Tag: Media

Daily Check-In 02/14/2019

Thursday, February 14, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

McCabe

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director and former acting director of the FBI, told CBS’s 60 Minutes that meetings were held at the Department of Justice to discuss invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office.

In the brief time period between former FBI Director James Comey’s firing and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein considered wearing a wire in meetings with Trump, according to McCabe, in an interview with 60 Minutes. Upon Comey’s firing, McCabe became the acting FBI director. The New York Timesreported the same information in September 2018, which DOJ at the time said was a sarcastic suggestion.

Although the portion of the interview with McCabe has not yet been released, CBS’s Scott Pelley said McCabe told him the idea of removing Trump from office “came up more than once and it was so serious that he took it to the lawyers at the FBI to discuss it.” McCabe and others at DOJ were “counting noses” in an effort to predict who in the president’s Cabinet, including Vice President Mike Pence, would vote to force Trump from office, according to Pelley.

We all knew McCabe would take aim at Trump in his book, but his contempt for Sessions is staggering. Depicts him as addled, fixated on immigrants, racist. My review of the McCabe book in WaPo

FBI was better off “when you all only hired Irishmen,” Sessions said in one diatribe, acc to McCabe. “They were drunks but at least they could be trusted.”

The book has inevitable new gem on Trump-Putin. President refused to believe intel officials that North Korea had test fired ICBM. NK didn’t have that capability, he insisted, saying he knew this “because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”

McCabe goes much farther than Comey in acknowledging the FBI liked tipped 2016 election to Trump. “As matter of policy, FBI does everything possible not to influence elections,” he writes. “In 2016, it seems we did.”

One of my takeaways from the McCabe book: Trump administration’s reputation for baseness and dysfunction has, if anything, been understated and too narrowly attributed to the president.

One of the regularly scheduled meetings with the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and some of their staff came two days later, on Friday, May 12. After the meeting, I asked the deputy, Rod Rosenstein, if he could stay behind. In part I wanted to talk with him about ground rules governing the separate investigations of the Russia case by the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rosenstein had oversight because the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had had to recuse himself owing to his own interactions with Russians during the campaign. But my main message was this: I need you to protect the process.

After speaking to these points, Rod shifted his gaze. His eyes were focused on a point in space a few yards beyond and behind, toward the door. He started talking about the firing of Jim Comey. He was obviously upset. He said he was shocked that the White House was making it look as if Jim’s firing had been his idea. He was grasping for a way to describe the nature of his situation. One remark stands out. He said, There’s no one that I can talk to about this. There’s no one here that I can trust.

He asked for my thoughts about whether we needed a special counsel to oversee the Russia case. I said I thought it would help the investigation’s credibility. Later that day, I went to see Rosenstein again. This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel. I’ve been thinking about the Clinton email case and how we got twisted in knots over how to announce a result that did not include bringing charges against anyone. Had we appointed a special counsel in the Clinton case, we might not be in the present situation. Unless or until you make the decision to appoint a special counsel, the FBI will be subjected to withering criticism that could destroy the credibility of both the Justice Department and the FBI.

Remember a while back when Andrew McCabe was fired?  I said something along the lines of “wait until the book comes out” to hear how much of a clusterfuck this really was.

Turns out, it was worse than we thought.  And if this accounting is true, Andrew McCabe may have saved the Republic.  After Comey was fired, there was little time for him to act, and there was a good chance that he would be fired soon as well.  His first act was to open an investigation into Donald Trump for Obstruction of Justice.  That way, he created a record of events and if someone tried and make this whole mess disappear.  His actions also gave Rod Rosenstein time to appoint Robert Mueller as the Special Counselor.

 

 

 

Good.  Let’s see what Kremlin Barbie knows.

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

Now we enter the “How much can he fuck this up” phase.

There’s two ways this whole “National Emergency” thing ends.

The most likely way is that this get shot down in the courts after everyone from California to Carlos Santana files a lawsuit against it.

The least likely way is that it is successful in starting the wall, but it ends there.  The project ends quickly, and the next person in office now has a precedent set to use the excuse of a national emergency to enact any and all actions that they couldn’t get passed through Congress.

 

 

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

 

Let’s Get Physical!

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Barr

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

AIPAC & OMAR

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Spicy Mic: The Parkland Victims

 

  • Alyssa Alhadeff, 15
  • Martin Duque, 14
  • Nicholas Dworet, 17
  • Jaime Guttenburg, 14
  • Luke Hoyer, 15
  • Cara Loughran, 14
  • Gina Montalto, 14
  • Joaquin Oliver, 17
  • Alaina Petty, 14
  • Meadow Pollack, 18
  • Helena Ramsey, 17
  • Alex Schachter, 14
  • Carmen Schentrup, 16
  • Peter Wang, 15
  • Scott Beigel, 35
  • Aaron Feis, 37
  • Chris Hixon, 49

“… Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag…” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

The (Russian) Anti-Vaxxers

 

 

 

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

VALENTINE’S DAY

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  Friday brings us a signing to avoid a shutdown, a botched emergency announcement, and a Republican challenging Trump in 2020.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/12/2019

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

“Qatar started looking into how its name got involved into the deal and found out it was because of a fund it co-owned,” said one of the sources. “So QIA ultimately triggered a strategy revamp.”

The QIA declined to comment.

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc bailed out 666 Fifth Avenue via its real estate unit Brookfield Property Partners, in which the QIA acquired a 9 percent stake five years ago. Both parent and unit declined to comment.

The QIA’s strategic shift was made late last year, according to the sources. It offers a rare insight into the thinking of one of the world’s most secretive sovereign wealth funds.

The revamp could have significant implications for the global investment scene because the QIA is one of the world’s largest state investors, with more than $320 billion under management.

So let me get this straight…

The Qataris, after being approached by the Kushner family for a loan on 666 Fifth Ave and turned it down and had their country blockaded until they worked out a deal for the building, ACCIDENTALLY lent $1.3 billion for a 99 year lease on a building?

Are you fucking kidding me?  Giving out over a billion dollars isn’t something one accidentally does.  I’ve accidentally left my wallet at home, or accidentally said those inside voices on the outside, but I’ve never accidentally paid off a billion dollar loan to remove an extortion racket.

But the next question is, why now?  Why would Qatar Investment Authority make this announcement now?  Why announce that this transaction was a mistake right after it’s completed?  Why wait until the mystery company’s case heads to the Supreme Court.

I think that’s why.  There’s some news about the mystery case coming down the pipeline, and QIA is neck deep in the whole thing.

 

“If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don’t have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview with CBS News last week.

Burr was careful to note that more facts may yet be uncovered, but he also made clear that the investigation was nearing an end.

“We know we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel because there’re not new questions that we’re searching for answers to,” Burr said.

On Tuesday, Burr doubled down, telling NBC News, “There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D.-Va., ranking member of the committee, told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday that he disagrees with the way Burr characterized the evidence about collusion, but he declined to offer his own assessment.

“I’m not going to get into any conclusions I have,” he said, before adding that “there’s never been a campaign in American history … that people affiliated with the campaign had as many ties with Russia as the Trump campaign did.”

Democratic Senate investigators who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity did not dispute Burr’s characterizations, but said they lacked context.

“We were never going to find a contract signed in blood saying, ‘Hey Vlad, we’re going to collude,'” one Democratic aide said.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I’ll wait until the final report from them, but something’s up.  I’m not sure what, but something’s up.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

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

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

El Paso

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

El Paso Violence

 

DEALING WITH RACISM

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

There is a very easy way to stunt the growth of tools and networks currently being used to destroy democracy.

Step 1: Require notification to individuals via email every time details of that person are transferred to a “partner”, “affiliate”, “subsidiary”, or similar entity.

Step 2: Make the penalties for violating that rule hurt like a motherfucker. Meaning in terms of both financial consequences and personal freedom (i.e. Put executives in prison for repeat violations. Yes, it is that serious.)

The simple requirement of forcing companies to send an email saying “Hey, here I am, sharin’ yer datas with these shady d00ds over here!” will put a stop to much of it.

 

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

If the Climate Change conversation was framed more like “A giant meteor is going to hit and cause a series of terrible things in 12 years if we don’t stop it” I have a feeling GND would look more like it was the bare minimum required and less like a radical pipe-dream

But that is the reality. We hit seemingly impossible goals, or we suffer the consequences of a world that is fundamentally different that we won’t be able to fix. Its up to us to decide.

Scientists have been warning about this for 30 years now. Blame the people who chose to ignore the warnings. We wouldn’t need to meet such impossible expectations had anyone done their jobs this entire time.

 

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

Are we not doing phasing anymore?  How is that not a thing?

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  In the next few weeks, things are going to happen.  Too many events line up for the end of the month for nothing to happen.  I’m not guaranteeing anything, but don’t be surprised, either.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/11/2019

Monday, February 11, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

June 17, 2016 – Psy Group CEO Joel Zamel is in Russia, and chats with George Nader, looking to “raise money for a social-media campaign in support of Trump.” July 1, 2016 – Psy Group’s ownership transfers to a BVI company with countless connections to Russian finance. August 3, 2016 – Zamel meets with Trump Jr, Nader, Erik Prince and pitches social media campaign to support Trump. After the election – Zamel brags to Nader that he conducted a secret campaign that helped Trump win. Nader pays Zamel $2,000,000 for unknown reasons. We know that Psy Group’s sister company is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Slipenchuk. Guess who was at the St Petersburg Forum where Zamel was looking for Psy Group investors? Mikhail Slipenchuk.

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

THE ULTIMATE COCKFIGHT: BEZOS’S PECKER VS. DAVID PECKER

The brother of Jeff Bezos’ mistress, Lauren Sanchez, supplied the couple’s racy texts to the National Enquirer, multiple sources inside AMI, the tabloid’s parent company, told The Daily Beast.

Another source who has been in extensive communication with senior leaders at AMI confirmed that Michael Sanchez first supplied Bezos’ texts to the Enquirer.

The leaked texts, published last month, included notes from Bezos like, “I want to smell you, I want to breathe you in. I want to hold you tight.”

AMI has previously refused to identify the source of the texts, but a lawyer for the company strongly hinted at Sanchez’s role during a Sunday morning interview on ABC.

“The story was given to the National Enquirer by a reliable source that had given information to the National Enquirer for seven years prior to this story. It was a source that was well known to both Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez,” attorney Elkan Abramowitz told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

 

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

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

El Paso

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

OMAR & AIPAC

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Monday.  Yes, it’s short on editorializing.  To be honest, I’m tired.  It’s not a good sign when it’s this early and the week and I’m already looking forward to a day off.

I don’t want this to sound like nothing happened.  Stuff happened.  A cameraman was attacked at Trump’s MAGA Rally.  AMI says they got the Bezos texts from the brother of the mistress, and he has ties to Stone and Manafort.  Still ignores the Saudi connection, and suddenly the National Enquirer is a reputable source for investigating their own activity?

Tuesday has some stuff coming about Qatar.  Also, I have to update The Indicted with Paul Erickson.  I forgot to do that last week.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/07/2019

Thursday, February 7, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort

I may have missed something in the case but I find it odd they held a sealed hearing on Monday and releasing a redacted transcript so soon. Link to transcript

I may have missed something in the case but I find it odd they held a sealed hearing on Monday and… TRANCRIPT-of-SEALED-BREACH-of-PLEA-HEARING-USA-v timinhonolulu.com          

One thing I didn’t know was Manafort testified for two days before the grand jury. See Monday’s transcript: Pages 23-24.

Spot the Issue: What grand jury? Don’t think it could be Stone’s. But the issue is they would not have unsealed it if that grand jury had not handed down an indictment. It would violate Rule 6(e). Look;s like it’s . 😎

This says “Espionage” to me.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Bezos’s Pecker vs. Pecker

HOLY COW. In a medium post, says that David Pecker and AMI threatened to release embarrassing photos unless Bezos agreed to stop investigating them and released a statement saying he didn’t have anything on them! He included emails in the post.

2. Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world (who happens to be CEO of the 2nd most valuable company in the world), published an email from a top AMI exec noting that they had Bezos’ dick pics and threatening to publish them. I will never get over this.

3. I mean the fact that David Pecker and AMI were attempting to blackmail the richest man in the world while they are cooperating with the US Attorney on the Trump investigation is something else. I mean….I will truly never get over this post.

4. Congratulations

5. Oh Boy

6.

Yashar Ali: A source familiar with the matter tells me that Lavely & Singer, Marty Singer’s law firm, did not know in advance that Bezos would be posting this essay. Nor did they know that Bezos would be publishing the threatening emails that AMI sent them. They found out when we did..wow.

7. A reminder that and broke the story last week that Bezos had launched a private investigation into how his texts to Lauren Sanchez leaked. That investigation led to all of this…

Scumbags gonna scumbag.

Last summer, it came out that AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and its chairman David Pecker were granted immunity from federal prosecution for their assistance in the Michael Cohen case.  AMI performed a catch and kill on Karen McDougal’s story, and they coordinated this with Trump through Cohen.  They were granted immunity.  Part of that deal includes them not engaging in any other illegal activity, or else they could risk losing their deal.

Enter Jeff Bezos.

For those not aware, Bezos is the founder/chairman/CEO/first employee of Amazon and is currently the richest person in the world.  He owns the Washington Post and bought Whole Foods with a spare $15 billion he had lying around.  I still think he made a screw up on Alexa and tried to order groceries from Whole Foods, but Alexa heard it as “Okay, buying Whole Foods.”  By the time he went to cancel the purchase, it already cleared the bank.

WaPo is supposedly doing an in-depth piece on the National Enquirer, Saudi Arabia, and how it all ties back to Trump and Kushner.  This may or may not include hard evidence of Jamal Khashoggi’s death.  At some point during this investigation, Jeff Bezos’s personal text messages and pictures ended up in the possession of the National Enquirer.  They ran with some of this information, and threatened Bezos that if he didn’t call of the investigators, they’d release his “below the belt selfies.”

In other words, they said “Tell the world we did nothing wrong, or we publish your dick pics.”

There’s a long list of things I’d rather do than try to extort and blackmail the world’s richest man with an IDGAF attitude, and that list would be even longer if I was involved in an immunity deal with the Federal Government.  Apparently David Pecker doesn’t agree with me.

Neither does Jeff Bezos.  The mother fucker wrote an essay on Medium explaining everything, telling how AMI and the National Enquirer tried to extort him, and then he PUBLISHED THE GODDAMNED EMAILS FROM AMI’S LEGAL TEAM!  Including the one that said that AMI would keep the pics and release them if he ever said that there was some shady shit going on between the National Enquirer and the Saudis ever again.

I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, but one thing I truly enjoy is that the lawyers for AMI found out about this letter when the press reached them for comment AFTER it was published.  That’s some scorched earth shit right there.

Full disclosure, I subscribe to the Washington Post.  It’s free for a while for new subscribers with Amazon Prime, and $3 a month after the trial.

 

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

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

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Whitaker

How many gallons of flop sweat will come from his head?

 

CONGRESS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

VIRGINIA/RACE RELATIONS

 

SCOTUS & COURTS/#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I’m wrapping things up a little early on some sections.  I didn’t get a chance to read the Manafort stuff, and I’m running behind on a few other things.

Whitaker testifies on Friday before Congress.  And there’s some even weirder shit with Bezos.  Supposedly his mistress had connections to people in Trumpworld, including Roger Stone.

WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO INTERCONNECT?! CAN’T WE HAVE ONE GODDAMNED PILE OF CRAZINESS THAT ISN’T TIED TO EVERYTHING ELSE LIKE SOME FUCKED UP GAME OF SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON?

Sorry about that.  I should calm down more.  It’s not healthy for my Caps Lock key.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur