!!! That’s cool right? She’s 21. So what if the US Taxpayer pays to fly her around, right? It’s 2018 and this is more convenient than the married Minister…

I don’t care who is getting it from. I don’t care if it’s an intern. I don’t care if she’s 21-22. I don’t care if they live together. I just want to know if any taxpayer funds have been used in support of this relationship. I also want to know if her folks know.

 

 

That’s it for Friday and the weekend.  Once again, I have plans on doing some maintenance on the site, and once again crazy stuff happens on the weekend.  I’d like to clean up the intro section, the Russian Hypothesis, and the Cast of Characters.  Also, I want to write a post about how the Trump team keeps moving the goalposts.

Monday should be interesting.  Rand Paul is in Russia, and Rick Gates could be called to testify against Paul Manafort.  And my third favorite Doctor tells Trump to fuck off.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur