Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 01/01/2019

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

  1. Before the year is out….the evidentiary link between Wikileaks, Russian hackers, Kremlin disinformation outlet, and Donald Trump.

    In 2016, I received a phone call from someone in the intelligence world telling me to keep an eye on Sputnik that day. I did not know what….

2…it was. I was told it was a primary propaganda site operated by Russia to spew disinformation to affect global democracies, including the United States.

At this point, I am going to crush events into sequence of what happened, not what I learned when….

3…sometime before I received the call, Wikileaks had obtained John Podesta’s emails and pushed them out. One of those emails was then manipulated to make it appear as something it was not. Words from an article I wrote were placed in the mouth of a Hillary Clinton ally….

4…making it look as if even her confidantes were secretly blaming her for Benghazi. It was a fraud.

That fraudulent document was pushed onto twitter by @TEN_GOP, which posed as the Tennessee Republican Party. It was not. It was a Russian front. Mueller has since….

5…identified @ten_GOP as an account operated by Russian hackers. (It is part of indictment, see attached article.) The actual Tennessee Republican Party is a different account. I was told, in confidence by the intel guy, that the bogus document was first pushed out….

(forgot to attach article)

Fake Tennessee GOP Twitter account highlighted in indictment of 13 RussiansA defunct Twitter account is highlighted in a new federal indictment of 13 Russian nationals on Friday accused of attempting to meddle in U.S. elections.https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/02/16/fake-tennessee-gop-twitter-account-highlighted-indictment-13-russians/345835002/

6…now, this tweet from @TEN_GOP, the fake russian controlled account, was one of billions that day. It was traded among a group of different Russian accounts. In comes Sputnik, a Russian controlled “news” agency identified as a disinformation platform…

Nato accuses Sputnik News of being ‘Kremlin propaganda machine’Nato has accused Sputnik News of being part of a “Kremlin propaganda machine” distributing biased articles and “misinformation” to influence political opinion around the world. Oana Lungescu, the mil
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sputnik-news-russian-government-owned-controlled-nato-accuses-kremlin-propaganda-machine-a7574721.html

7…the writer of the Sputnik article has said that he obtained the bogus email from @TEN_GOP, a twitter account that Sputnik writers were following for some reason. The manipulated email was then used as the basis of a news article in Sputnik alleging that a Clinton confidante..

8…held her accountable for Benghazi. Since I knew the email was bogus – and that the words they were quoting out of context were mine, not the confidantes – I began to write a story.

Now, there is Sputnik (a Russian disinformation site), @TEN_GOP (part of the illegal….

9…Russian hacking effort), and the original Reddit account that pushed the document out onto the internet for the first time.

As I was typing my story, Trump was at a rally. This bogus document had been on the internet for a couple of hours. The Russian twitter accounts….

10…were pushing it around, apparently trying to make it go viral. Sputnik wrote about it.

And then, Trump read the bogus email out loud to his rally. Again, an email manipulated by Russians, pushed out by Russia, printed by Russia, into Trump’s mouth. In a couple of hours….

11…this one piece of information got from a Russian hacker to Trump.

I contacted my original source and got a few things clarified. At that moment, I understood the magnitude of what was going on involving @TEN_GOP, although I agreed not to disclose the account name….

12….I wrote the story, Newsweek printed it. And a firestorm was set off. A number of other journalists – who apparently made no attempt to contact any intelligence sources – considered it absurd that anyone would think Trump campaign had any connection to Russia. Skepticism…

13…based on personal belief, and not reporting, transformed rapidly into a coordinated defensive attack. The New York Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, went after me, as did a number of other groups close to Wikileaks or Trump. In fact, according to one article….

14…about this, a number of the journalists attacking the story and me were in direct communication with each other by email, coordinating their efforts. (This attached piece is from the Daily Caller Foundation, which, whatever you think of DC, was the only publication to….)

15…do actual reporting on this matter.) Soon after, Sputnik launched an absurd attack on me, accusing me of offering bribes, lying, etc.

This ONLY ran in Sputnik. And almost immediately after it was published, the Trump Campaign emailed the link to the story to reporters….

16…covering the campaign and others. Read that again: A Russian propaganda outlet attacked an American reporter, and the Trump campaign almost immediately started pimping the story to reporters. Daily Caller Foundation is one of those that disclosed it received….

17…the email from Trump campaign. (See attached.)

18…so, here is where we stand.

Wikileaks obtains hacked Podesta emails.
Russian propagandists manipulate one email to make it say what it does not.
Russian reddit account pushes it onto internet.
Twitter account Mueller says in Russian scheme (@TEN_GOP) starts tweeting email..

19….Sputnik disinformation news service picks up bogus email from @TEN_GOPand writes bogus article.
Within an hour or so, Trump is reading the bogus email at a rally.
I write story exposing.
A group of journalists coordinate an attack on me by email….

12….Sputnik launches an attack on me accusing me of irrational crimes and lies.
Trump campaign immediately emails link to article from a Russian disinformation site to reporters, along with accusations against me.
The New York Observer, owned by Trump’s son in law Kushner….

13…picks up the Sputnik attacks and goes after me.

Reporters couldn’t see it back then. The importance of this – a back and forth link between Russian hackers, disinformation outlets and Trump campaign – seemed to unbelievable to be considered as true. But with the….

14..revelation by Mueller that @TEN_GOP was part of Russian scheme, someone must ask Trump – where did he get the bogus email? From @TEN_GOP, from Sputnik, or from some third party? And why his campaign pushing stories from a Russian disinformation site to attack the story?

Done

ADDENDUM: Whenever I write about these kinds of issues, my feed is swarmed by Russian trolls. So, enjoy watching them appear.

This is the story of how I jumped off the fence from “Maybe there’s a bunch of coincidences” to “this is fucking treason.”

In October 2016, Trump had a campaign rally in Pennsylvania when he quoted Russian Propaganda that didn’t appear in the U.S.  This was beyond fishy, and beyond coincidence.  The chain of custody on the story went Russian Hackers > Reddit > Russian Twitter Account TEN_GOP > Sputnik and RT > Trump and Breitbart.  By the time the story hit Breitbart, it was already debunked.   And it was debunked early.  Like first thing in the morning early.  The story went from “Paul Podesta is an asshole and a liar” to “Trump is quoting doctored emails on the campaign trail.”

Yeah, the Podesta email was doctored.  That one and a few others were released with edits in them that made them especially scandalous sounding.  The RWM ran with the fakes like their lives depended on it and never once acknowledged they were fakes or that they were played for patsies.  The only reason this story was pulled as fast as it was is because Russia pulled it.  Once they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they yanked the story.  Breitbart followed suit.

What I didn’t know at the time were the coordinated attacks against Kurt by the Wikileaks crowd, led by Glenn Greenwald.  And their attack was quick.  Damn quick.  Too quick for something on the fly.  This was the kind of coordination that someone planned for, a scenario designed to protect someone or something.  And they were able to coordinate with the Trump Campaign.  Think about how well they’ve been able to coordinate ANYTHING, then realize that they were on this faster than flies on shit.

Also, remember that Breitbart was run by Steve Bannon at the time. So while he’s working on the campaign, he’s using his website to push his agenda.  Breitbart was alerted to this at the same time as Trump.

Now that we know that TEN_GOP was a Russian account, that the GRU hacked and edited the emails, they had accounts on Reddit, and that Wikileaks was the outlet Russia used to release them to provide plausible deniability, here’s the updated chain of custody.

Russian hackers from GRU> Russian account on Reddit ran from IRA > Russian Account on Twitter ran from IRA (probably same person as the Reddit account) > Russian state propaganda outlet Sputnik > Trump’s Campaign.

The only non-Russian in that link is Trump’s Campaign.  Follow that up with a coordinated email and press attack from people that were so incompetent that they could fuck up a wet dream, and we’re looking at the first evidence of treason that couldn’t be talked away as coincidence or something else.

Yes, I’m using the T word a lot more from now on.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and tastes like a duck, it sure as shit ain’t a fucking moose.

