Thursday.

I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

TWITTER KICKS RT AND SPUTNIK OFF OF THEIR AD PLATFORM.  RT RESPONDS WITH INCRIMINATING THREATS.

Get the popcorn, people, shit’s bout to get real interesting.  Twitter made the decision earlier today to remove all ads from RT, formerly Russia Today, and Sputnik, from their platform, citing their actions in trying to influence the 2016 election.  They said that they would take the money they received for that and donate it to an external group that works on political advocacy in the modern age.

Here’s Twitter’s press release on the actions.

The following is a screenshot from @M_Simonyan, the head of RT.  I was going to post the link, but I don’t trust that the link would still work, and I don’t want to risk anyone to any weird spyware that RT might try to link to.

If true, this is some pretty damning stuff, and Russia is about to go scorched earth on this.  BTW, Scorched Earth comes the old Russian military tactic of retreating, and burning everything in their wake to the ground to prevent their enemies from using Russian resources against them.  Then, they wait for their enemies to freeze to death.  This is how they stopped Napoleon and Hitler.

Twitter is scheduled to meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee next week in an open hearing, along with Facebook and Google.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN TRYING TO DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA.

Remember earlier this year when Mike Flynn’s connections to Russia and Turkey came out, and the Trump White House tried to minimize his role?

How about when they said that Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman, played only a “minor role” after his connections to Oleg Deripaska came to light?

Add Cambridge Analytica to the list.

The data firm, funded by the Mercers with connections to Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Brad Pascale, Chuck Johnson, Facebook, Twitter, and Jared Kushner, “played a minor role in the campaign.”

This is like trying to photoshop a brother-in-law out of the wedding photos after finding out that they’re wanted for running a prostitution ring.

I’m waiting for the day that Jared and Ivanka get indicted, and Trump acts like he doesn’t recognize them. And not because of dementia, either.

FORMER SENATOR COBURN JOINS THE MODERATES SPEAKING OUT AGAINST TRUMP.

Tom Coburn, a doctor and former Senator from Oklahoma, went on the record by saying that Trump has a personality disorder.

Tom Coburn does not have a sense of humor, according to “Giant of the Senate” by Al Franken.  So, when Tom Coburn says that someone is nuts, they’re nuts.

MILITARY OFFICERS OVERWHELMINGLY DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP.

According to the Military Times, most officers do not support, nor approve of Donald Trump’s actions.  These are not the rank and file soldiers, but the officers.  The ones in charge, that make the orders.

In this poll, they also listed White Supremacy as the largest threat to the nation’s security, ahead of islamic terrorism.  Those two pieces seem to go hand in hand.

NBC WOULD LIKE TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT RUSSIA SURE AS HELL IS STILL A THING.

NBC would like to remind you that Russia is still kind of a thing.

PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO WHITEFISH ENERGY.

Whitefish Energy, the two man company from Ryan Zinke’s hometown, is under scrutiny for winning the contract to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, and their Governor wants to know why they won this massive contract.

Meanwhile, Tesla just electrified a Children’s Hospital on the island using panels and batteries.

WGBH BOSTON REPORTS THAT MUELLER WILL ‘MAKE MOVES BEFORE THANKSGIVING’.

Juliette Kayheem of WGBH Boston and PBS, reports that there is an increased buzz surrounding the investigation into the White House, and that she predicts that Mueller and his team will announce something before Thanksgiving, and that it’s bigger than just Obstruction of Justice.

I’m not sure if this is completely accurate, but here’s what I think…

Mueller isn’t going to anything unless Congress is in session.  We are past political expediency and we’re into National Security territory.  There have been rumors for months that the MSM has Donald Trump on tape working with the Russians, but haven’t released it due to his request.  When he drops the mic, things are going to move fast.

Assuming that he comes back with anything more substantial than a report or a recommendation, Congress will likely briefed first, in a closed session, and led to the some of the new SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) that they’ve been building in the Capitol building for the last few months.  There, they’ll be shown the evidence that Trump and his team committed espionage, if not outright treason, to win the election, as well as his history of financial and sexual crimes, and those of this associates.

After Congress is briefed, there will be some kind of announcement of indictments from Mueller, followed shortly by Congress pushing forward Articles of Impeachment, based off of those indictments.

If Mueller announces something outside of a Congressional session, it’s either because they can’t be trusted to do their job, or he doesn’t have anything.

Congress goes on Thanksgiving holiday November 20, and Winter break on December 18.

GA06 VOTING SERVER WIPED AFTER LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST STATE FOR USE OF ANTIQUATED VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE SUSCEPTIBLE TO HACKING.

This is pretty awkward.  Following a lawsuit from the Unhack the Vote team looking into the veracity of the voting machines, the server that contained the voting record was wiped clean, and they can’t find any backups.

What the actual fuck?

This is the kind of screw-up that puts people in jail.  Deleting data that is involved in a lawsuit is destruction of evidence, possibly obstruction of justice if it were done to cover up a crime.

The reason for the lawsuit was twofold.  First, the special election was performed using voting machines that were previously hacked at Defcon, then purchased on eBay.  There was worry that there could have been some residual code left on them from the hackers if they weren’t properly wiped.  Second, they discovered some interesting trends that didn’t appear until after the election.  The vote totals were nearly opposite of the early voting and absentee ballots.  A 60/40 split came in supporting the Democratic challenger in the early voting, but the machines went about 60/40 for the Republican.  This didn’t match normal results.  That part of the country tends to skew Republican in early voting, and more Democratic on election day.

Unless we’re all taking crazy pills and we’re in Bizarro Land.  Then again, it is 2017.

INTERPOL INFORMS RUSSIA THAT IT WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT ANY WARRANTS FROM THEM IN REGARDS TO BILL BROWDER.

That’s it for today.  Tomorrow will be a crazy News Dump Friday.  We’ll get some stuff about the Steele Dossier, Cambridge Analytica, Twitter, and the release of the JFK files.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

HSIOW. Holy Shit, It’s Only Wednesday.

KASPERSKY LABS GETS HANDS ON NSA SOFTWARE FROM US PC, SAYS IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

Here’s another reminder.  IF YOU HAVE KASPERSKY LABS ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE INSTALLED, GET RID OF THAT SHIT NOW!!!

They ended up with copies of NSA software in their system.

That ain’t right.  That ain’t even close to right.  That’s across the river from right.  Ain’t nowhere near right.

Their “excuse” is that they accidentally uploaded them.  But they deleted them right away, so no bad.

Right?

Kaspersky has some serious ties with the Russian FSB, their main Intelligence group.  Several Kaspersky employees were arrested last year for espionage against Russia, who were believed to have been spies for the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France, among others.

It’s also been heavily speculated on the Rumor Mill that Edward Snowden has been working with them since he fled the United States and was granted asylum in Russia.

HEAD OF CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA TRIED TO GET HRC EMAILS FROM JULIAN ASSANGE

Alexander Nix, head of Cambridge Analytica, the data company behind the demographic microtargeting of voters during the 2016 election, reached out to Julian Assange of Wikileaks in an attempt to get Hilary Clinton’s missing emails.  This is not the first story of someone “outside” the campaign tried to get these mails.  Peter Smith, of Arkansas Troopergate Fame from the 90’s also tried, and even set up an LLC with the tacit acknowledgment that this was condoned by Mike Flynn, KellyAnne Conway, and others in the campaign.This story about Barbara Leeden, an aide to both Mike Flynn and Chuck Grassley, came out less than two weeks ago.

After the article was published, the author received comment from Julian Assange, and he said that he was contacted by Nix, but did not hand any information over.  Of course, we always believe the paragon of virtue that he is.

If this were Reddit, that last sentence would have a /s after it to indicate sarcasm.  Personally, I prefer using hypertags for sarcasm, like <Sarcasm> and </Sarcasm>, but then again, I grew up having to actually write code to make programs work.

MANAFORT IS MANAFUCKED, PART 395

Yep. Another article on how Manafort is Manafucked.  It’s not every day that the former Director of the FBI tells you that you’re about to be indicted.  Or that a fuckton of cash from an Oligarch on the Magnitsky Sanctions list connects you, them, and multiple banks under investigation for money laundering, including one which was partly owned by a member of the Cabinet. (Wilbur Ross, former number 2 at the Bank of Cyprus).

Plus, the Ukrainians want him for war crimes.  Part of me wants to say that they would at least have a trial before his public execution, but that’s me being optimistic.

MICHEAL COHEN MADE A LOT OF MONEY ON SHADY REAL ESTATE DEALS

Who would have thought that Michael Cohen read my Article on Money Laundering, traveled back in time, and followed it like a how-to guide?

Oh, he didn’t time travel?  He’s just a slimy, criminal who did this on his own?  That makes more sense.

Michael Cohen is Trump’s personal lawyer.  He orchestrated 4 cash real estate deals with Herbert Chaves of the Chaves and Perlowitz Law Firm on 4 properties Cohen owned, which cost him about $2 million each.  Cohen sold them on deals to Chaves for LLC’s with hidden partners for many times what they were appraised at, around $10 million each.

I need to find out if there was ever a lawsuit between these two.  Not that I don’t think something shady happened, but lawsuits can be used as a way to launder money.  I’m thinking Chaves might sue Cohen, Cohen puts money into an escrow account, then they settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.  That money, after sitting in escrow, goes to Chaves, who then takes his cut and sends it to his clients.

CONGRESS CUTS OFF ROHRBACHER’S TRAVEL ACCOUNT

This is from a couple days, but it got lost in the shuffle.  Congress has cut off funding for Dana Rohrbacher’s trips under fear that he may be committing espionage.  He has been the most outspoken supporter of Putin and Russia in Washington, and that includes the Russian Embassy.  This man suggested that Alaska be returned to Russia, if they voted to leave.

His latest stunt was to fly to London and meet with Julian Assange with Chuck Johnson, and is trying to organize a pardon for Assange in exchange for his “proof” that Wikileaks did not receive the DNC emails from the Russians.

As of this writing, Assange is still sitting in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid prosecution by any of a dozen countries for crimes ranging from sexual assault to espionage.

HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE IS A CLUSTERFUCK

There are 13 Republican Members of the HIC. Only 3 are showing up to the hearings.  Meanwhile, they would rather keep investigating Hilary Clinton instead of asking “Did the President commit Treason and a bunch of other illegal stuff?”

TRUMP’S TWITTER FOLLOWERS ARE MOSTLY NON-EXISTENT

Here’s an article with a breakdown of how few people actually follow Donald Trump on Twitter.  It’s a great breakdown of the various numbers and stats, but I included quite possibly the most important part.

Key Trump follower figures:

    21.2 percent: Trump followers who have tweeted five times or fewer

    25.3 to 25.5 percent: Trump followers who have never tweeted

    33 percent: Trump followers that are “egg accounts”

    37.7 percent: Trump followers who created Twitter accounts since the election

    46 percent: Trump followers who haven’t tweeted in the past year

    56.7 percent: Trump followers who created accounts since candidacy announcement

    66 percent: Trump followers who haven’t tweeted in the past 90 days

    74 percent: Trump followers with fewer than 50 followers

Trump’s following also includes 13.7 million “egg accounts,” or inactive accounts with no profile pictures—a clear indication of a bot, or fake follower, Kharly Stauber, SocialRank’s head of content and accounts, told the Daily Dot. The number of these kinds of accounts following him has increased by 2.2 million over the past two months. This summer, SocialRank found that only 11.1 million people following Trump as of September were active.

Stripped away of the egg accounts, Trump is left with roughly 27.5 million followers, a far cry from the 41.1 million he boasted as of Tuesday evening. When you factor in the number of accounts that have not tweeted in the past year—18.9 million, according to SocialRank—and the 27.1 million accounts that have not shared content in the past 90 days, the number of active and engaged followers of @realDonaldTrump plummets considerably.

Both Social Rank and Trump or False compiled their data as of early October.

Let’s do the math.  41.1 million followers.  13.4 million of them are likely bots.  That leaves approximately 27.5 million followers.  Out of those, 27.1 million have not shared any content in the last 3 months.

That leaves 400,000 active users.  Out of 41.4 million.  Or, 0.966% of his users are involved.  Less than 1 percent.

Another stat was the breakdown of number of tweets by user.  Almost 60% of all of Trump’s followers have fewer than 20 tweets in their history.  20 tweets!  I’ve done more than that in an hour.  I can punch out 20 likes, retweets, quotes, and reply tweets during a good coffee break.  Hell, I think I’ve insulted Trump to his account more than 20 times.  One of my bonus goals on Twitter is to get blocked by Donald Trump, without getting banned.

Anyway, most of his followers aren’t real people.

BILL BROWDER, CANADA, RUSSIA, INTERPOL, AND ISIS

Canada gave Russia a middle finger yesterday when they told Interpol that they’ll decide who can or can’t enter Canada, not Russia.

Here’s the short version.  Bill Browder, the investment banker turned political activist behind the Magnitsky Act, has an Interpol warrant issued for his arrest by the Russians.  They claim that Browder killed Sergei Magnitsky.  While he was exiled from the country and Sergei was in a Russian Prison.

Last year, while the rest of the world was distracted by the Trump Shitshow, the Interpol leadership body was taken over by Russians and Chinese members.  So far this year, both of those countries have abused this by issuing Red Notices on their critics outside of their borders.  A Red Notice is a type of arrest warrant issued by Interpol.

This is the fifth time since 2010 that Russia has tried to use Interpol to arrest Bill Browder.  The previous four times, the warrants were dismissed within a couple days as being politically motivated, but this time, it’s been in the system for over a week.

JEFF SESSIONS AND THE BIRMINGHAM COAL BRIBERY CASE

Alabama is weird.  There’s been an ongoing scandal down there that’s already taken down a politician or two.  A coal company has been fighting against having to clean up the North Birmingham area, which they screwed up, and they were caught bribing several state officials.  This case should be going to Federal Court.

One of the people that this coal company donated money to is Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General who will get to decide whether or not to bring this case to court.

Can you say “Conflict of Interest”?

That’s it for today.  At least, that’s all I pulled together for the day.  The rest of the news was catching up on stories from the last couple of days, like the HRC paying for part of the Steele Dossier, the Niger Ambush, or that the Nimitz Carrier Group is now in the Pacific along with the Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Regan Carrier Groups.  North Korea is still talking about doing a nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean.  I don’t know how this ends without being  a complete and total cock-up.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one

Monday.

A lot of stories came out this weekend and today. Where I may normally try to talk about all of them, or at least as many as possible, I want to focus on just a couple that might’ve flown under the radar. I’ll mention several more in the lightning round.

BILL BROWDER, INTERPOL, AND A VISA

Over the weekend, Putin used a loophole in the Interpol system to issue a warrant for Bill Browder’s arrest. This ended up causing his visa to the United States being revoked over the weekend. It was reinstated just a couple hours ago.

This is just the latest attack on Bill Browder by the Russians. Sadly, it won’t be the last.

HILARY CLINTON AND THE SPIES AROUND HER

Get ready for some Whataboutism.

We’re going to get a few stories, starting this week, talking about the spies and agents of influence got close to Hilary Clinton.

The purpose of the stories is to show how deep the Russians have gotten in to our political system.

Expect the trolls to use this as their “what about the Russians around Hilary? Trump’s awesome!” moment.

Also, get ready for news about the Party of Regions. They were the Pro-Putin Party in Ukraine that Manafort worked with. Several of the party members approached HRC and her team over the years.

BANNON AND HIS MIDDLE EAST CONNECTIONS

Steve Bannon is up to some shit.

Remember a few weeks ago, or was it months ago, when stories came out about Flynn, Manafort, and Bannon tried to set up multiple nuclear deals with several Middle Eastern countries? Well, that’s coming back around.

Russia is just one piece of the corruption map.

RUSSIAN MACHINE NEVER BREAKS, MONDAY EDITION

Trump launders Russian money in Toronto.

Trump promises to pay legal fees for White House staffers in Russian Investigation.

Dipshit Cowpoke Devin Nunes goes rogue in search of Steele Dossier patrons.

FBI, DHS warm about cyber threats to power infrastructure.

Tony Podesta’s marketing firm registers with FARA after working with Paul Manafort.

Russian Troll account @TEN_GOP spread propaganda that was retweeted by Trump family.

JFK Papers to be released soon. Not only will Trump take credit for a law written in 1992, but if anything even slightly conspiratorial involving the CIA comes up, expect Trump to beat that drum like John Bonham.

IN OTHER NEWS

CREW lawsuit against Trump about emoluments clause gains strength.

McCain has no fucks left to give.

This is crazy. Not that Arpaio is guilty and won’t have his record wiped clean, but that obvious corruption like this isn’t even in the top 10 stories.

Senators stunned to find out that almost 1,000 American soldiers are in Niger.

Prepare for a debate on the Authorization of the Use of Military Force.

Politicians feel that Trump is a pretty shitty deal maker.

16 pieces of Obstruction of Justice.

Trump couldn’t remember name of fallen soldier while talking to widow.

Ivanka left “charity” Trump Foundation off of financial disclosure form.

That’s it for today. I’m going to start coming up with all of the ways that Trump could fuck up the Traditional Turkey Pardoning. I will come up with the worst things I can think of (that I’m okay publishing), then will revisit it afterward. I’m afraid that whatever I come up with, Trump will be even worse.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur