Daily Check-In 10/15/2018

Monday, October 15, 2018, and the weekend

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

“HE IS TRYING TO MAKE IT RIGHT”: AS THE MIDTERMS APPROACH, MICHAEL COHEN IS DOUBLING DOWN ON HIS CIVIC DUTY

Other than a few tweets and statements, Cohen has remained relatively quiet since pleading guilty, in August, to violating campaign laws by paying off women who claimed to have had affairs with Donald Trump at what he said, in open court, was the “direction” of the then-candidate. Behind the scenes, however, Robert Mueller’s special investigation into collusion and obstruction of justice continues apace. So does the Southern District’s probe into campaign-finance violations. Despite having no formal cooperation agreement with the government, Cohen has willingly assisted and provided information critical to several ongoing investigations, according to two sources familiar with the situation, in a string of meetings that have exceeded more than 50 hours in sum. (A spokesman for the S.D.N.Y. declined to comment. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment. Cohen declined to comment.) These conversations are the latest manifestation of Cohen’s brand of patriotism. In June, Cohen told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he would no longer be protecting Trump or the Trump family. “To be crystal clear,” he said, “my wife, my daughter, and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”

Michael Cohen has talked to various investigators, including Mueller’s team, for more than 50 hours. That’s a lot of time to talk to tax attorneys, cops, FBI agents, and the Special Counselor.

There’s more chatter coming around on how one of the next big dominoes to fall is Cohen’s trip to Prague. We’ve talked about it before (Daily Check-In 04/13/2018), but it still hasn’t broken into the press yet. Once it does, things could progress quickly.

PROUD BOYS ATTACK

Something to know about the Proud Boys: Although some are white supremacists, their ideology is far-right ultranationalism. Branding them as a typical white supremacist gang is too narrow/simple. They have & will align with South/Central American ultranationalist gangs, too. 1/

Unlike typical white supremacist gangs, the Proud Boys have a “flexible” ideology when it comes to things like racial purity. One of their most well known members (“Tiny”) is Samoan American. They have black, Asian, & Latino members. Welcome to the global rise of fascism. 2/

While some members espouse more traditional white supremacist ideals, the Proud Boys as a group is less pro-white than it is anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-feminism, anti-liberalism/liberal democracy. And they love authoritarian-style strong men, death squads, & militarism. 3/

Now, that’s not to say that the Proud Boys endorse racial equality. They don’t. But they’ll work with non-white people and groups to advance their ideology, which is fascism. And they’re happy to use their non-white members as “proof” that they’re not racist, though most are. 4/

The Proud Boys want to restore a social hierarchy in which white men are at the top, & they’re happy to accept help from non-whites who are willing to accept their “place” in that hierarchy. But most of all, they reject the ideals of liberal democracy and want to destroy it. 5/

The Proud Boys are very much the face of the modern fascist movement, which is multicultural & transnational. The whole idea is to establish a brand that can exist in today’s world, and that requires adopting a more flexible ideology in certain domains to achieve the end goal. 6/

The Proud Boys have very effectively exploited male resentment and backlash following cultural flashpoints like gamergate. Their recruitment grounds span the internet (men’s rights forums, 4chan, 8chan, etc), video game culture, the metal scene, libertarianism, & more. 7/

The Proud Boys are very effective at recruiting young men and boys, including high-school age boys. (It’s easier to indoctrinate young people than to change minds). They also feed off the outrage surrounding the so-called “free speech movement.” 8/

The Proud Boys do have women who support them (more on that later), though women aren’t allowed to be members. They also have ties to law enforcement in some areas (http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/jul/20/clark-county-deputy-fired-over-proud-boys-sweatshi/ …) and their tentacles reach the upper ranks of Republican politics & right-wing media. 9/

The point of all this is to say that the Proud Boys very much represent the modern global resurgence of far-right ultranationalism, aka fascism. They’re media savvy and very conscious of their image, which has allowed them to grow their membership with very little scrutiny. 10/

The Proud Boys were founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016 and have already established a presence in the US, Canada, Australia, Norway, & UK, among other places. They are extremely violent & have been engaging in public acts of violence regularly for at least a year and a half. 11/

12/ In the meantime, here’s some more info on the Proud Boys, detailing their activities starting in the spring of 2017: https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/868522403772715008 …https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/857056816458588160 …

KHASHOGGI

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Kushner’s Taxes

Cohen

Trump Foundation

Stormy

This is only her defamation case against Trump, not the NDA case.

SCOTUS & COURTS

#METOO

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

TRAITOR TOTS

FIGHTING BACK

IMMIGRATION

COLD WAR 2.0

#NEVERAGAIN

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

WARREN

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

PRIESTS

Washington’s Catholics confront the tumultuous end of Donald Wuerl’s reign as archbishop

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

ELECTION 2018

IN OTHER NEWS…

RUMOR MILL

Lincoln’s Bible on Rhetoric:

More

Trump’s biggest weapon is his RHETORIC. The fevered rallies, capitulation of @SenateGOP, press manipulation, Twitter – ALL rhetoric. There is a machine coordinating the rhetoric across @GOPleadership & media to galvanize his power. I’m going to tell you how to defeat it. /1

2/ Punch back directly at the semantics & re-orient their meaning. Do this WITHOUT outrage. If you do it from outrage, you will lose. You will. What do I mean by this? I’ll give you an example with a single word: MOB. Guess what? That’s the word I’ve been using for nearly 2 yrs.

3/ It has worked unbelievably well to punch a narrative through the noise of Twitter. I am an anonymous account, & I have gone from 0 followers to over 50k because of that one, 3-letter word. Because of it’s potency. MOB I can & have tied it right to Donald with his own history.

4/ With FACTS. With the horrible truth about who his daddy really was, and who Donald is still beholden to. There is a mountain of evidence. Trump Org is, and always has been, a money-laundering front for the mob. And 3 years after he declared his run for POTUS…

5/ This truth was finally breaking into MSM coverage. Donald Trump is owned by the mob. Full stop. That is what Trump-Russia is all about. Books were finally surfacing. Cable news finally reporting. This past summer, everyone was saying “MOB.” Remember?

Lincoln’s Bible added,

Lincoln’s Bible @LincolnsBible

When I call dotard a “mobster,” I’m not being cute. Or provocative. Or jumping on MSM’s sudden embrace of what they’ve always known & obfuscated.…

6/ And it was only getting worse with Cohen and Manafort flipping (both mobsters themselves). Mueller reached Fred Trump’s mob CFO, Allen Weisselberg, & REAL panic in Trump World set in. Oh, it’s all coming out. Count on it. So, what does the rhetoric machine do..?

7/ It finds a way to weaponize that word. Attaching it to your outrage around Kavanaugh – and the whole sh*tshow in general. This is what they do. And it works, as long as you punch back from outrage. I’m going to show you another way. I’m going to show you how to win this.

8/ 1st: understand what I mean by fighting semantic warfare from a place of outrage. You are rightly disgusted by being gaslit. By the glaring hypocrisy & projection. So, I’m watching many of you get into that argument – THEIR argument – about whether or not you’re an angry mob.

9/ Stop arguing with them about how they see you. Because the people behind generating that definition – the people running that rhetoric machine, don’t even believe what they’re saying. THEY ARE TROLLING YOU. When you argue with them about their bullshit, you lose. Instead…

10/ Bring the semantic back into your territory. They are only using “mob” now because it’s such a dangerous word for Donald. And for all of them. For anyone who took a bunch of money from some Russian mobsters, aka oligarchs. Right @LindseyGrahamSC? So, here’s how to do it…

11/ Choose either a position of mockery (very effective) or emotionless, factual statements. Be persistent. Attach “MOB” to Donald’s dirty money. Flood every venue w/ridicule & facts of his mob history. Not as counter-argument, but as dismissive fact. SCARE THEM with that word.

12/ FIGHT THE RHETORIC WITH THE RHETORIC ITSELF. Turn it on itself. You can do this. It WILL work. They are scared of that word, or they wouldn’t have taken it out of the discourse & weaponized it. They are telling you what they’re afraid of w/ their projection.

13/ Their rhetoric is a roadmap of their weakness. Of their fears. You have to get out of your outrage in order to see it that way, and fight back. This is semantic warfare. Get it together & fight. Take “MOB” from them. Make them run from it. They’ve spent a lot of money…

14/ They’ve built a whole plan for defeating Dems in Senate races by weaponizing that one word. Make them afraid to use it, by CEMENTING IT back where it belongs. Right on top of Donald Trump’s head. Because he’s a f*cking mobster. And they all know it.

When I call dotard a “mobster,” I’m not being cute. Or provocative. Or jumping on MSM’s sudden embrace of what they’ve always known & obfuscated.…

15/ That embedded thread in tweet #14 above has everything you need to fight. Make it hurt.

16/ One last note on the @GOP‘s weaponization of “mob” to deflect it away from Donald’s blood money & put it on you/us… Moms w/strollers, grandmas in knitted hats, smiling dads/brothers/sons – ALL marching peacefully is real power. Just be seen. And the rhetoric collapses.

17/ “@realDonaldTrumpcouldn’t build a building if I didn’t want him to.” – Sammy The Bull Gravano.

I’ll show you something now. Links to mafia/organized crime articles & my account used to top Google search for “MOB.” See now how they’ve gamed the algorithms on that word? Note outlets & headlines. This is the warfare. Fight back by amping “MOB” as attached to Trump history…

Push back on outlets like @washingtonpostusing “mob” 4 anything other than organized crime or actual crowd violence. Notice in this pic that there’s a story emerging about real FAR RIGHT @GOP-Trump crowd violence (like Charlottesville murder). They fear this exposure 2. AMP it.

Lincoln’s Bible Retweeted NY AG Underwood

You can use “MOB” on this from @NewYorkStateAG(click on it, add the word “MOB”, & re-tweet). In fact, I’d make that go viral if you want to dismantle an entire @GOP“left is an angry mob” campaign that they just spent a sh*tton of money on.

Lincoln’s Bible added,

NY AG UnderwoodVerified account @NewYorkStateAG

I’m disturbed and disgusted by last night’s attacks involving the so-called “Proud Boys.” Hate has no place in New York. This warrants immediate and thorough investigation by the NYPD to bring the perpetrators to justice. Anyone with information should call 1-800-577-TIPS.

A little more on the @GOP“Proud Boy” #AngryMobviolence in NYC. These are full-throated @GOPTrump supporters. A male “nationalist” movement/club started by Gavin McInnes and “proudly” supported by women like Ann Coulter.

Eric Garland: Bone Saw

This is a bone saw. And a thread about how badly mainstream media has committed sedition in mocking the NatSec community.

Point of fact: Dozens of outlets have made Trump out to be a clown (albeit A DESPOT!) while making fun of the people that have nightmares about stories of spies, journalists, drywall knives and bonesaws. Since 2015. The MSM made Trump into a joke, not a monster.

Point of fact: The MSM made stories about hostile foreign intelligence services (Russia, other) and organized crime being “conspiracy theories” in favor of domestic politics, Wisconsin, emails, and racial provocation. And a foreign-owned Mobster became POTUS.

Points of fact: Mobsters, Russian spies, and their unholy combination do the following: poison you with polonium, cut your body up, blow up schools, addict your kids to drugs, have people fuck your kids, film it, profit. Law enforcement and NatSec pros know these stories.

So I want every editor and journalist and blogger to take a good look at that fucking bone saw. That’s what your coverage let into the Oval Office. Not fucking Kanye. Excuses about bone saws and separating kids at the border. And do you know what they then do with the kids?

This isn’t the average zany thread, is it? Guess what, these things are done by the enemies of democracy, and it isn’t cute. There’s no clickbait. And telling the truth about it PROTECTS THE REPUBLIC AND YOU AND YOUR KIDS. THE MEDIA BETRAYED THIS JOB EN MASSE.

There are stories that are even worse, horridly, than Jamal Kashoggi, because they are equally brutal, more widespread, and centrally-ordered. And some people you know and trust either allowed it, consented to it, or profit from it. And we’ve been WARNING THE MEDIA.

To no avail. And we’ve tried. Editors/journalists: you were warned. And now the real stories will come out to horrify the public. You will have lost all trust. Journalism, or “democratic story telling” or “accountability” (whatever we call it) will go on without you.

You want to serve the Republic and report some actual stories, however real and ugly. We’ve got some tips for you. It won’t be clickbait. But it won’t be seditious failure at your chosen profession, either. Choose. </THREAD>

ADDENDUM: This problem vastly outstrips the attacks on me personally, but it does show the pattern, which I analyzed with full professional rigor.

That’s it for the last couple days. As we can see, it was a little nuts over the last few days.

LB’s thread about semantics and language is something that I want to talk about a little further. We’re in a war of language, and we’re losing.

This past week, the RWM started calling the people protesting against Trump, Sexual Assault, and the GOP an “Angry Mob”. Grandmas and mothers pushing their kids in strollers are not an angry mob. A bunch of fascists and racists leaving a rally and beating up people on the street, that’s an angry mob. Then, when arguing with one of them, they’ll point to this phrase and pull that “on both sides” bullshit, making a false equivalency.

Instead of getting dragged into a “on both sides” fight of whataboutism, flip the script on the fuckers.

“Sure, you want to talk about a mob? Let’s talk about a mob. Let’s talk about mob ties. Specifically, Trump’s mob ties. Like his ties to the Gambino Crime Family, the Columbo Crime Family, and the Luciano Crime Family. Or, do you want to talk about his ties to the Russian Mob, like with Semion Mogilevich.”

Words have power. This is why people get bent out of shape about the PC Culture Wars/SJW Movement, or whatever the Cro-MAGA’s are fighting against today. By changing the way we speak, we change the way we think. When some words are no longer used, they’re no longer acceptable. Even small changes make a world of difference. Changing the words we use changes the way we think. Using powerful language gives power to that thing. Using respectful language gives respect to that thing. At the same time, taking a term or word and using it for the opposite purpose wears down its power and use. Using the term Angry Mob to describe retirees protesting against corrupt politicians waters down the term, so when actual Angry Mobs show up and commit violence, what’s left to call them?

Call them out. Call out those who try to spin language to hide the truth or abuse their power. Name them. Shame them. Make them own their statements. Make them own their words.

And do not let them off the hook.

Words have power. Use them.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 10/15/2018

Published by noneofthisisnormal

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