2017

We made it to August.

A story from NPR came out today about a federal lawsuit against Fox News from one of their on-air people alleging that the cable channel conspired with the White House on the writing and release of the Seth Rich story. Seth Rich was a DNC worker who was killed in a D.C. robbery shortly before the DNC emails were released by Wikileaks. Julian Assange claimed that he was working with Sth Rich, and not the Russian government on the mails. Of course, that claim completely ignores Julian's past with Russia, his hatred of the Clinton's, and the mails timestamped after his death.

This is huge. Fox News has been acting as a propaganda center for Trump going back more than a year, but this implies coordination on story releases.

Chris Wray, former lawyer of Chris Christie, is the new head of the FBI. Passed by a 92-5 vote with 3 abstentions.

Trump still hasn't signed the Russian Sanctions law that he received on the 28th, that he said he was going to sign. 6 more days and it becomes law anyway due to the pocket veto and pro forma congressional sessions.

Trump tweeted about tweeting again. Funny, he hasn't mentioned anything about the 755 U.S. diplomats expelled from Russia by Putin.

Rex Tillerson is still MIA. So is the State Department for that matter.

Robert Mueller just added Greg Andres to the Justice League. He specializes in white collar crime and focused on illegal foreign bribery while at the DOJ a few years back. One of his biggest cases was against a Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford, nailing him for running an $8 Billion Ponzi scheme. Stanford is currently serving 110 years in federal prison.

I'll have more on the rest of the JL later.

Daily Check-In 7/31/2017

We're almost out of July.

There are some decades where nothing happens. Then there are some weeks where decades happen.

WaPo broke the story that Trump wrote the press release that Junior used to explain the June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians. This could be huge. More to come.

Scarmucci was fired, after either 10 days, or -16 days. His start date was August 15th. He takes the record for shortest stint of this job. The previous record was held by John Koehler, who was fired after 11 days. John was a member of the Hitler Youth growing up in Germany, but it wasn't on his security clearance.

Scarmucci was fired quicker than a Nazi.

Yes, I know he had no choice in joining the Hitler Youth program. It makes a better joke this way.

The Upcoming Week 7/30/2017

As I'm sitting here on a Sunday night, waiting to watch Game of Thrones, I thought, "what's coming up this week?"

While it is impossible to accurately predict the future, here's a few stories that I think will draw attention, from the MSM, the Rumor Mill, and everything in between.

John Kelly's appointment as WH Chief of Staff will be scrutinized and analyzed, and some pundits will talk about how this will add a layer or responsibility and accountability. Except this narrative to last three days until something breaks.

With Reince Preibus gone, the only Washington insiders around the President are James Mattis and Jeff Sessions, and no one of power in the Republican Party is around to speak in Trump's ear. This could lead to Donald being "without a party." Expect this narrative to dominate the MSM for the week.

Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State, is on "extended leave" and has been rumored to be sick of Donald's crap.

Anthony Scarmucci exists to distract. If the administration is serious about becoming respectable, they'd fire him Monday. Expect his antics to continue all week.

The Republicans in Congress are getting fed up with Trump as well. They've given him 6 months, which was 5.75 months more than he received from Liberals due to the Muslim Ban. This will develop into a full blown battle by the end of the week.

Putin expelled 755 US diplomats from Russia on Sunday. This was in response to the strengthening of sanctions by the Congressional bill currently sitting on Trump's desk.

North Korea is being all North Korea. Expect them to pick up their craziness when Trump needs a distraction. It's almost like they were receiving orders on when to do this…

On the Rumor Mill, there are three stories developing this week. Remember, take all of this with a grain of salt.

Rumor has it the FinCEN Death Robot of Death is loading up on Trump and camp based off of the Panama Papers. The Panama Papers were a treasure trove of financial data released in 2016 about shell companies, money laundering, celebrities using LLC's to purchase property, and the like. 2.6 TB of data. For someone as shady as Trump, having the Treasury Department investigating your finances is slightly less comfortable than a nuclear warhead suppository.

Louise is following up on the June 24th meeting in Scotland. I'm wondering, if that meeting happened, was it a setup of the media campaign, building to the Rosneft meeting in Moscow with Carter Page, if both?

Claude is going pretty dark. He's pulling on the human trafficking thread pretty hard, and according to his sources, things are moving fast. Some of the girls from Trump Modeling were sent to a party in California to "entertain" the guests. The California AG is getting the same information that the NY AG has. He's reporting that some people close to Trump are looking for plea deals. Remember, Presidential Pardons do not work for state level crimes.

Daily Check-In 7/28/2017

So far today…

Early in the Trumpcare bill died in the Senate to a vote of 49-51. Straight party lines, with Murkowski, Collins, and McCain voting against.

People are confused by McCain's actions this week. Don't be. He voted to open the debate process which brought the bills to the floor for a vote, then voted against the bills on the floor, which killed the ACA repeal. No debate, no vote, no death.

Trump went on a twitter tirade about how the Senate should destroy the filibuster. A filibuster breaking number of senators signed a letter telling him to pound sand.

Russian sanctions restrictions landed on Trump's desk this morning. In response, Russia seized two diplomatic compounds from the U.S. and demanded the reduction in the number of diplomats there.

Supposedly the Republicans are starting to distance themselves from Trump, and the ACA Repeal debacle, combined with the treatment of Sessions and Preibus, might be the excuse they needed.

Rumor has it that some big news about Trump's connections to Russia may be dropping soon. This could be transcripts of the Mayflower meeting, evidence of him dialing in to the June 9 meeting in Trump Tower, or something else entirely.

It's a little after noon as I write this. I'll update further if/when something breaks.

UPDATE: Reince Preibus resigned yesterday. It was just announced around 5pm. He will be replaced as White House Chief of Staff by the current DHS Secretary John F. Kelly.