2017

It’s been a busy day. Things are ramping up, and it’s only Tuesday.

NIGEL FARAGE IN ALABAMA

This is a little weird. Nigel Farage, of Brexit fame, and friends with Julian Assange, is in Alabama to campaign for Ron Moore in the GOP Primary.

Why in the Crystal Pepsi Flavored Fuck is this even a thing? Who made this call? Who said “Bring in Farage. He only has every tie to Russia, and is likely being tracked by every Intelligence agency on the planet. Send the shady Brit to Alabama.” It’s almost like Treason Train runs through Birmingham.

IVANKA AND DONNIE TRIED TO BUMP TIFFANY OUT OF THE WILL

I don’t write much about Trump child drama, but I’m including This story to remind people that Tiffany lives.

It’s a bit of a dick move to try to get a sibling written out of the will. I think it shows what this brood values.

ROGER STONE TESTIFIED BEFORE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

I haven’t seen any stories yet on how it went, but Donald Trump’s Campaign Advisor Roger Stone met the HIC today. Considering his opening statement was half delusional, half falsified events.

Let’s see how this ends.

TEEN VOGUE EDITORIAL PIECE ON THE KNEELING CONTROVERSY

Many things have happened in 2017 that I never could have predicted. Following Teen Vogue is right up there with cheering on the FBI and learning about Constitutional Law.

Teen Vogue has taken up the mantle of reporting politics in a straight forward way, highlighting the insanity. Remember in Harry Potter when Voldemort came to power, and the main newspaper became propaganda for the Death Eaters, and the young kids magazine became the voice of the resistance? That’s Teen Vogue.

HRC ASKS IF TRUMP KNOWS THAT PUERTO RICO IS AMERICA?

Yep, this happened. She called out the Orange Molester.

After a week of waiting while PR suffers, and after attacking them on Twitter for having a lot of debt, some of it after Trump abandoned a golf course there to foreclosure, Trump finally sent humanitarian aid, but only after seeing the criticism against him.

Puerto Rico will be his Katrina.

MUELLER INVESTIGATING RUSSIAN MONEY TO THE RNC

Even though it’s been flying around the Rumor Mill for a while, but ABC reports that Mueller is looking into Russian money flowing to the Republican National Committee.

This is big.

Dark money is a big problem in politics, and if it turns out that the Russians laundered money to the RNC, that could implicate each and every candidate who received money in the election last year.

It’s like they watched House of Cards season 2, but skipped the finale.

SPEED ROUND!

IRS SHARING DOCUMENTS WITH BOBBY THREE STICKS

BLUMENTHAL THINKS MANAFORT AND FLYNN 99% LIKELY TO BE INDICTED

SHOUTY SPICE LAWYERS UP, BITCHES!

THE ZOMBIE SENATE HEALTH CARE BILL IS DEAD… FOR NOW

17,000 VOTERS DETERRED FROM VOTING IN WISCONSIN’S LARGEST TWO COUNTIES

ACTING HEAD OF DEA RESIGNS AT ENC OF WEEK

MNUCHIN ASJS JUDGE TO THROW OUT CASE AGAINST EXXON

I hope that’s all for today. Something big is on the horizon. What, I’m not sure. But if I were Paul Manafort, I’d spend some time with the loved ones. I think we’ll hear about the first batch of indictments within a few weeks.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/25/2017

Monday. I wonder if anything happened over the weekend, or earlier today.

DISASTER DU JOUR: THE NFL AND NORTH KOREA.

We’ve already established that Trump craves attention the way a junkie craves a hit.

Combine being an attention whore with being a racist, and not being able to admit being wrong, or letting any slight against him go, what do you get?

The NFL uniting against him in solidarity.

Oh, and North Korea is at it again, because of Trump.

I’m not going into too much detail since these are distractions from the disasters.

I hope.

JARED AND IVANKA BOTH CAUGHT USING PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS FOR OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE BUSINESS.

Hypocrisy has a name. Earlier today, Ivanka and Jared Kushner have both been accused of using personal emails to conduct White House business.

Someone say something about buttery males?

WEINER GETS 21 MONTHS IN PRISON.

Yep. Anthony Weiner was sentenced to 21 months for sending dick pics to an underage girl.

I’ll describe his story in more detail another day, but for a primer, check out Louise Mensch’s work about him at Patribotics.

RUSSIANS ATTEMPTED TO HACK PENNSYLVANIA VOTER SYSTEM.

One that hits a little closer to home, Pennsylvania was targeted by the Russians. I covered this in detail last Friday, but this report confirms that the Keystone State was targeted for hacking.

PUERTO RICO NEEDS HELP. DON’T EXPECT IT FROM THE RACIST.

Puerto Rico is about to become Trump’s Katrina. Hell, its about to be worse. While Trump argues on Twitter with football players, Americans are dying.

Now, that daughter fucker wants to blame Puerto Rico for being hit by hurricane?

Fuck you, Donald Trump!

I refuse to give him a link and stroke his pathetic ego.

FACEBOOK HAS SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS.

There’s a lot going on with Facebook right now. Russians used it to sow hatred between Blacks and Muslims. President Obama warned Zuckerberg about what could happen. On top of all that, Steve Bannon tried to infiltrate Facebook.

Facebook is in the middle of the storm now. From what it looks like, Mark Zuckerberg has been helping recently, but the question remains how much did he know, and when? Especially since their statements earlier this year denying Russian activity were countered by reports they contacted the FBI in June 2016.

That’s it for today. I’ll do some work on the home page in the next couple days. Maybe I’ll calm down a little bit.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/22/2017

Friday Night. Time for the News Dump…

AP CONFIRMS THAT RUSSIANS TRIED TO HACK VOTING SYSTEMS

From the Associated Press, we get conclusive evidence that the Russians attempted to breach the voting systems of at least 21 states were targeted during the 2016 elections in attempts to change voter rolls, software on voting machines, and possibly even the totals themselves.

From @emptywheel, as of a few hours ago, the list of identified states were as follows:

Alabama
Arizona
Colorado
Connecticut
Illinois
Iowa
Maryland
Minnesota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

That’s 13 identified so far. We’ve had reports in the past that Texas had some weirdness going on during the election in Dallas county where long lines were caused by people disappearing from voter rolls, or having their information changed. North Carolina had some funkiness with their exit polling, as did Florida. I also heard reports of Missouri and South Carolina, where HRC was trending high a couple weeks before election night. Let’s add them to the list…

Alabama
Arizona
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Illinois
Iowa
Maryland
Minnesota
Missouri
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

Take a look at those states listed, what’s missing? New York, California, Massachusetts, Idaho, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas.

The “safe” states. The states that were solidly Democratic or Republican. The states where there wasn’t a chance of voting for Hilary Clinton from a traditional Red state, or the Blue states where Trump didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell.

Why? Because the Russians had finite resources, and Cambridge Analytica told them where to focus their attack.

This report from the AP helps back up the Reality Winner story from earlier this year. Hell, even James Clapper said that the USIC’s assessment of the election is that it was illegitimate. Rep. Mike Quiqley of the House Intel Committee said that if the public knew what he knew, they’d want him to go full throttle.

WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS PREPARING TO JUMP SHIP

From Vanity Fair, here comes a report out of Washington, D.C. where many lobbyist groups, think tanks, and other agencies are getting swamped with resumes from Trump Administration staffers looking to leave the White House.

While it’s not uncommon for staffers to cash in on their experience in the White House, it usually happens after 2 years or more, not less than 1. This is indicative of people getting out while the getting is good.

FROM THE RUMOR MILL…

An article on Patribotics by Louise Mensch reported that SVB Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, was under watch from the FISA Russian Bank money laundering warrant she discussed a few days ago.

Silicon Valley Bank, located in Silicon Valley, is owned by Sberbank, one of the Russian banks under sanctions. From this report, they’re tied up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal where the state voter rolls and DNC databases were hacked and data mined.

Since SVB is owned by Sberbank, and located in the heart of Silicon Valley, it makes the bank the perfect drop-off point for data to and from Russia. Since they’re a subsidiary, communication with the home base wouldn’t be too crazy. And with them being in Silicon Valley, any tech company making hits on their system could try to claim a legit reason for it.

Cambridge Analytica, Spectrum Health, Trump Organization, Alfa Bank. Now we can add Sberbank and SVB to the list.

This is worth keeping an eye on. Like always, take this with a grain of salt.. at least until it’s confirmed by the Washington Post in a couple months.

That’s it for today. I’ll see what I can get up this weekend.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/21/2017

Not too bad for a Thursday…

At least relatively speaking, that is. In TrumpWorld, today felt like a slow news day. Health care, North Korea, Spicer, Facebook, Twitter, Lewandowski, Pence. Today it felt a little slow.

Compared to W or Obama, stuff is happening at breakneck speed.

Calling today a slow news day is like saying a 747 is moving slow. It’s moving at several hundred miles per hour. Might not be as fast as an F-35, but it sure is faster than a Ford Explorer.

LEWANDOWSKI SAYS MANAFORT SHOULD BE IN PRISON FOR LIFE

From The Hill, former Trump Campaign Manager, and Paul Manafort’s predecessor Corey Lewandowski, called out his successor in some harsh language, going as far as to say that he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

Corey is a blustery asshole whom I hate for completely irrational reasons that I’ll explain later, but so far he’s the only person associated with the Trump Campaign to show any level of outrage at what happened. Everyone else either shrugged it off, acted like they never heard of Paul Manafort (like Vice President Mike Pence did this morning on Fox & Friends), or tried to change the subject. To Corey’s credit, he’s calling Paul out. Not that there was any love lost between the two, and Corey is still denying that Trump ever had anything to do with Russia, at least while he was around.

SOCIAL MEDIA, CONGRESS, AND THE SPECIAL COUNSELOR ALL GETTING ON THE SAME PAGE

Earlier today, reports came out that both Facebook and Twitter have agreed to work with the Senate committees, and that they are both fully cooperating with Special Counselor Mueller. Twitter is handing over the information they’ve collected on Russian bots, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced several sweeping changes with Facebook, including policing ads more for political content, forcing advertisers to disclose themselves in the ad, and sharing the suspected Russian ads with Congress.

These aren’t some magnanimous or altruistic move on their part, this is straight-up CYA. Cover. Your. Ass.

If they don’t cooperate with the investigations, they’re screwed, and could possibly go down as accomplices. If they don’t take proactive actions, they could piss off Congress enough to get classified as utilities. That might still happen, but at least if they start taking swift action, they’re less likely to be completely screwed.

‘THE NOTEBOOK 2″ TO STAR SEAN SPICER, ROBERT MUELLER, DONALD TRUMP

SHOUTY SPICE IS BACK, BITCHES! After rage quitting the White House when he was passed over for his dream job, Sean Spicer is back in the news, and not for being affable on late night television.

According to GQ Magazine , the Special Counselor is very interested Sean Spicer. He’s interested in hearing his side of the story of the Comey firing press statement. He’s interested in hearing his side of the story of the press statements he made before Comey was fired. He’s interested in hearing his side of the story about all of the times he addressed the nation and spouted obvious lies to the American people.

Unlike everyone else in this organization, Sean won’t have a problem remembering details.

Why?

He took notes. Lots of notes. Of EVERYTHING.

Spicer has many reputations, but one of them is being an studious note taker. He took notes in meetings, about meetings, notes about what he was doing each day, whom he was meeting with, what they discussed, wha the other person discussed, and who was where. One of the stories about him was that staffers would tease him, saying he was taking notes so he could write a tell-all book.

Well, he’s gonna tell all…to Bobby Three Sticks.

I called Spicer flipping like a gymnast months ago. He’s a lying, hypocritical jerk, and a toadie, but he wouldn’t take the fall for Trump. Sean Spicer struck me as being the guy that gets close to his dream job, one step away from it, and knows that he’s got to eat a shit sandwich every now and then, but he didn’t think it would be as bad as it was. Being ridiculed, humiliated, abused, treated like dirt, and that was just his boss. That doesn’t include being a laughing stock for America.

But when Trump decided to bring his Jewish children to meet the Pope instead of Sean Spicer, a devout Catholic. Meeting the Pope was a lifelong dream of his. When Trump did that, he lost Spicer. Doing this for him would have cost Trump very little, but would have kept Spicer’s loyalty for life. To quote Frank Underwood “It requires very little of me, and it means the world to him.”

The final straw for Spicer was when Trump hired Anthony Scarmucci to be the next White House Communications Director instead of him. I heard rumors that when he found out, Spicer legitimately rage quit.

This also shows how bad Donald Trump is at what he does. He demands loyalty of everyone, but does not return it to his subordinates. In crime organizations, loyalty can be kept with threats of violence. With wealth, loyalty can be bought, as long as the cash flows. But in Washington, D.C., loyalty is temporary, and power can shift on a dime. By treating Sean Spicer so bad for so long, he created an enemy. An enemy who kept notes, and shared them with the Special Counselor.

IN OTHER NEWS

NORTH KOREA’S KIM JONG UN CALLS TRUMP DERANGED, WORLD SADLY AGREES

Yep, this story again. It’s almost like every time Trump needs a distraction, North Korea does something. And, yes, North Korea and Russia have some interesting ties. Earlier this year, two North Korean spies suffered Russian Heart Attacks, when they were found dead in their luggage after being shot.

It won’t be too long before it comes out that Putin is pulling North Korea’s strings as well, and that they’re the reason why North Korea can put a nuke on a missile.

SENATE REPUBLICANS CONTINUE PUSH ON OBAMACARE REPEAL BEFORE END OF FISCAL YEAR ON SEPTEMBER 30

This doesn’t deal much with the Russian Investigation, but this could cost at least 25 million Americans their health care, and is a terrible idea.

I put blame on Citizens United. As long as unlimited money from corporations is allowed in campaigns, elected officials are beholden to the will of large money donors like the Mercers and Koch’s. The Koch Brothers even said that they will only donate $400 Million in next year’s midterm elections if, and only if, Obamacare is repealed and tax cuts are passed.

But why the sudden push? September 30th is the end of the fiscal year for the Federal Government. The parliamentary trick that Mitch McConnell used on health care, called Reconciliation, can be used on one bill or package per year, has to meet certain financial requirements, and can bypass cloture.

That last part, cloture, is part of how filibusters work. While a simple majority is all that is technically required to pass any bill in the Senate, a filibuster can be called by any senator, for any reason. Cloture is the number of votes required to break a filibuster. That number, 60, is part of why it’s so hard to get things done in the Senate, but is also what protects this country from rampant partisanship.

So, Mitch has one last shot to pass a health care repeal before September 30th. After that, we’re back to the sixty vote threshold.

FROM THE RUMOR MILL….

Nothing too new has come from the Rumor Mill on Twitter recently, except for confirming stories hitting the press and giving details that fill in the gaps.

One thing I found interesting was something Louise said in a tweet about Mike Pence showing up on Fox and Friends. Earlier this summer, she wrote an article detailing how Fox News as a corporation, and a few individuals in particular, were under investigation by the FBI for their role in spreading Russian propaganda during the election, and after. One name she dropped was Sean Hannity.

Earlier today, she mentioned that the cast and crew of Fox & Friends was included in that investigation. I’ve mentioned before in Fox & Friends – 10 Minutes Is Enough how that program hit all of the checkboxes of a state run propaganda operation. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that they were under investigation by the USIC, FVEY, and every other agency at this point.

Once again, this is just a rumor, take it with a grain of salt.

That’s about it for tonight. I’m working on an idea for a new section on the home page, focusing on crimes. If I’m right about what’s coming on the horizon, there’s gonna be a lot of talk about FISA, Money Laundering, Obstruction of Justice, and lots of fraud and tax evasion. I’m going to add a new section devoted just to the crimes, and how the actors in this macabre play line up with each crime. Criminal definitions don’t necessarily fall under “Get To Know Your Government”, and I plan to right enough of these to justify their own section.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.