Tag: Media

Daily Check-In 09/06/2018

Thursday, September 6th through the weekend.  And it’s a bit of a long one.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Papadopoulos

George Papadopoulos is the first American to serve jail time in the Mueller Investigation. He was originally looking at a month, but the judge felt that he was remorseful, and cut it down to 2 weeks plus a year probation, 200 hours of community service, and a $9500 fine.

 

Manafort

 

Roger Stone

 

 

COHEN AND NEW YORK

Campaign Finance

Broidy

 

THE ANONYMOUS OP-ED AND WOODWARD

 

Getting a Shrink

 

25th Amendment

 

 

SCOTUS

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Rudy

 

FIGHTING BACK

Obama

 

Nike

 

Standing Up

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

 

Montana Rally

Beyoncé

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

DRUGS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for now.  I’m not a big fan of putting so much into one update, but it was either this or miss a couple really big developments.  Butina and Erickson are about to flip on each other, Kavanaugh’s caught in the middle of committing perjury several times, Cory Booker is facing possible explosion from the Senate for showing the lengths of the GOP’s corruption and cover-up, Trump is provably batshit crazy, we have multiple stories showing how close we’ve come to a full-scale war with everyone from North Korea to Canada, and Barack Obama is back in the game.

I’m curious about the timing of all of this.  It’s almost like everything coming at once to breach the gates of the White House.  And it’s not just these attacks, but combined with ALL of the investigations, lawsuits, inquiries, and protests they’re facing, it’s just a matter of time until something breaks.

I should be back to a semi-regular schedule this week.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 09/05/2018

Wednesday, September 5, 2018.  I’d like to apologize in advance.  I’m going on a trip the next couple days, and need to get things ready.  For that to happen and not be completely swamped, I said to myself “I could really use a slow news day.”

Me and my big mouth.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist with links to both ex-Trump aide Roger Stone and Infowars host Alex Jones, has been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., Friday as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, his attorney says.

Corsi, who has written such books as “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” and “Killing the Deep State: The Fight to Save President Trump” will fully comply with the Mueller team’s subpoena, according to attorney David Gray.

 

Gray told NBC News he expects his client will be questioned about his contacts and communications with Stone.

Questions have long swirled about Stone’s possible interactions with WikiLeaks and hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the 2016 campaign, when both entities were releasing Democratic emails that had been hacked by Russian intelligence agents.

We’re up to about ten known associates of Roger Stone that have been requested to appear before a grand jury.  That’s quite a lot for a nothing burger.

An American political consultant who is cooperating with federal prosecutors and has admitted in court that he steered $50,000 from a Ukrainian politician to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee is among potential witnesses listed in the upcoming trial in Washington for Paul Manafort.

W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty on Friday in federal court to failing to register as a foreign lobbyist while working on behalf of a Ukrainian political party.

On Wednesday, as part of pretrial activity in Washington, Patten’s name was among those of 120 people who might testify or be mentioned at the trial of Trump’s former campaign chairman set to open Sept. 24, according to court filings.

In his plea deal, Patten said he was helped by a Russian national who has been linked to Russian intelligence by U.S. prosecutors and who was also an associate of Manafort’s.

The list of people who may testify or be referred to includes many of the vendors, accountants and investigators who took the stand at the recently completed trial in Alexandria, Va., where Manafort was convicted of eight of 18 tax- and bank-fraud charges. But the list for the D.C. trial also includes 23 Ukrainian and four European politicians.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District warned attorneys for both sides to drop “unduly prejudicial” tactics they deployed in Virginia.

Jackson postponed ruling on the most contentious requests from the defense and prosecutors to exclude what they see as biasing evidence from the trial.

But in a two-hour-long hearing, Jackson said she followed reports from Manafort’s trial in Virginia and ordered both sides to avoid duplicating some approaches they took there.

 

THE ANONYMOUS OP ED

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

…

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility

…

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

Well, that just fucking happened.  I’m not exactly sure who this was, and I honestly don’t want to know until till this shit is over.  Knowing who they are takes away from the spirit of the message, and that is that Trump is dangerous.  He’s so dangerous that the people that would normally do the boring work of running the government have to actively run interference for this douche taco.  He’s a clear and present danger to the republic.

Now, in a normal universe, with a not clearly insane person as President, people would have resigned en masse over this level of evil.  Instead, we haven’t seen that in this administration.  We haven’t had a long string of people leaving in protest.  Why?

Like I’ve said many times, if this were in a normal universe, those people leaving in protest would produce shame in the office holder.  There would be inquiries, hearings, and the person leaving in protest would be replaced with a qualified candidate capable of doing the job.

We’re not in a normal universe.  In TrumpWorld, the office holder is incapable of feeling shame.  The corrupt GOP will only hold hearings about Hilary’s email server, and that person that left would be replaced by a Trump sycophant.  For some positions that might not sound terrible, but what about important things like the National Security Council or the Secretary of Defense?  There have been half a dozen stories in the last 48 hours about Jim Mattis heading Trump off on starting wars with Iran, North Korea, China, Sudan, Canada, and the NFL.  Imagine if one of Trump’s yes men was in Mattis’s position when the order to assassinate Assad came through, or to preemptively attack North Korea.  We would be stuck in another needless war, and young people would be dying a meaningless death because a madman ordered it and no one said no.

Now, that does bring up another important point.  The job of the military is to follow the chain of command and execute all lawful orders of the Commander In Chief.  Notice the word lawful?  We’ve never had senior staff members flat out ignore the orders of a President before, but we’ve also never had a bad, mad President before.  We’ve had bad Presidents (Buchanan, Pierce, Wilson) and we’ve had mad Presidents (Jackson, Johnson, Nixon), but we’ve never had both.  Earlier tonight with my wife I compared Trump to Joffrey, but then I had to retract it because a Lannister, unlike a Trump, always pays their debts.

 

WOODWARD

This side of the n-word, “dumb Southerner” is maybe the most impactful epithet you can throw at someone in the South. “Mentally retarded,” another term Trump reportedly used to describe Sessions, is also high on the list. Trump has since tweeted a denial of using either term.
Calling Southerners some version of dumb is so effective that even Southerners do it to get under each other’s skin.
It stings us all, black and white. We are tired of having to remind people that we don’t “talk different” any more than do Bostonians or Bronx residents, that the pace of the words that flow from our mouths is not indicative of the intellectual activity taking place inside our heads.
That’s why even Trump ally Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, said “I resent that” when asked about Trump’s use of the epithet.
A version of the slur was used in 2000 by a high-profile South Carolina state senator, Arthur Ravenel, for whom one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in North America is named, because the National Association of Colored People initiated an economic boycott of South Carolina to protest the flying of the Confederate flag at the Statehouse.

President Trump is livid at the betrayal and stunning allegations in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming “Fear,” but limited in his ability to fight back because most of the interviews were caught on hundreds of hours of tape, officials tell Axios.

The big picture: The book, out Tuesday from Simon & Schuster, re-creates — verbatim — page after page of private conversations with him. The 420-page portrait is all the more damaging because many of the scenes concern foreign policy and national security — truly heavy stuff.

Some choice cuts, reflecting the way administration officials and alumni depicted Trump to Woodward:

  • Trump to James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, who briefed him at Trump Tower during the transition on the intelligence community’s findings that Putin had interfered in the election: “l don’t believe in human sources … These are people who have sold their souls and sold out their country … I don’t trust human intelligence and these spies.”
  • Defense Secretary James Mattis, to laughter, a month after Trump took office: “Secretaries of Defense don’t always get to choose the president they work for.”
  • Trump to Tom Bossert, the president’s adviser for homeland security, cyber security and counterterrorism, who asked Trump if he had a minute: “I want to watch the Masters. … You and your cyber … are going to get me in a war — with all your cyber shit.”
  • “Trump was given a Reader’s Digest version of the Hezbollah briefing.”
  • Stephen Miller to Reince Priebus after Trump had ordered his first chief of staff to get the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “We’re in real trouble. Because if you don’t get the resignation, he’s going to think you’re weak. If you get it, you’re going to be part of a downward-spiral calamity.”

“Trump was editing an upcoming speech with [then-staff secretary Rob] Porter. Scribbling his thoughts in neat, clean penmanship, the president wrote, ‘TRADE IS BAD.'”

  • Former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn told Trump: “You have a Norman Rockwell view of America.”
  • “Several times Cohn just asked the president, ‘Why do you have these views [on trade]?’ ‘I just do,’ Trump replied. ‘I’ve had these views for 30 years.’ ‘That doesn’t mean they’re right,’ Cohn said. ‘I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football. It doesn’t mean I was right.'”

The book’s last paragraph: “[I]n the man and his presidency [former Trump lawyer John] Dowd had seen the tragic flaw. In the political back-and-forth, the evasions, the denials, the tweeting, the obscuring, crying ‘Fake News,’ the indignation, Trump had one overriding problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president: ‘You’re a f@#$ing liar.'”

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis lashed out at Sean Spicer after the former White House press secretary repeatedly tried to get him to go on Sunday-morning talk shows, according to the journalist Bob Woodward’s soon-to-be-released book, a partial passage of which was tweeted by an Associated Press reporter on Tuesday.

Spicer apparently tried numerous times to get the secretary of defense to go on television, finally causing an exasperated Mattis to respond with a statement far clearer than a simple “no.”

“Sean,” Mattis said, according to the excerpt of the book, “Fear,” tweeted by the AP’s Zeke Miller. “I’ve killed people for a living. If you call me again, I’m going to f—ing send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?”

 

 

SCOTUS

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) may have illegally spent campaign funds on at least five women who are not his wife — whom he has blamed for financial wrongdoing that has gotten them both indicted.

The California Republican and his wife Margaret were indicted last month on 60 counts related to spending more than $250,000 in campaign cash on themselves, but prosecutors say the “family values” lawmaker may have spent some of that on women with whom he was having a “personal relationship,” reported The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Hunters overdrew their bank account more than 1,100 times in seven years and were penalized nearly $38,000 in overdraft and other fees, and they also maxed out their credit cards and were hit with about $24,600 in fees and penalties.

Prosecutors say the congressman spent some of the campaign money on five individuals living in Washington, D.C.

Defense attorney Gregory Vega wrote a letter to the Department of Justice complaining that prosecutors had notified him that they have photos of an intoxicated Hunter and some of those women.

“While there may be evidence of infidelity, irresponsibility or alcohol dependence, once properly understood, the underlying facts do not equate to criminal activity,” Vega wrote.

Politico reported in February that Hunter had a reputation for partying and that federal investigators had been eyeing his activities, but the 41-year-old Hunter dismissed the reports as “tabloid trash.”

Hunter and then President Donald Trump have blamed the indictment on partisan bias, without any proof, within the Department of Justice intended to sway the midterm elections.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

ILLINOIS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for today.  And I’m back to posting an article on time, at least for tonight.

Like I said earlier, I’ll be traveling for the next couple days.  While I’ll still keep track of the developing news, I might not be able to get a post up for Thursday and Friday.  Worst case scenario, I’ll have something up on Saturday covering both days.  Or, I’ll change the format if I don’t have time to do a full post.

Now that I’ve said that I’ll be busy, watch the Cabinet push for the 25th Amendment or New York state put out a warrant for Donnie Jr., or Putin orders the Pee Tape to be released.  If any of those happen, I apologize in advance.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

Daily Check-In 09/04/2018

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III told President Trump’s lawyers in a letter Friday that he will accept written answers from Trump to questions about whether his campaign coordinated with Russia to tilt the 2016 election in his favor, according to two people briefed on the communication.

Mueller did not rule out interviewing the president as part of his wide-ranging inquiry. His Friday letter indicated that he may revisit his long-running request to pose questions to Trump directly about Russia’s activities during the campaign after reviewing his answers.

And the special counsel left open the possibility that he may still try to press Trump in person about a second piece of his investigation: whether the president has sought to block the probe since taking office.

On potential obstruction-of-justice issues, “he said he’d assess it down the road,” said one person familiar with Mueller’s letter who requested anonymity to discuss private communications. “They’re essentially saying, ‘We’ll deal with this at a later date.’”

Before diving into this, I need to clarify something.  This story was originally broken by Maggie Haberman at the New York Times.  I’ve covered Maggie’s “access journalism” before. (Daily Check-In 01/25/2018, Daily Check-In 07/26/2018)

This is an interesting development.  While I’m not completely surprised by this move, I wasn’t expecting it, either.  This letter was delivered on Daily Check-In 08/31/2018.  That was the day that Sam Patten was charged with a FARA violation and right after George Papadopoulos confirmed that Trump gave his approval for his Russian activities.

From what I’m seeing, there are a few different arguments to be made about why this is happening.  I’ve seen responses ranging from “Mueller’s toast” to “Trump is so screwed Mueller doesn’t need anything.”

Here’s what I think.  If Mueller is still negotiating with Trump’s lawyers, it means he wants or needs their input.  He might need it to complete his investigation, to at least give the appearance that they’re only getting around to this now.  It could also be a delaying tactic.  Once Mueller interviews Trump, or if the possibility no longer exists, there will be immense pressure to finish this investigation as soon as possible.  But, by keeping this in a state of limbo, Mueller’s team continues their work on other fronts.

As much as we like to talk about how much Mueller knows, their team is a black box.  Nothing escapes from their cone of silence.  Nobody knows what they’re doing.  All of the information we’ve received over the past year and a half has been from following the court cases and from second and third hand accounts of interviews.  We know some of the people they’re working with, or getting evidence from, but that’s it.  We assume that they have a ton more information than what has appeared in the press, but we’re still on the outside looking in.

Plus, this was a Maggie Haberman story.  There’s a pattern to how these stories go…

  1. Something bad happens to Trump or the White House.
  2. Trump needs to bitch about something or get a story to the press to distract from it.
  3. Trump calls his frenemy Maggie Haberman.
  4. They talk for a while, and she gets him to tell her some juicy info that he’s purposefully leaking.
  5. Maggie confirms it with another source or asks another journalist to confirm what she heard.
  6. Maggie publishes Trump’s distraction piece.

I’m wondering what Trump’s trying to cover up.

 

SCOTUS

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Corruption

 

 Fear

Here we go, here’s what Trump wants to distract from.  Bob Fucking Woodward.  He has a new book coming out next week called Fear, about the inner workings of the Trump White House, and how insanely stupid everything is.

If this story sounds familiar, think Fire and Fury, but by one of the reporters who took down Nixon by reporting on Watergate.  Bob interviewed EVERYONE, and has hundreds of hours on tape.  All of it, from the low-level staffers to the senior members of the administration, all point to the same conclusion: Trump is unfit to serve as President.

I know, right.  This comes as a shock to… like 4 people at this point, but the amazing levels that the staff go to just to keep Trump from causing an active crisis every day is astounding.  Here are some examples mentioned in the book:

  • Trump wanted to cancel all trade with South Korea, and almost did until one of his advisers took the letter from his desk and hid it.
  • Trump called his speech repudiating the Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville the “biggest fucking mistake of my life.”
  • Trump repeatedly called Jeff Sessions a retard, a moron, and would make fun of his accent, his height, and the way he dressed.
  • Trump ordered the assassination of the Syrian President (a big no-no), and when he hung up on SecDef James Mattis, Mattis calmly said to everyone in the room “We’re not going to do any of that.”

And it’s not like most of the staff look good in the book, either.  The descriptions fall into three categories.

  1. People trying to keep the government working for the good of the country.
  2. People along for the ride who can’t figure out what they do.
  3. People trying to abuse the system to get what they want out of it.

The first group consists of people like Jim Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and to an extent John Kelly.   This also includes the nameless staffers who keep the wheels of government spinning.

The second group are people like Ivanka and Jared, or Omarosa.  They’re there, but no one knows what they were doing.  They helped Trump get elected, but now just take up space.

The third, and most vile, are the opportunists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.  They are actively perverting their positions to push their corrupt, hate-filled agendas.  Accounts like these will help sort the collaborators from the witnesses.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

NFL

I really hope that these racist white pieces of shit don’t try to adopt Converse as the footwear of choice for their klan rally.  Not only is Converse owned by Nike, but they’ve already co-opted hand signs, white polo shirts, khakis, tiki torches, bald heads, and being a fat white guy.  There’s not much left for the rest of us.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

TALKING ABOUT RACE

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

#METOO

 

PRIESTS

 

ELECTION 2018

 

 

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Kavanaugh’s hearing is taken most of the oxygen out of the room, and it’s a little depressing to be honest.  Watching this shitshow proceed from the most corrupt political party this side of the old Soviet Union makes my skin crawl.  Grassely and the Republicans are trying to ram Kavanaugh through this nomination with no remorse, no compunction of decency, and no respect for their own rules. Kavanaugh is corrupt, lacks all basis of ethics, and the fact that he holds the views that a President is above the law and yet was nominated by an unindicted co-conspirator to a lifetime position for the highest court in the land makes me sick.  There is an active cover-up going on at this point to railroad him onto the court.

I am honestly afraid at this point for what comes next.  Removing a Supreme Court Justice is the same process for removing a President: Impeachment and trial in the Senate.  I’m worried that someone, thinking they’re on the right side of history, will see him and try to pull a Pelican Brief move of their own.  In a future post, I’ll recommend how to fix the courts in the future, but for right now, I’m nervous.

One thing that does help is stepping back and looking at everything in the large picture.  There are multiple investigations into Trump’s world from several jurisdictions, the blatant corruption is on display for the world to see, and the old white men in power will, sooner rather than later, die of natural causes and be replaced by younger, darker, smarter men and women.

It’s just hard to remember that from a distance.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 09/03/2018

Monday, September 3rd and the weekend.

 

Friday, August 31, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON — For the young Russian gun rights activist studying in the United States, it would have been an unimaginably rich payday: $1 million to help broker the sale of Russian jet fuel to an American middleman. All she had to do was secure the fuel.

So the activist, Maria Butina, whom American prosecutors now accuse of being a covert Russian agent, reached out to contacts in her homeland — and turned on the charm. In a July 2017 email, she told one man that his passport photo was “a handsome one.”

The following month, she told another Russian contact that she had labeled him in her phone as “the lovely Shakhov.” Every time he called, she was notified that “‘the lovely Shakov is calling you,’” Ms. Butina wrote. “Good feelings.”

A year later, Ms. Butina, 29, is in a jail cell outside Washington, awaiting trial. Federal prosecutors have depicted her as a character out of “Red Sparrow,” the spy thriller about a Russian femme fatale. Ms. Butina, supported by Russian intelligence, managed to infiltrate conservative groups and advance Moscow’s interests in the United States, prosecutors say.

In their telling, she used gun rights — Ms. Butina had started a pro-gun group in Russia — to gain a toehold in American conservative circles, and then struck up a romance with a far older Republican operative to open doors further. She has denied the allegations.

Ms. Butina’s efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel, detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails, were notable not just for their whiff of foreign intrigue but for whom they involved: David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association and a prominent leader of the conservative movement, who has advised Republican candidates from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. They also involved Mr. Keene’s wife, Donna, a well-connected Washington lobbyist, and Ms. Butina’s boyfriend, Paul Erickson, who ran Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign and who moved in rarefied conservative circles despite allegations of fraud in three states.

Jet fuel?  Really?  This is getting weirder by the minute.

Private planes require fuel, which can get pretty expensive.  Sometimes, the biggest expense for owning a private plane is the fuel needed to fly.  Donna Keene, the wife of former NRA Presisdent David Keene, approached our Russian spy to arrange a deal get her a deal on jet fuel, and offered her a sweet pay day in return.

This tells us that the Keene family knew that Butina was well connected in Russia.  VERY well connected.  There’s no way they can play stupid and go “we thought she was just a college student or activist.”  You don’t offer someone a million bucks to set up a deal like this unless you know that said someone is well connected.  And in Russia, well connected means ties to Oligarchs/Mafia/Government.  Usually all three.

This claim of jet fuel reminds me of a storyfrom Louise Mensch last year involving human trafficking and stakes in jet fuel stakes.  I don’t know if there is a connection, but it might be worth remembering.

 

Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska.

In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.

The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said.

Interesting.  Trump, the first Pro-Crime President in recent history, attacks the people behind an operation aimed at getting Oligarchs to flip on Russian Mafia.  It’s almost like he’s doing this to shield himself and his companies from the eyes of law enforcement.

This would normally go in the Cold War section, but Bibi’s ties to Kushner and Trump bring this to the Russian section.

 

New York

 

Rudy’s Disinformation

Fuck off Rudy.  So, if his newest rantings are to be held to any veracity, he’s saying that he’s working on a voluminous counter report to Mueller’s report, but they (The White House) will block the Mueller report anyway, even though there is not a single tool for them to do so since it is a report from a independent investigator, and the report would be handed to multiple groups at the same time, most of which the White House has no control over.

 

 

McCAIN

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

SCOTUS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

POLLS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

Florida

 

Texas

 

 

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

#METOO

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

The Kasparov Conversations

This thread captures my sentiments of post-Trumpism politics as well, although perhaps a bit more temperately. Yes, those us comprising can, and should, move back into our more natural political configurations.

Where we differ, perhaps, is on how to respond to those who aided and abetted Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors, embraced his autocratic tendencies, and furthered his anti-democratic aims. For them there can be no redemption.

Those who undermined investigations crucial to the national security, engaged in espionage, ignored court orders, caged children, plotted mass ethnic cleansing, planned the false imprisonment & military oppression of their domestic political foes deserve more than “contempt.”

To those little Quislings, those happy collaborators, those torch-bearing, swastika-waving, child-torturers, I have one message for when this is over: Run. Run as far and as fast as you can, because for the rest of your lives the instruments of American justice will pursue you.

For you have broken more than the Laws of the USA. You have violated the International Law, the Law of War and Crimes against Humanity, and the very Laws of Nature herself. For that, there will be no forgiveness. You will be found. You will be tried. And you will be punished.

As you are guilty of grave crimes, you will either suffer the full punishments of the very Law you sought to place yourselves above… or you will run, like the Nazis before you. But forgiveness? If you want forgiveness pray that your God is merciful. You shall not find it here.

Lady Justice holds a set of scales in one hand, and in the other… a sword. We tried a gentle Reconstruction once. It didn’t work out. We won’t make the same mistake twice. The sword is there for a reason.

 

 

That’s it for the Labor Day weekend.  I’d like to say it wasn’t as crazy as expected, but it most of that was due to Senator McCain’s funeral and it being a holiday weekend.

I might not be available the whole week this week.  I have a small road trip scheduled and might not have access to everything I use to keep up with this site.  My posting patterns might change for a couple days.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur