Thursday, December 20, 2018.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Fuckery at the Treasury

• Russian Agents Sought Secret US Treasury Records On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign
• Russian Agents Pressed US Treasury For Info On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign
• Bill Browder: BREAKING: Russian agents used the pretext of fighting ISIS to dupe US Treasury officials to pass on information about me and the Ziff Brothers in 2016 as part of their campaign to destroy me and roll back the Magnitsky Act
•  Treasury Official Who Allegedly Leaked Trump Associates’ Bank Records Claims She Went to Congress First

This is bad.  Real bad.  There are four stories rolled into this bombshell from BuzzFeed News.

1. The Russians were able to convince people in the Treasury Department to hand over sensitive financial documents to anonymous Gmail and Hotmail accounts.
2. There are people in the Treasury that are at best idiots and criminally negligent, and at worst spies for Russia.
3. There is an interoffice battle between all of the various investigative groups inside and outside of the Treasury that has devolved into a pissing contest.
4. Things are so fucked that career officials feel the need to go to the press with their concerns because no one they work for or with gives a fuck.

Remember the FinCEN official that leaked Paul Manafort’s SAR to a BuzzFeed reporter after it disappeared from the official system?  (Daily Check-In 10/17/2018)  The following section speaks to Point 4.

The report indicates that there is some turmoil behind closed doors at FinCEN:

At least 10 FinCEN employees have filed formal whistleblower complaints about the department. The whistleblowers say they tried multiple times to raise concerns about issues they believed threatened national security, but that they faced retaliation instead of being heeded. Some of FinCEN’s top officials quit in anger. One senior adviser has been arrested and accused of releasing financial records to a journalist.

The arrested and accused adviser referred to in that last line was Edwards. Remarkably, Edwards is said to have raised her concerns about Russian efforts to access confidential bank records of Hillary Clinton supporters in the Summer of 2016, months before the election.

Edwards reportedly spoke with “six different congressional committee staffers to air her concerns.” Then, in July and August 2018, she purportedly met with “staffers of one of the Senate committees investigating Russian interference during the presidential campaign.” It was then that she claimed that FinCEN “withheld documents revealing suspicious financial transactions of Trump associates that the committee had requested.” Edwards and an unnamed colleague reportedly had “lawful documented evidential disclosures of violations of law, rule, and regulations, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority, and substantial and specific danger to public safety.”

Holy fuck on a fuck fig newton, this is bad.  She went to her boss, her boss’s boss, HR, the Inspector General, the Office of Special Counsel (Different from Mueller), several Congressional staffers and at least one Senate staffer, and NOTHING?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Everyone either ignored her, blew her off, were covering shit up, or too worried about how things would look for them if the news got out that people at FinCEN sent financial records for Hilary Clinton supporters and enemies of the Kremlin to anonymous email addresses associated with Russia instead of the secured system they’re supposed to use.

Wait, what the actual fuck?

US Treasury Department officials used a Gmail back channel with the Russian government as the Kremlin sought sensitive financial information on its enemies in America and across the globe, according to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

The extraordinary unofficial line of communication arose in the final year of the Obama administration — in the midst of what multiple US intelligence agencies have said was a secret campaign by the Kremlin to interfere in the US election. Russian agents ostensibly trying to track ISIS instead pressed their American counterparts for private financial documents on at least two dozen dissidents, academics, private investigators, and American citizens.

Yeah, it gets worse.  Much, much worse.

The first chapter in this extraordinary chain of communications began in late 2015, when a unit of the Treasury Department called the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes entered into an agreement, named the ISIL Project, that called for Russia and the US to share information on financial institutions in the Middle East suspected of supporting ISIS.

…

Even more concerning: Documents show senior officials within the Terrorist Financing unit were communicating with Hotmail and Gmail accounts set up by the Russians, rather than using the standard secure channels.

When she found out, FinCEN’s chief of staff was stunned.

“They sent this to a GMAIL account? Is that normal?” she asked in an email to a half dozen colleagues on Nov. 28, 2016.

The chief of staff was responding to Treasury colleagues who were discussing with Rosfinmonitoring the outlines of their agreement to track terrorism financiers.

“Unfortunately, Rosfin does prefer throwaway gmail accounts as their preferred method to communicate,” a FinCEN intelligence official responded.

This is some absolutely terrible OpSec.  FinCEN has a secured communication line that everyone in the world uses to keep the documents secure.  If Jordan wants a copy of a report, they log in to the system and request it from FinCEN.  They get what they need, and that’s it.  The information stays in the system.

Email is not secure.  Even a “secured” email is very weak.  And sending an attachment to an email guarantees that no one will have control over it from that point on.  Once an email is sent, the recipient can do with it what they want.  We normally trust people to not be dicks with that mail, but every so often someone does something dickish.

The Russians are the definition of being dicks with email.  Just ask the DNC, John Podesta, the RNC, and Westinghouse.

In reference to the second point, there are some ridiculously naive people working in the Treasury Department, and that’s a best case scenario.  In a worst case scenario, they’re actively committing espionage against the United States of America.

But don’t worry, it gets worse.

Most startlingly, Russia requested sensitive documents on Dirk, Edward, and Daniel Ziff, billionaire investors who had run afoul of the Kremlin. That request was made weeks before a Russian lawyer showed up at Trump Tower offering top campaign aides “dirt” on Hillary Clinton — including her supposed connection to the Ziff brothers.

Let me break this down to show how absolutely fucked up this scenario is.

A few weeks before the June 9 Trump Tower meeting between Team Trump and Natalia Veselnitskaya’s team Rosnefmonitoring asked for and likely received sensitive financial documents for investors tied to HRC.  Around this time, Aras Agalarov hears about this from the Russian equivalent of the Attorney General, who wants to pass along this information to their asset in the United States, Donald Trump.  Aras calls Emin who contacts Rob Goldstone who emails Donnie Jr. who says “If it’s what you say it is, I love it.  Especially later in the summer.”

What am I saying?  I’m saying that it’s highly possible that someone at FinCEN or another Treasury Department team sent the Russians the “dirt” they claimed they had on HRC for their meeting with Team Trump.

That covers points 1 & 2.  For point 3, well…

In May 2017, a bomb exploded at an Ariana Grande concert in northwest England and killed 23 people. The following month, knife-wielding terrorists attacked pedestrians near London Bridge.

Because the US has access to the largest set of financial records in the world, the British turned to the Americans for help. In the first frantic moments following an attack, FinCEN’s financial databases can reveal important information about the killers, others in their network, or whether another plot is imminent.

FinCEN analysts sprang into action, racing to their headquarters in Northern Virginia to begin searching for clues on a Saturday night. But when they arrived, they discovered that everyone on duty had been locked out of the classified networks that they depended upon. They couldn’t open links from the FBI about the suspected terrorists they were supposed to be chasing and they couldn’t trace the suspects’ funding.

That night, two dozen FinCEN employees learned that the digital keys they needed to unlock classified data had expired without warning. The suspects remained on the run in London, but FinCEN was unable to help track them.

The office that administered those security keys was OIA, FinCEN’s rival department.

Staffers were furious.

“We have escalated the critical problem to key individuals,” one of the whistleblowers wrote in an email, “and we still DO NOT have the ability to complete our mission or fully protect the American people.”

OIA blamed the FinCEN employees for forgetting to update their permissions. But more than a dozen FinCEN officials said they saw the incident as retaliation for their earlier power struggle. OIA had sent its own staffers an email weeks earlier reminding them to apply for new keys, but had not sent that same email to anyone at FinCEN. OIA officials blamed that oversight on “time” and “resource restraints.”

The divide grew, and made its way to Congress, where Republican Steve Pearce, chair of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance, demanded answers. The Treasury Department’s inspector general stepped in again to investigate, and concludedthat OIA had done nothing wrong — though he did acknowledge the strained relationship between OIA and FinCEN.

The whistleblowers told BuzzFeed News they have largely given up on seeing anyone at FinCEN, OIA, and TFFC held accountable for the chaos that they say has torn the Treasury apart over the past two years.

“It is very hard to measure the sum total of the damage done,” said one of the whistleblowers, a senior FinCEN official. “We are treading water right now.”

I know I’m bouncing around, but so does this article.  This final point is that the Treasury Department is an interdepartmental clusterfuck manned by a handful of petty dicks getting into a pissing contest with each other, and this pettiness and desire to not look like complete and total fuckups creates the atmosphere that everything is a clusterfuck.

There’s one good side of this article.  The authors of this piece, Leopold and Cormier, are in contact with Mueller’s team and wouldn’t release this piece unless they got the go-ahead.  If this is making the press, something big is about to drop like a Hamilton Mix-Tape.

 

Whitaker’s Refusal of Recusal

• Ethics officials said Whitaker should recuse from the Mueller probe, but his advisers told him not to, officials say
• Whitaker told he does not need to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller investigation
• Whitaker will not recuse himself from Russia probe, despite ethics advice that he should
• Exclusive: Whitaker told he does not need to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller investigation

Here’s the short, short version; Matt Whitaker asked the DOJ Ethics Advisors if he should recuse from the Mueller Investigation.  They said “Recuse.” He didn’t like that answer, so he kept bouncing around until he found someone that said yes.  He then took that yes, ran to reporters and said “See, I can haz Mueller.”  It took a couple hours for the news to come out to straighten this out.

 

Barr Should Be Barred

• “The Broad Outline of What Steele Was Writing Is Unquestionably True”: BuzzFeed Wins Its Dossier Suit, and Ben Smith Takes a Victory Lap
• Attorney general nominee wrote memo criticizing Mueller obstruction probe
• Trump AG Pick Sent Unsolicited Memo To DOJ In June Criticizing Russia Probe
• Now We Know Trump Picked William Barr to Shut Down Mueller’s Investigation

Looks like we’ll have to relive this mess in a few months.

 

Roger’s Testimony

• House hands over Roger Stone’s interview transcripts to Mueller, indicating special counsel is ready to indict him – NY Daily News
• House Intel Votes To Give Robert Mueller Official Transcript Of Roger Stone Testimony
• Robert Mueller is closing in on Roger Stone

I talked about this yesterday (Daily Check-In 12/19/2018), and I’m honestly surprised they did this.  I was expecting things to go downhill faster than an alpine skier losing an edge.

 

• Jennifer Rubin: Mueller should go after the Helsinki notes — Syria sure seems like a payoff
• The Trump-Russia Timeline
• The US will lift sanctions against companies owned by a Russian oligarch tied to the Mueller probe
• Poll: Americans support Mueller expanding probe beyond Russia allegations
• Most Americans think Mueller’s investigation is unbiased: poll
• Mueller may submit report to attorney general as soon as mid-February

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Syria, Afghanisatan, and Mattis

• Bill Browder: This ⁦@washingtonpost⁩ headline says it all: “Putin backs Trump’s move to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria”
• Putin backs Trump’s move to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, says Islamic State dealt ‘serious blows’
• Bill Browder: Trump’s inexplicable decision to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria is the single largest gift to Putin that Putin has received since Trump became president. A major and unrecoverable strategic blunder by the US
• Syrian Allies to U.S.: Withdrawal Now Will Help ISIS Recover
• Tea Pain: Trump sold out his country for a Moscow hotel. Now he’s compromised, beaten and weak. He’s desperately beggin’ for Russia’s help by handin’ Syria over to Putin and liftin’ sanctions on oligarchs, but Trump is about to learn that Russia was never his friend.
• The Daily 202: Trump hands the Russians more victories with Syria withdrawal, sanctions relief and Ukraine inaction
• The UK Only Found Out Trump Had Decided To Withdraw Troops From Syria When He Tweeted About It
• Trump briefed Netanyahu in advance on Syria pullout
• Trump First Called for Leaving Syria While He Was Pursuing a Moscow Tower
• Trump is leaving 50,000 Syrian civilians to die
• Trump’s sudden Syria pullout reveals his administration’s chaos – and misguided priorities | Spectator USA
• Trump’s Surprise Withdrawal From Syria Betrays Allies and Bolsters Rivals
• Trump’s Syria bug-out: Here’s just how illogical and dangerous he is
• Kurdish Fighters Discuss Releasing Almost 3,200 ISIS Prisoners
• Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Gives Major Wins To Russia, Turkey, Iran, And ISIS – Rantt
• Countercheckist: Putin wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. Erdogan wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. Trump wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. None of these individuals care about US NATSEC…
• ‘Fox & Friends’ Co-Host Calls Out Trump on Syria: ‘Nobody Thinks ISIS Is Defeated’
• ISIS is not defeated and will return if the U.S. pulls out, says America’s Syrian allies
• Jennifer Rubin: Mueller should go after the Helsinki notes — Syria sure seems like a payoff
• Lindsey Graham: Saying ISIS is defeated in Syria is ‘fake news’
• Putin Nixes Trump’s Claim That Russia Is Upset By U.S. Withdrawal From Syria
• Putin welcomes the US decision to withdraw its military from Syria
• Trump Administration Is Considering Substantial Afghan Troop Drawdown
• Trump agitating for major military withdrawal from Afghanistan, advisers say
• Sen. Graham: Trump’s claim of ISIS defeat is ‘fake news,’ pulling troops is ‘stain’ on US
• Trump walks back claim that ISIS is ‘defeated’ in less than a day

This is bad.  The only person in the United States that thinks this is a good move is Tangerine Tojo.

Gee, I wonder how this can get worse.

• Gen. Mattis says he’s stepping down as defense secretary in early 2019
• Trump announces Mattis will leave as defense secretary at the end of February
• Tea Pain: Holy Crapola! Gen. Mattis is “retirin'”. Trump’s firin’ off every missile he’s got to create a mushroom cloud hopin’ to obscure Mueller’s bomb-site visibility.
• Maggie Haberman: Right after Mattis implored Trump not to withdraw from Syria
• James Mattis will retire as secretary of Defense in February, Trump says
• Jim Mattis says he’s stepping down and that President Trump deserves a defense secretary “whose views are better aligned with yours”
• Angry White House Staffer: Mattis is leaving because he’s pissed at the troop withdrawal — particularly the lack of coordination from WH to DOD — in Syria (and soon to be Afghanistan)
• 3l3v3nth: I’m not scared But…. Congress and legal scholars better get to work getting this peace of shit out of the White House and into a prison cell
• Mattis, once one of ‘my generals,’ loses his influence with Trump

Oh, fuck.

Fuck.

FUCK.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

• Read the Jim Mattis resignation letter
• Ed Saagar: MATTIS resignation letter: “Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views better align with yours….I believe it is right for me to step down from my position”
• John Schindler: The lack of standard military protocol (where’s the Thanks or the omnipresent V/R signoff?), combined with the forthright tone here makes clear what this resignation letter from Mattis is: an unambiguous FU to a POTUS he despises.
• Angry White House Staffer: Mattis’ resignation letter should shake some shit loose in DC. The GOP love him. They’re also mostly not in favor of leaving Syria until the job is done. The letter makes it abundantly clear Mattis is 1. fuming 2. sounding the alarm. This is seriously one of the best political haymakers I’ve ever read.
• Elizabeth McLaughlin: Here’s the letter

Defense Secretary James Mattis has resigned. Here’s the letter:

This might be the most “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on” letter I’ve seen in quite a while.

I’ll talk more about Mad Dog’s “Retirement” in the Coda.

• US and UK accuse China of sustained hacking campaign
• Rod Rosenstein, Chris Wray announce indictment of Chinese hackers
• Australia joins condemnation of ‘huge, audacious’ Chinese hacking plot
• China accused of extensive global hacking campaign | Sky News Australia

 

• They tested positive for HIV. Then the military kicked them out. 
• Trump Quietly Starts Firing Servicemembers Living with HIV Just Before the Holidays
• ‘A tailspin’: Under siege, Trump propels the government and markets into crisis
• The smear that killed the ‘reset’: Putin needed an American enemy. He picked me.
• Putin says U.S. presence in Japan complicates signing of peace treaty
• N. Korea says it won’t denuclearize unless US removes threat
• North Korea says US must ‘completely eliminate’ its nuclear arsenal first as peace talks reach new low

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

• Don Lemon shows 1999 clip of Trump saying ‘nobody knows more about campaign finance’ than him
• Stormy Daniels reveals she will be in next issue of Playboy

 

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

Shutdown

• Trump tells lawmakers he won’t sign deal to avert shutdown, demands funds for border security
• Schumer: House-passed border wall bill dead in the Senate
• Trump ‘at this moment’ opposes deal to avert shutdown, wants more border funding
• Trump Demands Border Wall Money, Plunging Shutdown Fight Back Into Chaos
• Trump, House GOP to meet over shutdown-border dispute
• Conservative Revolt Endangers Deal to Avoid a Shutdown
• Republican senators in disbelief over Trump shutdown move
• Toobin: Trump Is Shutting Down Gov’t Because Ann Coulter Got Mad At Him
• Trump tells GOP he won’t sign stopgap, threatening shutdown
• As Trump Throws Tantrum for Wall Funding, His Christmas Gift to 800,000 Federal Employees: No Paychecks

 

TRAITOR TOTS

• Lincoln’s Bible: Now please get into the deal that Dershowitz cut with Acosta to immunize any other men accused by Epstein’s victims from prosecution. A deal that included Dershowitz & @realDonaldTrump.
• An Epstein sex case is settled; Dershowitz denies latest allegation
• Shocker: Grift King Wilbur Ross Did Not Tell the Truth About Selling His Stocks
• Haley Says She Read Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan: ‘It Will Take Advantage of Technology’
• Zinke was a rising star in Washington. Then he joined the Trump administration.
• Tax Return Shows Mercer Family Fueled Climate Skeptics Last Year With More Than $4 Million

 

FIGHTING BACK

• ‘This is different:’; Mattis out, shutdown looms, stocks fall, DOJ turmoil
• Claude Taylor: There’s no way will Trump be late for Mar a Lago. We just need to wait him out. He’ll sign.
• Donald Trump might be the dimmest President the US has ever had
• If Trump’s actions aren’t impeachable, then what is?
• No More Excuses

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

• David Hogg: It shouldn’t be controversial to say fuck Nazis. Thank you…. and fuck Nazis.

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

• Harvey Weinstein Case Can Go Forward, Judge Rules
• A Judge Denied Harvey Weinstein’s Request To Dismiss His Rape And Sexual Assault Case
• Abortion becomes legal in Ireland for first time after Bill signed by President
• The sad demise and curious afterlife of the Vegas showgirl
• Trump administration defies court order by pushing abstinence, Democrats say

 

IMMIGRATION

• Trump tells lawmakers he won’t sign deal to avert shutdown, demands funds for border security
• Aaron Rupar: .@RepGutierrez went off on @SecNielsen today. “It seems you agree w/Tucker Carlson, that immigrants only bring danger & dirt. But I must say, the record for lying in face of all evidence was a tweet you posted that says ‘we do not have a policy of separating families, period.'” THREAD
• Florida man starts GoFundMe campaign for Trump’s border wall, sets $1 billion goal
• Schumer: House-passed border wall bill dead in the Senate
• Trump administration reaches deal that will force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico as cases are processed, DHS’s Nielsen says

 

#NEVERAGAIN

• Alabama police department blames crime on rejection of God
• Shannon Watts: A statement by an Alabama police department blames a spike in area homicides on young people who have turned away from God and “embraced Satan.” The statement followed two gunshot killings in Covington County, located on the Alabama-Florida line.
• Clerk with concealed-carry shoots customer in altercation
• Shannon Watts: During the incident at an Oklahoma Walgreens, an armed customer got into an altercation with an armed employee in the photo department over photos. Three are injured, one is dead.
• David Hogg: The laws that the Students from Parkland got passed last February just saved the life of everyone in my family. Gun laws work. The man (former NRA member) now faces 5 years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine. Thank you to the United States Postal inspector and law enforcement for catching this life threatening NRA member.
• Sunrise Man Accused of Sending Threatening Letter to David Hogg’s Home

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

• 911corlebra777: This is ridiculous. Huawei & Yandex are both intelligence assets for China & Russia respectively. Either Facebook incredibly lacks self awareness in passing on this data, or they are wilfully doing this for profit
• Facebook Put User Data Within Kremlin’s Grasp Last Year
• From November 5, 2017: Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
• ICE Seizes Over 1 Million Websites With No Due Process; Apparently Unaware That Copyright & Trademark Are Different
• NAACP Launches Boycott of Facebook: Platform Is Unhealthy for African Americans & U.S. Democracy
• Pressure Mounts on Hold-Out Democrats With One Day Left to Support Net Neutrality

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

• Fox News host: ‘We’d be up in arms’ if Obama did what Trump has with funding border wall
• Toobin: Trump Is Shutting Down Gov’t Because Ann Coulter Got Mad At Him
• ‘Fox & Friends’ Co-Host Calls Out Trump on Syria: ‘Nobody Thinks ISIS Is Defeated’

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

• Trump’s Middle Class Tax Cut Is Not Happening. Merry Christmas.
• Brian Klaas: The Dow is currently down about 1,500 points from the day Trump signed the tax bill, almost exactly a year ago. That’s a decline of about 6% from this time last year. And in the meantime, the deficit has soared.
• 115 Percent of Trump’s China Tariff Revenue Goes to Paying Off Angry Farmers
• US sportswear traced to factory in China’s internment camps
• Stocks Slide as Shutdown Woes Add to Fed Angst: Markets Wrap
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he will consider buying GM factory in Ohio as it shuts down next year
• Dow dives more than 650 points after White House ups the chance of government shutdown
• Dow falls 400 points as market struggles to rebound from Fed-day rout
• Dow falls 400 points to 14-month low, Nasdaq enters bear market
• Dow falls more than 250 points in late-morning action amid fear of partial government shutdown
• Jake Sherman: — Dow down 464 points today. — Government about to shut down. — Trump pulling out of Syria. — New AG — New COS — New Interior secy — Mattis is out
• 452 children died on the job in the U.S. between 2003 and 2016
• One Year Later, the TCJA Fails to Live Up to Its Proponents’ Promises
• Why Republicans (secretly) want the ACA to survive
• Trump proposes cutting food stamps for over 700,000 people just before Christmas
• Trump Administration Goes Around Congress On Food Stamp Work Requirements
• Trump administration aims to toughen work requirements for food stamp recipients

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

• George Conway Thinks Trump Admin’s Relationship With GOP Is About To Collapse
• Kaz Weida: Dinah Sykes, another moderate state senator, just announced she was also leaving the GOP and brings this number to four. In case you were wondering, this is what the death throes of the Republican Party looks like. Every last woman marching out the door.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

• GOP candidate who drove ‘deportation bus’ indicted on insurance fraud charges
• State Sen. Michael Williams, ex-Georgia governor candidate, indict
• A.G. Underwood Awards Over $1 Million To 13 Law Enforcement Agencies For Body-Worn Camera Programs | New York State Attorney General
• A Former Senate Intelligence Staffer Has Pleaded Guilty To Lying To The FBI About His Contact With Reporters

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

• GOP Economic Outlook For Arctic Refuge Drilling Is A ‘Pipe Dream’: Report
• Attorney General Underwood – Part Of Coalition Of 9 AGs – Sues To Block Seismic Testing In The Atlantic Ocean    | New York State Attorney General
• Saturn’s rings are halfway to their death
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he will consider buying GM factory in Ohio as it shuts down next year

 

CONGRESS

• Paul Ryan’s Career Ends as It Was: As Full of Sh*t as a Christmas Goose
• Pelosi says she was ‘busy doing other things’ during Ryan farewell speech
• So long Paul Ryan, you won’t be missed
• “Paul Ryan is the biggest fake I’ve ever seen in politics,” MSNBC panel blasts outgoing house speaker
• Schumer tells Trump to drop attorney general pick over Mueller criticism
• Sen. Corker says Trump canceled meeting while he was waiting at White House
• House backs bipartisan criminal justice overhaul, sends bill to Trump

 

ELECTIONS

• Kill the Electoral College Before Another Evil Leader is ‘Elected’
• N.C. elections board alerted prosecutors to alleged 2016 ballot harvesting, but nothing happened
• NC won’t catch Georgia, but census shows it will likely get another seat in Congress
• Tic Toc: THREAD ⬇️ 118 million midterm votes have been certified, meaning that more than half of eligible Americans cast a ballot. That’s the highest turnout in a midterm election in a century. Here’s what that turnout actually looked like. THREAD

 

THINKING AHEAD

• DNC announces it will hold 12 debates for the 2020 presidential race

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

• Sweden: MP Rebecka Le Moine introduces a motion in Parliament for the investigation of basic income | Basic Income News

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

• ‘Die Hard’ isn’t just a Christmas movie — it’s the best ever, according to its Hollywood distributor
• Ravaged by drugs and alcohol, these women reminded the photographer of his own mother

 

RUMOR MILL

• 3l3v3nth: I’m not scared But…. Congress and legal scholars better get to work getting this peace of shit out of the White House and into a prison cell
• Angry White House Staffer: Mattis is leaving because he’s pissed at the troop withdrawal — particularly the lack of coordination from WH to DOD — in Syria (and soon to be Afghanistan)
• Countercheckist: Putin wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. Erdogan wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. Trump wants the US out of Syria b/c he needs the ISIS boogeyman to exist. None of these individuals care about US NATSEC…
• Angry White House Staffer: Mattis’ resignation letter should shake some shit loose in DC. The GOP love him. They’re also mostly not in favor of leaving Syria until the job is done. The letter makes it abundantly clear Mattis is 1. fuming 2. sounding the alarm. This is seriously one of the best political haymakers I’ve ever read.
• John Schindler: The lack of standard military protocol (where’s the Thanks or the omnipresent V/R signoff?), combined with the forthright tone here makes clear what this resignation letter from Mattis is: an unambiguous FU to a POTUS he despises.
• Tea Pain: Holy Crapola! Gen. Mattis is “retirin'”. Trump’s firin’ off every missile he’s got to create a mushroom cloud hopin’ to obscure Mueller’s bomb-site visibility.
• Lincoln’s Bible: GUESS WHAT THE MOB DOES?! gathers compromising material on businessmen they use, as leverage. GUESS WHAT THE KREMLIN DOES?! gathers compromising material on businessmen they target, as leverage. GUESS WHAT THE HOUSE OF SAUD DOES?! gathers compromising material on businessmen…
• Tea Pain: Trump sold out his country for a Moscow hotel. Now he’s compromised, beaten and weak. He’s desperately beggin’ for Russia’s help by handin’ Syria over to Putin and liftin’ sanctions on oligarchs, but Trump is about to learn that Russia was never his friend.
• Rogue Senior White House Advisor: Folks, Donald Trump doesn’t do anything for any reason other than $$. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. The Syria withdrawal happened bc he is owned — by everyone.
• Tea Pain: Reality Check: Two years ago we feared Trump would turn America into a dictatorship. Now we’re discussin’ if he’ll be impeached, indicted or resign. His foundation is bein’ dissolved and he’ll never get his wall. The resistance has held and we are witnessin’ his demise.

 

That’s it for Thursday.  Fuck.  I’m not sure how to react with Mattis’s firing.  He was the last adult in the room.  At least, the last one who isn’t a complete sycophant.  He’s kept an air of normalcy around the White House.  No matter how nutty things got with Trump, at least Mattis was there to keep things under control.  But abandoning Syria was a bridge too far for him, and he resigned.  His letter skipped all of the “It was an honor to serve for you” and the similar platitudes.  The nicest part in that letter was “Dear Mr. President.”

On one hand, I’m worried about what will happen.  On the other hand, this might be the final straw.  If putting up with Trump is too much for a guy named “Mad Dog” then expect some pushback from the establishment Republicans.  At least those that aren’t completely compromised.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Deripaska Sanctions

• Trump admin to lift sanctions on firms owned by Russian oligarch Deripaska
• Trump Is Prepared to Give Break to Companies Owned by Manafort-Connected Russian Oligarch 
• Trump Ready to Remove Sanctions on Deripaska’s Rusal in 30 Days
• Treasury to terminate sanctions on Russian aluminum company Rusal 
• 20181219_notification_removal.pdf
• Jed Shugerman: Sanctions Bait and Switch

From Mnuchin’s Treasury Dept letter to lift sanctions on Deripaska’s firms. Note here who is taking over his En+: 1) VTB Bank. The sanctioned Russian bank for Ukraine conspiracy, linked to Trump Tower Moscow financing. 2) Glencore. The co-buyer, along with Qatar, of Rosneft.

2/ No, I’m not making this up, Trump’s Treasury is trolling us by approving of Deripaska’s assets going to VTB and Glencore. The sanctioned VTB Bank was supposed to finance Trump Tower Moscow. “Sater emailed Cohen that VTB Bank would fund the project.”

Trump Tower Moscow, and Michael Cohen’s lies about it, explained Everything you need to know about Trump’s efforts to do business in Russia. vox.com       

3/ And Glencore? Seriously? Glencore is being investigated for money laundering, and has been doing big business with Deripaska for years:

Glencore hit with US subpoena over alleged money laundering Shares in world’s biggest mining firm fall as it faces potential investigation theguardian.com       

4/ And yes, it’s that Glencore, the Swiss energy firm based on the Isle of Jersey, the deregulated Cayman Islands of Europe, that teamed up with Qatar to buy Rosneft from Russia in Dec. 2016, consistent with Steele Dossier:

Russia/Qatar/Trump Timeline I have produced a Google Doc timeline, based on publicly available reports and documents, of the alleged bribery scheme between Russia and Trump associat… shugerblog.com          

 

Syria Withdrawl

• Trump Outright Ignored Pentagon, State Department Syria Policy in a Big Win for Putin 
• Trump undermines his entire national security team on Syria
• US preparing for ‘full’ and ‘rapid’ withdrawal from Syria
• Trump administration plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria immediately, defense official says
• Pelosi Statement on Withdrawal of Troops from Syria

“It is premature for the President to declare a sweeping victory against ISIS when, just a few weeks ago, our military led more than 250 coalition-conducted airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria.  All Americans should be concerned that this hasty announcement was made on the day after sentencing in criminal proceedings began against the President’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who admitted that he was a registered foreign agent for a country with clear interests in the Syrian conflict.

“We must also ask why the President did not make this decision in the context of advancing peace negotiations.  The deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Syria remains a stain on the conscience of the world.  Syrian families caught in the middle of this conflict continue to endure heartbreaking horrors every day.

“When we take the gavel, our Democratic Majority will uphold the Congress’ constitutional oversight responsibilities to ensure that the President’s decisions advance our national security interests, not his personal or political objectives.  The American people deserve a smart, strong and strategic Syria policy that keeps America safe, protects our interests and advances peace in the region.”

• Active Measures: On the same day @realDonaldTrump orders rapid troop withdrawal from Syria, @USTreasury lifts sanctions on #Deripaska’s companies (after making him forfeit some of his control). Almost feels like someone’s got a sudden and desperate need to appease the Kremlin? #ActiveMeasures. Treasury doc detailing move to lift sanctions. Oleg had to go from 70% ownership of En+ to *only* 45%. Sad!

A day after a judge asks prosecutors whether or not Michael Flynn committed treason, Donald Trump’s administration pulls two crazy stunts that independently make no sense but when combined point to one outcome.

Trump is compromised and working for Russia.

Pulling out of Syria in a hurry only benefits one party: Putin’s Russia.  It creates chaos among our allies, strengthens our enemies, and leaves the region in chaos.

As far as removing sanctions on Rusal and Deripaska…

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!

This mother fucker is intimately tied into an attack on America, and instead of punishing him, his companies, his family, and everyone who’s ever looked at him, we’re letting him do business in this country?

Oleg should be on the receiving end of asset forfeiture procedures and a loooooooooooong prison sentence, not getting allowed back into the American business world.

 

• Lifting Russian Sanctions Key to Trump Deal Exposed by Cohen
• Leaks show Trump signed off on Trump Tower Moscow project. After weeks of calling Cohen a liar, the president inadvertently proves him right. 
• Rudy Giuliani Claimed Trump Tower Moscow Wasn’t a Thing. Then CNN Showed Up With Receipts 
• Donald Trump signed letter of intent over Moscow Trump Tower project, leaked document reveals
• Giuliani lied about a Trump Tower Moscow letter of intent. CNN has receipts.
• Giuliani says Trump signing letter of intent for Moscow tower is meaningless
• Leaked document signed by Trump contradicts Giuliani on Trump Tower Moscow plans, CNN claims

As I mentioned yesterday, the letter of intent helps illustrate how deep Trump is involved personally.  (Daily Check-In 12/18/2018)  This letter surfacing showing that he intended to work with VTB, who is part of the Rusal Shell Game mentioned above, only paints the picture to the world that Trump knew and the Russians have him in their pocket.

• Trump 2020 campaign used a shell company to pay ad buyers at the center of alleged illegal coordination scheme with NRA

The Trump campaign funneled money to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company, an investigation by the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

While the Trump campaign stopped reporting payments to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA after the 2016 election cycle, Trump’s 2020 campaign has continued to deploy the same individuals working for the firms at the center of the controversy through payments to Harris Sikes Media LLC — a low-profile limited-liability company operating with no website or public-facing facade whatsoever.

Facing the illegal coordination allegations are National Media, Red Eagle Media Group and American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), closely tied consultancies that share staff, resources and adjacent storefronts in Alexandria, Va.

CRP’s analysis of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) records found that Trump campaign political ad disclosures on file with stations across the country have continued to include signatures and names of individuals working for National Media, despite no mention of National Media or its known affiliates on any FCC or Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Those individual ad buyers’ names have simultaneously continued to be included in ad documents for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and America First, but with the ad buyers’ affiliation listed as National Media or one of its affiliates.

Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, could the corruption be any more blatant?  We talked about this two weeks ago on Daily Check-In 12/06/2018.  Now, it looks like the Trump 2020 campaign is doing the EXACT SAME ILLEGAL SHIT WITH THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE.

This pisses me off.  I could use some good news.

 

• Mueller seeks Roger Stone’s testimony to House intelligence panel, suggesting special counsel is near end of probe of Trump adviser
• House Intelligence expected to vote Thursday on sending Roger Stone transcript to Mueller

There’s some good news.  And this puts Devin Nunes in a losing position.

If  the Intel Committee votes against releasing the testimony to Mueller now, it will only be along partisan lines, and will be reversed in a couple weeks when the Democrats take over the House.  If they vote for releasing the testimony, they draw the ire of the TrumpFox crowd.  Either way, Mueller will get his hands on that testimony, whether it be now or a couple weeks from now.

 

• Lincoln’s Bible: Several of us have been saying this FOR OVER A YEAR. I’ll summarize. Again. They committed psychological experimentation on the public – w/ military-grade algorithms – WITHOUT informed consent. Facebook aided & abetted. These are major crimes, & all should be sued into oblivion.
• David Carroll: Psychological Warfare
• NEW: Emails show Parliament was misled about extent of engagement between Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica and LeaveEU Brexit campaign including details about using TAA psychological warfare methods.

 

• Ken Starr: Trump can be indicted
• Poll: Majority say sitting presidents should be subject to indictment 

 

• Judge Sides With BuzzFeed Over Publication of Steele Dossier
• BuzzFeed News Has Won A Lawsuit Over Its Decision To Publish The Trump Dossier

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News over the publication of a dossier in January 2017 that alleged several years of links between Russia and then–president-elect Donald Trump.

A Cypriot businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, was named in the dossier, and his name wasn’t redacted in the version originally published by BuzzFeed. Gubarev sued shortly after the article came out, claiming he was defamed by having his name included.

US District Judge Ursula Ungaro in Florida found that BuzzFeed News was shieldedagainst defamation claims because the dossier was the subject of official proceedings — both Trump and then-president Barack Obama had been briefed on it, according to reporting at the time, and the FBI investigated allegations in the documents. The judge concluded that BuzzFeed News was protected by what’s known as the “fair report” privilege.

Ungaro also found that the BuzzFeed News article was “fair and true” because it just reproduced the dossier — it didn’t express any opinions about it.

 

• No evidence FBI officials’ texts deliberately erased, as Donald Trump said 
• Robert Mueller is the most unknowable man in Washington
• Remember the Big Story in the Russia Scandal: Donald Trump Betrayed America

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

• Lifting Russian Sanctions Key to Trump Deal Exposed by Cohen
• Leaks show Trump signed off on Trump Tower Moscow project. After weeks of calling Cohen a liar, the president inadvertently proves him right. 
• Mystery Sealed Document In Cohen Case Placed In Vault In Federal Court 
• Trump, foundering: His foundation stands nakedly exposed as a sham
• New York’s next attorney general targeted slumlords. Now she’s going after Trump.
• Enquirer Insider: ‘Shoe To Drop’ on Saudi money, AMI, Trump

 

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

• Trump admin to lift sanctions on firms owned by Russian oligarch Deripaska
• Trump Ready to Remove Sanctions on Deripaska’s Rusal in 30 Days
• Trump administration plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria immediately, defense official says
• Trump Quietly Starts Firing Service Members Living with HIV Just Before the Holidays

 

TRAITOR TOTS

• Paul Ryan Laments Not Screwing Over More Poor People on His Way Out the Door
• Paul Ryan sure wishes we could have fixed the deficit he helped explode
• Senate GOP blocks Mueller protection bill for third time 
• Financial disclosure reveals Wilbur Ross didn’t divest from all stocks when he said he would

 

FIGHTING BACK

• Rep. Adam Schiff: If Michael Cohen Goes to Jail, So Should Trump
• Rep. Adam Schiff: If Michael Cohen Goes to Jail, Why Wouldn’t Trump? 
• Donald Trump might be the dimmest President the US has ever had
• George Soros, a ‘standard bearer of liberal democracy,’ was just named ‘Person of the Year’ by the Financial Times 
• Historian: Presidents in Trouble Often Go to War
• Not even Trump supporters believe the president on Russia anymore
• ‘Trump is a Traitor’: Minneapolis Man Installs Political Holiday Light Display, and the Locals Love it .
• ‘The Trump people do not do well in courts’: Ex-prosecutor details how right-wing ‘conspiracy theories’ fail before judges
• Turns out federal judges have little patience for Trump’s conspiracy theories

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

• Enquirer Insider: ‘Shoe To Drop’ on Saudi money, AMI, Trump

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

• Grassley, Graham, & Hatch Voted To Impeach Clinton For What Kavanaugh Did – Rantt

 

IMMIGRATION

• Senate to pass bill that would keep government open, deny Trump wall funding
• Trump’s border wall prototypes fail design requirements and are riddled with deficiencies
• Tucker Carlson Dropped by at Least 20 Advertisers Over Immigration Comments
• IHOP pulls ads from Tucker Carlson’s show after immigration comments spark backlash
• Judge strikes down Trump administration effort to deny asylum for migrants fleeing gang violence, domestic abuse
• Trump faces large barrier as he seeks money for border wall
• Honduran mother and kids in viral tear gas photo have been allowed into the U.S., lawmakers say

 

COLD WAR 2.0

• Russians sanctioned over election hacking and assassination attempt
• Trump administration plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria immediately, defense official says
• Palestinian protesters demand end to brutal treatment at hands of PA

 

#NEVERAGAIN

• Nearly 40,000 People Died From Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years
• Gun-related deaths have surpassed motor vehicle deaths. Here’s what I’ve learned fighting both. – The Lily
• Trump 2020 campaign used a shell company to pay ad buyers at the center of alleged illegal coordination scheme with NRA

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

• As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
• Chris Vickery: Holy fuggin shiznit: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html … This means Zuckerberg sat in a Congressional hearing and lied. It’s hard to portray how untruthful he was. The word that comes to mind is “malicious”. Zuck -maliciously- lied to congress about Facebook data disbursement for profit.
• Washington DC sues Facebook over privacy scandal
• D.C. attorney general sues Facebook over Cambridge Analytica scandal, the first major U.S. regulatory action in company’s crisis
• Facebook “allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.”
• ‘It’s about time’: Facebook faces first lawsuit from U.S. regulators after Cambridge Analytica scandal
• Start a post, then delete it? Many websites save it anyway.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

• White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders won’t say why Trump bashes ‘rat’ Michael Cohen yet praises convicted liar Michael Flynn
• ‘Fox & Friends’ ‘Stunned’ by Trump’s Loss to Pelosi on Border Wall Funding 
• Ex-‘Fox & Friends’ Host Explains How Russian Trolls Took Inspiration From The Show
• Fox Host Calls Flynn Judge a Member of Mueller’s ‘Witch Hunt’
• Fox News host: ‘We’d be up in arms’ if Obama did what Trump has with funding border wall
• President Trump is a loser for minimizing what michael flynn has done, says Andrew Napolitano on fox News

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

• As Paul Ryan Says Goodbye, Progressives Say ‘Good Riddance’ to ‘Coward Who Sold Our Economy to Highest Bidders’
• Congressional report: Drug companies, DEA failed to stop flow of millions of opioid pills
• Federal Reserve cuts its outlook for U.S. economy; stocks plunge
• Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
• Trump tariffs hit middle- and low-income earners most
• Who’s right about the economy: Trump or the Federal Reserve?

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

• South Carolina GOP open to canceling state’s 2020 primary to protect Trump from challenge
• More Kansas lawmakers switch parties: Sykes, Clayton leave GOP, become Democrats
• Does political party trump ideology?

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

• He walked free after confessing to abusing a 13-year-old. A drunk prosecutor is to blame.
• Blackwater security guard convicted in 2007 Iraqi civilian massacre that killed or injured 31
• Former Blackwater Employee Found Guilty of Murder in Fatal 2007 Shooting at Nisur Square in Iraq
• Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport
• He reported his company for exploiting undocumented workers. So his boss paid to kill him, police say.

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

• Illinois attorney general accuses Catholic Church of lowballing scope of sex abuse allegations
• Pope Francis accepts resignation of L.A. bishop accused of sexual misconduct with a minor

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

• Green New Deal Has Overwhelming Bipartisan Support, Poll Finds. At Least, For Now. | HuffPost
• Should you send your kid’s DNA to 23andMe?
• NIH official commits to continued funding for some fetal tissue research
• Porch pirates stole a package from an engineer — so he created a trap using glitter and ‘fart spray’
• Elon Musk’s first Boring Company tunnel opens, but the roller-coaster ride has just begun

 

CONGRESS

• Paul Ryan Laments Not Screwing Over More Poor People on His Way Out the Door
• Paul Ryan sure wishes we could have fixed the deficit he helped explode
• Arkansas R Senator Cotton: “If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem”
• Senate overwhelmingly backs overhaul of criminal justice system
• Senate to pass bill that would keep government open, deny Trump wall funding
• Senate GOP blocks Mueller protection bill for third time 
• Now is the time for Pelosi to embrace Medicare for all

 

ELECTIONS

• South Carolina GOP open to canceling state’s 2020 primary to protect Trump from challenge
• N.C. elections board alerted prosecutors to alleged 2016 ballot harvesting, but nothing happened

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

• Now is the time for Pelosi to embrace Medicare for all

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

• A neighbor anonymously called Christmas dragons in her yard ‘demonic.’ So she put more up.
• Bowl games are lucrative for everyone but those putting their careers on the line
• From Broadway to Netflix, Bruce Springsteen might be a renewable resource
• Barack Obama dons a Santa hat and hands out gifts in surprise visit to D.C. children’s hospital

 

RUMOR MILL

• Active Measures: On the same day @realDonaldTrump orders rapid troop withdrawal from Syria, @USTreasury lifts sanctions on #Deripaska’s companies (after making him forfeit some of his control). Almost feels like someone’s got a sudden and desperate need to appease the Kremlin? #ActiveMeasures. Treasury doc detailing move to lift sanctions. Oleg had to go from 70% ownership of En+ to *only* 45%. Sad!
• Lincoln’s Bible: Several of us have been saying this FOR OVER A YEAR. I’ll summarize. Again. They committed psychological experimentation on the public – w/ military-grade algorithms – WITHOUT informed consent. Facebook aided & abetted. These are major crimes, & all should be sued into oblivion.

 

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  It’s a little light on the content.  I need at least one night a week with more than 4 hours of sleep to recharge.  I was completely exhausted from everything going on this time of year, and needed a few hours to recuperate.

Speaking of time off, this Holiday season I’m cutting down on the Daily posts next week.  I’ll make a post for this Friday and the weekend, but Monday through Wednesday will be in one post.  Depending on what happens, I might change that plan.  I would like to do some essays during that time if possible.  I have a few ideas floating around.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Trump Signed Moscow Project Letter

• Trump signed letter of intent for Trump Tower Moscow project despite Giuliani insisting he didn’t
• CNN obtains Russia documents signed by Trump
• CNN: Trump signed letter of intent to build Trump Tower in Moscow

(CNN)A newly obtained document shows President Donald Trump signed a letter of intent to move forward with negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Russia, despite his attorney Rudy Giuliani claiming on Sunday the document was never signed.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo obtained a copy of the signed letter of intent that set the stage for negotiations for Trump condominiums, a hotel and commercial property in the heart of Moscow. The letter is dated October 28, 2015, and bears the President’s signature.

When asked on Sunday about the letter, Giuliani incorrectly told CNN’s Dana Bash that it had not been signed.

“It was a real estate project. There was a letter of intent to go forward, but no one signed it,” Giuliani told Bash.

The non-binding document is also signed by Andrey Rozov, owner of I.C. Expert Investment Co., the Russian firm that would have been responsible for developing the property.

• Asha Rangappa: This is yuge. If Trump or anyone in his campaign knew, encouraged, facilitated, or participated in the Kremlin’s assistance to get Trump elected, you’re looking at a quid pro quo, my friends. (aka COLLUSION) I strongly advise people defending trump to look for the next U-turn.
• Link to the letter

This story came in late Tuesday, after everything else was planned for this post.  But this could be pretty damn big for one of two reasons.

First, if this is accurate, it shows that Trump is directly implicated in the cover-up of collusion and lying to the American people.

Second, if this isn’t accurate, it pretty much blows up CNN and their reporting from here on out.

I’m waiting for confirmation on either front, but I’m leaning towards the first.  CNN has broken a lot of stuff, and this is likely from Cohen’s team directly or some inside source at SDNY.

The funniest part about this is his signature is easily proven.  Trump writes with a Sharpie.  That’s like a pair of house robbers leaving a “calling card” of flooding the house.  Easy to trace and stupid as shit.

 

Flynn Sentencing

• Judge Asks Prosecutors Whether Mike Flynn Could Have Been Charged With Treason
• Judge blasts Flynn: “Arguably you sold your country out”
• Steven Portnoy: DID FLYNN COMMIT TREASON? Sullivan is now asking the special counsel’s office whether it ever considered charging Flynn with treason. Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack struggles to answer, saying it wasn’t considered.
• Tea Pain: BOOM! Judge Sullivan, who has seen the redacted info in the pleadings, asks if Mueller’s team considered chargin’ Mike Flynn with “TREASON.”
• 911corlebra777: Judge Sullivan, by introducing the T word into proceedings has just put the fear of God into not only Flynn, but the rest of the TreasonWeasles as well. As @LouiseMensch just said, incredible incentive now for Flynn to tell all, and not just him either
• John Schindler: Shorter Judge Sullivan: Sorry about that “treason” thing, I was upset — but don’t even think about not fully cooperating with Mueller, Mikey, or I’ll put your lying, FARA-violating ass in prison (like they should have Petraeus). See you March 13th — Merry Christmas, everybody!
• Andrew Laufer, ESQ: Huge day. The mere fact that Judge Sullivan brought up other crimes, including treason, in colloquy is earth-shattering. Federal judges aren’t known for making off-the-cuff remarks.
• Angry White House Staffer: Then a FEDERAL JUDGE asked prosecutors why they didn’t seek a treason charge. Shoutout to everyone that told me we weren’t even close to the treason threshold.
• At sentencing, Michael Flynn admits he knew lying to the FBI was a crime and declines to withdraw guilty plea
• Judge Rips Flynn, Asks About Treason Ahead Of Sentencing For Lying To FBI
• Judge slams Michael Flynn ahead of sentencing
• Flynn’s Lawyers Ask for Delay In Sentencing
• Judge Delays Michael Flynn’s Sentencing Until March
• Michael Flynn, Trump ally turned key Mueller witness, arrives at court to be sentenced
• Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, scheduled to be sentenced
• Michael Flynn’s sentencing delayed after judge tells the ex-Trump adviser he may not avoid prison time
• National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s Sentencing to Be Delayed Pending Further Cooperation with DOJ.
• The Flynn Sentencing: What Comes Next? | emptywheel
• Judge in Michael Flynn’s Hearing Reads Him for Filth But Postpones His Sentencing So He Can Keep Snitching
• It took about 20 minutes for a judge to destroy the right’s conspiratorial defense of Michael Flynn
• The ‘Michael Flynn is an innocent hero’ conspiracy theory suffers a major setback
• Veteran judge upends hopes of Trump allies as he spotlights Flynn’s misdeeds
• Zoe Tilman: A Michael Flynn update: The judge imposed a travel restriction while he continues to cooperate (see: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/judge-michael-flynn-sentencing-sold-country-our …) — starting 1/4/19, Flynn has to stay within 50 miles of DC, and he has to get the judge’s approval to go farther. Also he has to surrender his passport
• Judge orders Michael Flynn to surrender his passport while he waits to be sentenced
• Judge orders Flynn to stay within 50 miles of DC

Now, here’s what should be the biggest story of the month, in any normal universe.  The former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States shows up for sentencing on a guilty plea. His lawyers ask for no jail time, the prosecutors ask for no jail time, and everything goes to shit.

After the stunt Flynn’s lawyers pulled last week with his “But I was entrapped” scheme (Daily Check-In 12/14/2018) and Mueller’s team releasing the sort-of-full 302 form (Daily Check-In 12/17/2018), the judge wasn’t hearing any of it.  Judge Sullivan tore Flynn a new asshole.  He laid into him like Flynn owed him money, then proceeded to ask the prosecutors what other crimes they were thought about charging him with.  Things went off the rails when the judge asked “Could he have been charged with treason?”

Damn, son.  Everyone in the courtroom was caught off guard, and more than a few people’s heartbeats spiked on that point.  One of them was Brandon Van Grack.  He hesitated, hemmed and hawed, then answered with a non-answer.  While nearly everyone is freaking out about the question, it’s the answer that made me lose my shit in a glorious, uproarious laughter.

Why?  Because lawyers are not allowed to lie in court, he didn’t have an answer for this question at the ready, and was trying to pull together an answer at the last second that tried to push this away.  He didn’t say yes, but he also didn’t say no. That is huge.

Mueller’s team won’t show their whole hand, but if they hadn’t discussed charging Flynn for treason, all they would have had to say was “No, your honor”, and leave it at that.  The judge would have asked another question, and that would be that.  But he didn’t deny it.  Van Grack can’t say yes without tipping off everyone that treason is on the menu, but he can’t lie, so he’s looking for a non-answer answer.

It’s sort of like this; Yesterday I gave an example of burying the lede in a story in which one spouse was accused of burning down their workplace.  Let’s say that couple is back, and the husband asks the wife questions like “Did you set the fire? Did the building burn? Was there anyone in there?” and as she’s expecting those answers, he asks her an unexpected question like “I mean, it’s not like your boss was running a drug smuggling operation out of the basement, right?” And the wife pauses because her boss was running drugs out of the basement, but no one outside of the office knew.  The husband stumbled on a completely unknown fact that changes EVERYTHING.

That’s what happened with Flynn.  After a short recess, and the judge basically telling Flynn that he was so pissed that he was going to send his ass to jail if he didn’t ask for an extension, Flynn asked for an extension.  They’ll be back on March 13th.

Also, the judge completely shredded Flynn’s argument like it was made of tissue paper.

 

Unknown vs Mueller

• Mueller appears victorious in mystery subpoena dispute
• Court orders company to comply with special counsel subpoena in mystery grand jury appeal
• Read: Appeals Court Upholds Grand Jury Subpoena In Secret Mueller-Linked Case
• The Curious Case of the Mystery Mueller Opponent Has Finally Been Solved
• 12-18-18 DC Circuit Grand Jury Subpoena | Jurisdiction | United States District Court
• Zoe Tilman: The Secret Mueller Case

NEW: Remember that mystery grand jury subpoena case argued last week in the DC Circuit? A decision is out, and it’s public, sort of — it’s about a company (unnamed) owned by a country (unnamed). Court upheld the denial of a motion to quash the subpoena https://www.scribd.com/document/395974126/12-18-18-DC-Circuit-Grand-Jury-Subpoena …

There is *no* reference in today’s judgment to Mueller’s office. But there’s no reference at all to who is prosecuting this case, so we don’t have any new, concrete info on that front

One thing we learned is that the judge found the company in contempt for failing to comply with the grand jury subpoena, and imposed a daily $ penalty — the DC Circuit said that was okay, although how that gets enforced “is a separate question for a later day”

We’ve got new information on the secret case.  Turns out it wasn’t a person fighting a subpoena, but a company.  And said company argued that complying with this subpoena would violate the laws of their home country, which also owns the company.  The court said tough shit, pony up.

Instead of guessing who the person was, let’s guess the company.  Turns out, this is a lot harder than it sounds.

We’re dealing with a company owned by a country, and they’re involved in the Mueller Investigation.  The most obvious suspects are either Russian companies like Rosneft, Alfa Bank, or RT, or Qatari like the Qatar Investment Authority.  But if we’re casting a wide net, it could be any of a couple dozen companies from countries like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Netherlands, Panama, Venezuela, Zaire, Thailand, and The Philippines.

It’s beyond fucked that that this hypercorrupt Rube Goldberg machine has so many moving parts that I’m having a hard time picking a continent, let alone a company.

 

Disinformation Campaign

• Here are some of the Russian social media accounts that could’ve influenced voters during the 2016 election
• Molly McKew: …. And cue the Bernie Sanders people suddenly denying Russian info ops could have had any impact on the election 🙄Yes, Russian ops targeted your supporters. Instead of denying it, ask why, and how.
• Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate
• Russia’s Subversion Campaign Said A Lot More About Us Than Them
• CNN’s Chris Cuomo Spots ‘Uncanny’ Similarity Of Trump And Russian Bot Messages
• Congress Now Has a Very Full, Very Ugly Picture of How Russia Targeted Black Americans

It’s “uncanny” how Team Trump and Russia use the exact same methods, tools, messages, people, equipment, and bots.  Funny how that works.

 

• The 20 biggest Trump-Russia bombshells of 2018
• Mueller Ready to Pounce on Trumpworld Concessions to Moscow
• How the various investigations into Trump’s world overlap
• Giuliani: Trump ‘might agree’ to answer more Mueller questions
• Poll shows majority of Americans think Robert Mueller will find President Trump committed crimes
• Trump could be indicted by Mueller, says Fox News’ Judge Napolitano: ‘There’s ample evidence’
• Trump Could Be Under Sealed Indictment, Analyst Speculates
• With control of House, Dems demand tax returns for presidency

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Trump Foundation Go Bye-Bye!

• NYAG: #BREAKING: We’ve secured a stipulation requiring the Trump Foundation to dissolve under judicial supervision, with our review of recipient charities. The Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s interests. Our lawsuit remains ongoing. THREAD
• Trump Foundation agrees with NY State AG to dissolve in settlement agreement
• Trump Foundation to Dissolve in Deal with New York Attorney General
• A.G. Underwood Announces Stipulation Dissolving Trump Foundation Under Judicial Supervision, With AG Review Of Recipient Charities  | New York State Attorney General
• Lincoln’s Bible: Today is a great day to remind everyone that charities – as a structure – have been identified by the @USTreasury as ideal money-laundering vehicles for organized crime.
• Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations he used it for personal and political benefit
• Trump charity agrees to dissolve amid allegations of a ‘shocking pattern of illegality’
• David Fahrenthold: The breakdown of current values, according to Trump Fdn docs: –Tim Tebow-signed helmet, valued at $475. –4-foot-tall portrait of @realDonaldTrump, valued at $500. –6-foot-tall portrait of Trump, valued at….$0.

The Trump Foundation is being forcibly dissolved by the state of New York, and it’s few assets are being disbursed.

Tell me again which candidate had the charity they used as a slush fund?

 

“Enquiring” Minds Want To Know

• What Does the National Enquirer Know About Trump Clan? Former Tabloid Editor Says Paper Has ‘Criminal’ Facts
• Ex-National Enquirer Editor Suggests Jared, Ivanka Partook In ‘Criminal Activity’
• Former National Equirer editor claims the tabloid has unpublished ‘embarrassing’ and ‘criminal’ stories on Trump family

Most likely the criminal behavior includes taking foreign money, bribery, and other white collar fraud.  But, there’s a part of me that hopes that it’s REALLY nasty.  Like ******************** with a *************** while a ***************** and ****************.  That would be fucked up.

 

Incoming

• Chris Matthews Predicts Trump Could Resign ‘In The Coming Weeks’
• Chris Matthews: Trump Jr, Ivanka ‘stand as the next dominoes to fall’

I’ll talk about this a little in the Coda.

 

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

• Trump wishes Michael Flynn “good luck” in court after Mueller released memo revealing ex-general’s lies
• Trump’s power slips away, as Flynn faces possible jail time
• The White House lost its narrative on Michael Flynn. So it made up some stuff about James Comey instead.
• On Twitter, Trump comes out swinging in many directions
• Trump backers just had their anti-Mueller hopes and dreams dashed
• Trump supporters turning on president over Mueller investigation into Russia ties, poll shows

 

Shutdown

• Trump backs off demand for $5 billion for border wall, but budget impasse remains ahead of shutdown deadline
• White House signals it will back down on President Trump’s demand for border wall funding and avert a partial government shutdown
• White House suggests it will back down on $5 billion border wall demand
• Trump backs off demand for wall funds, but impasse remains ahead of shutdown deadline

 

TRAITOR TOTS

• Philip Rucker: Sanders announces that Trump will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos next month. U.S. delegation will be led by Mnuchin and include Pompeo, Ross, Acosta, Chao, Nielsen, Lighthizer, McMahon, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Chris Liddell.
• Trump’s campaign manager asks people to call hotline to say, ‘Thank you, President Trump!’

 

• Roger Stone admits he pushed false statements on Infowars
• Spicy Mic: Roger Stone Admits Spreading Lies on InfoWars – WSJ It’s HILARIOUS what Stone needs to do… Swear to gawd this is the BEST thing I’ve read IN a long time Stone agreed to: publish a retraction of the lies he spread social media & run ads in the WSJ, NYTs & WaPo apologizing for the lies

 

• Paul Ryan Congratulates Himself on Twitter
• ‘He was the future of the party’: Ryan’s farewell triggers debate about his legacy

 

Dershowitz

• Second woman claims billionaire perv Jeffrey Epstein ‘directed’ her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz
• Second Woman Says Jeffrey Epstein ‘Directed’ Her to Have Sex With Alan Dershowitz
• Sarah Kendzior: Second woman claims billionaire Jeffrey Epstein ‘directed’ her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz. Thread of Threads
• Evan Shaprio: Interview with Alan Dershowitz

I just had a super interesting exchange with Alan Dershowitz via text messages. After calling his office today and letting his asst. know I had some research questions for him, he called my cell. He didn’t want to set a time to talk, so we went back and forth on texts. 1/

It should be noted that ANY time, Alan could have just blocked my number. For example, once asked him about his curious stance that “lying to the FBI is not in fact a crime,” he could’ve just said fuck off, blocked me, and that would’ve been it. That’s not what happened. 2/

When I asked him to defend his position that false statements to the FBI did not in fact violate Section 1001 of the US Code, he told me to read his OpEd in @TheHill. I did. It answered little. I told him so. He asked me to Cute [sic] cases contradicting him. I named 5. 3/

He started, for some reason, attacking Hillary Clinton, and claimed the FBI can’t ask questions for the sole purpose of catching someone in a lie. I asked how he knew that was their sole purpose. He gave many answers, all of which amounted to “I just do.” 4/

I asked, even if his “gut” was correct (odd legal standard), wouldn’t an effort by a hostile power to compromise our National Security Advisor be an “extraordinary circumstance,” which he said would be an exception? I asked several more times. He never answered the question. 5/

Again, he attacked Clinton. He’s obsessed w her. He asked what I thought of the Clintons. I told him I thought Bill should’ve resigned (still do), and that if Hillz were caught knowingly lying to the FBI, she deserved what Flynn got. He simply pretended I didn’t say that. 6/

I then asked him if he was ever paid for anything by Trump. He took a LONG time to answer. He said he had never been paid by Trump. I said I hope that’s true, and admitted to being skeptical. Alan Dershowitz then called me a bigot – more specifically an anti-Semite. 7/

It was CLEAR from go that I had an agenda. At any point, he could’ve disengaged. He did not. IMHO, bc hubris. Yet, in light of news that @Mark_Penn wrote anti-FBI OpEds in @TheHill w/o disclosing his work for Trump, when I asked if he did too, Alan told me I hate Jews. 8/

His defense of Making False Statements are not well founded, nor supported by case law. His proof they “entrapped” Flynn are based on his gut. EVEN IF his loophole were acceptable, he NEVER answered if an all-out effort to compromise the US NSA would be an exception. Why? 9/

I’m not a lawyer. I’m a college drop out. But Dershowitz did reply to more of my questions about all this, in one text exchange, than in all his TV appearances. And in doing so, Alan exposed a defensiveness that is, well, curious. @CNN, @ABC, @MeetThePress… your move. Fin.

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

• Presidential Historian Jon Meacham: Trump Could Be an ‘Agent of a Foreign Power’ Who Committed ‘Definition of Treason’
• Jon Meacham: Trump May Be Committing ‘Definition Of Treason’ Right Now
• Walter Shaub: When this is over, when the lights are turned back on, it will become clear that there were only two kinds of people: Those who stood against Trump’s corruption, cruelty and degradation of American values, and those who enabled him.
• Ahmed Baba: If you want to see a grifter (who has avoided/bankrupted/settled every potential consequence his entire life because his dad gave him hundreds of millions) finally realize he might actually be held accountable for his crooked actions, go look at @realDonaldTrump’s Twitter feed.
• Comey lambastes GOP over Trump’s continued attacks on FBI: ‘Stand up and speak the truth’
• She lost her school job after refusing to sign a pro-Israel pledge. Now, she’s filing a lawsuit.

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

• Muslim student hospitalized with concussion after attack at Chartiers Valley High School
• MuslimIQ: Update: Police are ruling out hate crime charges. Meanwhile, the 14 year old victim had to be taken to the Children’s Hospital due to suffering a concussion. She is a Syrian refugee & literally escaped war & tyranny. She spent 2 years in a refugee camp.
• Ted Lieu: Dear Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson): I’m an immigrant. Irish Spring soap cleans my skin the same way it cleans your skin. My parents were poor. They worked hard and started a successful business. Now their son is in Congress. So take your hatred of immigrants and shove it.
• Migration row forces Belgian premier’s resignation
• White House eyes defense funds for Trump’s border priorities
• White House says it wants to avoid government shutdown, will find other ways to fund border wall
• White House signals it will back down on President Trump’s demand for border wall funding and avert a partial government shutdown
• White House suggests it will back down on $5 billion border wall demand
• Yemeni mother blocked by travel ban is granted U.S. visa to see her dying son, attorney says
• Fox & Friends segment calls on Trump voters to each give $80 to fund the wall: ‘It could be a people’s wall’
• Yes, Sarah Sanders, you are asking U.S. taxpayers to pay for the wall
• U.S. branded “far-right” after being one of two countries out of 183 to vote against UN pact to help refugees
• Seriously, Prada, what were you thinking?: Why the fashion industry keeps bumbling into racist imagery

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

• Judiciary dismisses ‘serious’ misconduct complaints against Brett M. Kavanaugh
• ‘Serious’ complaints against Kavanaugh are dismissed because he was confirmed to SCOTUS
• All 83 of the Ethics Complaints Against Justice Brett Kavanaugh Were Dismissed Because He’s on the Supreme Court Now
• Controversial ruling on health care law could face a skeptical Supreme Court — if it gets there

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

• Nevada becomes 1st US state with female-majority Legislature
• I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.
• Former CBS chairman Les Moonves fired for cause, will not receive severance in wake of sexual misconduct allegations

 

IMMIGRATION

• ‘Zero-tolerance’ immigration policy hits snag in California
• Dems Reject Trump’s New Demand Of $1B Immigration ‘Slush Fund’ To Avert Shutdown
• After migrant girl’s death, Democrats seek to question Border Patrol agents who detained her
• Texas Trump voter now fears the president will seize her family’s land to build his border wall
• Trump knocks Dems: Border wall will be ‘artistically designed’ and ‘beautiful’

 

COLD WAR 2.0

• Migration row forces Belgian premier’s resignation

 

#NEVERAGAIN

• Trump administration bans bump stocks
• Trump administration issues rule banning bump stocks
• Trump administration moves to ban bump stocks
• Justice Department will ban bump-stock devices that turn rifles into fully automatic weapons
• NRA ‘disappointed’ by bumpstock ban
• Trump’s safety panel recommends schools consider arming personnel
• Right to bear … nunchucks? Federal judge strikes down ban on weapon as violation of Second Amendment

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

• After Senate reports on voter suppression, Facebook’s Sandberg says ‘we need to do more’
• Facebook Allowed Netflix, Spotify, And A Bank To Read And Delete Users’ Private Messages
• EXCLUSIVE: Charter/Spectrum Cable agrees to record $174M settlement for misleading customers on internet speed: AG’s office – NY Daily News
• Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

• Report: US joins ranks of world’s most dangerous places for journalists for first time
• Sarah Sanders: The FBI ‘broke every standard protocol that they have’ when they ‘ambushed’ Michael Flynn
• John Schindler: 1. Sarah knows less about FBI procedures than my cats. 2. This bald-faced lie sounded better in the original Russian. I mean that literally. Trump WH has been regurgitating Kremlin talking points religiously for almost 2 years. Now, they’re all doing it.
• Fox & Friends segment calls on Trump voters to each give $80 to fund the wall: ‘It could be a people’s wall’
• Yes, Sarah Sanders, you are asking U.S. taxpayers to pay for the wall
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders Slammed by Reporter As She Cuts Press Briefing Short: ‘Do Your Job, Sarah’
• ‘Do your job, Sarah!’ Reporters shout after first White House briefing in weeks lasts 15 minutes
• Fox News Contributor: Lying To FBI Is Like ‘Pulling Off Mattress Tags’
• Fox News poll: Only 38 percent of Americans would vote to re-elect Donald Trump
• The mass exodus of Tucker Carlson’s advertisers continues: Fox News is blaming “far left activist groups” for the backlash over Carlson saying immigrants make America “dirtier.”
• ‘The Trump people do not do well in courts’: Ex-prosecutor details how right-wing ‘conspiracy theories’ fail before judges
• Peter Sagal: Conspiracies

I am obsessed with the ever-shifting conspiracy theory being created in real time to discredit the Mueller investigation, by Nunes, Meadows, K Strassel, Mollie Hemingway, et al. 1) What’s the theory called? (eg, “QAnon.”) 2) Who’s got a good rundown of the state of play?

Like all conspiracy theories, it:

A) Seeks evidence to prove an unshakeable point of faith (in this case, NO COLLUSION!)

B) Ignores/dismisses all contrary evidence

C) Makes ample use of “poisoned trees.” If one element can be discredited, then the whole thing is invalid.

D) If any contrary witness makes a minor mistake of fact or ethics, then anything from that person is discredited.

E) Anybody attacking the conspiracy theory is part of the conspiracy (Cabal of FBI/CIA/Dems/Liberal Media!)

F) Memory-holes any prior claims if discredited

I have been fascinated by conspiracy theories since researching/writing a play about Holocaust denial, which is a prime example of all the above. The irony here is that these conspiracy theories are protecting an actual conspiracy.

As if in answer to my plea, Ben Weingarten of the Federalist provides a nifty little primer. Doesn’t hit all the points – no “dirty dossier” — but lots of them.

• Introducing the Sean Hannity Expanded Universe, Fox’s anti-Mueller alternative reality

 

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

• As Trump mulled chief of staff pick, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows’s USF degree was fixed on Wikipedia
• “The Staff Is Fed Up He’s Acting Like a Nut”: Trump’s West Wing Braces for Christmas Madness, More Departures—And Mueller
• Trump’s VA vowed to stop veteran suicide. Its leaders failed to spend millions set aside to help those at risk.
• Trump signs order to create US Space Command

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

• Despite propaganda, Minnesota’s ‘high tax’ economy is crushing Wisconsin, Iowa
• Greenspan to investors: ‘Run for cover’
• Bonuses are up $0.02 since the GOP tax cuts passed
• Chance of Recession Rises to the Highest Level of the Trump Presidency: CNBC Fed Survey
• More than 70% of economists and fund managers blame tariffs for market sell-off
• Trump Urges Fed to ‘feel the market’ and ignore ‘meaningless numbers’
• Trump Is Milking the War on Christmas for Every Last Penny
• The GOP tax bill only gave workers 2 cents more per hour in bonuses

 

STUDENT ISSUES

• Trump’s safety panel recommends schools consider arming personnel

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

• Conservatism’s Monstrous Endgame
• Departing GOP lawmaker may have broken law in connection with Internet company, ethics office says
• Republicans have become their own caricature of postmodernism

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

• Two Chicago cops killed by 60 mph commuter train while chasing armed man on foot
• Nigerian Ringleader of International Investment Scam Charged with Fraud, Money Laundering and Identity Theft
• She swiped her co-worker’s Coke can. Police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case.
• A poacher who killed hundreds of deer was sentenced to repeatedly watch ‘Bambi’
• Ex-officers charged after video shows them hurling a student around a school office
• Black Man Alleges Racial Profiling After Bank Refuses To Cash Paycheck
• New Hampshire Police Arrested a Man for Being Mean to Them on the Internet
• ‘They thought they were invincible too’: An officer’s sobering letter to a teen who topped 100 mph
• A woman partied as her kids sat in a hot car. She’ll serve 40 years in prison for their deaths.

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

• Scientists claim progress in earthquake prediction
• ‘Stay well back … or risk certain death’: Giant waves slam California coast
• Americans say there’s not much appeal to big-city living. Why do so many of us live there?
• Blind creature that buries head in sand named after Donald Trump
• People with extreme political views ‘cannot tell when they are wrong’, study finds
• Planning to fly away for the holidays? So are nearly 46 million other people.
• Polar vortex could unleash winter wallop by January
• Riccardo Giacconi, Nobel laureate known as the father of X-ray astronomy, dies at 87

 

CONGRESS

• Why Is Congress Trying To Pass An Obviously Unconstitutional Bill That Would Criminalize Boycotts Of Israel?
• Rep. Martha McSally will be appointed to John McCain’s Senate seat
• Republican Martha McSally Picked To Fill Senate Seat Formerly Held By John McCain
• Arizona governor taps Martha McSally to fill Senate seat once held by McCain
• Gov. Doug Ducey appoints Martha McSally to U.S. Senate
• Senate easily passes Trump-backed criminal justice reform bill
• Senate passes sweeping bipartisan overhaul of criminal justice system
• Senate Rejects Tom Cotton’s ‘Poison Pill’ Amendments to Criminal Justice Bill
• ‘Being People-Funded Frees Me to Put People First’: Ocasio-Cortez Touts Highest Portion of 2018 Small-Dollar Donors
• ‘Turns Out,’ Says Ocasio-Cortez, ‘Everyday People Like It When We Fight for Everyday People’
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s taking a ‘self-care’ break. Here’s what that means.
• Criminal justice bill clears hurdle in the Senate on strong bipartisan vote
• Paul Ryan Congratulates Himself on Twitter
• ‘He was the future of the party’: Ryan’s farewell triggers debate about his legacy

 

ELECTIONS

• The North Carolina GOP’s Latest Ploy to Save Its Partisan Gerrymander Is Almost Literally Unbelievable
• Libertarians lose party status in Maine because of low vote count

 

THINKING AHEAD

• New ‘Draft Beto’ group launches to rally support for 2020 bid
• Republicans seek to expand Trump’s support for 2020, but will the president cooperate?
• Kamala Harris travels to Afghanistan with GOP senators

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

• Legalizing marijuana is now one of Cuomo’s priorities. He’s been resisting it for years.
• Miss Spain makes history as first transgender woman to compete in Miss Universe pageant

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

• ‘Mortal Engines’ could lose $100 million after a disastrous box office opening. What went wrong?
• 8-year-old receives letter from Hillary Clinton after losing to male classmate in election

Penny Marshall

• Penny Marshall broke barriers for women — but rejected ‘feminism’ label
• Penny Marshall, star of ‘Laverne & Shirley’ and director of films such as ‘Big,’ dies at 75

 

RUMOR MILL

• Tea Pain: BOOM! Judge Sullivan, who has seen the redacted info in the pleadings, asks if Mueller’s team considered chargin’ Mike Flynn with “TREASON.”
• John Schindler: Shorter Judge Sullivan: Sorry about that “treason” thing, I was upset — but don’t even think about not fully cooperating with Mueller, Mikey, or I’ll put your lying, FARA-violating ass in prison (like they should have Petraeus). See you March 13th — Merry Christmas, everybody!
• Countercheckist: The Flynn family’s reaction in court to questions about treason is the same reaction every Kremlin-stooge in the US had when they heard the news. Choosing to sink with the Russian-flagged tRUmptanic wasn’t such a wise decision, huh?
• Emptywheel: Clue, 2018 style: Which foreign country paid the slush to which co-conspirator via which money laundering vehicle? Life was so much easier when we just had to find a candlestick.
• Lincoln’s Bible: Several of us on this platform were very vocal a year ago (and some even longer) that FARA violations were going to be at the heart of much of Trump-Russia. We were mocked by MSM. #AndSoItGoes
• Countercheckist: You seem really scared @realDonaldtRUmp. And for good reason… 🙂 Flail around, scream, cry, obfuscate, yell, whine, berate— it makes no difference. You’re done. And so are your treasonous pals.
• Lincoln’s Bible: So, this was bad then. 🤷‍♂️B/c we can listen 2 spies, inc. the honey traps. Esp. when they claim access 2 GRU archives. And we know who they talk 2. And our allies can record that 4 us. And Flynn is an idiot traitor, who fell for the french manicure. #JustSayNo2RussianSpyPussy
• Ming: “You will never amount to anything ,son. You are an abject failure and an utter disappoint to me” -M. Flynn Turns out pops was wrong and Jr, is pretty good at treason too…
• Lincoln’s Bible: Several of us on this platform were very vocal a year ago (and some even longer) that FARA violations were going to be at the heart of much of Trump-Russia. We were mocked by MSM. #AndSoItGoes
• Tea Pain: Tea is thrilled Judge Sullivan ain’t afraid to associate Mike Flynn’s actions with “TREASON.” It’s time we remember the way we used to feel about the rule of law and allegiance to our country before the lawless Trump era. It’s time to put the fear of God into these traitors!
• Lincoln’s Bible: Today is a great day to remind everyone that charities – as a structure – have been identified by the @USTreasury as ideal money-laundering vehicles for organized crime.

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Also known as “What the fuck just happened?” Day.

Over the last couple days, I’ve heard a rumblings about a possible soft landing for Trump et. al.  It goes along the lines of Trump’s team and Mueller’s team striking a deal where Trump gets to resign and Mueller doesn’t go after him or his family, and they get to keep their assets.  Think less Nixon and more Spiro T. Agnew.

Agnew was Nixon’s VP until late 1973 when he abruptly resigned and pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges to avoid jail time.  Agnew was caught up in a bribery and extortion racket that swallowed up Maryland politics.  While Watergate was going full speed ahead, Agnew was looking at hard time for accepting bribes while in office as Baltimore Mayor, Maryland Governor, and even in the White House.  The AG made a deal with Agnew’s team; resign in 24 hours with a guilty plea to a felony, and they won’t come after him for restitution or jail time.

I’m not buying it.  Not for a second.

First, it doesn’t match with any of the previous information that I’ve heard or seen over the past two years.  While quitting when the going gets tough matches Trump’s personality, the only way a deal helps him is if there’s absolutely no way that anyone comes after him.  If he thinks for a moment that New York will come for his ass on Enterprise Corruption charges (they most likely will), any deal he strikes with Mueller only helps him with one jurisdiction.

Second, Trump isn’t Agnew.  Trump isn’t Nixon.  Not even close.  They were criminals, but they didn’t coordinate with a foreign government to swing an election.  Ok, maybe Nixon with Vietnam, but that’s another story.  Nixon didn’t work with the VC for over a year as part of a quid pro quo.  Nixon didn’t commit enough crimes to fill a Felony A Day Daily Calendar.  Trump is a traitor to the United States, and doesn’t deserve a soft landing.

Finally, I’m not buying it where it’s in the best interest of the country to let a traitor and his traitorous friends and family walk away. There needs to be an example set.  One that will last hundreds of years, that some favors come with too high a cost.  He needs to stand trial for his crimes.  And so do his accomplices.  Letting a traitor walk away from justice sends a message to the future that the laws don’t matter if you’re rich.

That is the wrong message to send to our children, grandchildren, and progeny.  We must tell them that the fundamental truth of a democratic society still stands, and will stand.

No one is above the law.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Monday, December 17, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Flynn’s Buddies Get Indicted

• Former Michael Flynn Business Associates Indicted in Turkey Lobbying Case
• MSNBC: JUST IN: Court documents: Two of Michael Flynn’s business associates, Bikan Rafiekian (Bijan Kian) and Kamil Alptekin, indicted for alleged conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and other charges; case tied to efforts to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.
• Two associates of ex-Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn indicted on conspiracy charges
• Adam Klasfeld: BREAKING: Former Michael Flynn Business Associates Indicted in Turkey Lobbying Case via @NYTimes. THREAD
• Ex-CIA Director: Mike Flynn and Turkish Officials Discussed Removal of Erdogan Foe From U.S.
• From May 2017: ‘It was very hush-hush’: Michael Flynn’s lobbying firm didn’t ‘want anyone to know’ about its work for Turkey
• Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey
• Document: Michael Flynn Associates Charged in Gulen Extradition Effort
• Two Men Charged with Conspiracy and Acting as Agents of a Foreign Government
• Grand Jury Indicts Turkish National Who Directed and Paid Michael Flynn in Anti-Gülen Influence Campaign

Posted by

u/RELEASE_PEE-PEE_TAPE

MOD8 hours ago

Grand Jury Indicts Turkish National Who Directed and Paid Michael Flynn in Anti-Gülen Influence Campaign

DOJ Announcement:

An indictment was unsealed today charging Bijan Rafiekian, aka Bijan Kian, 66, of San Juan Capistrano, California, and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 41, of Istanbul, and a Turkish national, with conspiracy, acting in the United States as illegal agents of the government of Turkey, and making false statements to the FBI.

According to allegations in the indictment, the two men were involved in a conspiracy to covertly influence U.S. politicians and public opinion against a Turkish citizen living in the United States whose extradition had been requested by the Government of Turkey. The plot included using a company founded by Rafiekian and a person referred to as “Person A” in the indictment [Michael Flynn]. The company, referred to as “Company A” in the indictment [Flynn Intel Group], provided services based upon Person A’s national security expertise.

• Two Men Charged with Conspiracy and Acting as Agents of a Foreign Government (DOJ)

• Kamil Ekim Alptekin

• Bijan Kian

• Indictment [21 page PDF] (DOJ)

• “Person A” = Michael Flynn

• “Company A” = Flynn Intel Group

• “Company B” = Inovo BV

• “The Turkish citizen” = Fethullah Gülen

• “Senior Turkish Leader #1” = President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

• “Turkish Ministers #1 & #2” = Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu & Berat Albayrak

• “Senior Turkish Leader #2” = ???

Flynn’s March 2017 FARA Filings:

• Registration Statement (“Initial filing for primary registrant”) (DOJ)

• Supplemental Statement (“6 month activities and financial information”) (DOJ)

• Short Form [1] (“Statement Individual foreign agents”) (DOJ)

• Short Form [2] (“Statement Individual foreign agents”) (DOJ)

• Exhibits A & B (“Foreign principal” and “Foreign principal agreement”) (DOJ)

• Exhibit C (“Articles of incorporation, bylaws, etc.”) (DOJ)

News Coverage:

• Former Michael Flynn Business Associates Indicted in Turkey Lobbying Case (NYT)

• Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey (WaPo)

Prior Coverage:

• Flynn Timeline (2014-2018)

• 2017-03-08 Former Trump aide Flynn says lobbying may have helped Turkey (AP)

• 2017-03-10 Michael Flynn Was Paid to Represent Turkey’s Interests During Trump Campaign (NYT)

• 2017-03-16 Trump adviser Flynn paid by multiple Russia-related entities, new records show (WaPo)

• 2017-03-24 Ex-CIA Director: Mike Flynn and Turkish Officials Discussed Removal of Erdogan Foe From U.S. (WSJ)

• 2017-05-30 Mike Flynn’s Pro-Turkey Work: An Unfinished Documentary to Boost Country’s Image (WSJ)

• 2017-09-13 FBI interviews editor who worked for Flynn (AP)

Remember when Mike Flynn was accused of organizing an attempted kidnapping of a Turkish cleric?  Or the time Mike Flynn attended a breakfast with Devin Nunes and senior diplomats from Turkey?  Or the about-face that Flynn took in relations to Turkey after they paid his company $600,000?

Bijan Kian, the second in command of Flynn Intel Group, was involved in all of that. He worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Turkey, in violation of FARA guidelines.  On Monday, he and Kamil Alptekin were indicted on charges of not registering as a foreign agent.  But that’s not all of it.

There’s a thing in journalism called “burying the lede.”  This is when the main point of the story is lost deep in the weeds.  Like, if your spouse comes home and tells you about their day and they start with lunch, how their boss is a jerk, their coworkers are mean, and the building burned down and they’re the prime suspect.  That last part is the most important thing they said, but they buried it at the end.

The lede in this story isn’t that Bijan Kian worked with Mike Flynn to take Turkish money, but both Bijan and Mike Flynn worked on the Trump Transition Team WHILE TAKING MONEY FROM TURKEY UNDER THE TABLE.  They were crafting national security for years to come while taking Erdogan’s blood money.

Putting another country’s interests above your own while leading major government initiatives.  Sounds pretty damn close to treason.

 

Flynn

• Mueller releases memo summarizing FBI’s interview with Michael Flynn 
• Manu Raju: I asked @Comey today to respond to criticism that the FBI interview of Flynn was not done properly. “Oh come on. Think about what’s happening in the Republican Party. They’re up here attacking the FBI’s investigation of a guy who pled guilty to lying to the FBI…That’s nonsense”
• Mike Flynn Steps in It: In a Bid to Feed the Frothy Right, He Leads to Release of Damning New Details Showing He Lied to Protect Trump | emptywheel
• Angry White House Staffer: Further reading of this 302 makes it clear that Flynn appears to have lied for one reason only: to minimize Trump’s involvement.
• Dr. Dena Grayson: 🔥WHOA🔥Newly released FBI interview notes (302) reveal that Misha🇷🇺Flynn held a *previously undisclosed* closed-door meeting with #Russian🇷🇺ambassador Kislyak after the election.🤨WHAT did they discuss⁉️ The rest is redacted, but Mueller knows.😎
• John Schindler: Flynn sold Donnie & his retinue of morons down the river to Mueller & Friends to save himself and his idiot son. Can’t blame him. Trump’s concept of “loyalty” is a one-way street. How long is it gonna take the MAGAts to realize that Mikey totally screwed their God-Emperor?
• 12-17-18-Redacted-Flynn-Interview-302

This is just beautiful.  After Flynn tried to pull “But I was entrapped when I lied to the Feds” last week (Daily Check-In 12/14/2018), the judge felt that cherrypicking from the 302 was a chickenshit move by his legal team, and ordered Mueller’s team to release a redacted version of the 302 form.  The FD-302 form is the form that an FBI Agent fills out immediately after interviewing someone.  Here, we can see Flynn lying, and that the focus of his lies wasn’t so much to protect himself but to shield Trump from Russian connections.

Shit’s about to get interesting.

 

Disinformation

• Russia favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say
• Russia used every major social media platform to help elect, support Trump, report says
• Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate 
• Russian Effort to Influence 2016 Election Targeted African-Americans
• Russian influence operations on social media still ongoing, U.S. Senate report finds
• Russians Have Been Supporting Republicans Since 2013 
• Russians trolled people who were worried about Russian trolls on social media, report says
• Russia’s Bid to Aid Trump Revealed as Much Wider Than Once Known
• New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep
• Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP
• Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump | Social media lies have real-world consequences.
• Mimi Roach: “The Russians also set up hotlines that encourage people to discuss sexual or other personal problems the researchers found, raising the possibility they could use the information later to blackmail people. “
• Dr. Dena Grayson: The #Russian🇷🇺influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans & suppress Democratic turnout. Black voter turnout DECLINED in 2016 for the 1st time in 20 years in a presidential election.🤨
• Countercheckist: This is why the “no evidence of collusion” articles are so infuriating. The mountains of publicly available evidence proves otherwise if one bothers to look…
• Baba Yaga: You want my honest opinion which I know no one will listen? STOP POSTING MEMES
• John Schindler: If you’re #shocked the Kremlin was using SOCMED to exploit African-Americans (among many other groups) in 2016 to mess with US democracy…you really haven’t been paying attention. 21C RIS Active Measures hide in plain sight. These aren’t your father’s Chekists anymore.
• Lincoln’s Bible: Or to psych profile ppl for weaponization towards apathy/vote suppression or violence. Think Incels. I’m over-reaching? Google “dark triad” & SCL – the “academic” co. that used your FB data to create algorithms 4 Cambridge Analytica. Or 👀@chrisinsilico testimonies under oath.
• Julia Davis: The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies.

Gee, it’s almost like I’ve been talking about this for a year and a half.  Oh, wait, I HAVE.

One new development is how they’re moving the goalposts after this report.  We’ve gone from “There was no interference” to “No coordinated interference” to “there was only a little interference, but it didn’t make a difference”.  Watch out for this thread in the coming days, with talking heads saying things like “there wasn’t any vote totals changed” and “how many people really get their news from Reddit or Facebook?”  This is a deflection from the point that people were marketed to and thus changed their voting choice.

 

How Many?

• People Can’t Stop Sharing This CNN Graphic Listing All the Trump Entities Currently Under Investigation
• Tea Pain: FUN FACT: If Trump decided to send out a tweet condemnin’ each investigation against him, it would take 17 tweets. #SeventeenInvestigations
• A Complete Guide to All 17 (Known) Trump and Russia Investigations

Investigations by the Special Counsel

1. The Russian Government’s Election Attack
2. WikiLeaks
3. Middle Eastern Influence
4. Paul Manafort’s Activity
5. The Trump Tower Moscow Project
6. Other Campaign and Transition Contacts With Russia
7. Obstruction of Justice

Investigations by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York

1. Campaign Conspiracy and the Trump Organization’s Finances
2. Inauguration Funding
3. Trump SuperPAC Funding
4. Foreign Lobbying

Investigations by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia

1. Maria Butina and the NRA

Investigations by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

1. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova
2. Turkish Influence

Investigations by New York City, New York State, & Other State Attorneys General

1. Tax Case
2. The Trump Foundation
3. Emoluments Lawsuit

7+4+1+2+3 = 17.  17 investigations.

• ‘Over my dead body’: Giuliani dismisses prospect of Trump interview with Mueller
• Giuliani Almost Admits Trump Colluded and Committed a Crime
• Giuliani Said on ABC That President Knew Cohen Pushed Trump Tower Moscow ‘Up To November 2016’

 

Comey

• James Comey says Republicans are paralyzed by their ‘fear of Fox News’ and ‘mean tweets’ 
• Former FBI Director James Comey Comments to Reporters | Following a second day of testimony on Capitol Hill, former FBI Director James Comey calls lawmakers’ silence on the president’s behavior “shameful,” and he says they need to “speak the truth” and “stand up for the rule of law.” 
• Comey: ‘Someone Has To Stand Up’ To Trump, Not ‘Slink Away Into Retirement’ 

 

 

• Donald Trump impeachment odds surge, with president now rated more likely than not to be impeached
• Robert Mueller’s Legal Masterpiece
• The signs are mounting: Trump has been badly weakened. It will get worse for him.
• Ricky Davila: The GOP Senate Intelligence Committee basically just proved that Devin Nunes had no business ending the House Russia Probe. He obstructed justice to protect Twitler and he should be criminally prosecuted.
• Adam Schiff Wants Trump’s Deutsche Bank Records to Find Out If President Is ‘Compromised’ by Russian Money Laundering
• Should we be able to indict a sitting president? Consider Spiro Agnew.
• Can a U.S. president be arrested? Hold your horses — it’s happened before

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

• Trump Demands Stop To Emoluments Case As State AGs Subpoena 38 Witnesses
• Trump Still Makes Money From His Properties. Is This Constitutional?
• Campaigns featured some great design in 2018. But nothing as successful as Trump’s MAGA hat.
• Trump’s own lawyer Giuliani suggests he hasn’t been truthful in felony campaign finance probe

 

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

Mob Talk

• Calling Michael Cohen a ‘Rat,’ Trump brings ‘American underworld’ lingo to the White House
• Elie Hong: I worked mafia cases for years in SDNY, mainly Gambino and Genovese. I usually hesitate to make this comparison but here it is completely warranted. This – calling somebody who provides information to law enforcement a “rat” – is straight up mob boss language.
• I used to be afraid to call Trump a mob boss. Not anymore.

 

Shutdown

• White House, Democrats dig in as fears of partial shutdown intensify
• US shutdown: Empowered Democrats refuse funds for Trump wall
• White House Nightmare: Trump Golfs While His Secret Service Agents Work Without Pay.

 

• Trump, GOP say ruling is a golden opportunity to replace the ACA. Democrats disagree.
• Trump plans to create unified US Space Command
• Trump to launch Space Command this week as Pence promotes space efforts
• Trump says he’ll review case of Matt Golsteyn, a Special Forces veteran who faces murder charge

 

TRAITOR TOTS

• Roger Stone Admits Spreading Lies on InfoWars
• Roger Stone admits to spreading lies on InfoWars, agrees to apologize publicly 
• Jared Kushner Likely Caused ‘Significant Security Breach’ Of U.S. Gov’t
• REVEALED: Mueller-bashing Democratic strategist Mark Penn was on Trump’s payroll
• Don’t Kid Yourself, Republicans Are Never Going to Turn on Trump
• Alan Dershowitz Roasted After Telling Fox News ‘Lying to the FBI is Not a Crime’
• Trump Defender Alan Dershowitz Argues That Lying To The FBI Isn’t A Crime | HuffPost
• Ridiculously lenient Acosta/Epstein plea deal demands a federal investigation 

 

FIGHTING BACK

• SNL asks ‘What if Trump were never elected?’ in a star-studded ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ spoof
• SNL imagined a world without Trump as president. Trump was not amused.
• If Trump doesn’t like SNL’s sketches about him, he really shouldn’t turn on European TV
• Donald Trump Awarded ‘Golden Idiot’ Prize By German TV Show As Much Of The World Laughs At U.S. President 
• I used to be afraid to call Trump a mob boss. Not anymore.
• A child occupies the White House — and the world knows it 
• John Dean: Trump’s bitching and whining and complaining is non-stop. The presidency reveals its occupant: Trump’s not only incompetent he’s actually a wuss. Like most bullies he’s a coward. As with most autocrats he’s a very frightened person. He’s a fake leader, who thinks nasty is strong.

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

• ‘You are a foul, disgusting liar’: Weekly Standard editors blast Steve King for celebrating magazine’s demise

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

• Saudis condemn Senate for ‘blatant’ interference in kingdom’s affairs after resolution on Khashoggi killing
• The Onion: Trump Administration Launches Human Rights Investigation Into Senate’s Harsh Treatment Of Mohammad Bin Salman

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

• A raped migrant teen asked Trump officials for an abortion. She got counseling with Bible verses and coloring. 
• Lawyer will show Playboy Mansion sex tapes at Cosby civil trial
• CBS donates $20 million of Les Moonves’ severance to 18 women’s advocacy groups
• Former CBS chairman Les Moonves fired for cause, will not receive severance in wake of sexual misconduct allegations
• Dr. Lena Wen: From here on out, we want to be clear: Planned Parenthood services, from birth control to cancer screenings and abortion, are standard medical care. Reproductive healthcare is healthcare. Women’s healthcare is healthcare. And healthcare is a basic human right. #ThisIsHealthcare
• Australian actress levels accusations of sexual misconduct against actor Geoffrey Rush
• Jennifer Lawrence Responds to Harvey Weinstein’s Alleged Claim, Denies Ever Having Sexual Relationship.
• Model says she had an affair with Woody Allen when she was 16 — but has ‘no regrets’
• A soldier rose to become a general. His daughter says he abused her for years.

 

IMMIGRATION

• Senator Jeff Merkley: KNOW THIS: the @realDonaldTrump Administration is locking up 14,600 children in child prison camps. I’ve been inside – they’re horrible. This fight is NOT OVER. Keep making your voices heard.
• Advertisers Are Ditching Tucker Carlson On Fox News After He Said Immigrants Make The US “Poorer And Dirtier”
• Advertisers Ditch Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for Saying Immigration Makes U.S. ‘Dirtier’
• A raped migrant teen asked Trump officials for an abortion. She got counseling with Bible verses and coloring. 
• Fox News Guest Says Trump Voters Should Pay for Border Wall by Crowdfunding It 
• Trump Travel Ban Keeps Mom From Seeing Dying 2-Year-Old Son
• Horrifying indifference to children’s lives
• 181 Nations Just Voted to Help Refugees. Only the Far-Right United States and Hungary Voted “No”
• I voted for Trump. Now his wall may destroy my butterfly paradise.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

• Russian influence operations on social media still ongoing, U.S. Senate report finds
• Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate 
• The ordinary people keeping the peace in Nigeria’s deadly land feuds
• The overlooked heroes of the civil rights movement

 

#NEVERAGAIN

• Father of Parkland Shooting Victim Slams Marco Rubio Over God and Gun Violence
• Domestic slayings: Brutal and foreseeable
• It’s the beginning of the end for the gun lobby’s power

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

• CenturyLink blocked its customers’ Internet access in order to show an ad
• With Friday Deadline, These 16 House Democrats About to Go Down in History for Helping GOP Kill Internet as We Know It  
• Russia used every major social media platform to help elect, support Trump, report says
• Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump | Social media lies have real-world consequences.
• Two years after #Pizzagate showed the dangers of hateful conspiracies, they’re still rampant on YouTube

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

• Fox & Friends Complains Investigations of Trump Aren’t Fair
• Joe Walsh: On @foxandfriends this morning, all three hosts broke down and cried, wailing that “all these investigations are just so unfair to our dear, beloved President.”
• Advertisers Are Ditching Tucker Carlson On Fox News After He Said Immigrants Make The US “Poorer And Dirtier”
• Advertisers Ditch Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for Saying Immigration Makes U.S. ‘Dirtier’
• It’s high time for media to enter the No Kellyanne Zone — and stay there 
• Two years after #Pizzagate showed the dangers of hateful conspiracies, they’re still rampant on YouTube

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

• Fox’s Hume: Trump chief of staff rejections ‘like the guy who couldn’t get a date for the prom’
• Mick Mulvaney in October 2016: Trump would be disqualified from office in an ‘ordinary universe’ 
• House Democrats won’t let Zinke escape investigation, even after he leaves office 
• Ryan Zinke’s most lasting failure

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

• Angry White House Staffer: Are we ready to admit that Trump’s policies and tariffs are bad for the economy yet? DJIA rocked again today, firmly in negative territory for the year. As we sit today, this is the worst year for the DOW in the last decade.
• Dow falls 150 points, extending worst start to December since 1980
• Dow sweeps downward again, with no sign ahead of a Santa rally
• This is the worst start to a December for the stock market since the Great Depression 
• Corporate America gives out a record $1 trillion in stock buybacks
• It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war.
• Some senators are aiming to claw back trade power from Trump
• Google announces $1 billion expansion in New York City
• CEOs say they often apologize to business partners abroad for Trump’s diplomacy
• ACA ruling creates new anxieties for consumers and the health-care industry
• Trump, GOP say ruling is a golden opportunity to replace the ACA. Democrats disagree.
• Kaz Weida: I think it’s often overlooked that it’s not just shitty jobs that Americans will put up with to keep healthcare coverage. If your spouse provides coverage, fear of losing your healthcare can also keep you trapped in an abusive marriage.
• Christopher Titus: You are dumb. Once you kill the mandate you kill the pool of money. You kill the chance well people will have healthcare down the road. Which kills Americans.
• Politicians have caused a pay ‘collapse’ for the bottom 90 percent of workers, researchers say 
• The Fed’s crucial choice on rates this week
• Sears bankruptcy court OKs $25 million in bonuses for top execs
• More than half of Americans say they didn’t get a pay raise this year | The economy is thriving, but many Americans say they aren’t seeing a difference in their paychecks
• Fed draws White House fire as it prepares to raise rates

 

STUDENT ISSUES

• U.S. Student Loan Debt Sets Record, Doubling Since Recession
• Trump administration refuses to publish required report on student-loan borrower complaints 
• ‘The doors need to be opened a little wider’: Community schools give life lessons
• Can charter schools be reformed? Should they be?

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

• GOP women are sounding the alarm after their crushing election losses. It’s unclear whether Republican men agree.
• ‘Crisis level’: Republican women sound warning after election losses
• The Republican Party versus democracy

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

• ‘Andi Mack’ actor Stoney Westmoreland fired by Disney after arrest
• Disney Channel Actor Arrested and Fired for Allegedly Plotting Sex With 13 Year-Old
• A soldier rose to become a general. His daughter says he abused her for years.

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

• Jesuit order names priests ‘credibly accused’ of sexually abusing children since the 1950s
• Majority of U.S. Muslims now support gay marriage, while white evangelical Christians remain opposed

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

• Look inside a ‘one of a kind,’ 4,400-year-old tomb discovered in Egypt
• Zinke’s Likely Successor Is a Former Oil Lobbyist Who Has Influenced Trump’s Energy Policy 
• What you need to know about food allergies
• BioInteractive’s virtual labs help you dissect such fields as anatomy, immunology
• Anyone can create a new emoji. Here’s an animated guide to doing it right.
• In the move toward personal mobility devices, D.C.’s poorest are left behind — again
• Take a dive into Smithsonian’s massive and amazing ‘whale warehouses’
• Ten overcrowded tourist destinations and 10 just as fabulous alternatives
• The complications of getting back in shape after a pregnancy
• The science of giving gifts your loved ones won’t want to return
• These bats carry a virus as deadly as Ebola, and scientists are tracking them to try to stop its spread
• The huge issue that most autism research funding ignores

 

CONGRESS

• Ocasio2018: This blows my mind: House Ethics Rules prevent me from receiving a $100 gift card, or crashing at a place as I wait for rent 💰, but somehow allow members w/ investment portfolios to write laws that will personally enrich them $1000s in their own stocks; potentially millions. This is the downside of the political stunt of voting against member allowance or pay increases. Politicians can get on a high horse about declining their own pay increase, and then write nefarious loopholes to allow use of leg power to make money in potentially unethical ways.
• Ocasio-Cortez enters the House as most popular member with small donors
• Pelosi’s next challenge is governing liberals in an era of divided government
• Sen. Jeff Merkley Wants to Stop Congress Members From Insider Trading By Banning Them From Owning Stocks 
• Fate of criminal justice reform bill hinges on Cotton amendments
• Senate Democrats get a harsh lesson on why they should never, ever play nice with Republicans 
• Congress Is Trying to Use the Spending Bill to Criminalize Boycotts of Israel and Other Countries
• A fanatic and ‘Negro-stealer’: One of the ugliest House speaker fights in history
• What Senate Republicans must do

 

ELECTIONS

• NC GOP slams state elections board, calls on it to certify disputed election
• Georgia Governor-Elect Brian Kemp Might Be Even More Corrupt Than You Thought
• Watchful eyes are on Missouri’s novel approach to redistricting
• Poll: Americans don’t believe Trump has received the message from the midterms

 

THINKING AHEAD

• Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says he won’t run for reelection in 2020
• Lamar Alexander Announces He Will Not Seek Re-election in 2020
• Alexander Statement on 2020 Senate Election
• Sen. Susan Collins on GOP primary in 2020: ‘I see nothing wrong with challengers’
• Kasie Hunt: BOB CORKER on primarying Trump: “We’ve got to remember what the Republican Party is about.” “Is it important for someone to get out there and at least remind people…what the Republican Party has been for generations…”
• The Trailer: A Texas judge calls the 2020 campaign to order
• A crowded road to 2020 will yield the best Democrat
• Tulsi Gabbard Is Moving Toward An Unconventional Presidential Campaign. Her Fans See “Bernie 2.0.”
• When they go low, Beto can too

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposes state legalize recreational marijuana
• Cuomo to Push Legalizing Recreational Marijuana in New York by Early 2019
• How Progressive Activists Killed New Jersey Democrats’ Gerrymandering Scheme

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

• Less waste, more cheer: How to rein in holiday excess

 

RUMOR MILL

• Countercheckist: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” This is who we are, and always have been. These ideals are the beacon that guides us through even the darkest of times.
• Ming: So, Devos and Ross on the way out? Interesting….
• Baba Yaga: You want my honest opinion which I know no one will listen? STOP POSTING MEMES
• Angry White House Staffer: Further reading of this 302 makes it clear that Flynn appears to have lied for one reason only: to minimize Trump’s involvement.
• John Schindler: “BRENNT PARIS?” was one of Hitler’s more notorious wartime utterances. But Donnie, a demented dolt who knows zero history, isn’t quoting Adolf. He’s just that stupid.
• Ming: Do not be surprised when you learn trump specifically authorized/directed Flynn to commit treason with Russia.
• Lincoln’s Bible: FFS people, The President of the United States is a 35 yr+ money-launderer for organized crime. 1st Cosa Nostra, then global mobsters. That’s why he’s all in on bone saws, tearing down the DOJ, attacking the @FBI, covering for Putin, & grifting off the Presidency. Act accordingly
• Ming: Ming have feeling after Flynn guilty pleas is accepted at sentencing shit will hit fan…
• Rogue Senior White House Advisor: Forty years later we’re still shaking our heads about how ludicrously corrupt, how greedy, and how ultimately stupid Nixon was… and we’re going to be doing the same thing with Trump. Keep the faith people. Tan Jabroni is going down

 

That’s it for Monday.  The week is looking like it’s going to be a weird one.  A spoiler for Tuesday, there’s some weird shit happening at Flynn’s sentencing.

Before I wrap it up for the day, I’m going to update The Indicted to include Bijan and Kamil.  Something to keep in mind with them; they’re indicted, but Flynn isn’t.  That tells me two things:

1. He’s cooperating against them and several others to avoid this fate.
2. If he fucks around, “Person 1” will become Michael Flynn in a New York Minute.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur