Author: noneofthisisnormal

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

Daily Check-In 08/02/2018

Thursday, August 2nd

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial: Day 3

The third day of the Manafort trial started with more vendors talking about Paul Manafort’s lavish expenses and unusual methods of payment.  They all also included each of them being shown a fake invoice from their company.  What that’s establishing yet is unknown, but it’s building to something.  My guess is that it will establish a pattern of falsified business statements to cover the source of payments and to make it look like Manafort’s money comes from somewhere other than offshore.  Or, it could be part of his money laundering attempts.  If he used the fake invoices to justify moving money from one account to another, that could show that he deliberately falsified business records to pay less money on taxes.

After a while, his bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn took the stand for two hours and discussed how she worked for Paul, how he was in charge of how every penny was spent, and how Rick Gates worked with him, but Paul ultimately made the decisions.  She also testified that she had no knowledge of the offshore bank accounts that Paul used for purchases.

The day ended with Philip Ayliff, Manafort’s tax accountant , taking the stand.  He discussed the details of their working relationship in which Gates was his right hand man, but didn’t hide anything from him as Paul made the decisions.  He’ll take the stand Friday morning and go over the tax forms.

 

A former aide to longtime President Trump confidant Roger Stone must testify before the special counsel’s grand jury, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday.

The judge rejected a challenge from Andrew Miller, a former assistant to Stone who tried to block subpoenas from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The redacted opinion from U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell affirming the legal legitimacy of the special counsel’s appointment does not identify Miller by name, but his attorney confirmed that the ruling is in response to Miller’s request.

Howell’s ruling orders Miller to “appear before the grand jury to provide testimony at the earliest date available” and to provide subpoenaed records.

“We’re disappointed with the court’s ruling,” Miller’s attorney, Paul Kamenar, said in an interview. “But the judge obviously took our challenge to Mueller’s constitutionality seriously, as evidenced by the 93-page opinion.”

 

COHEN

I’m noticing a pattern with Michael Cohen in the news.  Something happens for a few days, then he disappears for a day or two.  After he disappears, he comes back with a vengeance, like a neglectful parent trying to make up for missing his little girl’s soccer game by taking her on a shopping trip to the Disney Store, or to the stables to rent a pony.

Today’s attempt at making up for not being in the news yesterday is him accepting a bribe to help get a $5 billion loan secured to build a nuclear plant in Alabama.

I should be pissed about the audacity of this move, but I’m honestly impressed.  $10 million as a finders fee for a $5 billion loan is a pretty small return on investment.  That’s like paying $1,000 to get a $500,000 mortgage.  People would kill for that kind of closing costs.

They’re all criminal shits, but I’ve got to give credit where credit is due.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

I’d like to say I’m surprised by Trump bitching about the “hoax” of Russian interference just a couple hours after his OWN FUCKING STAFF SAID IT’S HAPPENING, but I can’t.  Now, it’s almost like a game.  How many hours after his staff does something until he counters it?  Remember how he said he agreed with the Intelligence Community’s assessment on Russia only to say he didn’t less than 24 hours later? (Daily Check-In 07/17/2018Daily Check-In 07/18/2018)

 

This is the battle I’ve been waiting for.  Who will the rank and file Republicans back?  Will they side with the donors that bankroll their entire campaign, or with the demagogue who’s voting base could make or break their chances at reelection?

 

One advantage of Trump being as big of a narcissist as he is: he’s too self-absorbed to realize that he can’t out think the best lawyers in the world.  He also thinks he’s smarter than everyone telling him it’s a bad idea, and is driven completely by ego.

Tell him that Obama didn’t have the guts to sit down with Mueller.  Trump will schedule the interview right after Fox & Friends.

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Two words.  Merrick Fucking Garland.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Harvey Weinstein‘s lawyer plans to ask a New York judge to toss the sprawling sex assault case against him on the grounds an accuser supposedly sent the disgraced movie mogul “exculpatory” emails, new court filings reveal.

The revelation came Wednesday in Delaware bankruptcy court filings involving Weinstein’s former movie company.

The lawyers representing Weinstein in the bankruptcy matter are asking a judge to let his criminal defense team file emails revealed in the company’s Chapter 11 case as exhibits in defense motions that are due Friday.

The emails are now under wraps because of a protective order.

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

WOOPSIE

 

RUMOR MILL

  1. After having been in and around U.S. politics now for 25+ years and attended 100s of rallies, what we are seeing now is faked. Fake outrage against media. Faked attendance # + always the same level of anger towards media no matter what city. #Followthemoneyto craigslist ads.

    Search “crowd fillers needed’ on Craigslist and google. Tie those ad dates to a week or so ahead of rallies… bang. There it is. Probably in plain sight. Djt rallies being propped up by paid actors being told to scream at media. Not all actors and actresses are beautiful ppl.

    some examples already: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2017/08/20/questionable-craigslist-ad-offers-pay-actors-donald-trump-supporters-phoenix-rally/584350001/ …+ https://1075theriver.iheart.com/featured/producer-zac/content/2018-05-30-president-trumps-nashville-rally-allegedly-hired-seat-fillers-for-100/ …+http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ad-actors-trump-rally-briefly-emerges-craigslist-article-1.3436041 …+this explainer: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/crowd-hiring-politics-campaign-2016/399002/ …+ more explainer: https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/how-much-does-trump-pay-people-to-cheer-at-his-rallies.html/ …+ this points our journos sort of know:

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/1025043824974819328?cardname=summary_large_image&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=344&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22home%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22permalink_overlay%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default522&xdm_p=1

    I would add, listings for such things would be spread out through multiple terms, and places, like gigs, crowd, rally, extras needed, actors + actresses needed etc… it won’t be obvious like “Donald Trump wants to pay you to support him at a Rally.” Will be more surreptitious

     

    Lastly on this. I am speaking as former advance aide to a President + Vice President. I personally organized dozens of rallies. We controlled image, crowd, backdrops, cutaway shots. We controlled as much as we could. Paying for crowd fillers known campaign trick, on steroids now.

    PS – There are also organized companies that do this, may not use craigslist but own mailing lists. For example: https://crowdsondemand.com/ + http://www.crowdsforrent.com/services.html obvious for some investigative reporter to start asking how much these cos get from Trump/Affiliated money groups?

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/1025051498076463105?cardname=summary&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=130&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22home%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22permalink_overlay%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default523&xdm_p=1

     

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has ever done media work or been around a campaign.  Everything is planned from the tiniest detail.  All of the crowd fillers, the signs, the banners, the questions, the people asking the questions, and the cute little photo ops are all screened and planned ahead of time.

This is a great thing to remember when we look back and see that Maria Butina asked Donald Trump a question about Russian sanctions at a campaign rally in July 2015. (Daily Check-In 03/09/2018)

 

That’s it for Thursday.  The trial continues on Friday, as the accountant will likely talk about how he didn’t know about Manafort’s offshore accounts.  Also, it looks like Maria Butina would brag about being a spy when drunk.

This is how I know this is real life.  If someone were making a movie about this and said that one of the villains would get shitfaced at a party and brag about their illegal deeds, it would get thrown out for being too ridiculous.

Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/01/2018

Wednesday, August 1st

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

The trial continued with the prosecution talking about Manafort’s lavish lifestyle and outrageous expenses, and how he paid for those goods using wire transfers from multiple offshore accounts from various shell companies.  Among those purchases included nearly a million dollars in suits from Alan Couture, even more suits from House of Bijan, real estate purchases for him and his family, multiple renovations, and luxury cars.  All of those were paid by wire transfers from offshore accounts, and in each instance the recipients described it as either unique or unusual for their businesses to accept that form of payment.

One interesting development is that the prosecution said they may or may not have Rick Gates testify, depending on how their case is going.

Check out Kara’s tweet if you want to see a crime against fashion.  That jacket officially belongs in the “Why the fuck would anyone buy that?” category.

 

Butina and Russian Spies

The Senate approved the release of the transcripts to the DOJ and the FBI, not for the public.  We’ll have to get those the old fashioned way, through some leaks.

 

Lobbyists

Like I’ve stated the last couple days, Daily Check-In 07/31/2018, Daily Check-In 07/30/2018, these cases are getting farmed out to other offices around the country for two main reasons.

First, this spreads out the work across the department in case there’s a move against Mueller.

Second, it frees up Mueller’s team to focus on other things.  What other things?

 

Interview with an Idiot

Here we go again.  We were here a few months ago (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018, Daily Check-In 04/10/2018) and we’re back again.  This has dragged out long enough, but here’s where I think this is going…

Mueller wants to interview Trump for two main reasons.  He wants his “side of the story”, and wants to remove the argument that when the Obstruction Report comes out, since Trump didn’t interview Mueller it shouldn’t count and doesn’t represent a full picture.

It’s time to end that argument right here and now.

Mueller has more than enough information at this point to nail Trump’s fat ass to the wall for Obstruction of Justice, Witness Tampering, and at least a dozen other Federal statutes just related to the cover-up of his crimes.

Trump’s lawyers are afraid that he’ll outright lie during the interview.  Hell, Trump can’t even keep his story straight in a single tweet.  How’s he going to last against Robert Mueller’s team for a couple hours?  Trump is a walking perjury trap, and somehow they’re using that as their defense against meeting Mueller.

Think about that for a second.  Then, after your brain stops hurting at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole affair, give it another thought.

Trump’s legal team is trying to keep the President of the United States from interviewing with prosecutors and investigators working on a case of whether or not he interfered or attempted to interfere in another ongoing investigation, in which he is the subject of said cover-up investigation, because they know that he can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and they know that if he told the truth, he’d implicate himself.

Trump has pushed this interview off for months, claiming that he was too busy to meet with Mueller, that his lawyers said no, that the timing only worked when Mueller wasn’t available, or that something came up, or his time’s too valuable but he’d love to meet with him, or some other lame excuse.  Meanwhile, since news of this attempted interview has broken out, Trump has cried from the rooftops about ending this investigation, including today.  (It’s the lead of the next section.)

Based off of what I’ve seen, heard, and surmised, the Obstruction Report is about 99% ready.  The only parts missing are Trump’s words.  And it’s nigh infinitesimal that whatever Trump says would change the view that he has tried to obstruct.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Friends don’t let friends tweet and obstruct

What did I just fucking say?

 

This one’s rich.  Trump, who has known Paul Manafort since the early 80’s, blames the FBI for not telling him that Paul Manafort was under investigation when he hired him out of the blue to lead his campaign.

I’ve been involved in hiring decisions before, so I know what’s it like to hire someone who is completely inexperienced in the field that I’m pursuing, but has vast criminal connections around the world with various mobsters, oligarchs, and generally terrible people, then get surprised when that person I hired turned out to be the target of several criminal and counterintelligence investigations, including possible espionage and treason cases.

Oh, sorry.  I meant “I don’t know” because I’m not a fucking mobbed-up narcissistic criminal who views law enforcement as my mortal enemy.  Whenever I’ve had to hire someone, I check their references and make sure they’re not mobbed-up.

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

QAnon

The Russia investigation is a sham. It’s actually a cover story for special counsel Robert Mueller and Donald Trump working together to expose thousands of pedophiles hidden in plain sight — including Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama), who will soon be under arrest. (Or perhaps already have been and are on their way to Guantanamo Bay.)

The GOP lost the Alabama special election for Jeff Sessions’s Senate seat on purpose — a plan devised years ago to reveal the use of fraudulent voting machines and, ultimately, take down none other than George Soros. Or the Rothschilds. Or the Illuminati.

And there’s no White House chaos at all; in fact, despite legal scandals and special counsel investigations and bile-laden tweets, everything, absolutely everything, is going just as Donald Trump intended it.

Welcome to QAnon, sometimes referred to as “the Storm.” It’s a conspiracy theory that’s swept social media and is starting to break into the mainstream, with Trump rally attendees in Florida on July 31 holding signs and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “We are Q” and the conspiracy theory’s main catchphrase, “Where we go one, we go all.”

Roseanne Barr, formerly the star of the No. 1 show on network television, is just one of Q’s biggest supporters. And the conspiracy theory is being pushed by some of the far right’s biggest voices, including Alex Jones and Sean Hannity. Still others are winking and nodding at it, retweeting #QAnon references while pretending to be none the wiser.

And it has one overarching — and, if you’re a Trump supporter, hopeful — message: Donald Trump is in complete control. Of everything.

Conspiracy theories create order out of chaos, attempting to make sense of events that don’t make sense. And researchers have found that fact-based arguments against them only serve to reinforce them in the minds of believers. That’s what makes QAnon or Sandy Hook trutherism or any other conspiracy theory so difficult to combat: Because conspiracy theories aren’t based on facts, conspiracy theorists aren’t receptive to them either.

So if the first year and a half of the Trump administration has been enmeshed in confusion and chaos, QAnon is the conspiratorial response: Everything is fine. As a popular saying among Q adherents proclaims, believers must only “trust the plan.”

I really, really hate conspiracy theorists.  And yes, I know the irony of me, the author of a site tracking conspiracies as they occur, talking about how much they hate conspiracies.  The worse the conspiracy, the worse the mental gymnastics needed to make it work, and the harder it is to “disprove.”

QAnon is up there with Moon Landing Hoaxers and 9/11 Truthers.  Possibly worse.

I’ve dealt with conspiracy theorists my whole life.  Hell, I used to be one, until I studied logic and critical thinking.  Instead of following the cute, crazy “theories”, I learned how to analyze evidence and followed the evidence to its conclusion, not force the evidence to meet a predetermined conclusion.

Nothing pisses me off quite like a person digging through piles of evidence and information looking for that one tiny piece that supports their claims while simultaneously discarding the mountain they dug through to get it.  I also despise the goal-post moving that occurs when part of their argument is defeated.

For example, let’s use the 9/11 Truther’s classic statement of “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.”  This is based off of the fact that the ignition temperature of jet fuel is less than the melting point of steel.  This also ignores that steel doesn’t have to melt to be weakened enough to bend, which anyone who has ever used a welding torch can attest to.  Jet fuel burns more than hot enough to weaken steel.  When the truther is encountered with this evidence, they’ll curtly discard it or talk about controlled explosions or time travelling ninjas, or whatever it takes to make their theory work.  The worst is the “that’s what they want you to think.”

Fuck them.  As soon as someone pulls that bullshit response, I hit them with Hitchen’s Razor.  That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

And let’s be clear about something, QAnon isn’t some vast group full of millions of people, or representing the entire Republican Party…well, not yet on the second part.  There isn’t much of a Republican Party left at this point.

Personally, I’ve learned to question the validity of any post made by an anonymous comment made on social media by anyone who claims to be a member of the government.  And yes, I know I post things from Twitter and Reddit in the Rumor Mill.  At least most of those sources either have a good batting average or qualified it somehow.  Plus, it’s “Rumor Mill,” not “Absolute Fact Mill.”

 

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

As soon as I first heard about the forced separation, it was just a matter of time until this headline came out.  A child died because of this.  This is a completely preventable death.  This whole thing is crazy.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

“THE” OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY ABUSE SCANDALS

 

ELECTION 2018

 

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

Honestly, I could use a laugh.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Let’s see how Thursday goes.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 07/31/2018

Tuesday, July 31st.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Paul Manafort’s Trial

Paul Manafort’s trial began on Tuesday.  The jury was selected and seated before 2:45 PM, opening statements were made, and the first witness was called.

For the prosecution we have Uzo Asonye, (The Justice League), who spent 26 minutes telling the jury about Manafort’s crimes, his lies, and how he thought the law didn’t apply to him, that he gave false information to his bookkeeper, that he lied about how much he made, and used the money he didn’t pay in taxes to buy luxuries like a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich.  On the defense, Thomas Zehnle said it was all Rick Gates’s fault, that Gates was the one who committed the crimes.

I’m not a lawyer, but it’s a pretty shitty defense.  Their entire playbook is trying to establish that Rick Gates was the mastermind of all of the criminality, not Paul Manafort.  They contend that the underling and junior partner, not the boss, that made the decisions on how to launder money and lie on taxes.  The moment that the prosecution shows that Manafort started an email chain, gave an order, or engaged with someone without Rick Gates’s knowledge, he’s fucked.  He’s not just fucked, he’s Manafucked.

Remember the list of witnesses from Daily Check-In 07/27/2018?  Or how about his accountants who were offered immunity from Daily Check-In 07/23/2018?  All one of those accountants has to do is say, under oath, that Manafort told them to report his income as X instead of Y, or that he didn’t have any offshore bank accounts, and it’s game over on those charges.

 

Previously undisclosed evidence in the possession of Special Counsel Robert Mueller—including highly confidential White House records and testimony by some of President Trump’s own top aides—provides some of the strongest evidence to date implicating the president of the United States in an obstruction of justice. Several people who have reviewed a portion of this evidence say that, based on what they know, they believe it is now all but inevitable that the special counsel will complete a confidential report presenting evidence that President Trump violated the law. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel’s work, would then decide on turning over that report to Congress for the House of Representatives to consider whether to instigate impeachment proceedings.

The central incident in the case that the president obstructed justice was provided by former FBI Director James B. Comey, who testified that Trump pressed Comey, in a private Oval Office meeting on February 14, 2017, to shut down an FBI criminal investigation of Trump’s former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey has testified the president told him.

…

I have learned that a confidential White House memorandum, which is in the special counsel’s possession, explicitly states that when Trump pressured Comey he had just been told by two of his top aides—his then chief of staff Reince Priebus and his White House counsel Don McGahn—that Flynn was under criminal investigation. This memo, the existence of which I first disclosed in December in Foreign Policy, was, as one source described it to me, “a timeline of events [in the White House] leading up to Flynn’s resignation.” It was dated February 15, 2017, and was prepared by McGahn two days after Flynn’s forced resignation and one day after Trump’s meeting with Comey. As I reported, research for the memo was “primarily conducted by John Eisenberg, the deputy counsel to the president and legal adviser to the National Security Council,” who, in turn, was “assisted by James Burnham, another White House counsel staff member.” 

During my reporting, I was allowed to read the memo in its entirety, as well as other, underlying White House records quoted in the memo, such as notes and memos written by McGahn and other senior administration officials. My reporting for this story is also based on interviews with a dozen former and current White House officials, attorneys who have interacted with Mueller’s team of investigators, and witnesses questioned by Mueller’s investigators.

In arguing in their January 29 letter that Trump did not obstruct justice, the president’s attorneys Dowd and Sekulow quoted selectively from this same memo, relying only on a few small portions of it. They also asserted that even if Trump knew there had been an FBI investigation of Flynn, Trump believed that Flynn had been cleared. Full review of the memo flatly contradicts this story.

The memo’s own statement that Trump was indeed told that Flynn was under FBI investigation was, in turn, based in part on contemporaneous notes written by Reince Priebus after discussing the matter with the president, as well as McGahn’s recollections to his staff about what he personally had told Trump, according to other records I was able to review. Moreover, people familiar with the matter have told me that both Priebus and McGahn have confirmed in separate interviews with the special counsel that they had told Trump that Flynn was under investigation by the FBI before he met with Comey.

…

A person with first-hand knowledge told me that during interviews with the special counsel, both McGahn and Priebus confirmed that they had informed Trump during this meeting that Flynn was being investigated by the FBI. Further, according to three current and former administration officials, McGahn also relayed to President Trump that Flynn had told the FBI the same false story he’d earlier told Pence (that Flynn had never spoken to Kislyak about sanctions). Because Trump and McGahn knew of Flynn’s misstatements to the FBI, they would have understood the legal jeopardy Flynn was in: it is a felony to lie to the FBI—precisely the federal criminal charge Flynn would later plead guilty to. 

Additionally, my sources say that the special counsel also interviewed the two White House attorneys, John Eisenberg and James Burnham, who helped draft the McGahn memo, in which they, too, concluded that Trump was told that Flynn was under FBI investigation. Both men said that they questioned McGahn while researching the timeline; one of them independently recalled McGahn’s contemporaneously telling the president that Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI. (In October 2017, Burnham left the White House to go to work as senior counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Division.)

…

Aside from McGahn, Eisenberg, and Burnham, the special counsel has interviewed five other attorneys who currently work for the White House counselor or have previously done so, according to administration records. Underscoring just how important these witnesses are, the special counsel has interviewed a total of twenty White House officials; of that number, eight have worked for the White House counsel. Two people familiar with the matter have told me that these witnesses have been asked, among other things: about the McGahn timeline; what McGahn contemporaneously told them regarding his briefings of the president; and more specifically, whether McGahn indicated to them that he had informed the president that Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI and was under federal criminal investigation.

Sources have identified for me two other White House attorneys who have been interviewed by the special counsel. One is Uttam Dhillon, who has served the Trump administration as deputy White House counsel and deputy assistant to the president (on July 2, Dhillon was named by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration). Dhillon was a central participant in discussions with the president on whether to fire James Comey as FBI director—with Dhillon advising Trump not to do so. The special counsel has also interviewed Ann Donaldson, who is both the chief of staff to the White House counsel and special counsel to the president. Because so many attorneys working for the White House counsel have been witnesses in the special counsel’s investigation, and because their testimony will clearly be crucial in determining whether the president obstructed justice, Don McGahn took the extraordinary step last summer of recusing his entire staff from advising the president further about the Russia investigation.

The February 15 memo, combined with accounts given to the special counsel by Priebus and McGahn, constitutes the most compelling evidence we yet know of that Donald Trump may have obstructed justice. In an effort to persuade the American people that the president has done nothing wrong, Trump and his supporters have blamed those they identify as their political adversaries—from President Barack Obama to Jim Comey, and including entire institutions such as the FBI and CIA, and an ill-defined “Deep State.” But the most compelling evidence that the president may have obstructed justice appears to come from his own most senior and loyal aides. The greatest threat to his presidency is not from his enemies, real or perceived, but from his allies within the White House.

This is big.  More than 20 people from the White House, including 8 from the office of the White House Counsel, have interviewed with Robert Mueller’s team and were asked about when Trump was informed that Flynn was under investigation by the FBI.  If Trump knew that Flynn was under investigation at any point before asking FBI Director James Comey to end the investigation, then Trump broke the law by committing Obstruction of Justice.

SPOILER ALERT:  He knew, and he did.

The defense that Trump’s team is trying to use is that Trump didn’t know that Flynn was under investigation, and that if even if he did, who cares, he’s in charge of the DOJ, and ultimately Comey’s boss.  That first part went out the window when Preibus and McGahn told Trump about Flynn talking to the FBI right before Trump’s meeting with Comey.  That second argument isn’t so much of an argument but an acquiesce into absurdity.

20 witnesses, and almost half of them are lawyers.  That doesn’t bode well for Cheeto Mussolini.

 

(CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller has referred a collection of cases to New York federal prosecutors concerning whether several high-profile American lobbyists and operatives failed to register their work as foreign agents, according to people familiar with the matter.

The transfer of the inquiries marks an escalation of Mueller’s referrals to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in the period since he turned over a case involving President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Since the spring, Mueller has referred matters to SDNY involving longtime Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta and his work for his former firm, the Podesta Group, and former Minnesota Republican Rep. Vin Weber and his work for Mercury Public Affairs, the sources said.

…

It’s also not clear exactly why Mueller referred the matters to federal prosecutors in New York. Both Mercury and Skadden have offices in Manhattan, though Weber and Craig are based in Washington, DC, and performed the work in question while based in offices there. Podesta and his former firm are also based in Washington. SDNY, however, could claim jurisdiction for reasons such as the location of banking transactions associated with the activity under examination.

One of the things we’ll see more of going forward is Mueller outsourcing more of the “lower-level investigations” getting farmed out to other jurisdictions for investigation or criminal prosecution.  Looks like it’s time for the lobbyists to get screwed.

 

Per McClatchy, the interest of investigators at the Treasury Department was first piqued after they received a number of Suspicious Activity Reports related to LLCs linked to the couple, including some funds transfers that “appear to have come from Russia.”

At a July 18 court hearing, both federal prosecutors and Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, suggested that there was a federal fraud investigation ongoing into Erickson in South Dakota. Both parties said Butina offered to assist in that probe.

Driscoll confirmed to McClatchy that some $20,000 passed through Bridges LLC, one of the South Dakota entities that the couple incorporated in 2016. The money consisted of four $5,000 payments that Butina received from the Outdoor Channel for consulting work on a segment about bear hunting in Russia, according to Driscoll.

Once again, SAR’s play a part in this game.

A British IT manager and former hacker launched and ran an international disinformation campaign that has provided US President Donald Trump with fake evidence and false arguments to deny that Russia interfered to help him win the election.

The campaign is being run from the UK by 39-year-old programmer Tim Leonard, who lives in Darlington, using the false name “Adam Carter”. Starting after the 2016 presidential election, Leonard worked with a group of mainly American right-wing activists to spread claims on social media that Democratic “insiders” and non-Russian agents were responsible for hacking the Democratic Party. The hacking attacks had damaged Trump rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

…

A Twitter account traced to Leonard revealed his new project – a campaign claiming that the hacking was done by a Democratic Party insider – on 3 February 2017. “What if #Guccifer2 is NOT Russian … NOT even a hacker – but still had access to DCCC [democratic campaign] docs?” it said.

At 1.14am on 5 February 2017, Leonard registered the website g-2.space. He hid his involvement using nominee company Identity Protect Ltd, but was given away by internet records which showed that the site was operated from internet address 213.229.109.154, one of two UK virtual servers he ran for web design company Creative Insomnia.

His g-2.space front page went live 13 hours later, and included the hidden warning: “Contingency plans are in place in case this site or its creator are compromised.” A hidden web page comment warned: “If I die under suspicious circumstances, the primary suspects should be the Clinton cartel.”

G-2.space’s launch page listed five prominent mainstream journalists he had contacted, and who had faced demands to disclose their evidence and sources about Guccifer 2.0. All declined or ignored him.

Leonard’s website was created in and run from the UK, using servers owned by Creative Insomnia of Newport, Gwent. Leonard is listed in company records as a shareholder and director. His activity was not known of or authorised by others in the company (see below).

Leonard admits hosting g-2.space, a website which published numerous articles giving mutually contradictory and often nonsensical theories, each attempting to prove that the pretend Romanian was not a Russian disinformation invention.

Leonard also admits that he secretly built another website inside the servers he was employed to manage. His first hidden site, Defianet (d3f.uk), initially campaigned on piracy and privacy, themes familiar to programmers who had worked with him on unrelated projects and who spoke with Computer Weekly.

Defianet’s front page proclaimed “United in the shadows” when it went online in September 2014. During 2017, he transformed Defianet to make it a focus for US extremist and conspiracy “independent media” groups, many of which are notorious for spreading false news. The site also promoted WikiLeaks and Russia Today (RT), the state-owned media channel.

Leonard has created and managed a library of disinformation manuals and techniquesshared with his supporters, including “Weaponisation of social media”, “Deception techniques” and “Information warfare”. He moved the library to g-2.space after being ordered to close Defianet.

Leonard, who lives in a modest red-brick house in Darlington, is the technical director of Creative Insomnia. He admits that he built websites “making use of Creative Insomnia’s infrastructure”, including g-2.space, without the knowledge of his company, a fellow director and other workers. It was “entirely my responsibility … not a board-approved decision”, he confessed in a letter.

G-2.space claims to be written by an anonymous persona called Adam Carter. The name was copied from a character in Spooks, a BBC spy drama series broadcast from 2002 to 2011.

Don’t be surprised if we hear the name Tim Leonard show up in an indictment before the end of the year.

 

A $45,000 payment to an undisclosed law firm. A cash withdrawal for $14,000. Almost $90,000 sent to or from a Russian bank. These and other bank transactions totaling nearly $300,000, none of which have been made public, offer the first detailed look at how an accused foreign agent and a Republican operative financed what prosecutors say was a Russian campaign to influence American politics.

Anti-fraud investigators at Wells Fargo flagged the transactions — by Paul Erickson, a conservative consultant from South Dakota, and Maria Butina, who is in jail awaiting trial on charges of secretly acting as a Russian agent — as “suspicious,” noting in some cases that they could find no “apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose” to explain them. Now counterintelligence officers say the duo’s banking activity could provide a road map of back channels to powerful American entities such as the National Rifle Association, and information about the Kremlin’s attempt to sway the 2016 US presidential election.

Cash withdrawals, most of them from Erickson’s personal and business accounts, make up $107,000 of the financial transactions now being investigated. The largest of those withdrawals — $14,000 — occurred in December 2015, when Erickson reportedly traveled to Moscow as part of an NRA delegation. The visit was sponsored by a Russian gun rights organization started by Butina, federal authorities say.

The duo also deposited about $90,000 in cash in their accounts, which has made it difficult for investigators to determine the source or purpose of the funds.

…

Among the suspicious transactions cited by the bank and federal investigators:

• About $89,000 passed between Erickson’s US accounts and one held by Butina at Russia’s Alfa Bank. In 2014, Erickson received $8,000 from Butina’s Alfa account. Between June 2016 and March 2017, Erickson sent a dozen wires to her Alfa account totaling $27,000.

• About $93,000 was sent or received during a single four-month period — from May to August 2017, after Butina had arrived in the US and was attending graduate school at American University in Washington, DC. Bank officials discovered wires, checks, transfers, and cash deposits totaling that amount, including checks made out to cash, between the duo’s accounts last year.

• In June and July 2017, Erickson wired $45,000 to an unidentified law firm in Washington on Butina’s behalf. It is not known why Butina retained an attorney at that point, and her current lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told BuzzFeed News that his firm was not the recipient of the money.

• Last summer, Erickson sent two wires for $15,000 to a California company established by the son and brother of Jack Abramoff, a disgraced former lobbyist who is Erickson’s longtime friend, political ally, and business partner. The company, Landfair Capital Consulting, was incorporated in March 2017. Abramoff’s son, Alex, a recent college graduate, is the CEO and sole director; Abramoff’s brother, Robert, is the registered agent. Because the company was newly established and based out of the home of Alex Abramoff, who does not list it on his public profiles, bank investigators flagged it as a possible shell company established to hide Jack Abramoff’s interests.

The money flows all over.  What I’m waiting for is the explanation of how a grad student managed to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with in the first place, and why was she spending it on lobbyists and lawyers.  I’m quite familiar with grad students, and the vast majority didn’t have  two spare nickels to rub together for warmth, let alone $14,000 to give to the NRA.

 

For anyone paying attention, there is more than enough evidence in plain sight of Obstruction of Justice, Witness Tampering, and every other cover-up crime on the books.

Read them at your own discretion.  These texts are from one of Manafort’s daughters, and have been in the public domain for a while, but some of the content is…unsettling.

 

RUSSIAN ATTACKS

Meddling is a stupid, weak word.  Meddling is what your neighbor does to get the lady across the street to think that you’re an asshole, or what your co-worker does to spread gossip.  What the Russians did was an attack and an Act of War.

 

COHEN/STORMYGATE

A lawsuit by an ex-Playboy model against former top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy was unsealed by a judge, revealing new details about the $1.6 million hush payment she accepted to keep quiet about their affair and the pregnancy she terminated late last year.

A California state judge on Tuesday made Shera Bechard’s complaint against Broidy and others public, though parts remain redacted. She accuses Broidy of breaching their contract by stopping installment payments on the deal after details of their affair were leaked by others.

Bechard also sued her former lawyer, Keith Davidson, who arranged for her to be paid as part of a nondisclosure agreement negotiated on Broidy’s behalf by New York attorney Michael Cohen, who at the time was President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer. Bechard claims Davidson worked against her interests by secretly coordinating with Cohen behind the scenes and crafting an agreement that was favorable to Broidy.

 

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

CHRISTIAN FASCISM

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Wednesday will be even crazier.  Why?  Because the Manafort trial continues, Trump knows he’s fucked worse than the little boy in Pence’s closet, and this is only going to get crazier before it gets better.

On a positive, there is a great deal of Schadenfreude to be had.  Imagine knowing that Trump is panicking on Twitter, knowing that a report was just released that at least 20 people in the White House interviewed Mueller’s team, and at least 8 of them were lawyers.  Imagine knowing that these 20 are working around him, but he doesn’t know who they are or what they said.  Imagine that for a mobster who values the loyalty others place in him above all else to not know who is getting ready to stab him in the back to save themselves.  Imagine not knowing who to trust.  Imagine thinking that his world is collapsing around him.

Then realize that he put himself in this situation by betraying his country.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur