Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 02/28/2019

Thursday, February 28, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Kushner’s Clearance

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance.

The White House counsel at the time, Donald F. McGahn II, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about Mr. Kushner — including by the C.I.A. — and how Mr. McGahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance.

We know that the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and most anyone who’s ever been anywhere near top secret info knew that giving Jared Kushner a clearance was a bad idea.  Let’s add the White House Counsel and Chief of Staff to that list.

The only people who thought this was a good idea was Trump and Kushner.

 

 

 

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Something I completely overlooked yesterday Daily Check-In 02/26/2019 was that Cohen claimed that Trump’s lawyers Jay Sekulow and Abbe Lowell edited his statement to Congress.  You know, the statement that was proven to be false and earned Mike a felony conviction for lying to Congress.  There was so much that was uncovered yesterday that it was hard to keep track of it all.

Also, the ball is now rolling on bringing EVERYONE in.  This ends with RICO against Trump Org.  In yesterday’s hearing alone, Cohen pointed out dozens of crimes committed on behalf of the organization and family.  Names are being named, evidence being collected, and subpoenas are getting issued.

 

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

North Korea

I’d like to say that I’m surprised that Trump screwed this up, but I can’t.  I’m waiting to find out that the whole meeting was a cover for Trump to meet Lavrov.

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

Gaetz

I’m waiting for a little more information on this, but if this is accurate, then Florida Man Matt Gaetz deserves to be well and truly fucked.

Gaetz has no connection to Cohen, but he is connected to Roger Stone and the Trump Administration.  And if he received a call from Trump, was overheard saying that he was “happy to do it” for him, and it was about that tweet to Michael Cohen, he can look at some serious penalties.

 

SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION & EMERGENCIES

 

CONGRESS

Mark Meadows

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

This became a hot topic during the 2000 presidential campaign when Vice President Al Gore was criticized for saying he had invented the Internet. (Hence McDaniel’s aside.) As with Obama, that wasn’t really what Gore was saying: He was hyping (or overhyping) his role in encouraging the commercialization of the Internet. Gore should have said that he helped create the Internet as we now know it, which is more accurate, if still grandiose.

But as Scientific American wrote in 2012, the Internet itself derived directly from government work. It began as ARPAnet — named for the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. In 1972, ARPA became DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

ARPAnet was a network that at first, in 1969, ran only between Utah and three universities in California. Slowly, it built outward and by 1977 covered locations on both coasts. During that period, DARPA scientists Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn invented a protocol for carrying traffic over the Internet called TCP/IP, or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. If you’ve ever heard of an “IP address,” in essence you’re hearing about Cerf and Kahn’s work.

We’re cruising through this awfully quickly, but: About a decade later, engineer and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He created a way that the Internet could be used to more easily share information by developing a language that more easily allowed for documents to link to one another. And, voilà.

ARPA was the government. DARPA was the government. Berners-Lee was working for CERN, a European agency. Oh, and he’s British.

Certainly there were innovations that stemmed from the private sector — many innovations, and important ones. But saying that the Internet didn’t come from government is simply wrong.

Flight and cars? McDaniel is on more-solid ground, though the invention of the car is usually credited to Karl Benz. As a Michigander, though, she should also probably be aware of the central role the government has played in recent years in bolstering the continued viability of the automotive industry. A minor reason her uncle lost in 2012 was popular support for Obama’s intervention to support the automobile industry after the recession.

Incidentally, it’s worth quoting Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech more fully:

“If you were successful,” Obama said, “somebody along the line gave you some help. … Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

He continued: “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

As it turns out, that’s true.

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

I had more stuff from Twitter, but my notes app crashed and lost it.  Shit happens.

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I wanted to make a correction.  On Daily Check-In 02/21/2019 I talked about the Enterprise Theory, and I left out an important part.  I didn’t realize this until I started listening to Andrew McCabe’s book early this week.  I’d like to add the following aspects of Enterprise Theory.

One tool that law enforcement uses in fighting organized crime by viewing all of the crimes performed by the individuals as a way to benefit the organization. The actions and crimes executed by one group may not be directly related to those performed by another group, but they both benefit the whole organization.

Think of it like a regular company with multiple divisions.  There’s an IT department, and HR department, a Maintenance department, Legal, Logistics, Sales, Marketing, R&D, and a few others.  IT doesn’t do things that directly relate to Sales, and Sales doesn’t relate to Logistics, but what they all do benefit the company.

That’s what Enterprise Theory looks at.  Who benefits from the crimes, and how are they related?  John the Pimp might not have anything to do with Barry the Scumbag Lawyer’s insurance scam, but money from both of their projects goes up the chain to Vinny the Boss.  Eventually, Barry’s clients and John’s clients might overlap, and John and Barry might work together on setting up another scheme involving trafficking or drugs.  All of this goes to benefit Vinny the Boss and his organization.

I hope to take some time this weekend to write some background on the Grand Theory, and do some housecleaning on the site.  That said, I look forward to the shit sandwich I’m about to eat.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/27/2019

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Yes, stuff happened that wasn’t Michael Cohen.

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Michael Cohen’s Testified Before the House Oversight Committee

Just with how much there is to parse through this, I’m not going to break the articles down by groups, but I want to go through what happened.  I watched the first 6 hours of the hearing, then listened to the last hour on the radio.

So, where to begin?  How about at the beginning.

Michael Cohen, former attorney as of yesterday Daily Check-In 02/26/2019, convicted felon, cooperating witness, and former personal attorney and fixer for President Donald J. Trump, testified before the House Oversight Committee on a range of topics covering Trump’s role in the hush money bribes to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, Cohen’s work on other Catch & Kill stories with the National Enquirer, Trump’s financial fraud, his racist actions, threatening his schools if they released his grades, and Trump’s ties to Russia.

At least, as much as he could talk about that isn’t under investigation by the Special Counselor, SDNY, the State of New York, State of Florida, the militant wing of the Salvation Army, and whoever else is looking to them.

Cohen’s opening statement brought straight fire.  He entered into evidence two checks that Trump used to reimburse him for paying off Stormy Daniels from his HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit).  He also talked about Trump inflating or deflating his assets when it pleased him or suited his needs.  To support this claim, Cohen included financial documents from 2011 to 2013.

He also included information about the abuses at Trump Foundation. One main example was using a straw bidder to pump up the price of a painting of Trump at an auction, then reimbursed him with money from the charity.

Cohen also talked about some of Trump’s racist actions.  While not illegal, they certainly speak to this lack of character.

As far as Russia goes, Cohen described two events that he had some knowledge of: Wikileaks and the June 9th meeting.

Cohen says that he was in the room when Roger called a couple days before the Wikileaks DNC email drop and told him that it was coming soon.  Trump said “Wouldn’t that be great.”

As far as the June 9th meeting, Michael says he didn’t know about it at the time, but does recall a meeting a few days earlier where Donnie Jr. walked behind Daddy’s desk and told him “The meeting is set.”  Trump Sr. responded with “Let me know.”  Michael thought it was odd because Jr. has, according to Trump “The worst judgement in the world” and nothing happens in Trump Org without his knowledge or consent.

As far as the hearing goes, it started off exactly as I thought it would: a shitshow.  The Republicans tried to cancel the hearing with some timing technicality bullshit, then spent the entire time attacking Cohen’s character.  Jim Jordan, the Ranking Member and congressman from the Ohio State Men’s Locker Room where he ignored institutionalized sexual assault, spent every second he could attacking Cohen as a liar, a cheat, a swindler, and a bad lawyer.  Most of the Republicans kept this up, even throwing in constant questions about a potential book deal or movie deal when he gets out of prison, as if he’s going on vacation and not heading to PMITA Prison.  (That’s Pound Me In The Ass Prison for those that didn’t watch Office Space).

The most fucked up moment for the Republicans was when Mark Meadows decided to refute Cohen’s claims of Trump’s racism by bringing one of Trump’s black aides to the stand and using her as a prop.  Mark’s argument was literally “how can Trump be racist when he employs her?”  Rashida Tlaib called his ass out at the end of the hearing, saying that was racist.  Mark became extremely upset, saying that he’s not a racist and his nieces and nephews are people of color, and that he was very upset with that.  Chairman Elijah Cummings came to Mark’s defense, and eventually things got cleared up.  Turns out that yes, you can do something racist without being a racist.  Especially if you don’t stop to think about it first.

While the Republicans went out of their way to attack Cohen, they didn’t defend Trump.  The only thing they could pretend to defend Trump on were the claims in which Cohen didn’t have hard evidence.  Not one person defended Trump for paying bribes to Stormy Daniels or defended using a charity as a slush fund or cooking the books to get a loan or commit insurance fraud.

Yes, insurance fraud. Cohen didn’t go into too much detail on this topic since it’s under investigation by SDNY.  This is part of their ongoing investigation into Donald Trump.

Oh, by the way, Cohen said that SDNY was investigating Donald Trump.

We also got a lot of names of people to follow up with, like Mark Calamari, Allen Weisselberg, and Ronna Graf.

We also got an explanation as to why the Stormy Daniels payment was done the way it was done: Cohen didn’t want his wife to find out.  Trump Org didn’t want to get caught making this payment during the campaign, and since they didn’t have another source, Cohen used his HELOC to keep his wife from seeing it.  If he withdrew the money from the checking account, he’d have a lot of questions to answer.

What do I think?  It’s complicated.  Cohen is a bad guy who did a lot of bad things, but he came off as remorseful and honest, in a shady way.  He admitted his guilt, owned it, and is trying to make amends.  The attacks from the Republicans made him pitiable.

As far as what’s next, look for more hearings coming up, and a lot of interest in Allen Weisselberg.

 

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

North Korea

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

EMERGENCIES, SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

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

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  I’ve got to agree with Tea Pain.  This might be the beginning of the end.  Michael Cohen isn’t exactly the most trustworthy person, but he’s got receipts and provided evidence of multiple crimes for Trump, the family, and the organization.  Insurance fraud, self-dealing, local tax evasion, state and federal tax evasion, bribery, extortion, lying to Congress, fraud, money laundering, and a few other things.  We can’t base an impeachment off of Michael Cohen, but his info can lead to more and more evidence.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

Daily Check-In 02/26/2019

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Properly Appointed

Not that this was a surprise at all, but nice to hear.  It comes as part of Andrew Miller’s appeals process.  He’s one of Roger Stone’s cronies, and is very well connected for a ‘housepainter’ in St. Louis.  He’s racked up hundreds of thousands in legal bills fighting a subpoena to testify before Robert Mueller’s grand jury.

I assume that Miller’s next step will be to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, but they are under no obligation to hear his case.

 

Cyber Defense

On the day of the midterm elections, United States Cyber Defense  took the Internet Research Agency offline.  We showed that we can hit them, and sent them a message.

Don’t fucking try it.

 

Notes

President Donald Trump’s lawyers said that special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, has comprehensive notes taken by a former White House staffer detailing the president’s behavior.

According to a report published on Monday by The New York Times, Annie Donaldson, the chief of staff to former White House counsel Don McGahn, handed over detailed notes about the president’s conduct in the West Wing to the special counsel’s team.

The notes reportedly play a role in Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI director James Comey or through his various attacks on the Department of Justice. The team also has information gathered from its hours of questioning Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner about the president’s actions.

The president fired Comey in May 2017, initially citing the former FBI director’s mishandling of the Justice Department’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email use. At the time, Comey was leading the inquiry into whether Trump campaign members conspired with Russian government officials in 2016. His firing made Trump only the second president in history to dismiss an FBI director. In a subsequent interview with NBC, Trump said he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he chose to fire Comey.

Trump’s attorneys told The Times that Donaldson’s notes about the president were a jewel in Mueller’s evidence that Trump may have obstructed justice.

This shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise considering that the White House Counsel’s Office work for the White House, not the individual serving as President, and withholding that information would make them an accomplice in Obstruction of Justice.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Cohen Goes to the Hill

Wednesday’s gonna be lit.

Congressional Witness Tampering

Matt Gaetz is a close friend of Roger Stone.  We first reported that he was the go-between for the Trump Administration and Roger Stone’s crew on Daily Check-In 12/13/2017.  The fact that the Representative from Florida tried to tamper with a witness before Congress the night before their testimony, and this is out of line even for him, it leads me to think that someone instructed Matt do to this.

 

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

North Korea Summit

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Whitaker

 

Wohl

Good fucking riddance.  This kid is an idiot, but has convinced himself that he’s somehow brilliant.  He tried manufacturing a sexual assault case against Robert Mueller, which was reported on Daily Check-In 10/30/2018.  He’s since tried a whole bunch of ratfuckery that ranges the spectrum from “shitty but technically not legal” to “Why hasn’t he been arrested yet?”  Now, it looks like he just lost his Twitter access because he’s an idiot.

Jacob went on the record in an interview bragging about how he set up a bunch of fake accounts to screw with the election.  Twitter didn’t like that.  Now they slapped him like the bitch he is.

Look at the bright side… when he eventually ends up in Federal prison, Roger will have someone below him in the food chain.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

EMERGENCIES, SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

Emergency Declaration

 

Immigration

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

Kremlin Barbie on Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Funny how it is that someone who has never worked a hard day in their life knows what it’s like living paycheck to paycheck.  Socialism for the rich, Extreme Capitalism for the poor.

 

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT, MEDICAL, & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Cohen’s testimony will be the big story of Wednesday.  At least it should.  This timeline is so fucked, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get something even crazier as a distraction.

One little spoiler, and it answers a question that I’ve had for a while.  Why did it take so long for Michael Cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels?  They knew about her claims early on, but didn’t pay her until a few days before the the election.  What took so long?  Turns out that they were trying to figure out how to pay her off.  They didn’t have the money lying around.  They had to scavenge it up.  Doesn’t sound like an organization worth billions.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 02/25/2019

Monday, February 25, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort

Emptywheel dives pretty deep into the weeds on this, but she pulls on something significant.  According to the footnotes from the Mueller filings on Manafort, and from Manafort’s own legal team, he handed over 75 pages of polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik.  75 pages.  That’s quite a bit of polling data making its way from the Trump Campaign chairman to a man with ties to Russian Intelligence.

 

Donnie Jr.

Crimes before the election don’t count?  This might be the dumbest thing he’s said this week.  Let’s think about the stupidity of Donnie Jr.

First, he’s trying to minimize the amount of trouble he’s in by saying that Mueller isn’t investigating “real crimes.”  He’s trying to say that no one did any “real crimes” like murder, only “fake crimes” like witness tampering, obstruction of justice, lying to investigators, lying to Congress, aiding and abetting treason, aiding and abetting espionage, money laundering, and fraud.

Second, his argument then implies that crimes from before the election should be off limits.

Using a very simple form of logic, this dumb mother fucker just admitted to “real crimes” before the election.

That, or he’s too stupid to realize he just implicated himself in a few dozen crimes.

 

The Mole

John’s hypothesis is that the mole isn’t a person but a compromised source of data, like a WhatsApp chat or a hacked phone.

While Team Trump is tearing itself apart looking for a person, they could still be compromised to this day.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

Obstruction

 

Sexual Assault

 

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

Spike Lee

 

North Korea Summit

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

CONGRESS

 

EMERGENCIES, SHUTDOWN & IMMIGRATION

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

For those that don’t follow football, from top to bottom the people on the left are the Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick who was caught illegally filming the signals of opposing coaches; Quarterback Tom Brady who was suspended for four games for playing with underinflated balls; Tight End Aaron Hernandez who killed a man, convicted of murder, then hung himself in prison while his case was on appeal; Wide Reciever Julian Edelman who was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs; Owner Bob Kraft who got a handjob on one visit to the spa and a blowjob the next day.  He was arrested on Daily Check-In 02/22/2019.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Monday.  Another day of craziness.  Tuesday brings the first day of Cohen’s three day testimony blitz.

I’ll have an update over the next few days on a few things I’m working on.  I think I solved a problem, but I don’t want to celebrate until I’m sure it worked.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur