2017

Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursday.

TRUMP SUPPOSEDLY REACHED DEAL WITH DEMS ON DACA, SUPPORTERS GO APESHIT

So, this one is weird. Last night, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met with Donald Trump, and worked out a deal on DACA and not building a physical wall.

This morning on Twitter, Trump then delivered this message to his followers, pissing off the racists and pundits.

Then, he repeats his “bad people on both sides” to try to keep the racists happy.

NYT REPORTS ON THE TRUMP/SESSIONS FALLOUT

The New York Times released the story of how Trump found out about Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counselor, and how he verbally attacked Jeff Sessions on the spot. It was so bad that the Keebler Nazi offered his resignation. Pence, Bannon, and Preibus talked Trump out of accepting it.

TRUMP ETHICS OFFICE SAYS ITS OKAY TO GIVE ANONYMOUS GIFTS

According to Talking Points Memo Trump’s “Ethics Office” says that he’s allowed to receive anonymous gifts to pay for his legal fund.

How else is Putin supposed to pay Trump’s lawyers when he won’t?

MINING LOBBYISTS HOLD EVENT AT TRUMP HOTEL FOLLOWING GIVEAWAYS TO THEIR INDUSTRY

Now we’re at the open bribery part of the day. The Intercept reports that a major coal mining lobby held an event at a Trump hotel, right after the government gave concessions to their industry.

MNUCHIN USES GOVERNMENT JET ON HONEYMOON

Even more corruption. WaPo at it again. Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of Treasury and formerly of Goldman Sachs, responsible for leading this country into the Great Recession, ordered a government jet to take his trophy wife on their honeymoon.

FACEBOOK ALLOWED ADS FOR JEW HATERS AND OTHER ANTISEMITE CATEGORIES

From ProPublica today, a report on how, until the story was written and published, Facebook had multiple antisemitic advertising categories available for targeting ads to people and groups.

Here’s how it worked: on Facebook, they gather data on what people like, where they work, where they live, and so on. So, if I’m selling software to help writers publish a book on Amazon, I’d target people that have “writer” or synonyms as their career. Some people, instead of putting “writer” or “IT Professional” as their career, they might put “Jew Hater” or “Nazi”.

Because a couple thousand people put “Jew Hater” as their occupation, it crossed a minimum threshold to show up in the advertising database. When that happened, Facebook scanned those profiles and looked for keywords they might have in common, and created an associated wordcloud. Someone who is a “Jew Hater” also likes Nazis and guns.

That process is likely automated, with next to no human intervention. This is their excuse, and I can buy it. This is low-level code work that can be set up quickly, likely with some SQL pulling data from database to another. And they most likely have filters in there that just need a little tweaking. To FB’s credit, they did tweak the filters, and as of now, you can’t sell ads to “Jew Hater.”

HRC ON RACHEL MADDOW

Hilary Clinton is straight spitting fire. This is what we could have, and should have had. When a politician is no longer running for office, they develop a refreshing attitude. Hilary has that attitude now.

She mentioned quite a few things about Facebook and Twitter, but the piece that hit me the most was when she mentioned that if she was being attacked from the left, she didn’t know if it was a Russian, a bot, or an American.

That’s it for tonight. I hope to get some new articles this weekend. Might War Game a little.

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/13/2017

HSIOW. HOLY SHIT IT’S ONLY WEDNESDAY.

MICHAEL FLYNN’S NO GOOD, VERY BAD, HORRIBLE DAY

How bad can get for Michael Flynn?

A report came out early today from Congressional Democrats that declared that Michael Flynn did not disclose several meetings that he had with Saudis and Russians about building 16 nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia using a Russian company that is under sanctions. These meetings took place over a span of months. Worse yet, they were left off of his security clearance application.

This is one of those cases where, even if each piece of the story is taken one line at a time, it’s still bad. Add them all up, and it’s somewhere between espionage and treason.

Why is the head of the National Security Council getting involved in a deal to build a power plant in Saudi Arabia?

Why work with a Russian company to build this plant, instead of Westinghouse or Phillips?

Why choose a company that is under sanctions to execute this multi billion dollar deal?

SIXTEEN FUCKING POWER PLANTS? ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!

Why not include any of this on his security clearance application?

Why continue this work while in the White House?

Each plant costs about $3-5 Billion. That’s a solid $60 Billion to line Russian pockets.

HIS SON IS UNDER INVESTIGATION, TOO

Another report came out today that Robert Mueller is also investigating the son Michael Flynn for his role at his fathers business.

So, both Flynn’s are in Mueller’s crosshairs. Wonder what else he’s looking at?

MUELLER INVESTIGATING SOCIAL MEDIA ROLE IN RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Well, I guess there’s that.

I’ve got a bad feeling that we’re just scratching the surface. Fake accounts, meetings organized on FB by Russians, troll bots on Twitter. Something’s coming.

SUSAN RICE TELLS CONGRESS WHY SHE UNMASKED INTEL

So, remember all that GOP screaming about unmasking on Intel messages? Well, she answered why.

CROWN PRINCE OF UAE VISITED NEW YORK TO SET UP BACK CHANNEL MEETING

Susan Rice unmasked the names of intercepts between the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates and whom he met in New York in December.

There’s a common courtesy that the head of a nation gives the White House a heads up if they’re visiting the United States. When he didn’t do that, USIC got involved.

STEVE BANNON IN BACK CHANNEL SETUP MEETING

What they found was Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and Michael Flynn talking with the Crown Prince about setting up a back channel between the United States and Russia, outside of the view of the USIC.

Note the date. December 11, 2016. About a week after Jared’s meeting with Sberbank where he tried to set up a back channel through the Russian Embassy.

It’s a month before Erik Prince’s meeting in the Seychelles, organized by the Crown Prince.

Why was Erik Prince there? Because it was too hot for Jared Kushner to show up.

Now, see why Trump and his team made a big boogeyman out of unmasking? Because they’re caught on tape doing some illegal shit.

KASPERSKY SOFTWARE PULLED FROM BEST BUY AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security banned the use of Kaspersky Software form federal computers. Kaspersky has very deep ties to the Russian Intelligence Service.

Also, Best Buy has pulled their products from sale.

If you have a computer running Kaspersky Anti-Virus, uninstall it. And get a new computer. Burn the old one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/12/2017

Tuesday. Nothing like a Tuesday.

PER WALL STREET JOURNAL, SOME OF DONALD TRUMPS LAWYERS WANTED KUSHNER GONE

According to this article from last night, some of Donald Trump’s lawyers wanted to remove Jared Kushner from his position in the White House earlier this year. They even went as far as to write a resignation letter for him. The lawyers felt that Jared’s presence in the White House distracted from achieving any of Trump’s agenda, while reminding everyone of the impending doom of the Russian Investigation.

In any nominally functional White House, Jared wouldn’t have even gotten in through the front door, let alone continue to have a position after falsely submitting and editing his SF-86 FOUR TIMES. But, if this were any other staffer, Jared would have been fired as soon as the lawyers came calling. The fact that he’s still there shows how out of touch with reality the Trump team is.

POTUS ATTEMPTS END AROUND OF MAGNITSKY ACT

From Friday’s news dump, the White House released a statement, moving authorization of adding and removing names from the Magnitsky Act list to the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.

Rex, the recipient of the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin, and former CEO of Exxon, is more than just a little compromised. Steve, the former hedge fund manager, might be slightly less compromised per Russia, but is just as dirty.

This is an obvious end-around to avoid the strengthened sanctions that Congress instituted at the beginning of August. I expect this to get slapped down in the courts.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN DELIVERING MATERIALS TO MUELLER’S TEAM

According to a reporter on Twitter who’s name I can’t find, she has reported that John Dowd told her that he is delivering documents about the Trump Campaign to Robert Mueller’s team.

Not only is this big, but shows that this investigation isn’t going away any time soon. No matter what Trump wants to happen. According to the Rogue Senior Advisor, Trump fired a low-level staffer today just for saying Mueller’s team. The stress is getting to the orange monster.

RT MUST REGISTER AS A FOREIGN AGENT

RT, formerly Russia Today, must register as foreign agents under FARA. Daily Check-In 9/11/2017 had an in-depth write-up of FARA, and how big of a deal this is. I expect Sputnik to join that list very soon.

RUSSIA ATTEMPTED TO NORMALIZE RELATIONS EARLIER THIS YEAR WITH TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, PER BUZZFEED

Buzzfeed has broken this story earlier today about the detailed plans that Russia had for the United States and the Trump organization following the election.

Hole. Lee. Shite.

The plan from Russia was full-blown normalization, complete with sharing intelligence, setting up cyber defense teams, having the CIA/FBI/NSA work with their Russian counterparts, and a complete and total change of geopolitics to a very Pro-Russian stance. It also included the completion of the Syrian Civil War, the denuclearization of North Korea, the “resolution” of Ukraine, and the elimination of sanctions against Russia.

This isn’t a plan for what to do after the election, this was an agenda for a puppet government. This was Russia dictating terms to the United States.

Of course, this operated under the assumption that the President of the United States had no checks and balances on them. Putin can run roughshod over Russia. The American President can’t.

If this is accurate, and the White House did verify the authenticity of the document, this is a step by step plan of how to implement the American part of Foundations of Geopolitics.

Plus, if they could do all of these things like keep North Korea from getting nukes, why haven’t they done so to this point? It’s almost like they benefit from the current atmosphere.

VIRGINIA DROPS TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES

The Virginia Board of Electors voted Friday Night to phase out their touch screen voting machines in favor of optical scans. Remember the bubble sheets from standardized testing as a kid? They’re coming back in Virginia.

This is what America needs right now. The touch screens typically used have no paper trail. are extremely vulnerable, and often built on antiquated systems. One of the big problems from the election last year was the lack of an audit trail on most machines. While I haven’t heard too many Intel people admit to votes being switched in voting machines, it was shown at Defcon this year that the voter machines have nearly no security on them.

The faster this country adopts proper voter reform, the better.

KOBACH AND PENCE TO PUSH VOTER SUPPRESSION AGENDA

Mother f… what did I just say? PROPER voter reform. Not this “only white people can vote” bullshit.

The latest craziness from the “Voter Integrity Commission” is to have all voters undergo a background check before voting. The same background check needed to purchase a handgun. These pricks don’t even believe in having people go through this check to buy guns.

This is nothing more than their attempt at putting into effect across the country the crap that disenfranchises voters across the country. This is not democracy. They are enemies of freedom and liberty.

I’m going to step down from the ledge now. I’ll picture happy thoughts, like Ted Cruz getting busted for liking a not-bad-at-all porn clip on Twitter.

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 9/11/2017

It’s Monday. Time for another installment of “What the Hell is going on?”

STEVE BANNON INTERVIEW ON 60 MINUTES

Steve Bannon, former White House Strategist and CEO of Breitbart, was interviewed on 60 Minutes last night. I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole thing, but in the interview with Charlie Rose, Bannon said that Trump’s biggest mistake was firing Comey. Had he not fired Comey, then the intensity of the Russian Investigation would have been a fraction of what it is today.

While there is some merit to this train of thought, the FBI had been investigating Trump for almost a year when Comey was fired. Within a week of Comey’s firing, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had named Robert Mueller as the Special Counselor. That move was planned ahead of time, in my opinion. Firing Comey just made Trump look even guiltier.

McGAHN, PREIBUS GO HALFSIES ON THE SAME LAWYER

Don McGahn, White House Counsel, and Reince Preibus, former White House Chief of Staff, are the newest people to lawyer up. This time, they both went with the same lawyer, William Burck. Burck specializes in White Collar crime, and is from the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm.

I haven’t taken an official count yet, but this is now like 15 or 20 people that have lawyered up, including 2 attorneys. When your lawyer needs a lawyer, shit’s gone sideways.

FBI INVESTIGATING SPUTNIK AS PROPAGANDA ARM OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT

Per Yahoo today, the FBI is investigating Sputnik for claims that they are acting as a propaganda arm of the Russian government, and used their position as a news outlet to push stories that would affect how people viewed the election. These claims came from two former employees of Sputnik in the U.S., one of whom was the former White House correspondent. They both claim that they were asked to perform unethical, and possibly illegal activities, in order to push the narrative that “Moscow” wanted. A thumb drive containing thousands of mails and documents was handed over to the FBI on September 1.

I mean, it’s only one of the two Russian State Sponsored Media Outlets that has an English audience. It’s not like RT is being called a propaganda machine by the United States Government and it’s employees in the U.S. are being told to register under FARA.

UNITED STATES CITIZENS WORKING FOR RT (FORMERLY RUSSIA TODAY) ADVISED TO REGISTER FOR FARA

Well, shit. Newsweek reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has asked people associated with the American arm of RT, formerly Russia Today, to register as foreign agents under the FARA act. The DOJ and the FBI are claiming that RT is using its position as a news outlet controlled by Russia to push propaganda and… look, did you read the last section about Sputnik? Good.

RT and Sputnik are the two largest Russian media outlets, and are run and funded by the Putin controlled government. Whatever message he wants to tell, they’ll tell. They reach all of Russia, and have multiple operations around the world, including here in the United States.

FARA is the Foreign Agent Registration Act. It was enacted in 1938 as a method to ostensibly stope Nazi propaganda from being circulated in the United States, but has a more interesting unofficial use. John Schindler of 20 Committee has a great writeup if I can find it, but the unofficial reason is that top secret wiretaps are inadmissible as evidence in a court of law without exposing the chain of custody, the methods used to gain the information, and the people involved. This was a problem that faced J. Edgar Hoover in the 1930’s, when he caught some Nazis doing some Nazi stuff in the U.S. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a warrant for his phone taps, and couldn’t get one.

Congress came to the rescue with FARA. By requiring people who work for foreign governments to register as agents and disclose what they do, this helps the government identify when someone is pushing someone else’s agenda instead giving an impartial account of the events. If someone lobbies on behalf of another government, they have to register with FARA. If they don’t register with FARA, and they’re caught working with or for another government, this is another, much easier to prove charge that can be thrown at them.

Seldomly is FARA used by itself as a criminal charge, but its often used in conjunction with other crimes when it comes time to charge a spy. If someone is caught working for another government, the courts will often grant leniency or at least take it into consideration at sentencing if someone retroactively registers with FARA. Two recent examples are Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort. They both recently registered as foreign agents, and disclosed several meetings and sources of income officially.

The FBI has a long history of not getting involved with calling out foreign media outlets as propaganda machines, out of fear of trampling over the first amendment rights of the outlets, and to avoid some serious lawsuits. The FBI and DOJ wouldn’t make these moves unless they had something big. Something ironclad and airtight.

I MET CLAUDE

On a lighter note, I met Claude Taylor yesterday. We went to A Fair in the Park, an Art Show in Mellon Park. He was nice, and I was slightly awkward, not trying to come off as too much of a fan boy. Part of the reason I started this blog was to try and keep track of all of the craziness going around. Especially if a story broke on Twitter first, then came to the MSM, and he was one of the people to break it. He’s not always right, but he’s been more accurate than a coin flip.

Claude is going through some legal problems right now. A woman called Cassandra Fairbanks has sued Claude for defamation of character for calling her a spy, a foreign agent, and a cam girl. Given that she’s worked as a correspondent for Sputnik, has infiltrated left-wing groups like Anonymous and various Anarchist groups, then spilled the beans to law enforcement, the only claim that hasn’t been confirmed on Twitter recently was the cam girl part, but supposedly she’s done enough so that if you google her, you can find her boobs pretty quick. She helped inspire Horseshoe Theory by being the poster girl for the Bernie or Bust people that went full Trump after the DNC. Whether or not she went to the other side of the horseshoe naturally, or was paid to, that’s worth looking in to.

REMINDER ABOUT 9/11 AND TRUMP

Today is the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States. Just in case anyone forgets, Donald Trump is a piece of shit. He has lied repeatedly about seeing Muslims cheering in New Jersey, claimed damages on one of his properties that wasn’t affected, and bragged about how after the towers fell, one of his buildings was now the tallest in New York.

That’s it for today. Other things happened, but I don’t want to write about them. Irma’s impact is still being measured, and the DOJ’s attempt at getting Arpaio’s conviction overturned looks like it should be a non-starter. An angry non-starter, but a non-starter nonetheless.

Thank you, and have a good one.