Tag: GTKYG

The Last Few Days 04/24/2019

Monday, April 22, 2019 to Wednesday April 24.  Published on Thursday April 25.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Mueller Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONGRESS

Subpoenas

 

Taxes and Financial Records

 

Impeachment

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A INDIVIDUAL-1

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

EMERGENCIES, SHUTDOWN, & IMMIGRATION

 

RACISM, RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for the last few days.  The Rumor Mill section is a little light for 3 days.  I’ve been more or less not going on social media the last few days.  As much as I want to get back into the swing of things on this site, I’m swamped with personal stuff.  I sold my childhood home over the weekend, and the next several weekends will be spent trying to get it ready for sale.  I also have to handle his affairs.  I hate calling him my father because that term implies a loving and respectful relationship, but I won’t use his name here.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, shit will get crazy before they finish.  The next few weeks will be spent going through the Mueller Report and parsing things apart and watching Trump and his cronies attack Congress while they try to do their job.  In my opinion, Impeachment is no longer an if, but a when.  When will it start?  When will the investigations hit full speed?  When will the shit hit the fan?

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 03/13/2018

Tuesday March 13th.  Today has been a crazy day.  I’m going to have to go short on some of these stories, since I’ve been watching the PA-18 race a little too closely.

 

REX TILLERSON FIRED AS SECRETARY OF STATE DAY AFTER SPEAKING OUT AGAINST RUSSIAN USE OF POISON IN GREAT BRITAIN

So, here’s what we know…

  • Rex Tillerson spoke out against Russia and Putin yesterday, flat out saying that the Skripal poisoning was performed by Russia.
  • About twelve hours later, Trump tweeted out that he was firing Rex Tillerson.
  • Trump will nominate CIA Director and sycophant Mike Pompeo as his new Secretary of State.
  • Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel will be the first woman to run the CIA.  She’s a life-long spook who ran one of CIA’s black sites where she oversaw torture, then destroyed the evidence of it afterward.
  • Trump’s team tried saying that Rex was asked to leave on Friday, but refused.
  • Rex’s spokesman said no.
  • Rex’s spokesman was fired for not towing the party line.
  • Rex leaves by saying “Russia did it.”

I’ve never liked Rex Tillerson.  He was too chummy with Russia, and a complete left-field choice that was out of his element, when Mitt Romney was probably the best, only choice to be America’s chief diplomat.

Pompeo is a Trump sycophant.  Trump likes him because he’s a yes man, one of his “loyal” men.  I’m worried about him, but this assumes that he even gets to a Senate hearing.

The greatest thing that Rex Tillerson did as Secretary of State was calling Trump a “fucking moron.”

 

ROGER STONE HAD CONTACT WITH WIKILEAKS BEFORE KNOWLEDGE OF HACKING BECAME KNOWN

Two people testified before Mueller’s Grand Jury that Roger Stone told them that he had contact with Wikileaks and Julian Assange before the hacked mails became common knowledge.  One of these men was Sam Nunberg.  The other was the source for this story.

 

PA-18 SPECIAL ELECTION

10:53 PM:  Fuck, I need a drink.  Lamb’s up by 755 votes, but it’s WAAAYYYY too close to call.  The absentee ballots will need to be counted.  Washington and Greene Counties won’t get theirs done tonight, but Allegheny and Westmoreland should have their absentees counted by Midnight.

This could actually fucking happen.

10:56 PM:  95 fucking votes?  Are you fucking shitting me?!  95!  100% of precincts in Greene, Allegheny, and Washington are in.  99% of Westmoreland is in.  The absentees are still outstanding.

Allegheny:  3500 absentee ballots requested

Washington: 1140

Westmoreland:  1800

Greene:  203

11:06 PM:  847 votes.  Pennsylvania does not have automatic recounts for Congressional Districts, only for statewide races.  Allegheny’s absentee votes were counted.  About 90% of the requested absentees were returned.  3143 absentee ballots, plus two precincts fro Westmoreland are left.  They’re likely being driven to Greensburg, and the roads and weather were a little lousy today.

11:22 PM:  Looks like Westmoreland and Washington are counting their absentee ballots tonight.  Saccone would need to pull a 2:1 margin from the absentees to have a shot.

11:39 PM:  Washington county is counting the absentees right now.  This could take a few hours.  I am NOT staying up for that, no matter how much stress I go through.

11:59 PM:  All precincts are in, and the absentee ballots are counted for Westmoreland.  Conor Lamb is up by 579.  Washington County and Green have (1195+203) 1398 ballots left.  Greene probably won’t count until tomorrow/today, but it might be a moot point.  Doing the math, Saccone would need to win more than 75% of the remaining ballots there.  Including Greene, Saccone would need…more than 70% of the vote from Washington County.  Saccone is quickly entering mathematically eliminated territory.

 

STORMY WATCH, FROM THE STORM CENTER 6000 METEOROPORNOLOGICAL CENTER

 

NEW CIA DIRECTOR RAN A BLACK SITE

This was during the Bush 43 days, during the “Torture is good” days.

 

GOP REP TOM ROONEY: “WE LOST ALL CREDIBILITY”, TREY GOWDY DISAGREES WITH GOP HOUSE INTEL COMMITTEE

Funny how they’ll come out of the woodwork to criticize it after Nunes makes an ass of the House of Representatives.

 

JOHN McENTEE, TRUMP’S PERSONAL ASSISTANT, FIRED FROM WHITE HOUSE

McEntee was Trump’s body man, his PA.  He was forcibly removed from the White House yesterday.  He was grabbed and shown the door.  They wouldn’t let him gather his personal belongings.  Fuck, they wouldn’t let him get his coat.

He is under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for some serious financial crimes that are unrelated to Trump.  Looks like he has a fuckton of gambling debts from online poker, and a few other financial problems.

In classic Trumpian fashion, he has been hired for the Trump Re-election Campaign, and is being paid with a salary coming from the Republican National Committee.

 

SPEED ROUND!

ICE SPOKESMAN RESIGNS, CAN’T ABIDE THE LYING ANYMORE

EXXON MOBIL WITHDRAWS FROM ROSNEFT DEAL DUE TO SANCTIONS

Exxon stands to lose $200 million from cancelling this deal.  They can pull it from their spare change jar.

SECOND PUTIN ENEMY FOUND DEAD IN LONDON, AS COUNTER-TERROR POLICE LAUNCH INVESTIGATION

MANAFORT COULD FACE ‘REST OF LIFE IN PRISON,’ JUDGE SAYS,CURRENTLY FACES A MAXIMUM OF 305 YEARS

That’s just the known indictments.  This doesn’t include the sealed indictments that are still out there.

PDF: STATUS OF RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION FROM HOUSE INTEL DEMOCRATS

Eric Garland has a quick breakdown here from his Twitter.  I need to go through this with a fine toothed comb.

FBI REPORTEDLY WANTS TO TALK TO A JAILED ‘SEX COACH’ WHO CLAIMS SHE HAS AUDIO RECORDINGS THAT PROVE RUSSIAN ELECTION MEDDLING

This is the woman from Oleg’s boat, who’s stuck in a Thai prison.

ALEX JONES IS FINALLY GETTING THE DEFAMATION LAWSUIT HE DESERVES

Fuck Alex Jones.

KELLYANNE CONWAY SPENT ‘TENS OF THOUSANDS’ OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON PRIVATE FLIGHTS THAT LED TO TOM PRICE’S FIRING

FROM RUSSIAN ROULETTE: PAPADOPOULOS CLAIMS TRUMP PERSONALLY ENCOURAGED HIM TO MEET WITH PUTIN

Looks like I’ve got a new book for my listening list.

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT WILL REVIEW ALLEGATIONS OF RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT IN 14 SUSPICIOUS DEATHS EXPOSED BY BUZZFEED NEWS

 

RUMOR MILL:  TILLERSON, POMPEO, AND HASPEL

Yes, I rock the Oxford comma.

The firing of Tillerson was a shock, and several of the Alt accounts said that Rex was the nicest of the Cabinet members, and the most patriotic, which was a bit of a shock.

Pompeo is a shit, and no one likes him.  He’s an asshat who has taken more money from the Koch’s than anyone else.

Gina Haspel is a weird one.  Her involvement with the torture and black sites paint a dirty picture, but several people, including those near the NatSec community, say that she’s a good choice for the job, and will put the country first.

 

That’s it for today.

A link to a tweet for the 7000 shoes memorial on the Capitol lawn.  Each pair of shoes represents a child who was killed by gunfire since Sandy Hook.  Each pair is a little boy or girl who will never grow up.  A teenager who will never fall in love.  A kid who loved to play with toys, but never got a chance to outgrow them.  Each pair of shoes is a parent who had to say goodbye to their baby.

According to the BBC, Professor Stephen Hawking has just passed away.  He was 76 years old, and quite likely the most brilliant man of the 20th century.  Because of him, we have a better idea of how the universe and multiverse work.  He has long suffered from ALS.  He held the same chair at Cambridge that Sir Isaac Newton held.  Stephen did not want to receive a knighthood, even though the Queen offered it to him about a dozen times.  He was also the first person to play himself in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

He was one of my childhood heroes.  A Brief History of Time still sits on my bookshelf, and every so often, I’ll flip through it again.

From the stars we came, to the stars we return.  We are all made of stardust.

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Scandal Speed Run

One of the interesting things with the Trump Presidency is the sheer speed at which their scandals are unravelling and coming out.  Not only are they coming out in rapid fire, but they’re coming out early in the administration as well.

It’s almost like they’re doing a speed run.  How fast can they get through all of the worst scandals in history?

I wanted to compare Trump to the 7 Worst Presidential Scandals, per U.S. News, and see where The Dotard lined up, in terms of speed, scale, and overall corruption.  And, to see if there’s anything they haven’t done yet.

 

BILL CLINTON: MONICA LEWISNKY

Short Version: Bill Clinton got a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky, an intern at the White House.  Kenneth Starr, the Special Prosecutor investigating Whitewater, heard about this and investigated it.  He subpoenaed Bill Clinton, who lied under oath about getting a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky.  After several years of investigation, the only thing that Starr pulled up was a perjury charge.  Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 along very partisan lines, but was not removed from office.

Time: The blowjob took place in the last year of Bill Clinton’s first term.  He was impeached in the second year of his second term.

Comparison:  This is a two-for.  We have Trump obstructing justice and paying off a porn star to keep her quiet during the election.  Just because of Watergate, I’ll use Stormy Daniels here.  It took a little over a year for his sex scandal to come to the foreground.

SEX SCANDAL LEVEL STARTED IN ONE YEAR.

 

RICHARD NIXON:  WATERGATE

Short Version: A bunch of crooks with ties to the CIA and the Republican Party broke into the headquarters for the Democratic Party, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.  The crooks got busted, Nixon was implicated in the cover-up, and he eventually had to resign.

Time: The break-in took place in the last year of his first term, and he left office in his second year of his second term.

Comparison: Trump has already helped with a break-in into the DNC email system, and is well on his way to an Obstruction of Justice charge, which is what took Nixon down.

BREAK-IN LEVEL STARTED BEFORE TAKING OFFICE

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE LEVEL STARTED IN ONE WEEK

 

WARREN G. HARDING: TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL

Short Version: Harding’s Secretary of the Interior used government resources to obtain oil fields in Wyoming, then awarded them to a company in a no-bid contract that had given him bribes, loans, and payoffs.  Harding’s Interior Secretary became the first Cabinet member to be indicted and convicted while in office.

Time:  The Teapot Dome scandal started in 1922, the second year of his presidency.

Comparison:  Trump’s Cabinet is corrupt AF.  His Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, has abused travel for personal use, and likely had a no-bid contract awarded to an unqualified company to provide power restoration to Puerto Rico.

TEAPOT DOME LEVEL STARTED IN NINE MONTHS

 

U. S. GRANT: THE WHISKEY RING

Short Version: In 1875, Grant’s personal secretary was implicated in a bribery and corruption scheme where Whiskey manufacturers complained about the taxes they had to pay.  It turns out that a few of them were bribing officials at the IRS and the Treasury Department, and keeping the money for themselves.

Time:  1875 was the next to last year of Grant’s presidency.

Comparison:  This one’s hard to compare.  Not for the lack of criminality, but that it required cooperation with the government.  That being said, if we’re looking for a straight bribery charge, an emoluments violation, or his staff being involved in some shady shit, we’ve had them all.  They’re close enough, I’ll count them.

BRIBERY LEVEL STARTED IN FIRST TWO MONTHS

EMOLUMENTS LEVEL STARTED IN ONE WEEK

STAFF CORRUPTION LEVEL STARTED IN ONE WEEK

 

ANDREW JOHNSON: THE FIRST IMPEACHMENT

Short Version: Andrew Johnson was a dick who only became President because Abraham Lincoln had a bad night at the theater.  Johnson was a Right Wing Democrat answering to a Left Wing Republican Congress who was trying to bring the country back together.  They passed a law saying that Johnson couldn’t fire any Cabinet members.  Johnson said “Eat a dick” and fired the Secretary of War.  The House impeached him, and he came within 1 vote of being removed from office.

Time:  Johnson was a bit of a dick from word one, but his impeachment took place in the third year of his presidency.

Comparison:  Trump has already ignored laws passed by Congress in refusing to enact the Russian sanctions.  He hasn’t been impeached for that yet, but the first Articles of Impeachment included the sanctions in it.

JOHNSON LEVEL STARTED IN EIGHT MONTHS

 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS:  DIDN’T WIN THE POPULAR VOTE AND A CORRUPT BARGAIN

Short Version:  The Election of 1824 was a clusterfuck.  Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and the electoral college, but did not have a majority.  That forced the House of Representatives to vote on the Presidency between the final three candidates.  The one that missed out was Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House.  Clay also hated Andrew Jackson with a passion.  Clay struck a deal with John Quincy Adams, which became known as the “Corrupt Bargain” by Jackson’s supporters.  Clay helped create a coalition that let Adams win, and Clay was named Secretary of State.  Jackson’s supporters used this to spur him on to create his own party for the 1828 election.

Time:  The Corrupt Bargain took place at the beginning of John Quincy Adam’s first and only term, and was 4 years before Jackson took office.

Comparison:  This is a very hard one to compare to, but there are two examples I can think of that directly correlate.  The first was the Mayflower Meeting, and the second being the RNC meeting in Cleveland.  In both situations, Trump’s team asked the Russians for help.  In Cleveland, the GOP Leadership was involved.  And neither of these were a last-chance scenario like the Corrupt Bargain, but were both performed earlier in the campaign.

CORRUPT BARGAIN LEVEL STARTED MONTHS BEFORE TAKING OFFICE

 

CONCLUSION

Out of the 7 worst scandals in United States Presidential History, Donald Trump has managed to have his own version of each and every one of them, and far faster than anyone else in history.  This is a level of corruption that we’ve never seen before in this country.  Hell, most banana republic dictators are less corrupt than Donald Trump.  Of course, most of them are not neck deep in Russian Mafia, or a money laundering device for the world’s most evil and corrupt organizations.

Keep in mind, we’re only 13.2 months into the four year term.  We’re just getting started with the corruption, grift, greed, and criminality of Donald Trump.  We’re going. to find out a whole hell of a lot in the next year.

Thank you, and have a good one.

The Justice League

ROBERT MUELLER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE

When Robert Mueller was appointed the Special Counselor for the Russia Investigation by the Deputy Attorney General back in May 2017, one of the first things that he did was assemble a team to help him with the day to day activities.  Not only would these team members do the heavy lifting in the courtroom, but their expertise would shape the investigation.  These hires also tell us who and what they know.

What do we know about this team?

They are some of the best prosecutors in the world, specializing in everything from white-collar crimes to cybersecurity to terrorism.  Many of them gave up 6, 7, possibly 8 figure salaries and partnerships to work on the Russian Investigation at base government pay.

What does this mean?

This means that there is more than enough evidence to convince some of the greatest lawyers on Earth to leave their private practices representing the wealthiest clients in the world to take part in the largest case in history.  At the least, they will take part in the prosecution of the President of the United States.  At the most, their roles will be pivotal in securing the fate of Democracy as we know it.

Who’s on the team, and what do they do?

Robert Mueller, Special Counselor

Former FBI Director, Mueller took over the position one week before the 9/11 terror attacks.  He became the longest serving FBI Director since J. Edgar Hoover.  After his time there, he became a partner at WilmerHale law firm in Washington, D.C.

James Quarles, member of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force

James Quarles was a young man in the 1970’s, but already a skilled lawyer.  He served as an Assistant Special Prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.

Andrew Weissmann, Fraud and Corruption

Weissmann headed up the Enron Task Force between 2002 and 2005.  Before that he was a federal prosecutor in New York.  He took down Enron Chariman Kenneth Lay, CEO Jeffery Skilling, and members and bosses in the Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino crime families.

Greg Andres, White-Collar Crimes

Andres brings foreign bribery experience to the team.  He took down an $8 Billion Ponzi scheme in Texas.

Andrew D. Goldstein, Assistant US Attorney from Southern District New York

Goldstein worked for Preet Bharara in SDNY where he led the public corruption unit.  He has experience in money laundering, fraud, and corruption cases.  Before his boss was fired by Donald Trump, Goldstein and Preet were supposedly working on a RICO case against the Trump Organization.  Rumor has it that he took the evidence against Trump with him down to Washington.

Elizabeth Prelogar, The Russian Expert

Prelogar is fluent in Russian, and clerked for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Rush Atkinson, Criminal Fraud

Atkinson is a prosecutor in the Criminal Division Securities & Financial Fraud Unit.  He took down a mother and son team that orchestrated a $16 million medicare fraud scheme.

Aaron Zebley, former Chief of Staff to FBI Director Mueller

Zebley has expertise in Counterterrorism and National Security cases.  He was prosecuting Al Qaeda before prosecuting Al Qaeda was cool.  In recent years at WilmerHale, he focused on Cybersecurity cases.

Michael Dreeben, Supreme Court Expert

Less than 10 attorneys in history have argued more than 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court.  Michael Dreeben is one of them.

Adam Jed, Civil Appeals Expert

Jed is an appellate lawyer in the civil division, not the criminal division.  This implies that they’re preparing for civil cases, and expecting them them to challenged on appeal.  His most famous case is United States v. Windsor, where he helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and brought about the legalization of gay marriage across the land.

Aaron Zelinsky, U.S. Attorney from Maryland

Zelinsky has worked for Rod Rosenstein, and was a hostage negotiator in the State Department under President Obama.

Kyle Freeny, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery

Freeny just wrapped up work on the “Wolf of Wall Street” money laundering case when she got the call to join the Mueller team.

Zainab Ahmad, Counterterrorism and Witness Flipping

Ahmad has singlehandedly crippled Al Qaeda in the United States.  She has more convictions against terrorists in the United States than anyone else.  How?  She’s THE expert in flipping witnesses. If she can flip hardened terrorists against each other, what chance does a member of the Trump Family have against her?

Jeanie Rhee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Rhee has two years of DOJ experience, and worked with Robert teller at WilmerHale.  She represented the Clinton Foundation in a racketeering lawsuit in 2015.

Brandon Van Grack, National Security Division Prosecutor

Van Grack is an expert in espionage, national security, and International Crime cases.

Ryan Dickey, Cybercrime Expert  

Ryan K. Dickey is a United States Attorney who specializes in cyber crimes. He was the prosecutor who convicted the original Guccifer, and is the man behind the shutdown of MegaUpload. He is one of the best attorneys in the world for prosecuting computer crimes.

Scott Meisler, Appellate Lawyer

Scott has represented the government in appeals involving search warrants, seizures, motions to suppress wiretap evidence, mail fraud, wire fraud, as well as structuring financial transactions and money laundering.  In other words, he knows how to “defend the technicalities.”

Brian Richardson, The New Guy

Richardson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer in October 2016 before joining the Mueller team in July 2017.  He’s also worked in multiple district courts.

Heather Alpino, Counterintelligence and Export Control

Alpino is a Harvard Law graduate who has worked on cases against Iranian hackers, a British National and American who tried to get chemical weapons equipment into Syria, and prosecuted Hamza Kolsuz for trying to illegally export guns to Turkey.

Jonathan Kravis, Corruption

Kravis has experience in prosecuting public corruption cases.  He helped take down former Congressman Chaka Fattah and DEA Agent Artemis Papadakis.

Uzo Asonye, Fraud and Financial Crimes

Asonye is the Deputy Chief of the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Unit in Eastern District Virginia.

Kathryn Rakoczy, Street Crime

Rakoczy has spent most of the last decade specializing in misdemeanors and violent crime in Washington, D.C.

Deborah Curtis, Counterespionage

Curtis has worked on many cases of espionage, including busting Chinese companies trying to get around North Korean sanctions, nailing an American scientist spying for the Israelis, prosecuting former State Department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for leaking classified intelligence to an Fox News reporter, and Chelsea Manning.

 

What can we infer?

We have multiple experts in money laundering, fraud, bribery, mafia crimes, cyber crimes, espionage, counterterrorism, asset recovery, witness flipping, international crimes, and Russian culture.  By the way, they also have one of the few people alive that prosecuted a White House for criminal charges.

Mueller is not fucking around.

So far, we’ve got two arrests on white-collar crimes, and two convictions on plea deals for lying to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians.  Plus, there’s a ton of stuff still under seal.

Without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest collection of lawyers ever pulled together.  They’ve been working on this case since May 2017, and the investigation began a year before that.  Any one of these prosecutors coming after a person would cause sleepless nights and panic inducing anxiety.  All of them coming after a person would cause them to seriously contemplate suicide.

They are not fucking around.  People are going to jail, or worse.

Thanks to Reddit user PoppinKREAM and this post for making this post a lot easier to put together.

 

UPDATED FEBRUARY 25, 2018:  From some new information from CNN, I made a few changes:

Kyle Freeney is a she, not a he.  I also added Brian Richardson and Scott Meisler.

UPDATED APRIL 6, 2018:  Corrected spelling of Elena Kagan.

UPDATED JULY 20, 2018:  Based on this article from The Daily Beast, I added the following people:

  • Heather Alpino
  • Jonathan Kravis
  • Uzo Asonye
  • Kathryn Rakoczy
  • Deborah Curtis

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from  this article from CNN, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

  • Ryan Dickey
  • Brian Richardson

UPDATED OCTOBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from Politico, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

  • Kyle Freeny
  • Brandon Van Grack