Category: Daily Check-In

Daily Check-In 06/21/2018

Thursday, June 21st.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday asked a federal judge to use a special questionnaire to select jurors for the upcoming trial of Paul Manafort, arguing in a court filing that intense media coverage of the case is jeopardizing the former Trump campaign chairman’s ability to get a fair trial.

In the 28-page filing, Mueller’s team says “the Manafort investigation … has been the subject of extensive media coverage. A Westlaw search of major newspapers for the terms ‘Manafort’ near ‘trial’ or ‘investigation’ yielded over 3,500 results.

“Similarly, the same search of transcripts of television and radio broadcasts returned over 1,300 hits, including in major news outlets, such as all major television networks and newspapers, but exclusive of social media like Twitter feeds,” the filing says.

The ‘Western intelligence community’ — a nebulous group encompassing Steele, his associates, the US intelligence agencies and many experts in Britain — believe the Kremlin is directing operations to try to shake public faith in democracy across Europe and the US. They think Russia has the same aim as the Soviet Union once did: to break up Nato and the EU, and dominate a continent of weak nations. They view Russia as a criminal state, where the state and the mafia are two faces of the same predatory beast. If that is right, then for the government the choice over whether to back Mueller — and the rule of law — should be no choice at all.

The delegation will arrive in St. Petersburg on June 30 and spend time there before heading to the country’s capital on July 3 and 4th for meetings with lawmakers, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing an unnamed official.

A group of Republican senators had been planning a visit to the country after an invitation from U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, the Washington Post reported last week.

Those reportedly part of the group included Richard Shelby of Alabama, John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana and North Dakota’s John Hoeven, though those members have not announced any plans.

…

Shelby, Kennedy and Hoeven are on neither the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee or on the Senate Intelligence Committee that issued a report last month saying Russia tried to influence the 2016 election.

 

COHEN

 

IMMIGRATION

Movements Toward End?

 

Stories of Abuse

A 16-year-old boy who said he had lived in Texas with his mother since he was an infant ended up at Shenandoah in September after a police officer pulled over a car he was riding in and asked for ID, which he couldn’t provide. As one of the few Latino kids who is fluent in English, the teen would translate for other detainees the taunts and names the staff members were calling them. He said that angered the guards, resulting in his losing such modest privileges as attending art classes.

“If you are behaving bad, resisting the staff when they try to remove you from the program, they will take everything in your room away — your mattress, blanket, everything,” he said. “They will also take your clothes. Then they will leave you locked in there for a while. This has happened to me, and I know it has happened to other kids, too.”

The immigrant detainees said they were largely segregated from the mostly white juveniles being held on criminal charges, but they could see that the other housing units had amenities that included plush chairs and video gaming consoles not available in the Spartan pods housing the Latinos.

In their sworn statements, the teens reported spending the bulk of their days locked alone in their cells, with a few hours set aside for classroom instruction, recreation and meals. Some said they had never been allowed outdoors, while the U.S.-born children were afforded a spacious recreation yard.

 

Melania’s Trip

 

Fighting Back

 

Protests and Reactions

 

Avenatti

”We are now representing whistleblowers within ICE, outside contractors, etc. They have reached out to us to provide us with info as to what is really going on. We are going to blow this wide open and take the info to the American people so they can decide what happens next.”

 

Immigration Bill

 

Sick Pieces of Shit

Miller himself is reportedly happy with how things are going, which led one fellow staffer to equate his behavior to that of the Nazi SS, Vanity Fair reported Wednesday.

“Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border,” an outside White House adviser said. “He’s a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There’s always been a way he’s gone about this. He’s Waffen-SS.”

 

Yes, It Is Racist

 

Who’s Benefiting?

 

Defending the Indefensile

 

Some Good News

 

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

PROJECTION

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

The White House on Thursday will propose merging the Education and Labor departments into one federal agency, the centerpiece of a plan to remake a bureaucracy that President Trump and his supporters consider too big and bloated, according to an administration official familiar with the plan.

The long-awaited proposal to reorganize federal agencies would shrink some and augment the missions of others. It is the result of a directive that Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, issued to federal leaders 14 months ago. He urged them to find ways to merge overlapping, duplicative offices and programs and eliminate those the administration views as unnecessary.

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS DECISION

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states may require online retailers to collect billions of dollars of sales tax revenue owed to them.

The decision was 5 to 4.

More than 40 states and the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn its 1992 decision in Quill v. North Dakota that restricts states from collecting sales tax from retailers without a physical presence in those states. They said a decision in a case involving mail-order catalogues is obsolete in an era of e-commerce.

 

ATTACKS ON THE CLIMATE

 

BLATANT RACISM

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

A LITTLE EARLY TO TALK ABOUT 2020

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

With how horrible and disgusting the act of ripping families apart is, there’s bound to be some truly sick shit buried deep.

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I hope to have more details for Friday’s post, but it might not be up until sometime Saturday.  Assuming I get to it this weekend.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 06/20/2018

Wednesday, June 20th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

A longtime US lobbyist for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska visited Julian Assange nine times at the Ecuadorian embassy in London last year, according to visitor logs seen by the Guardian.

Adam Waldman, who has worked as a Washington lobbyist for the metals tycoon since 2009, had more meetings with Assange in 2017 than almost anyone else, the records show.

It is not clear why Waldman went to the WikiLeaks founder or whether the meetings had any connection to the Russian billionaire, who is now subject to US sanctions. But the disclosure is likely to raise further questions about the extent and nature of Assange’s alleged ties to Russia.

US intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” last year, in an unclassified intelligence assessment, that the Kremlin shared hacked emails with WikiLeaks that undermined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as part of its effort to sway the 2016 election in favour of Donald Trump.

I’ve mentioned Andrew Waldman on Daily Check-In 02/09/2018 and Daily Check-In 02/15/2018.  He was the lobbyist who was in contact with Senator Mark Warner, and had his conversations, which were classified and privileged, leaked to Sean Hannity via Julian Assange.

This tells me a few things.

First, Waldman was a go-between between Oleg working for Putin and Wikileaks.  He was one of, if not the main cut-out.

Second, there is now a new way that JAss got the messages between Waldman and Warner.  Waldman could have given them to Assange directly.  I personally doubt this happened, since the timing of the leak to Hannity went something like this…

  1. Warner and Waldman text.
  2. House Intel wants a copy of the conversation for “their investigation.”
  3. Months pass.
  4. Senate Intel gives House Intel copies of the conversation.
  5. Minutes pass.
  6. Something happens.
  7. Sean Hannity gets banned from Twitter (Daily Check-In 01/30/2018).  A parody account is created, and is so lifelike, Julian Assange messages the parody, offering dirt on Mark Warner.
  8. About a week later, Hannity does the dumbest thing possible and runs with a story AFTER proof of him working with Julian Assange comes to light.

Finaly, this proves the rumor I heard a while back about foreigners using lobbyists to get favorable stories to the press.  A good deal of Waldman’s work was communicating with journalists to set up stories favorable to Deripaska, Russia, and their interests.

Get ready to hear his name more in the coming months.

 

COHEN

I’m not sure what’s more incredible, the fact that Michael Cohen was STILL a senior member of the Republican party WHILE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DOZENS, IF NOT HUNDREDS OF CRIMES, or that he quit because of the child separation policy.

“As the son of a Polish holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy is heart wrenching,” Cohen wrote in an email to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, per ABC. “While I strongly support measures that will secure our porous borders, children should never be used as bargaining chips.”

Whoever had on their Bingo card “Cohen shows he’s not a complete monster”, raise your hand.  You just won a prize.

 

TRUMP FOUNDATION

It’s not unique in that the transgressions were tiny, or minuscule, but that they were so blatant, over the top, long running, and ridiculous.

People will go to jail for this.  And I’ll laugh.

 

IMMIGRATION

Tender Age Facilities

 

Rescinding the Policy

Though President Trump declared that the executive order he signed Wednesday would “solve” the problem of family separation while parents are prosecuted for illegal border crossing, the order is really only good for 20 days, CBS News’ Paula Reid reports, citing a source familiar with the drafting of the order. The order does not override the 1993 Flores v. Reno Supreme Court case, which says that detained migrant children cannot be held in government detention facilities for more than 20 days.

Essentially, this means that after the 20-day mark, children may still be separated from their parents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently separates most families when they are apprehended for illegal border crossing, Reid notes. But now, with the executive order, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will take custody of the entire family. However, at the 20-day mark, under the Flores consent decree, the department will have to release the children from custody.

Nothing in the executive order stops the government from releasing the whole family, Reid says, but under Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ zero-tolerance policy, which states that the U.S. will prosecute all who cross the border illegally, releasing the family is unlikely.

 

Sick Pieces of Shit

 

Shame

 

Political Fight

 

Citizens Fight

 

Kids May Not See Their Parents Again

 

Planned from the Beginning

 

Indefensible

 

Not Cheaper

 

Reactions

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

RUMOR MILL

Yeah, he’s on SIGINT.  Probably used “encrypted texts” from WhatsApp to talk to Julian and Oleg, among others.

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday might be combined into a post, depending on what happens.

I’ve been cagey for a while, but I don’t think it’s finally time I talk about why I’m so elusive about getting things finished, and why I’m not talking as much as I’d like to about the immigration stuff.  Soon.  Very soon.  Likely by the weekend soon.  Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 06/19/2018

Tuesday June 19th.

 

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

$109 million for approximately 80 properties, all in cash deals and through LLC’s to hide the true owner.  Smells like Money Laundering

I’m not buying it yet.  Every word out of his mouth is a half-truth or outright lie.  His idea of “cooperating” is not actively getting in the way.  The same way one “helps” the paramedics at the scene of an accident by pulling over to let the ambulance pass.

Like I said yesterday in Daily Check-In 06/18/2018, Rudy’s past connections to FBI agents leaking to him will come out.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, interrupted Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Tuesday as he questioned Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in doing so accused House Republicans of conspiring to “fire” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein by the end of the week.

…

“Well, is it not appropriate to raise the question as to what is the germaneness of the gentleman’s line of questioning and whether or not we’re dealing with the report of Mr. Horowitz or whether we’re dealing with the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the Mueller investigation as well as fire Deputy Attoney General Rosenstein, which you are planning to do on Friday?” Lee shot back.

Lee appeared to be referring to Gowdy’s claim on Sunday that House Speaker Paul Ryan warned top Justice Department and FBI officials during a meeting they would face the House’s “full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance” on outstanding subpoenas if they didn’t do so by Friday.

…

While lawmakers cannot “fire” Rosenstein, they can find him in contempt of Congress or may introduce impeachment proceedings.

 

COHEN

Cohen’s got a new lawyer, and taking bids on whether to flip or have the RNC pay his legal bills again.

Forcing a person to pay for a good or service against their will or betterment for fear of retribution or release of damaging information.  Sounds a lot like extortion.

 

CHARITY CASE

 

IMMIGRATION

6,000

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) tweeted the answer after touring the facility in Brownsville, but he explained in more detail when we spoke by phone on Tuesday.

“There are separate facilities for younger children, there are separate facilities for girls,” Pocan says he was told. Because Brownsville and McAllen have been the focus of attention, only boys have been depicted. In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, HHS officials pledged to releasephotos of detained girls and toddlers “within the next two days.”

In some cases, the same facility holds both boys and girls, though in separate areas. Our reporter noted in his article that “detainees had been sorted into groups — unaccompanied boys 17 and under; unaccompanied girls 17 and under; male heads of household with their families; and female heads of household with their families.”

 

Trump Started It

 

States Fighting Back

States that have pulled their National Guard troops and/or declined to deploy:

  • Rhode Island
  • Connecticut
  • Maryland
  • Virginia
  • North Carolina
  • Oregon
  • Colorado
  • Massachusettes
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Deleware
  • New Hampshire

 

Lawsuit

This is big.  This is the first lawsuit challenging the legality of this policy, and will likely cause a judge to strike down the child separation policy.

 

Fighting Back

June 30th.  I’ll update this site with more details and locations as they come out.

 

Business Leaders

 

Religion

I don’t know if the Methodists have excommunication, but if they do, Sessions has earned it.

 

Defending the Indefensible

 

Sick Pieces of Shit

I had an unnatural, overwhelming hatred of Corey Lewandowski, even before this.  Now, I’ve gone from “not pissing on him if he were on fire” to “wouldn’t even call for an ambulance if he got hit by a truck walking across the street.”  Fuck him.

 

Fact Checks

 

Internment Camps

 

Literal Nazis

 

 

COLD WAR 2.0

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A sophisticated hacking campaign launched from computers in China burrowed deeply into satellite operators, defense contractors and telecommunications companies in the United States and southeast Asia, security researchers at Symantec Corp said on Tuesday.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

[–]SmallGerbilColorado [score hidden] 

For anyone seeking a TL;DR – these are the companies so far:

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

I’m not addicted, I can quit any time I want…

Y’all got any more of them space

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

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

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 06/18/2018

The weekend and Monday, June 18th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Roger Stone’s Undisclosed Meeting

Michael Caputo sent Roger Stone to have a meeting with a Russian who claimed to have dirt on Hilary Clinton in May 2016.  Roger attended this meeting with a Russian and a Ukrainian.  The Ukrainian claimed to have emails from the Democrats and HRC.  The Russian was a former FBI informant.

Roger, who completely forgot about this meeting until the press reminded him of it, said that nothing came of it.  Then that nothing happened.  After hearing that the Russian was a former FBI informant, he then claims it was a sting operation against him.

Caputo, who also completely forgot about this meeting in testimony to Congress and likely the FBI, recited the same tired excuses.

 

Mitch vs. Decency

Mitch McConnell is turtleneck deep in this shit.  Remember his wife Elaine Chao is a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

 

Paul Manafort is in Jail

This morning, Paul Manafort woke up and stared a grey concrete ceiling.  Just as he will for every day for the rest of his life, until he dies or flips.

 

How Many Russian Contacts?

I’m going to make an article about all of the people that had contacts with Russians and other foreigners during the campaign.  It might be 87 parts long by the time I’m done with it.

 

The Nunes-Giuliani-NY FBI Leak

I’ve talked about this for a while, but the New York FBI Office was feeding Rudy intel during the 2016 campaign.  Several members of that office hated Clinton, and Rudy exploited his old ties with them to get information he shouldn’t have.

Those FBI agents helped put Trump in office.  Whether they were knowing participants in the conspiracy is another matter.  I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but I’m fresh out of doubt at this point.

 

Senate Testimony

This is what Trump is afraid of; having his secrets exposed and the abuse that Strzok endured aired for the world to see.

 

CHARITY CASE

The Trump Foundation being sued by New York should be much bigger news in a normal universe.

 

IMMIGRATION

Detention Centers, Tent Cities, and Concentration Camps

 

Hearing the Cries

 

Whistlblowers

 

Dems Fight Back

 

R’s Do Nothing

 

National Guard

 

Former First Ladies React

 

Stephen Miller

 

DHS

 

Avenatti

 

Trump and Staff:  The Planning

 

Trump and Staff:  The Handling

 

Religious Leaders Speaking Out

 

World Reaction

 

Medical Experts Weigh In

 

Echoes from the Past

 

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

GERRYMANDERING CASES

The 9-0 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts in a Wisconsin case is a blow to Democrats who argued the Republican-drawn maps prevented fair and effective representation by diluting voters’ influence and penalizing voters based on their political beliefs

While the ruling will let the maps be used, the justices dodged the question of whether they are legal. The Supreme Court has a standard limiting the over-reliance on race in map-drawing, except under the most limited circumstances. The court has not been successful in developing a test concerning the over-reliance on politics.

Democrats had won a challenge in a lower court, but the Supreme Court’s decision Monday would limit who can bring such cases in the future.

The second case was out of Maryland, where Republicans challenged a district map drawn by Democrats. The justices said that a lower court did not act improperly in leaving the map in place.

 

SPACE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

ELECTION 2018

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Monday.  Finally.  Yesterday was emotionally draining and taxing.  Tuesday and Wednesday will likely be either combined into one post, late on both days, or only contain the top stories.  Most likely, they’ll be late.

Make no mistake about it, we are approaching the a crescendo, an end of an act or season.  All of this screams of desperation and distraction.  As much as I hate to say it, these are meant to anger and disgust people so much that they don’t see the rest of the story.

Trump’s people are using children as hostages in a negotiation to get their border wall, and just like any other terrorist, they are not to be trusted.  There’s no guarantee they won’t do this again, and if they get what they want, they’ll use these tactics again.

My message to the to Democrats in Congress is this: Do not negotiate with terrorists.

As far as everyone else, keep focused on everything else going on.  One thing Trump is good at is distraction, and nothing is more distracting than suffering children.

One of my upcoming articles for the Cast of Characters will be a listing of all of the members of Trump’s team that have had known Russian contacts.  That might take a while to put together.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda”

– Katy Tur