Tuesday, January 22, 2019
THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION
NRA
- Mueller asked Trump campaign about ties to NRA: CNN
- Robert Mueller looks at Trump’s NRA ties
- Andrew Laufer, ESQ: Lol. Welcome to the party. @LouiseMensch reported on this nearly 2 years ago. https://patribotics.blog/2017/06/25/exclusive-sheriff-clarke-attacked-black-lives-matter-on-putins-orders/amp/?__twitter_impression=true … and this 8 months ago.
- Tea Pain: BOOM! (Literally) This is a big piece of the quid pro quo and Mueller is all up in it!
- Mueller wants to know about 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to NRA
This is coming from CNN and it cites Sam Nunberg as the source, but it lines up with what we’ve been reporting since at least November 2017 (Daily Check-In 11/20/2017). Special Counselor Robert Mueller’s investigative scope includes the Trump Campaign’s ties to the National Rifle Association and their role as a middleman for Russian influence and money.
Let’s cover this with a brief history lesson. Back in the fall of 2012, the U.S. was in an election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. While this was going on, the Senate was debating the Magnitsky Act. Putin really didn’t want this to go forward, so he would need to find a way to kill this if it became law. The Russians realized that both parties could be influenced through their donor networks, but the Republicans were more susceptible than the Democrats. Plus, Putin didn’t like Obama or anyone he surrounded himself with. Russia sends Alexander Torshin to become best friends with the head of the NRA, and even gets invited to watch the election with the NRA leadership. Over the next few years, Torshin and his protege Maria Butina wiggle their way into the NRA, and find out how to get direct influence over the Republican Party.
Money. Lots and lots of money.
The NRA helps the Kremlin launder a lot of Russian money into the Republican Party by the use of it’s lobbying groups, PAC’s, and Super-PAC’s. Especially the ones that aren’t required to disclose who donated to them. The Russians gave money to stand-ins in the United States like Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born American citizen, and those stand-ins take the money from Russia and donate it to the NRA. The NRA then doles out that money, along with other funds they’ve accumulated to hide the source, out to Trump and other major GOP candidates in 2016. This is done in coordination with the GOP leadership, like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
What’s interesting about this isn’t that Mueller is looking into the NRA, but we have confirmation that they’ve known for a while. Sam Nunberg interviewed with the grand jury back on Daily Check-In 03/09/2018. That’s almost a year ago. Since then, Maria Butina was arrested for being a Russian spy and a whole lot of other insidious connections between the Russians and the GOP have come to light. (2018 Retrospective) If they knew this 9 months ago, they’ve only learned more information since.
Personally, I look forward to the destruction of the NRA, at least in its current form.
Nine days after Donald Trump won the presidency, as scores of supporters clamored for meetings with his transition team, the Hollywood producer of “The Apprentice,” Mark Burnett, reached out to one of Trump’s closest advisers to see if he would sit down with a banker who has long held ties to Russia.
The banker, Robert Foresman, never got the role he was seeking with the fledgling Trump administration. But he has recently attracted the attention of congressional investigators as one more name on an expanding list of Americans with established ties inside the Kremlin who appears to have been seeking access to the newly elected president’s inner circle, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Foresman, who is now vice chairman of the Swiss bank UBS’s investment arm, lived for years in Moscow, where he led a $3 billion Russian investment fund and was touted by his new company as someone who maintains connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Reached by phone, Foresman declined to comment. Attorneys he has hired, including one in Washington who was hired to deal with the congressional probe, also declined to discuss the matter.
Remember the name Robert Foresman. I’ve got a feeling we’ll hear more about him in the future. As well as Mark Burnett’s shenanigans.
What’s the BuzzFeed?
- Trump’s Lawyer Said There Were “No Plans” For Trump Tower Moscow. Here They Are.
- Angry White House Staffer: BuzzFeed said fuck it and started dropping receipts.
On Monday, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said “the proposal was in the earliest stage,” and he went on to tell the New Yorker that “no plans were ever made. There were no drafts. Nothing in the file.”
However, hundreds of pages of business documents, emails, text messages, and architectural plans, obtained by BuzzFeed News over a year of reporting, tell a very different story. Trump Tower Moscow was a richly imagined vision of upscale splendor on the banks of the Moscow River.
I’m waiting for Colludy to say “We drew plans, but nothing else was done,” only for that statement to be followed with a BuzzFeed report that they obtained construction permits, financing, and started selling condos.
These aren’t just a few sketches done by the art department, these are full-on plans. An architectural firm was hired, locations scouted, financing settled. This wasn’t a spur of the moment event, this took time.
Colludy Giuliani’s Lubing The Truth Tour
- ‘Wait, What Tapes…?’—Rudy Giuliani Reveals He’s Heard Taped Evidence in Trump-Russia Investigation
- “Trump Is Screaming. He’s So Mad at Rudy”: Giuliani’s Fate Is Uncertain After Botched Interviews
- Benjamin Wittes: Process point: When a person consistently gives you information with zero relation to the truth, that person is not a useful source. Implication for L’Affaire Russe journalism: Stop interviewing Rudy Giuliani and stop treating what he says as probative of anything. And yes, to be perfectly clear, what I am saying here is that I don’t even take Rudy’s admissions against interest seriously.
- Trump pursued a deal in Russia and hid it from voters
- Giuliani Afraid His Gravestone Will Say: ‘He lied for Trump’
- Giuliani says ‘tapes’ prove Trump’s innocence, then says there are no tapes
- Rudy Giuliani Said There Were “No Plans” For Trump Tower Moscow. Here They Are.
- Supreme Court releases censored appeal by foreign government in mystery Mueller case
- Russian oligarch’s deal for sanctions relief is sweeter than publicly portrayed, document suggests
- American accused by Russia of spying was handed ‘state secret’ on a flash drive, his lawyer says
- Scott Stedman: .@mflynnJR has now scrubbed his entire account after a Twitter silence of almost one month.
- Scott Stedman: Roger Stone says on Instagram that Jerome Corsi has told Mueller the following:
Roger Stone says on Instagram that Jerome Corsi has told Mueller the following:
-Corsi told Stone that John Podesta’s emails were stolen -Stone knew about the Access Hollywood tape in advance and told Corsi to “do something about it”
-The memo that Corsi wrote about the Podesta’s business dealings in Russia was a cover up. -Corsi’s InfoWars job was a hush money agreement.
Of course this comes from Roger Stone so take it with a huge grain of salt – but he clearly believes that Corsi has flipped on him and is cooperating with Mueller.
This follows Stone going after
@Credico2016 and others who have cooperated with Mueller.
Take everything Roger says with a grain of salt. The only reason it’s here and not in the Rumor Mill is that it’s being reported by Scott Stedman, who has broken a few major stories of his own. Plus, I think there’s something to this, that Stone is using this as a signal to others on Team Trump. If you can’t whisper a secret without being caught, scream it out so loud others ignore it.
COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS
- Donald Trump, Jr.: Moscow deal was Cohen’s, no one took it seriously
- Embattled Trump Inaugural Committee Failed To Disclose Key Finances To IRS
SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION
- Anonymous FBI agents air shutdown grievances in association’s report
- FBI agents: sources may disappear, sex trafficking victims left without help because of govt shutdown
- David Hogg: Wonder why Trump would want to disable the FBI. 🤔
- Maddow Blog: In one genius move, you can break the family finances of basically every single federal law enforcement and national security agent in the country. And think of all you could accomplish with just that one move.
- ‘Unacceptable’: Coast Guard’s top officer criticizes lack of payment in government shutdown
- Democrats are clearly right. End the shutdown, then talk
- ‘No cave!’: Trump, Pelosi vow not to yield in government shutdown standoff
- Mitch McConnell Can’t Escape Blame For Shutdown As Constituents Grow Angry
- Angry White House Staffer: McConnell just objected to his 10th? funding bill…. after blaming the Dems for throwing federal employees under the bus.
- Rick Wilson: I’m curious what Trump fans think is going happen when the shutdown ends without a wall..
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Government shutdown is Trump’s fault
- Sen. Warner introduced bill to end future government shutdowns
- Sen. Warner introduced bill to end future government shutdowns: Senator Warner’s Stop STUPIDITY Shutdowns Transferring Unnecessary Pain and Inflicting Damage In The Coming Years Act would fund the government except for the legislative branch and the Executive Office of the President
- Senate Leaders Reach Deal that Could Reopen Government by Week’s End
- Alyssa Milano: Right now, while you’re reading this, there are thousands of children in immigration detention centers. 💔
- The government shutdown is going to do major damage to the GOP
- Angry White House Staffer: Stop suggesting feds just get another job: I have a good friend who got a part-time job to help support his family while he’s furloughed. He worked *one* day and got recalled by his agency… to work for free. If he didn’t respond to the recall, he would have been fired. Instead of blaming the workers, how about we point fingers at the people who have completely bumblefucked this process. Thanks.
- Trump keeps trying to win the shutdown fight by pretending he’s a typical president
- How the Shutdown Is Hitting Business
- In the Midwest, some Trump voters are turned off by the shutdown
- Poll shows 25 percent view McConnell favorably, lowest among leaders in survey
- Trump’s phony ‘compromise’ has now been unmasked as a total sham
- U.S. Courts Say They Can’t Stay Open Past Feb. 1 If Shutdown Continues
- For 7th Consecutive Year, Visa Overstays Exceeded Illegal Border Crossings
- Nancy Pelosi won’t allow White House officials access to the House floor for State of the Union ‘walkthrough’
- DACA program that protects young undocumented immigrants not likely to get Supreme Court review this term
- Jonathan Weisman: The Supreme Court once again devalued Trump’s offer on his DACA-for-wall deal by not taking up the DACA review. That means the lower court’s decision to keep DACA in place extends without Trump’s deal. Court’s inaction almost certainly means it will not hear challenge in current term, which ends in June. The next conference to consider petitions seeking review is Feb. 15. Even were they to agree to hear the case, it would not be argued until after next term starts in October.
TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A. INDIVIDUAL-1
- Trump reportedly walked out of a policy meeting to watch TV
- Trump Stared At Walls, Wandered Out Of Room While Ryan Explained Health Care
- Trump: I’ve told Sarah Sanders “not to bother” with press briefings
- ‘Poor King Snowflake’: Trump Admits Ordering Huckabee Sanders to Halt WH Briefings Because Reporters Behave ‘Rudely’
- “Low energy”: Trump works less than most Americans
- Is Donald Trump Doctoring Photos To Make His Tiny Little Fingers Look Longer?
- Support for Donald Trump’s Impeachment is Higher Than His Approval Rating, New Poll Shows
TRAITOR TOTS
FIGHTING BACK
- John Brennan: Pithy, pointed, & perfect advice to Mr. Trump: “Resign.”
- John Kerry on his message to Trump: ‘Resign’
- John Kerry told an audience at Davos that President Donald Trump should resign
- America’s word used to mean something. Then Trump became president.
- Dem senator: ‘Putin had something on’ Trump which may account for ‘plainly false’ statement on Trump Tower meeting
- Donald Trump Is ‘the Crisis in Our Country,’ Impeachment Campaign Leader Says as 7 Million Sign to Remove President
- Joe Walsh: Imagine Obama, running for President, publicly praising the head of Iran daily and simultaneously trying to cut a business deal with Iran on the side that would’ve made him hundreds of millions. And repeatedly lying to the American people about it. How would conservatives feel?
- Trump’s lies on his business dealings in Russia were a profound betrayal of voters
RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM
- Who knew? Trump’s top White House attorney is Covington Catholic High School graduate
- The Alt-Right is Recruiting Depressed People
- Bishop Talbert Swan: Black boys who, walk to the store, play in a park, stand in the backyard, walk down the street.. … get murdered by cops White boys who, harass women, scream “it’s not rape if you enjoy it,“ mock & harass Native Americans.. …get invited to the WH
- President Trump wants to meet with Covington Catholic boys at the White House: report
- Caroline Orr: Given that the Covington Catholic High School students think they’re mature enough to understand pregnancy, abortion, childbirth, and parenting — and to tell women what we should do with our bodies — it’d be great if the media would stop coddling them like they’re little boys.
- Andrew Wortman: Newest video to surface of the Covington kids shows one of them yelling to a group of girls “IT’S NOT RAPE IF YOU ENJOY IT!” Fuck anyone who is still defending them. Catholic Schools in the south like Covington are incubators for vile racism and misogyny. THREAD
- ‘The Red MAGA Hat Is the New White Hood’ Says Alyssa Milano in Twitter Storm
- Jim Carrey: Baby snakes.
- Stance Grounded: The Covington Catholic MAGA hat teenagers harrassed WOMEN before they disrespected and mocked an indigenous man Nathan Phillips. Y’all can troll me all you want because like this sister “I’m so tired already” THESE BOYS AREN’T VICTIMS. THEY ARE HARASSERS. THEY ARE ABUSERS.
- Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries Calls Trump ‘Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’
- The MAGA Teens Aren’t Innocent Victims
- John Schindler: I’m only interested in the #CovingtonCatholic incident for what it tells us, in 2019, about how easy it is for false/incomplete narratives to go viral, with ample pushing by blue-checks, which are exploited by bad actors. If you can’t see the political relevance of this, wake up.
Here’s my really hot take on these kids:
They’re assholes. Racist, misogynistic, privileged assholes. And most of them will almost certainly grow up to be bigger assholes. A few of them might not become bigger assholes when they’re older, and for them, I have hope.
SCOTUS & COURTS
- Supreme Court allows Trump restrictions on transgender troops in military to go into effect as legal battle continues
- The Supreme Court Just Ended My Military Career
- Supreme Court lets mystery foreign company file sealed appeal papers in possible Mueller case
- Supreme Court reinstates Trump’s ban on trans servicemembers in the military
- Supreme Court takes no action on Trump’s request to take up DACA for now, an issue at center of shutdown negotiations
- Supreme Court will review gun restrictions for first time in nearly a decade
- U.S. Courts Say They Can’t Stay Open Past Feb. 1 If Shutdown Continues
- Court Rules ‘Ag-Gag’ Law Criminalizing Undercover Reporting Violates the First Amendment
#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
- Chris Brown arrested in Paris after rape allegation
- Chris Brown Detained In Paris After Rape Accusation | The U.S. singer and two other people are in custody, French police say.
- Senator Jon Tester: Today, I’m celebrating the 46th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade because I believe that gender equality depends on a woman’s right to choose and politicians have no place in our doctors’ offices. #7in10ForRoe #mtpol
COLD WAR 2.0
- PACE – Resolution 2252 (2019) – Sergei Magnitsky and beyond – fighting impunity by targeted sanctions
- 911corlebra777: As we’ve said all along, Putin will rue the day he attacked the West. Reap the whirlwind
- Bill Browder: Global Magnitsky Act
BREAKING: Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approves Magnitsky Report 95-3 calling on all Council of Europe member states to pass Global Magnitsky Acts in their countries to sanction human rights abusers
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe report also calls on the EU to keep Sergei Magnitsky’s name on their EU Magnitsky Act initiative, and not appease Russia by deleting it as currently proposed by the Dutch government
The PACE report also chastises Russia for their persistent abuse of the Interpol Red Notice system targetting me and my campaign for justice for Sergei Magnitsky
- Theresa May’s Brexit Plan B leaves Parliament underwhelmed
- A car bomb has stirred fears that Brexit will blow up peace in Northern Ireland. That isn’t likely.
- Top diplomat for European affairs resigns from State Department
- ‘You have no choice but to become one of them’: Scientist says he helped Islamic State make chemical weapons
#NEVERAGAIN
- Mueller wants to know about 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to NRA
- Shannon Watts: Apparently Dana Loesch doesn’t realize America’s schools are on lockdown or closed on a regular basis due to shooting threats and actual gunfire. Good job @NRA gun saleswoman.
- Supreme Court will review gun restrictions for first time in nearly a decade
FIXING THE INTERNET
- The Technology 202: Google fine signals Europe is prepared to take on Silicon Valley
- The Cybersecurity 202: What do Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have in common? Cybersecurity chops
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE
- ‘Poor King Snowflake’: Trump Admits Ordering Huckabee Sanders to Halt WH Briefings Because Reporters Behave ‘Rudely’
- Teresa Lo: Imagine how shitty Tomi Lahren’s childhood was that she dreamed of one day becoming Ann Coulter.
WHITE HOUSE CHAOS
TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY
- Shutdown in U.S., slowing growth in China fuel concerns over global economy
- A ‘justice’ system that frees the monied and locks up the poor isn’t worthy of the name
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A system that allows billionaires to exist alongside extreme poverty is immoral
- Ocasio-Cortez: Economic system that allows billionaires is ‘immoral’
- The super rich at Davos are scared of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to hike taxes on the wealthy
- Dyson to move company HQ to Singapore
- The Health 202: Health-care industry preps offense against Medicare-for-All
STUDENT ISSUES
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE
- California’s energy challenge: How — and whether — to save a utility that could face monumental fire liabilities
- Study: Puerto Rico received slower, less ‘generous’ disaster aid than Texas, Florida
- Record Numbers of Americans Say They Care About Global Warming, Poll Finds
CONGRESS
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins seat on powerful House Oversight committee
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins seat on powerful House panel set to investigate Trump administration
- House Judiciary Democrat: Kavanaugh Will ‘Likely’ Be Investigated for Perjury
- Ocasio-Cortez: I give ‘zero’ f—s about pushback from other Democrats
ELECTIONS
- What would actually put more working-class people in office?
- Nine Years After Citizens United, Calls to Overturn ‘Horrendous’ Decision and Pass Pro-Democracy HR1 – “Until Citizens United is overturned, the corporate oligarchy will maintain the power to block the policies favored by the majority of Americans.”
- Election board fires director after 6,200 ballots weren’t counted
THINKING AHEAD
- Biden’s pluses and minuses on display
- Bill O’Reilly Says Kamala Harris Lost His Vote, And Twitter Users Are Laughing
- Edward Hardy: Jimmy Carter has urged Senator Cory Booker to run for President: “I’m very glad to have you here this morning and I hope you come back and I hope you run for President”
- Kamala Harris Promises 2020 Campaign for President ‘Will Not Take a Dime From Corporate PACs’
- Kamala Harris raises $1.5 million in first 24 hours
- Reddit: Remember that time Jacob Wohl tried to frame Robert Mueller for rape? Well now he’s trying to start a birther conspiracy theory about Kamala Harris being born in Jamaica.
- The Cybersecurity 202: What do Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have in common? Cybersecurity chops
RUMOR MILL
- Ming: “I think Lindsey tried to suck Bretts dick too” -Anonymous Kavanagh aide
- Ming: “Might I interest you in some purloined RNC e-mails, sissy?” -Ming Gao
- Tea Pain: Jesus taught his followers “My kingdom is not of this world”, so if churches want to get involved in earthly politics, they can pay taxes like the rest of us.
- Ming: “They are coming for us. Start deleting Mike.” -B. Parscale
- Ming: Ming encourage trumps replacement to declare all Russian nationals PNG and expel due to Russian acts of war against America. This include all Russian UN mission with added benfit of removing RUS veto on UNSC
- John Schindler: Spies from Russia (or anywhere else) don’t need to create polarizing incidents. America is now an ideological tinderbox. Kremlin needs only to exploit the online mania which we, ourselves, are creating. It’s not a plot. It’s our incredibly dysfunctional politics — and society.
- Thread by @gregolear: “Too many Buzzfeed distractions & Covington diversions. This is the sort of chaos Putin loves. To refocus, let’s talk about the Trump/Rus […]” #DirtyRubles
- Scott Stedman: .@mflynnJR has now scrubbed his entire account after a Twitter silence of almost one month.
That’s it for Tuesday. Expect the trickle of Trump-Russia news to continue from BuzzFeed over the next few days. I have nothing to base this on, it’s just a hunch. They got called out for being inaccurate, and will counter that by providing every receipt they have.
Also, I’m trying to track the Ming-Lindsey Graham stuff. I have no clue who or what Ming is, but it has made it its mission over the next month to blow him out of the water. I’ve talked about the rumors surrounding the Senator before, but if something arises from this, I’ll report on it here.
Quick spoiler for Wednesday: Everyone hates Trump. New polling numbers are out, and even the generous ones show his popularity slipping. It’s still in the 30’s, but sliding further each day. If his support drops below 30%, expect the GOP Establishment to abandon him like they do a new black mother who they kept from getting an abortion.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 
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