Tag: Confirmation

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

Daily Check-In 06/15/2018

Friday, June 15th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: MANAFORT GOES TO PRISON

Prosecutors made the Manafort detention request on June 4, when they argued in court papers that he tried to tamper with two witnesses after he was indicted in Washington for a second time on Feb. 23. Four days later, a grand jury indicted Manafort anew, accusing him and an associate of witness tampering. Manafort has pleaded not guilty.

Jackson said she had no way to stop Manafort from contacting people while he’s out on bail.

“This is not middle school,” she told lawyers. “I can’t take his cellphone.”

Paul Manafort is in jail.  That feels good to say.

Paul Manafort, former Campaign Manager for the President of the United States, is in jail.

Paul Manafort, liaison to Oleg Deripaska, unregistered lobbyist for the Hapsburg Group and adviser to Viktor Yanukovitch, is in jail.

I wonder how long it will take Paul to look around his cell and say “Jr., Pence, Jared, and Donald should be here with me.”

“We had a suspect,” said Clapper. “I don’t know whether the suspicions we had at the time were conveyed [to Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller] or whether they were validated.” U.S. intelligence officials were “pretty confident at the time but not sufficient enough to publicize it,” he said.

…

The precise means by which DNC emails that had been hacked by Russian intelligence made their way to WikiLeaks for public consumption has never been publicly revealed by the U.S. intelligence community. Nor has it ever been clear that U.S. officials had figured it out. That gap in the story of the Russian attack on the U.S. election has fueled conspiracy theories that the hackers were not in fact Russian state-sponsored hackers — as the intelligence community has firmly concluded. Instead, the conspiracy theorists have claimed, the emails were given to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled Democratic party “insider” or even a spy planted inside the party.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself has given credence to such theories, repeatedly insisting that he did not get the DNC emails from Russian intelligence. (“Our source is not the Russian government,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.) At one point, Assange inexplicably offered a reward for information about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, who, according to Washington, D.C., police, was likely killed in a botched robbery with no connection to the DNC hack

But Clapper told “Skullduggery” that the WikiLeaks transfer “cut-out” was selected by the Russians for a reason — so that Assange could tell the world he did not get the DNC emails from Russian intelligence. “The real point was it was an attempt to ensure [Assange] plausible deniability,” Clapper said.

Clapper was responding to questions about a little-noticed passage in his new book, “Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence.” In the book, Clapper recounts how the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership had publicly dumped the DNC emails after they decided in March 2016 that “it was worth the risk of diplomatic blowback if they were caught” hacking the DNC. This gave the green light to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, to go “on the offense, exfiltrating emails and large volumes of data.”

Then, Clapper added: “In April, Russia used a third party ‘cut-out’ to send more than 19,000 DNC emails and more than 8,000 documents to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, attempting to cover its tracks and to give WikiLeaks some degree of deniability in knowing the source of the leaks.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A company run by former officials at Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm brought down by a scandal over how it obtained Facebook users’ private data, has quietly been working for President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election effort, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP confirmed that at least four former Cambridge Analytica employees are affiliated with Data Propria, a new company specializing in voter and consumer targeting work similar to Cambridge Analytica’s efforts before its collapse. The company’s former head of product, Matt Oczkowski, leads the new firm, which also includes Cambridge Analytica’s former chief data scientist.

Data Propria.  Keep that name in mind.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Friday that a Russian company charged with meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is not entitled to review grand jury materials and gave the two sides 10 days to agree on rules for sharing evidence.

Lawyers for the Russian company, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, had last month asked the judge for permission to review the instructions provided to the grand jury, arguing the case was flawed because there was no evidence the company knowingly and “willfully” violated American laws.

District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied that request, saying it was not clear the issue would be critical to the defense, which has indicated it plans to file a motion to dismiss the case, and that she considered it an unjustified step.

“Breaching the secrecy of the grand jury is not an easy thing to do,” Friedrich said at the hearing.

“Unfair.”  Unfair?  Know what’s unfair, thousands of children crying themselves to sleep in cages because a heartless government ripped them away from their parents.  Getting thrown in jail for breaking the law while on bail is justice.

 

COHEN

Cohen’s next court date is scheduled for June 25th.  That’s 10 days for him to go through the shredded documents and encrypted texts to see if any of those fall under attorney-client privilege (Spoiler Alert: They won’t) and work out the beginning steps of a plea deal.

 

TRUMP CHARITIES

NYAG Underwood sent a criminal referral to the IRC CI.  IRS’s Criminal Investigation unit, also known as the Seal Team Six of Taxes, will make a determination on whether and when they should conduct a criminal investigation against the Trump family and the donors to the foundation.

Notice I said donors? The list of foundation donors include many of Trump’s political donors, and unlike donating to a PAC, charitable donations are tax-deductible.  Not only did Trump not pay taxes on the incoming donations, but his donors may have claimed a deduction on an illegal contribution.

Vinnie Mac might want to talk to his tax man.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Meeting extreme injustices with polite banter plays right into the hands of this administration, because it paints their outrageous actions as just being on one side of a well-meaning debate. They’re not. This is not about disagreement, or political discourse. This is about fighting for what’s right over what is clearly and demonstrably evil.

Being spittlingly angry will not drive more people to Trump and will not diminish us – the high road is about morals, not a few curse words.

The Obama’s famously said years ago “When they go low, we go high.”  That refers to morals, not language.  Anyone who has read this site for a couple days can see that I’m not afraid of dropping an F-bomb on a story like it’s the fire bombing of Dresden.  I’ve lost count of how many times over the last three years I’ve seen Trump Supporters attack people for getting offended and showing offense at blatantly obvious misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, and racist language, only to express their own gelotophobia.  That’s a fear of being laughed at or ridiculed.

The same people that called Hilary Clinton a cunt and the Obama children monkeys get their panties in a twist when a professional comedian called Ivanka Trump a vapid, feckless cunt.  The same people that cheered when Donald Trump screamed at a journalist to go fuck himself feign shock and horror when Robert DeNiro says “Fuck You Trump” during the Tony Awards.  The same people that hooted and hollered for Trump making fun of a disabled man at a campaign rally cry crocodile tears when Alec Baldwin portrays him Saturday Night Live.  The same people that support locking children up in cages…well, I question the humanity of those mother fuckers.

The Snowflake Generation.  I think that’s what I’m going to call Trump Supporters from now on.  The same people that insisted their kids get trophies just for participating are the same ones calling those same kids sheltered.  The same people that laughed at “libtard tearz” over racism and sexism are the same ones trying to hold us to a higher standard than themselves.

Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck anyone who thinks like that.

I’ve got a new slogan: When they go low, step on their fucking neck.

Call the shit what it is.  Make them uncomfortable as fuck.

They talk about how bad immigration is, show them pictures of toddlers crying in cages.

They talk about Ivanka being treated unfairly, talk about her laundering money for terrorists and child rapists.

They talk about Trump being an “alpha male”, talk about him being a coward that doesn’t have the balls to say shit to people’s faces.

Don’t talk about his omissions of fact or mistruths.  Talk about his lies and his bullshitting.

Don’t talk about Trump’s Sexual Assaults.  Talk about his Rapes.

 

ROB ROGERS FIRED

Rob Rogers, the longtime editorial cartoonist for my hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was fired for submitting the following cartoon.

RogersLastCartoon

In the last few months, the PG hired a new editor named John Block, a Right-Wing cheerleader with ties to the paper’s new conservative owners.  In the span of a couple months, Rob had more cartoons spiked than he had in the past decade combined.  All of the spiked cartoons were critical of Trump and the Right Wing.

John Block is trying to turn the Post-Gazette into a Right-Wing paper.  It won’t work. Pittsburgh is one of the most Liberal cities in the country.  We had a right-wing paper in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  It failed.  It failed because Pittsburgh is a vibrant, diverse, and educated city.  Those three attributes are the antithesis of modern conservatism.

Claude Taylor talked about putting this picture up as a billboard across from the Post-Gazette’s headquarters if they can get matching funds from around Pittsburgh.  It would cost about $3-4k for a week.

I wish I still had my subscription to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, just so I could cancel it.

 

PRUITT

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

#METOO

 

ELECTION 2018

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Friday.  One story I didn’t cover, because I have a little rule about it, was Trump’s impromptu “crash” of Fox & Friends on the White House lawn at the same time that Paul Manafort was getting reprimanded by the judge and remanded to jail.  It was nothing more than a distraction, like dangling keys in front of a baby.  In this case, the MSM is the baby.

I don’t expect to do much work on this website this weekend.  Real life has some plans for me, and I have a lot of things to do in a short time.  I might have some time on Sunday night.  At the least, I want to do some organization around here.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur