Tuesday, December 11, 2018
THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION
Flynn and Manafort
- Michael Flynn’s lawyers ask for 200 hours of community service and no prison time in sentencing memo
- Michael Flynn asks judge to spare him jail time
- Michael Flynn asks federal judge to spare him from prison time in response to government sentencing memo
- More Mueller developments are coming this week in the Manafort, Cohen and Flynn cases
- Judge Tentatively Schedules Hearing On Manafort’s Alleged Lies For Jan. 25
I didn’t have time to dig into this in depth, but his sentencing is scheduled for December 18th. Both Mueller’s team and Flynn’s team argue for no jail time for this crime due to how much he cooperated. We’ll see how this goes.
Butina
- Michael McFaul: .@maddow right now asking a question that I have been wondering about for a long time — did Torshin funnel money into the NRA to help Trump campaign?
- Five Things to Watch This Week in Mueller Probe: Cohen to Butina
- Maria Butina set to plead guilty to conspiring to act as agent of Kremlin, documents shows
- Judd Legum: This is no longer in dispute: The president’s son met with Russian spy at the NRA convention a few months before election day. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce Trump Jr. to a Russian official with ties to organized crime and money laundering. Remember, a top Spanish prosecutor said in May that the FBI sought wiretaps on Torshin, the man Trump Jr. met, and a convicted Russian money launderer. “Trump’s son should be concerned”
- Julia Davis: Maria Butina set to plead guilty to conspiring to act as agent of Kremlin, documents show. Much of Butina’s work has been reported over the past year as part of a broader campaign by Moscow to influence U.S. elections. #Russia
- Julia Davis: On Thursday, Butina is expected to admit that her activities were part of a concerted endeavor, coordinated with a top Russian official with the express intent of establishing unofficial lines of communication with Americans who could influence US politics
- Sara Danner Dukic Thread on Butina
- ThreadReader Unroll: Reminder re the coming details on Butina’s plea deal: in addition to the laundering of Russian money, the illegal coordination with the Trump campaign, and the repeated attempts to make direct contact with Trump himself via the NRA, the NRA also worked with Cambridge Analytica.
- Why Are The Russia/Butina/NRA/Trump Connections Still Not Getting More Attention?
- Shannon Watts: “Amazingly, with basically no fanfare, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report concluding that the Kremlin used the @NRA as a key instrument in its efforts to meddle in our election by promoting Trump and attacking Clinton.”
- Source: accused Russian spy cooperating with feds – CNN Video
Remember, she has ties to EVERYONE.
- Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth
- “No collusion”? Here are all the Trump associates who had contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign
- Robert Mueller Has 2 Years of Recorded Surveillance that Doesn’t Look Good For Mike Pence
- Greg Olear: I’m still going to enjoy it when the feds come for @seanhannity.
- Half of Americans say Mueller will implicate Trump in wrongdoing: poll
- Republican Lawmakers Privately Considering Dumping Donald Trump, MSNBC Guest Says
- The Short List No. 3 Person of the Year 2018: Robert Mueller
- The Single Fatal Flaw in the Legal Argument Against Indicting a Sitting President
- Constitution allows prosecution of a sitting president
- 44 ex-senators warn U.S. is ‘entering a dangerous period’
- We are former senators. The Senate has long stood in defense of democracy — and must again.
COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS
- Incoming New York attorney general plans wide-ranging investigations of Trump and family
- Stormy Daniels Ordered To Pay Trump $293,000 In Fees In Defamation Lawsuit
- California judge orders porn star to pay Trump legal fees
- ‘Wake Up and Learn the Facts’: Avenatti Strikes Back After Dershowitz Blasts Stormy Daniels for ‘Classic Extortion’
TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1
Shutdown and Temper Tantrum
- Reporter says Trump ‘stormed out’ of Oval Office after Pelosi, Schumer meeting
- Trump reportedly flicked a folder and scattered papers in anger after his fiery debate with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer
- Donald Trump said a shutdown would be on him. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were happy to agree
- The Hoarse Whisperer: Pelosi and Schumer just got Trump so twisted up, he: – insisted a lot of the wall was built – said it wasn’t built – demanded money to build the thing he said was both built and unbuilt – made himself responsible for a potential shutdown They put the guy on tilt.
- Trump has already lost the shutdown fight
- Trump threatens gov’t shutdown in heated meeting with Dem leaders over border wall, squabbling over election results
- Wall negotiations devolve into on-camera shouting match between Trump, Pelosi and Schumer
- ‘It’s like a manhood thing for him’: Pelosi comments on Trump and his wall
- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi questions Trump’s manhood after confrontational White House meeting
- Nancy Pelosi Just Mocked the President* to His Face in the Oval Office
- Pelosi Challenges Trump to Have an ‘Evidence-Based Conversation’
- Scott Dworkin: BREAKING: GOP consultant tells me Trump is “absolutely enraged” by the news coverage of his meeting with Pelosi and Schumer today. Trump apparently blames Pence for not speaking up. He thinks Pence “lost it for him.” And he wishes he never held the meeting, calling it a “set up.”
- Chuck Schumer mocks Trump to his face: “When the president brags he won North Dakota and Indiana he’s in real trouble”
- Schumer: Temper tantrum won’t get Trump a wall
- CNN’s Avlon: Pence was like ‘Elf on the Shelf’ during White House border wall spat
- Paul Lee: Petulant child throws angry tantrum as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi scold him for being a bad boy. #TrumpShutdown
- Joe Walsh: On the issue, Trump is right. Build the wall, secure the border, even if you have to shut the government down. The problem is, Trump has talked tough before. And based on his track record, today was all an act. He just wanted to look tough in front of the cameras for his base.
- Americans, reality generally disagree with Trump’s strategy on border wall funding
- Angry White House Staffer: Uh… how about the military? Veterans benefits? The 1.3 MILLION ‘essential’ staff who don’t get paid on time but still have to work? The 900k ‘nonessential’ personnel who might not get paid at all?
- Trump: I’d Be ‘Proud’ to Shut Down Government Over Border Wall
- Trump: “I’m proud to shut down the government” over border wall
- Mueller She Wrote Podcast: Just a note to @realDonaldTrump: the Special Counsel’s Office is funded from a permanent and indefinite appropriation, in case you thought shutting down the government would shut down SCO. Happy holidays!!
- Trump’s meeting with top Democrats descends into chaos in the Oval Office
- Trump Predicts Public Would `Revolt’ If Congress Impeaches Him
- Trump Can’t Stop Confessing
- Trump administration wants to put a price on freedom of speech. Soon you’ll have to pay a fee to protest at the National Mall.
- Trump Expected to Nominate Fannie, Freddie Critic to Oversee Mortgage-Finance Giants
Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and don’t bring a Pence to a Pelosi fight.
Here’s the setup: Trump & Pence invite Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over to the White House for negotiations to avoid another government shutdown. Trump wants $5 Billion for his border wall, and since he’s the shittiest businessman to ever fail up, he won’t accept anything less than that. During the negotiations, Trump invites the Press into the Oval Office. Tangerine Tojo thinks this will pressure Nancy and Chuck into caving into his demands. Instead, he gets his ass handed to him by two expert fighters. They proded Trump into saying, damn near yelling that he’d be “proud to shut down the government” over the wall funding.
Trump got played like a fiddle. Nancy emasculated him by saying that the wall must be about his manhood, Chuck let him screw himself, and Pence sat on the chair like the guy at the party who smoked too much.
Trump. World’s Worst Negotiator.
TRAITOR TOTS
- Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani linked to multi-million dollar campaign to ease sanctions against DR Congo
- AP: Ivanka, Kushner could profit from tax break they pushed
- Spicy Mic: At what point do we say enough is enough and demand that @jaredkushner and @IvankaTrump LEAVE OUR HOUSE? Honestly everyday it’s just more corruption and yet the @GOP @HouseGOP @SenateGOP continue to obfuscate and equivocate. the @realDonaldTrump family is literally robbing us WTF
Epstein
- After reading Epstein’s victims’ account, how does Labor Secretary Acosta sleep at night?
- I’m a former prosecutor. Jeffrey Epstein’s case raises more questions than it answers.
FIGHTING BACK
- TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR 2018: THE GUARDIANS AND THE WAR ON TRUTH
- Garry Kasparov: Incredibly foolish and bad. This is what dictators do, personalize every aspect of everything, including the justice system. Trump is dragging America down to the immoral level of authoritarian nations that take hostages for leverage.
- Rick Wilson: Brian Williams just deadpanned “When there’s smock, there’s fire” without breaking a grin.
- Trump ‘Lost The High Ground’ And ‘Made Democrats Look Like the Grown-ups,’ Conservative Columnist Says
RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM
- Neo-Nazis gathered to mourn a dead leader. Then they attacked a black DJ, police say.
- A woman wanted to commit a mass murder — so she contacted Dylann Roof, authorities say
- Avowed neo-Nazi James A. Fields Jr. sentenced to life in prison in fatal Charlottesville car attack
- Feds seek more time to review death penalty option for Tree of Life shooting defendant
- Jury recommends life in prison for Charlottesville driver James Alex Fields
- ‘I can see myself carrying out this operation.’ Feds say man was planning synagogue attack for ISIS.
- This racist paramedic hates some people whose lives depend on him. He needs to be fired.
KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA
- Trump says standing by Saudi crown prince despite pleas from Senate
- Jared Kushner covers for Saudi crown prince in softball Fox interview on Khashoggi killing
- TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR 2018: THE GUARDIANS AND THE WAR ON TRUTH
- Time magazine names Jamal Khashoggi and persecuted journalists ‘person of the year’
- Time’s Person of the Year: ‘Guardians’ of the truth, including slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi
SCOTUS & COURTS
- Zoe Tillman: The Senate has confirmed 8th Circuit nominee Jonathan Kobes 50-50, with VP Pence breaking the tie. Kobes is one of only a handful of Trump judicial nominees to get a “not qualified” rating from the ABA committee that vets picks for the federal bench
- Mike Pence just cast a historic tie-breaking vote to confirm a judge the ABA called “not qualified”
- Federal Court Rules You Have the Right to Record the Cops—Even in Secret
- Federal judge rules Mass. law prohibiting secret audio recording of police, government officials is unconstitutional
- Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over flushable wipes
#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
- The star flutist was paid $64,451 less than the oboe player. So she sued.
- Megan Fox feels excluded from #MeToo. That matters.
- Megan Fox Explains Why She Didn’t Speak Out With Her #METOO Experiences
- Movies Starring Women Outperform Male-Led Titles at Box Office, Study Finds
- Kaz Weida: Okay, then Let’s start paying actresses what they’re worth. In 2017 the highest paid male actor was Mark Wahlberg at $68 million a year. Emma Stone was the highest paid actress last year at $26 million. I’ll take one Emma Stone over two Mark Wahlbergs any day.
IMMIGRATION
- Ann Coulter Slams Trump for Lying About Wall Already Being Built: Does He Think His Supporters Are Dumb?
- Schrodinger’s Immigrant: How Can Immigrants Steal Jobs if They’re “Too Lazy to Work”?
- Trump threatens gov’t shutdown in heated meeting with Dem leaders over border wall, squabbling over election results
- Senator Jeff Merkley: After 6 months there are STILL children ripped from their parents arms because of the president’s heartless child-snatching policy. And more than 15,000 children fleeing persecution abroad are currently being held in child prison camps. Their trauma is on @realDonaldTrump’s hands
- ICE arrested undocumented adults who sought to take in immigrant children
- Trump Administration Paid Firm Nearly $14 Million To Recruit Just 2 Border Agents
- Trump: I secured the border. Trump an hour later: I need billions for a wall to secure the border.
- Lincoln’s Bible: Maybe dotard just has a bunch of leftover Gambino concrete he needs to unload, & the border wall is an easy way to get rid of it.
- The Trump administration paid a private company $13.6 million to recruit thousands of Border Patrol agents, and they’ve hired 2 so far
- Tea Pain: GOP on immigration: “I don’t care if they come here to escape violence, the law is the law!” GOP on campaign violations: “Who cares if he broke the law before he was President? Look at the economy!”
- Asha Rangappa: Reminder that people who have lived in this country for years and “have done a good job” as productive members of society are being arrested and deported because — as the president claimed — it is NOT OK to break the law, EVER.
COLD WAR 2.0
- Targets of U.S. Sanctions Hire Lobbyists With Trump Ties to Seek Relief
- Bill Browder: One of the more unpleasant unexpected consequences of the Magnitsky Act is that some of the most odious D.C. lobbyists are getting rich trying to take people off the sanctions list.
- U.S. investigators point to China in Marriott hack affecting 500 million guests
- Russia moves strategic bombers to Venezuela
- Putin’s East German identity card found in Stasi archives – report
- Chinese companies are threatening to punish employees caught using Apple products
- Chinese general says force should be used against U.S. ships in the South China Sea
- Britain’s May is seeking Brexit concessions, but Europe is not playing along
- Trump administration to condemn China over hacking and economic espionage, escalating tensions between superpowers
- U.S. Marines abandon search for five missing aircrew after crash near Japan
- The Magnitsky Law Is Taking Over The European Union
- Super Micro audit complete, including servers supplied to Apple: no spy chips found
- Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth
#NEVERAGAIN
- David Hogg: We will systematically dismantle the NRA with the thing they fear most, facts.
- 2 men killed each other during an attempted gun sale, Anchorage police say
- Shannon Watts: Shouldn’t this have been freedom’s safest place? Both men had guns and wanted to have even more guns. What went wrong, @NRA?
- Why Are The Russia/Butina/NRA/Trump Connections Still Not Getting More Attention?
- Shannon Watts: “Amazingly, with basically no fanfare, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report concluding that the Kremlin used the @NRA as a key instrument in its efforts to meddle in our election by promoting Trump and attacking Clinton.”
- ‘Does Nikolas Cruz Deserve to Die?’ asked a reading quiz given to students 10 minutes from the Parkland shooting
- David Hogg: If the leadership of your organization calls for gun owners to shoot Americans for their political beliefs it is a terrorist organization. @DLoesch
- Pittsburgh councilmen introduce bill to increase funding for gun violence prevention
FIXING THE INTERNET
Google at Congress
- Congress Blew Its Hearing With Google CEO Sundar Pichai
- Ricky Davila: White Supremacist GOPer Steve King is angry that google shows how dreadful he is, so he demanded that the CEO of Google give him the names of Google search engine employees to check if they are democrats. Congressman @tedlieu’s response is everything. 🔥
- Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu tears into Republican colleagues during Google hearing: ‘If you want positive search results do positive things’
- Google CEO responds to Steve King’s iPhone concerns: ‘Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company’
- Google’s CEO explains why a picture of Donald Trump comes up when you image search for ‘idiot’
- Google’s CEO explains why a picture of Donald Trump comes up when you search for ‘idiot’
- Democrats erupt into laughter after Google CEO has to explain to Rep. Steve King that the ‘iPhone is made by a different company’
- Comcast rejected by small town—residents vote for municipal fiber instead
- Report: FBI opens criminal investigation into net neutrality comment fraud – Ars Technica
- Poor people should get slower internet speeds, American ISPs tell FCC
- Jack Dorsey has no excuse
- Lincoln’s Bible: Being a total fraud is a pretty good excuse, actually. Oh, & being owned by some very scary Russian mobsters – who’ve been laundering money through compromised Americans for far longer than has been reported. Right, Yuri?
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE
- Word of the year: misinformation. Here’s why.
- Giuliani’s ‘truth isn’t truth’ named most notable quote of 2018
- Sarah Sanders Says Her Legacy Will Be Honesty and Transparency
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggests Trump promotes gender equality by calling women “stupid” and “losers”
- Two years after #Pizzagate showed the dangers of hateful conspiracies, they’re still rampant on YouTube
- “Donald Trump is destroying truth”: Scholar Jason Stanley on the rhetoric of American fascism
- Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth
- Trump Says Comey ‘Had No Right’ to Be FBI Director Because He’s ‘A Democrat’
Comey is, or at least was until recently, a Republican.
WHITE HOUSE CHAOS
- Trump ‘Super Pissed’ That Ayers Turned Down Job
- Meet Melania Trump’s enforcer. It’s not her husband.
- John Kelly is ‘Furious’ at Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for His Firing: Report
TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY
- Donald Trump Owns This Stock Market: It wasn’t smart to dump a dovish Fed chief, run up the deficit, and start a trade war. Trump did all three.
- Stock Buybacks Are A Parasite On The US Economy – Rantt
- China Moves on U.S. Car Tariff Cut Trump Tweeted About
- The Golden Age of Rich People Not Paying Their Taxes
- The IRS Is Ignoring Rich Tax Dodgers and Going After the Poor
- The new arms race: American businesses vs. China’s government money
STUDENT ISSUES
- Betsy DeVos panel rejects Obama-era effort to reduce discrimination in school discipline
- First charter school teacher strike suspended after union wins concessions in Chicago
GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- Ex-Baylor frat leader accused of rape wins plea deal with no jail time | Courts And Trials | wacotrib.com
- Shannon Watts: White male judge lets white male rapist go free. In the past year, this same judge let two other convicted rapists off with deferred and felony probation.
- Baylor frat president gets no jail in sexual assault case, third such deal by judge
- Accused of rape, former Baylor fraternity president gets no jail time after plea deal
- Judge who approved no jail time for alleged Baylor rapist allowed light sentences in similar cases
- DEA Agent Arrested For Participating In Decade-Long Narcotics Conspiracy And Providing Firearms To Drug Trafficking Organization
- A bungled case let a child killer go free. Police waited 32 years for another chance.
- ‘Appalling’ Video Shows the Police Yanking 1-Year-Old From His Mother’s Arms
PRIESTS & RELIGION
- Atheism Doubles Among Generation Z – Barna Group
- His assistant priest was just jailed on charges of molesting a child. Now he must face the parish.
ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE
- CNN urges people to ignore climate change deniers they regularly feature on TV
- Michigan creates civil service physician job for Flint defendant paying $180K
- Rachel Maddow: “Moving her from an appointed post to a civil service job would make it far more difficult for Democratic Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer to fire her when she takes office next month.” Again, she’s *currently facing* criminal charges for the Flint disaster.
- Baba Yaga: If nothing is done about climate change in the next 5 to 10 years. Then you better stay indoors during the summers, better move out of Tornado Alley, hurricane states and coastal states. It’s no joke what’s going to happened. Before you say anything back, do you really know?
- Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ is a smart plan
- Climate change was behind 15 weather disasters in 2017
- Chuck Schumer: No deal on infrastructure without addressing climate change
- Pelosi offers meeting to Green New Deal activists as 61 protesters are arrested at her office
- That was awkward — at world’s biggest climate conference, U.S. promotes fossil fuels
- The ‘pissing fly’ urinates faster than cheetahs run, teaching scientists about new forms of speed
- The Arctic is in even worse shape than you realize
- The record for high-temperature superconductivity has been smashed again
- The Trump Administration Pitched Coal at a Climate Change Conference
- The Voyager 2 spacecraft has escaped the sun’s bubble
- Trump rolls back clean water protections
- Administration’s permits to harm marine animals during oil and gas exploration face a court fight
- Environmental groups to sue Trump administration over offshore drilling tests
- Five myths about space
- How to reform the federal electric vehicle tax credit
- Interior Dept. officials downplayed federal wildlife experts’ concerns about Trump’s border wall, documents show
CONGRESS
- Pelosi offers meeting to Green New Deal activists as 61 protesters are arrested at her office
- Orrin Hatch’s embarrassingly bad defense of Donald Trump
- Orrin Hatch demanded the President be held accountable for his crimes — 20 years ago | The outgoing President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate doesn’t care about Trump’s alleged crimes because “he’s doing a good job as president.”
- Asked about allegations against Trump, senator says, ‘I don’t care’
- Ming: Ming bet $1 if Trump was black Hatch would care if he broke law.
- McConnell to bring up criminal-justice bill for a Senate vote
ELECTIONS
- Courts likely to strike down Republican lame-duck power grabs, experts say | After Democrats won governor’s races in Wisconsin and Michigan, GOP-controlled legislatures have tried to limit executive power
- Suit challenges eligibility of Kansas House victor charged with election fraud
- Witnesses say McCrae Dowless had possession of hundreds of absentee ballots
- There’s election fraud in North Carolina. That’s not the same thing as voter fraud.
THINKING AHEAD
PROGRESS IS PROGRESS
IN OTHER NEWS…
RUMOR MILL
- Two Years After Game Theory: The Deluge and the Future – Eric Garland
- Chris Vickery: A Russian named Yaroslav Leontenko had live access to the RNC/GOP “Data Trust” voter database through his work at AggregateIQ. No sense in spoon feeding it anymore. Russia had access to the GOP Data Trust database. Hard pill to swallow, but true.
- Countercheckist: I believe in the idea that is the Republic. No one said lifting humanity out of darkness would be easy, quick, or cheap. But it’s the duty we’ve been blessed with by being citizens of this great experiment. Standing up to tyrants is in our DNA.
- Tea Pain: If you’re wonderin’ why Republicans are stickin’ with Trump even though he’s implicated in multiple felonies, look no further than Maria Butina. Russia owns the GOP due to all that dirty #NRA money.
- Countercheckist: NRA = National Racketeering Association
- Lennox: Deleted Hannity Tweets
Sean Hannity’s time in the barrel must be close at hand bcuz he’s spent some considerable time this morning deleting tweets. Orly Sean?
H/t and all photos credit to
@sshotbot1/
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And finally this one, from back in April and on the subject of NoKo? Maybe this wasn’t going to age so well, eh Sean?
/end
Looks like someone’s a bit nervous. Good.
That’s it for Tuesday. I was busy most of the night, so the editorializing is a little on the light side. Sometimes life happens.
Cohen’s sentencing and Maria’s plea deal are scheduled for Wednesday. Let’s see how this goes down.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 
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