Tag: Confirmation

Daily Check-In 04/24/2018

Tuesday, April 24th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

According to the latest court filing by the Mueller inquiry, which is defending a warrant attached to a raid on Manafort’s home in July 2017, part of what the FBI were hunting for were “communications, records, documents, and other files involving any of the attendees of the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, as well as Aras and [Emin] Agalarov.”

Here’s a PDF

They listed among the items seized documents pertaining to bank accounts opened in his wife’s name.

Not their names, or his name, but his wife’s name.

Congratulations, Kathleen Manafort! You are now a subject in the Mueller Investigation, and will be used to get your husband to flip on Donald Trump. If your husband refuses to play ball, you will be charged as an Accessory to Money Laundering, Accessory to Bank Fraud, and as an Accessory to commit Wire Fraud. You will get to spend the rest of your life in prison.

If anyone’s wondering if Mueller or his team would ever go after a spouse to get a witness to turn states evidence, ask Lea Fastow.

 

 

COHEN:  HANNITY’S REAL ESTATE EMPIRE JUST GOT SHADIER

In 2012, a shell company linked to the Fox News host bought 11 homes in Georgia that had been purchased by the dealer, Jeff Brock, following foreclosures. Brock transferred the properties to corporate vehicles that sold them on to the Hannity-linked company at a profit.

Brock pleaded guilty in 2016 to federal charges of bank fraud and conspiracy for his role in an operation to rig foreclosure auctions between 2007 and 2012. He was sentenced to six months in prison and had to pay more than $166,000 in fines and restitution.

Some of the houses sold on to the Hannity-linked firm in 2012 had been acquired by Brock from banks later named by prosecutors among his victims. But the justice department declined to identify specific properties sold in the rigged auctions. Hannity has not been accused of any wrongdoing and there is no evidence he was aware that Brock was involved in fraud.

…

In February 2012, the Hannity-linked company spent about $540,000 buying 10 single-family houses in Georgia’s Fulton, Cobb, Clayton, and DeKalb counties, according to county records. It bought an additional DeKalb county property later that year for about $60,000.

The company was formed in Georgia days before the February purchases by an attorney for Hannity. It was registered to the offices of Henssler Financial, Hannity’s wealth managers. As a limited liability company (LLC), it was not required to report its actual owner to Georgia regulators. Hannity is not mentioned in the company’s publicly available filings.

Brock had bought the 11 Georgia houses in foreclosure auctions in 2011 and 2012, after the previous owners defaulted on mortgages. He transferred the properties to five LLCs. Brock was the registered agent for two of the five LLCs and a colleague at Key Property was the agent for another. Then the Hannity-linked company bought the houses from these five LLCs, paying a total of $600,000.

Where payment information was clear in the records, it indicated that the sales created significant profits. One four-bedroom home in College Park that Brock bought for $14,000 in January 2012 was sold to the Hannity-linked company for $47,000 the following month. Another in Forest Park, for which Brock paid $19,000 in October 2011, was sold on for $55,000.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

TORONTO ATTACK

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

STORMYGATE

 

PUFF, PUFF, PASS

 

TEXAS; GERRYMANDERING AND RACIST JUDGES

 

ARIZONA; SPECIAL ELECTION

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for today.  Something came up tonight, so I won’t be adding any commentary tonight.  I’ll be back to my normal routine tomorrow.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/23/2018

Monday, April 23rd and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

So, here’s the short version:

Took off from Asheville, 9:15PM Thursday Nov 7.

Landed Moscow 6:15AM Friday, Nov 8.

Saturday, Nov 9, Trump was pictured at the Ritz, tweeted he got a tour of Moscow. This is the next day, so he must have spent Friday night in Moscow, right?

Sunday, 1AM, November 10- Trump attends Miss Universe Pageant After Party.

Take off from Moscow, 3:58AM, Sunday, November 10.

Land at Newark 4:11AM Sunday, November 10.

Trump claims the allegation can’t be true, because he never even spent a night in Russia, but the travel shows otherwise.

Trump told James Comey multiple times that he wasn’t in Russia long enough to sleep.  While it’s possible that he didn’t sleep in the hotel, it strains credulity.

Trump notoriously sleeps only a few hours a night, typically about 4-6.  Assuming he slept on the plane right up to landing, and didn’t succumb to jet lag, he’s trying to push the tale that he was up for two days straight.  Not a lot of senior citizens can stay awake without assistance for that long.  And by assistance, I mean drugs.  Lots of drugs.  Coke and other uppers.

So, he took enough drugs to kill a small horse to stay awake and party for two days, or he slept in Russia, thus leading credence to the pee pee tape rumors.

Here’s an old article from last summer, where Bloomberg recreates Trump’s Two Nights of Parties in Moscow Echo Years Later.

I mentioned this for the first time on Daily Check-In 04/18/2018.  Looks like New York is working fast.

Two words:  Sealed Indictments.

Flynn Jr. is now saying his father never lied to Pence about his interactions with Kisylak. Which, if he is telling the truth, would mean:
  1. Pence, who has said he had no knowledge of the conversations Flynn was having with Kisylak and other Russian officials, actually did know.
  2. Trump’s reason for firing Flynn doesn’t hold water since the former national security adviser didn’t lie to Pence.
  3. Flynn chose to lie to the FBI about his dealings with the Russians during the transition but told the truth to the incoming vice president about those same interactions.

Flynn Jr. is not a very bright man.  This time, his stupidity may have accidentally tripped over the truth and shone a light on how much Mike Pence knows.

Flipping Flynn lays out how much trouble both Mike Flynn’s are in.

UPDATE: Just as I was finishing up, I ran across This article showing that Flynn Jr. is a subject of the Russian Investigation.  This leads credence to the standing hypothesis that Daddy Flynn flipped to protect his son.

Might have something to do with the fact that she’s a Russian spy.  Natalia Veselnitskaya is a cut-out for Russian Intelligence.  Even the Swiss called her a spy (Daily Check-In 01/29/2018).  If Mueller’s team or the FBI show up to interview her, they’re taking her back with them into custody.

 

COHEN: SEAN HANNITY’S REAL ESTATE EMPIRE

The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90m on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade. The properties range from luxurious mansions to rentals for low-income families. Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them.

Sean Hannity, the man who sang about the evils of Obama’s government, built a real estate empire based off of government loans.

On the surface, this looks shady, but might not be illegal.  If everything was done above the board, then he’s just a rich old white guy benefiting off of the pain and misery of poor people.

Thanks to this post from Reddit /u/Diosjenin for tying the threads together:

You’re still missing it. It’s right at the end.

In footage unearthed this week that was broadcast on Fox News in January last year, Hannity mentioned having discussed an unidentified $2bn property venture in Dubai with Cohen.

“I said, ‘I’m interested in that deal myself,’” said Hannity.

It just so happens that Donald Trump also dabbled in a $2b property venture in Dubai with Michael Cohen.

It also just so happens that Donald Trump habitually uses large construction projects as a means of money laundering for shady friends (such as this project here).

It also just so happens that the United Arab Emirates, the country where Dubai is located, has served as a facilitator for back-channel Trump-Russia communications, and has used unregistered agents to influence US foreign policy up to and including pushing to fire Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.

Which means Sean Hannity has probably partnered with Russia to launder money through real estate, in exchange for… something.

Wonder if that has anything to do with Julian Assange accidentally contacting the wrong Sean Hannity to offer dirt on ranking Senate Intelligence Committe Democrat Mark Warner via “other channels”.

So, we have Sean Hannity, Michael Cohen, and Donald Trump all involved in the same Dubai deal, likely as payoff for his work with the Russians.

By the way, Sean Hannity has been under an FBI Counterintelligence investigation since at least last August (Daily Check-In 8/3/2017).

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Reinking threatened someone with an AR-15 then drove to a public pool and exposed himself to others, said the USA TODAY Network’s Tennessean, citing police records. He has also threatened to kill himself and said he thought singer Taylor Swift was stalking him, according to the Associated Press.

Another case of White, Right-Wing, Domestic Terrorism.  This guy was crazy enough that law enforcement took his guns from him and gave them to his father, his next of kin.  His father then gave his son back his guns, and four people are dead because of it.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Two words:  Magnitsky Act.  Freeze and seize their assets around the world.  Freeze the accounts of everyone they hang out with, they’re related to, and they know in passing.

Remember when Republicans gave a shit about using unsecured communication methods to relay classified information?  Something something buttery males.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE/TECH WOLRD PROBLEMS

 

STORMYGATE

Jessica Drake, an adult-film star who claims she refused a $10,000 offer to have sex with Donald Trump after meeting him at a Lake Tahoe golf event in 2006, says Stormy Daniels told her Daniels was threatened by someone to stay silent about Daniels’ alleged sexual tryst with Trump.

…

“She actually told me about the threat twice,” Drake said. “So the first time she told me about the threat was shortly after it happened. She relayed the experience to me. I said something like, ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t even imagine. What are you going to do?'”

Know what’s more trustworthy than one porn star accusing Trump of using his goons to threaten her?  Another porn star backing it up from years ago.

 

RED STATE TEACHER STRIKES

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

BLUE WAVE

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

73 years of marriage, and less than a day after her funeral, George HW Bush is in intensive care in the hospital.  It’s like The Notebook, but in this case Ryan Gosling ran the CIA for a couple years.  Still a better story than Drive.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  Quite a few things happened over the weekend, but I still don’t think we’ve gotten to the bottom of the Sean Hannity story.  Until and unless Cohen’s emails show that his is all he worked with Sean on, I’m waiting for even worse stuff to come out about him.  The rumors floating around him involved quite a bit of SIGINT on him, as well as some sexual kompromat.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/20/2018

Friday, April 20th.  4-20.  Happy Weed Day, if you’re into that kind of thing.

 

COHEN IS FUCKED HARDER THAN STORMY DANIELS IN BONE APPETITE (2003, FROM THE INTERNET ADULT FILM DATABASE (YES, THAT REALLY IS A THING))

The consensus thought is that Michael Cohen will flip on Donald Trump as soon as charges are brought against him.  Cohen loves to talk tough, but he’s probably never been in a real fight in his life, and you never know how you’ll react until you get punched in the face.  He’s bragged about how he would take a bullet for Trump, but there is a world of difference between taking a bullet and spending 30 years in prison.

Remember on Daily Check-In 04/18/2018 when I said to keep an eye out for Keith Davidson?  Looks like we don’t have to wait to find out news about him.  He’s already working with the feds against Cohen.  My guess is that they found some incriminating evidence against Davidson, and gave him a simple option; work with them against Cohen or look at a VERY long prison sentence and disbarment.

On top of his federal problems, Cohen owes $174,000 in back taxes on his taxi cab companies.  Those tax problems are on top of his other legal issues.

There’s only one word that describes how I feel watching Michael Cohen squirm.

Schadenfreude.

 

DNC SUES TRUMP FOR RUSSIAN COLLUSION

Coming right out of the Watergate playbook, the Democratic Party has sued the Trump Campaign, the Russians, and all of the players in Federal Civil court in SDNY in Manhattan.  You know, the same place that’s going through Trump’s lawyer’s documents with a fine toothed comb.

It would be a shame if Trump had to split his attention among another lawsuit.

 

STORMYGATE:  STORMY SUES TRUMP FOR DEFAMATION

Look, another lawsuit!  This time because Donald Trump called a woman he was involved in a civil lawsuit with a liar.

Gee, I REALLY hope he can focus his energies and doesn’t have to deal with ANOTHER lawsuit.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION:  McCABE SUES TRUMP FOR DEFAMATION, WRONGFUL TERMINATION.  SESSIONS THREATENS TO RESIGN IF ROSENSTEIN IS FIRED, DID TRUMP SLEEP IN MOSCOW?

That’s at least two lawsuits filed and another promised in ONE FUCKING DAY.

And Rudy?  That fucker hasn’t been in a courtroom since the 80’s.  He’s brash, obnoxious, and under investigation for passing on classified information from FBI agents to the press.  Which may be the only use he has in this case.

 

COMEY DON’T PLAY THAT:  FALLOUT FROM THE MEMO RELEASE

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS: STOLEN VALOR

Claiming to serve and fight when one didn’t is such a scummy, slimy, cowardly move, and that kind of claim is easy to prove or disprove.  It’s not like anyone could look up the division, find out where it was headquartered, contact the base, and ask someone to look up the personnel records from over almost 30 years ago.  Or, track down a few soldiers from that unit and ask them “Did you serve with this guy?”

Fuck Pompeo, and fuck Pruitt.  I haven’t talked about him enough, but his corrupt ass really needs to spend some time in the barrel.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

19 years ago, two kids rolled in to Columbine High School and shot up the place, in what was at that the time the worst shooting in a school.  Since then, over 200,000 school aged kids have been exposed to gun violence in this country, while the Republican Party accepted more and more money from the NRA to block any and all attempts at gun control, no matter how common sense the ideas were, like keeping guns out of the hands of people with violent criminal histories or mentally unstable people.

An entire generation of kids grew up under the specter of violence in school.  And we let it happen.  Gen-X, Gen-Y, the Boomers, all of us let this happen.

We need to stand with this next generation to solve this problem.

 

TRUMP ORG AND CORRUPTION, FROM THE WATER IS WET DEPARTMENT

These stories about Trump calling reporters to leak stories about him have been circulating since the 80’s, but it looks like a reporter found their old collection of tapes where “John Barron” talked about how great Trump is.

If that name looks familiar, Trump later named his last son Barron.

 

SMALLVILLE AND SEX TRAFFICKING

Ok, this is pretty fucking weird, and I know it doesn’t have anything to do with Russia, politics, or treason.

A couple weeks ago I ran across a story from Artvoice posted on Reddit about a self-help multi-level-marketing system that is actually a pyramid scheme sex cult.  I didn’t catch all of the details, but it was just weird enough to might have a piece of truth to it.

Well, turns out that Clark’s blonde friend from Smallville was running a sex cult, complete with branding her slaves with her initials on their vaginas.

This is 2018, that will be the craziest thing to happen for at least 20, maybe 25 minutes.

 

SMOKE’EM IF YOU GOT’EM

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

That last article was from Fox Business, claiming to have insider information about the Mueller Investigation.  I’m calling bullshit.

Mueller’s team has been a black box.  No one knows what they’re doing until they do it, and any info that does come out only comes from the defense attorneys that get interviewed.  On top of top of that, Fox News Channel is under a counter-intelligence investigation.

So, why in the Crystal Pepsi-flavored fuck would anyone from the Mueller team talk to Fox Business and Fox News?

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

CA CREW

 

RUMOR MILL:  90 DAYS

We’ve entered a new phase, where multiple investigations in several jurisdictions are taking place simultaneously. Mueller’s work in EDVA and DC, Cohen and the DNC lawsuits in SDNY, and now EDNY subpoenaed Jared’s businesses over their rent-control scam.

4 federal attorney offices are actively investigating people close to the President.  And they know they’re screwed.  Even Cohen’s own lawyer expects him to be indicted within 90 days.

I find 90 days an interesting time, and makes me think that we’re going to see a major change in the strategy.

Why?  That’s how long it would take to change New York state law to remove double jeopardy protection for people pardoned in federal court.  I mentioned in Daily Check-In 04/18/2018 about the efforts to amend New York 40.20.  If that change goes through, then it’s game on, as New York won’t have to worry about what crimes get pardoned.  If anything, the pardons would make it easier for them to charge people in state court, since as I mentioned before in GTKYG-Pardon Limitations that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt and waives their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination.

 

That’s it for today.  I’m not sure what I will write this weekend.  Most likely, I will update the Cast of Characters.  Maybe I’ll start up a tally with all of the known lawsuits floating around.  We’ll see where things go from here.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/19/2018

Thursday, April 19th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Tonight, at 9PM EST, just as Jim Comey was sitting down at Rachel Maddow’s desk, redacted versions of his memos are released.  While he’s a guest on the largest rated Cable News show, on an episode that Rachel has been plugging for weeks.

She is reading the memos to him.

Here’s the link to the memos.  Want the direct PDF link?  Have fun.

I’m amazed by this move.  This is brilliant.  The DOJ knew that the memos would leak to Fox News and the Right Wing Media in minutes, and they would release their tiny little selections, and we would be on the defensive.  Instead, DOJ releases the memo on their own, and gets it out in the open,

Rachel asked Comey how it would be possible to end the investigation.

I actually don’t think that you could accomplish that by firing Director Mueller.  I think you’d have to fire everybody in the FBI and the Justice Department to accomplish that in practice, given the commitment of the people in those organizations.

I think I’m going to sleep a little better tonight.

Rosenstein, who brought up the Mueller probe himself, offered the assurance during a meeting with Trump at the White House last Thursday, a development that helped tamp down the president’s desire to remove Rosenstein or Mueller, the people said.

After the meeting, Trump told some of his closest advisers that it’s not the right time to remove either man since he’s not a target of the probe. One person said Trump doesn’t want to take any action that would drag out the investigation.

Just remember, cops and lawyers don’t have to tell the truth to suspects under investigation.  While it could be a courtesy, what in any of this implies that Donald Trump deserves courtesy?

 

COMEY DON’T PLAY THAT

 

COHEN

Spicy Mic’s thread on Alan Futerfas…

 

STORMYGATE

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

IN A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Unable either to repeal Obamacare or to design a better alternative, President Trump has spent the last year engaged in a multifaceted campaign of sabotage against his predecessor’s legacy: weakening the law’s consumer protections and eliminating its individual mandate. Trump is symbolically peeing in Obama’s bed.

Later this year, Republicans in Congress will have to lie down on that pee-soaked mattress. The Urban Institute has calculated that the various acts of legislative and executive sabotage against the law will increase premiums on the individual market by an average of 18 percent. Republicans in Congress have already formulated a plan to explain away the disaster their party engineered, reports Caitlin Owens. And the plan, astonishingly, is to explain to their voters that higher premiums is the necessary sacrifice they must make to help relieve low-income households of the burden of paying the individual mandate…

 

BLUE WAVE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

WASHINGTON—The real-estate company run by the family of White House adviser Jared Kushner in mid-March received a federal grand-jury subpoena for information related to paperwork the company filed in New York City concerning its rent-regulated tenants, according to people familiar with the matter.

The subpoena, part of an investigation by prosecutors in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, came shortly after an Associated Press article about the company having filed documents that said it had zero rent-regulated tenants, when in fact it had hundreds, an omission that relieved them of certain rules governing developers.

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

RUMOR MILL:  DIPSHIT COWBOY’S SCORES ON HIS OWN GOAL

Once again, Devin Nunes done fucked up good.  Every time he thinks he has a fool-proof plan, it blows up in his face.  It happened with the memo, his midnight ride to the White House, and it’s happening with the Comey Memo.

He thought, and I use that term loosely, that he would take these memos, deliver them to the White House and Hannity at Fox News, and use those places to release what they thought would help them the most.

Instead, someone released the memos to the press. destroying his thunder and putting the whole memo out there, preventing it from being used as propaganda.

 

That’s it for today.  I’m curious how this works out tomorrow, but I’d put money down that The Dotard spews shit from the shitter in a 5am twitter rant.  Something something “Lyin’ Comey, BAD! MAGA! No Hookers!”  Then, he’ll contradict himself…again.

Why do I have a feeling that the history classes covering this time period in school will require parental permission slips?

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”