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

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

 

SHUTDOWN

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

IMMIGRATION

 

SCOTUS 

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

THINKING AHEAD

I’m waiting to see who else joins in the race before I throw my support behind someone, but be sure of one thing; whomever wins the Democratic Primary will most likely be my choice candidate for President.  I say most likely because I’m not sure what the political landscape will look like in two years, and I’m not sure who will be running for the Republicans in 2020.  Assuming there’s a Republican Party in 2020.

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

I don’t know much about this guy, or where he gets his info, but he is followed by several people that normally appear here.  My guess is that this is related to the rumored list of senators that took Russian money in 2016.  Remember that there was talk that at the RNC Convention that GOP leadership worked with the Russians there to flesh out a plan to get Russian money into the election race, and the senators that accepted that money would be complicit in those crimes.  Hell, they most likely coordinated how it was spent.

 

That’s it for today.   Happy New Year.

I’ve got a few stories planned coming up based on some conversations I’ve had.

One will be an in-depth description of Trump’s mob ties.  There’s probably a couple books about that subject, but it’d be nice to pull that out on demand.

Another article is a debunking of Nationalism.  Not the racist part of it, but the “America First” mantra.  The argument for Nationalism is multifaceted, but flawed.

Finally, I’d like to address the mentality of self-handicapping during a fight.  More precisely, the hypocrisy used by some in a fight where they’ll make several low-blow attacks, but use one against them and they cry foul.

Given my track record on these posts, I expect to have one of them written by 2023.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

Daily Check-In 12/31/2018

Monday, December 31, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Sam Patten is Manafort’s lobbyist buddy who helped get Russian money to the Trump inauguration by playing the role of middleman.  He pleaded guilty back in August. (2018 Retrospective)

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

SHUTDOWN

 

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

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

Russia said Monday it had detained a U.S. citizen in Moscow and accused him of spying, in the latest alleged case of espionage between the two countries. The FSB, Russia’s feared domestic security service, said the American was arrested Friday “while carrying out an act of espionage.” Official Russian news outlets said the man had been identified as Paul Whelan, but no further details on his identity have been revealed. A criminal case has been opened, the FSB said in a statement, under an anti-espionage article of the Russian criminal code, which allows for sentences of as much as 20 years in prison. In his annual press conference this month, President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of using espionage allegations to try to undermine an increasingly powerful Russia. Monday’s arrest comes days after Russian Maria Butina entered a guilty plea in Washington to acting as an illegal foreign agent. Butina faces just six months in prison, followed by likely deportation.

 

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for the last few days.  And for 2018.  It’s 9PM EST on New Year’s Eve, and I’m typing up this article.  I know, such a raucous, life by the balls existence.

I wanted to wrap this up before the year ended.  I released my retrospective piece yesterday.

It’s been a long year, and I’m thankful to have you along for the ride.

Have a Happy New Year.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

2018 Retrospective

This time last year, I wrote the 2017 Retrospective.  That piece served as a quasi-nostalgia piece/best of/how did I get here essay/predictions for the upcoming year.  As much as I don’t like Best-of lists and other looks back, I feel like this is needed to keep perspective.

 

WHERE WE LEFT OFF IN 2017?

At the end of 2017, we were just starting to get a picture of how big the Russian Conspiracy truly was.  We were also witness to the most dysfunctional presidential administration of the modern era.  A cabinet rife with corruption that was looking for new and interesting ways to destroy their departments while lining their pockets.  Meanwhile, rumors and stories about the depths of cooperation with foreign powers kept rising to the surface.  Every so often, a new story highlighting a new part of the conspiracy arose.  The NRA.  The National Prayer Breakfast.  Oleg Deripaska.  Alexander Torshin.  Maria Butina.  Kostya Kilimnik.

The Rumor Mill was still months ahead of the active story from the Mainstream Media.  While the MSM was hung up on Trump’s tweets, the Rumor Mill was talking about the NRA being used as the primary source for laundering Russian money into the Republican National Committee for use in the 2016 election.

 

KICKING OFF 2018

January started off with the first of several major books exposing the dysfunction of the Trump Administration.  “Fire and Fury” was the first major book to show how bad things are inside the White House.  Nothing gets done, everyone is ready to stab the other in the back at a moment’s notice, and everything revolves around the whims of a septuagenarian in a diaper.  This book also established a pattern.  The worse it makes Trump look, the more he freaks out about it on Twitter and through Wall-Eye Sanders.  The worse they react, the more likely it is to be true.  The more likely it’s true, the better the sales.  This book sold like beer at a football game.  My favorite quote from it was a conversation between Steve Bannon and Trump after Trump said in an interview with his frenemy Maggie Haberman that investigating his finances would be “crossing a red line.”

“You’ve got the LeBron James of money laundering investigations on you, Jarvanka. My a–hole just got so tight!”

I don’t want to imagine Steve Bannon’s asshole, but it’s a worthy response when finding out Andrew Weissmann is looking into your finances. (Daily Check-In 01/05/2018)

We also saw the beginning of the year kick off with Republicans in both the House and Senate rally around Trump at all opportunities to either demonize his enemies or obstruct investigations into Trump and his cronies.  This is when I learned two important procedural rules.  House committees can only release transcripts after a vote, but the ranking chairperson of a Senate committee can do whatever the fuck they feel like, including releasing transcripts. (Daily Check-In 01/09/2018). Diane Feinstein did with Glenn Simpson’s testimony.  Glenn is the head of Fusion GPS, the group that ran Opposition Research against Trump and ultimately hired Christopher Steele.

The only committee in either house of congress that acted like grown-ups this year was the Senate Intelligence Committee.  They’re work is still ongoing.

The most off-the-rails thing to happen in January was a news report showing that Michael Cohen had paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 a couple weeks before the election.  At the time, it seemed rather…weird and unrelated.  Turns out it would have HUUUGE consequences throughout the year. (Daily Check-In 01/12/2018)

What should have been the biggest story of the early year happened on Daily Check-In 01/25/2018 when it came out that the Dutch had pwned the GRU and had proof that they were involved with the attacks on the United States.  Instead, Maggie Haberman dropped a story for the New York Times talking about how Trump had tried to fire Robert Mueller back in June.  It also turns out that this was the weekend that Trump was supposed to interview Mueller at Camp David, but pulled out at the last minute.

Throughout the month, more stories started to break into the MSM talking about Trump’s ties to the Russian Mob, and the NRA’s ties to the Russians.  On Daily Check-In 01/30/2018, the weirdest thing happened thus far: Sean Hannity was suspended from Twitter.  While his account was dark, a parody account arose and sounded so much like him that Julian Assange of Wikileaks DM’ed him.

Another thing we saw at the beginning of the year was the back and forth, will he or won’t he, about Mueller’s attempts to interview Trump.  It was widely viewed at the beginning of the year by the MSM that Mueller was only looking into Obstruction of Justice and had very little to go on for Russian connections.

 

FEBRUARY 2018:  THERE ARE INDICTMENTS

As I said, the MSM pushed the story that Mueller was only interested in investigating Obstruction of Justice.  That narrative fell apart on Daily Check-in 02/16/2018 when Special Counselor Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies for attacking the United States during the 2016 election by spreading propaganda, organizing Americans against each other, and committing a metric fucktonne of identity theft.  Mueller also got a guilty plea from Richard Pinedo for assisting the Russians by helping them get bank accounts that they then used to spoof PayPal.

Early February saw yet another attempt by the Republicans to distract from Mueller and discredit the investigation with the Nunes Memo.  (Daily Check-In 02/01/2018). That attempt lasted all of about 30 seconds everywhere outside of Fox News.  That how long it took to debunk the claims in Devin Nunes’ memo.

February also brought other stories like Hope Hicks trying to organize a cover-up of the June 9th meeting on a conference call, Steve Bannon interviewing with Robert Mueller, and that several states were hacked by the Russians. (Daily Check-In 02/07/2018).

Something tragic not related to the Russian Conspiracy occurred on Daily Check-In 02/14/2018 with the Parkland Massacre.  17 high school students were murdered by one of their classmates.  But this shooting was different.  This one was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  This shooting didn’t disappear from the news within a week like all the rest.  The kids stuck around.  They organized.  They marched.  They protested.  They registered to vote.  And they’re making a difference.

On Daily Check-In 02/26/2018 Trump asked his Energy Secretary Rick Perry to cancel a trip to India to instead go to London to meet with Saudis to negotiate nuclear reactors.

Also, Rick Gates flipped. (Daily Check-In 02/23/2018).  His old attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

 

MARCH 2018: THE NRA AND THE GRAND BARGAIN TAKES SHAPE

I didn’t know it at the time, but March saw several interesting developments that lead to the Grand Bargain Theory.

George Nader flipped. (Daily Check-In 03/06/2018). He was Erik Prince’s right hand man and an adviser to the United Arab Emirates.  George was also with Prince at the Seychelle’s meeting.  He’s also a convicted pedophile who was stopped at the border on New Year’s Eve and decided to cooperate with Mueller to avoid a fate worse getting shanked in prison.  Elliot Broidy also made his way into the news in March with trying to kill the 1MDB money laundering investigation. (Daily Check-In 03/05/2018)

Cambridge Analytica made the front page finally for their work in fucking with the election by microtargeting voters for ads. They stole user profiles from Facebook, shared them with the Russians, and used those profiles to attack individuals with ads targeted specifically to them. (Daily Check-In 03/21/2018).

The Russians tried to kill a former spy on British soil.  (Daily Check-In 03/12/2018).  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke out about this attack.  Trump fired him the next day.

That was also the same day the House Intel Committee “ended” their investigation after finding “no evidence that the Russians assisted Donald Trump.”  Remember that.

On the campaign finance front, March saw Stormy Daniels and her new attorney Michael Avenatti go on the offensive against Michael Cohen.  More details emerge about how completely nutty this payment was, how it was made, and where the funds ultimately came from.  We also know that at least one other woman was paid off by Michael Cohen.  Karen McDougal was also paid off in 2016 to stay silent during the election. (Daily Check-In 03/16/2018)

The Mueller Investigation kept moving forward with subpoenas to the Trump Organization, requests for info about the Seychelles trip, and interviews with many staffers.

 

APRIL 2018: THE SUBJECT OF AN INVESTIGATION

On April 3rd, we found out that Donald Trump was officially the subject of a criminal investigation. (Daily Check-In 04/03/2018). We also got the evidence and explanation of the poison pill built into the Special Counselor’s investigation.  If Robert Mueller is fired, then all of his Senior Assistant Special Counselors are authorized in their dual roles as United States Attorneys to pursue any open investigations to their completion.  Also, those investigations were outsourced to various jurisdictions and indictments were filed under seal.

One of those investigations was United States versus Michael Cohen.  On April 9th, the FBI raided his home, his office, and hotel.  (Daily Check-In 04/09/2018).  They got ALL THE THINGS.  This might go down as the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency.  I’ve probably said that a few hundred times, but when things are so bad that a judge said that the least intrusive way of getting the info they needed was multiple no-knock raids, things are bad.  Over the next few weeks, more of Cohen’s shadiness came out.  These included accepting payments for access to Trump, running cab companies, and his ties with mobsters.

Jared Kushner unloaded the 666 Fifth Avenue albatross to a group using Qatar as a middleman. (Daily Check-In 04/23/2018)

We also found out that several subjects and target were getting stopped entering the country, in that little in-between area where laws are a bit…different. (Daily Check-In 04/03/2018)

Sean Hannity is involved in some shady shit with Cohen, when it was revealed that he was one of Cohen’s three clients. (Daily Check-In 04/18/2018). Hannity was involved in some slightly shady real estate purchases.  That, and pushing Russian propaganda.

We got the flight details of Trump’s trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013.  These records contradict Trump’s claims that he didn’t spend the night in Russia. (Daily Check-In 04/23/2018)

James Comey’s book “A Higher Loyalty” was released. On the night he was on Rachel Maddow to talk about it, his memos about his meetings with Trump made the news.  (Daily Check-In 04/19/2018)

We finish April with the New York Times getting a list of questions from Jay Sekulow that he says are the questions that Mueller wants to ask Trump. (Daily Check-In 04/30/2018)

 

MAY 2018: SOMETHING ROTTEN IN NEW YORK

The Trump Organization is under various investigations, The Trump Foundation is under a microscope, Cohen is fucked 8 ways from Sunday, but that’s not the only weirdness in New York.  On Daily Check-In 05/07/2018 then NYAG Eric Schneiderman resigned after 4 women accused him of sexual assault in a story written by Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer.  From the time the story dropped, it took about 2 hours for him to resign.  He was replaced by NYAG Underwood.  This would turn out to be the worst thing for the Trump Organization, the Trump Family, and anyone associated with Trump in New York.

At first, Trump Jr. was celebrating this move, but he’s an idiot with no strategic thinking.  My hypothesis is that they had shit on him for years, and were either waiting for him to come after them to release it or were going to use it to blackmail him.  Instead, he gets removed from the playing board and an unknown comes into play.  This unknown, by the way, would make Trump’s life even more of a living nightmare by the end of the year.

Cohen was implicated in a pay to play scandal with several companies, including AT&T. Within a month of engaging Cohen, they had a meeting with Ajit Pai in an attempt to kill net neutrality. (Daily Check-In 05/11/2018). Right after that, we get direct ties to the Qatar Investment Authority. (Daily Check-In 05/14/2018).

Trump and Nunes tried to expose top secret sources to protect themselves. (Daily Check-In 05/18/2018)

Daily Check-In 05/25/2018 revealed that Cohen met with Viktor Vekselberg during the transition, and the Spanish had wiretaps that showed Donnie Jr. was in contact with Alexander Torshin and his associate Maria Butina.

 

JUNE 2018:  A LITTLE BUSY

Jared Kushner’s buddy Richard Gerson was at the Seychelles Meeting.  He met with Prince Mohammed (MBZ) and George Nader. (Daily Check-In 06/01/2018). Gerson was also around when MBZ visited Kushner and Nader in New York City.  Gerson claimed he was only there to escort former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the meeting.

Paul Manafort and Kostya from the GRU were indicted for witness tampering on Daily Check-In 06/04/2018.

The Brexit Backers were caught playing nice with the Russians.  This included passing info to and from Wikileaks. This produced even more visible ties to the Russian Conspiracy. (Daily Check-In 06/11/2018). We also heard of EVEN MORE contacts between the Russians and the NRA.

On June 15th, Paul Manafort went to prison.  I still get a smile on my facing knowing that he has most likely spent his final day as a free man. (Daily Check-In 06/15/2018).  That day, we also found out about the cut-out the Russians used to get the DNC emails to Wikileaks.

I was a little busy at the end of June and beginning of July. (Irregular Posts)

 

JULY 2018: RUSSIAN SPIES AND VERBAL BLOWJOBS

The three biggest stories of July involved Russia.  Surprise, surprise.

While Trump was on his way to Helsinki for a summit meeting with his boss Vladimir Putin, Robert Mueller indicted 12 members of the Russian GRU for hacking the DNC. (Daily Check-In 07/13/2018)

The next big story was Trump giving Putin a verbal blowjob in Helsinki, where he parroted everything Putin said, including how he believed him over all of the United States Intelligence Community. (Daily Check-In 07/16/2018)

While that was happening, news broke that a Russian woman named Mariia Butina was arrested for being an unregistered agent of the Russians.  She was a spy for the Russians that worked for Alexander Torshin and the Russian Government to infiltrate the National Rifle Association.  Over the next couple weeks a lot of her contacts came to light, including deep ties to the Religious Right and even some members of Congress.

A weird narrative developed on Daily Check-In 07/20/2018 as details emerged from the Cohen Investigation in SDNY.  Out of the million plus documents that the feds seized, only a handful of them were within the realm of Attorney-Client Privilege.  Some of that info were recordings Cohen made covering his meetings with Trump.  Trump then went after Cohen, and Cohen fought back.  Eventually a tape of Trump getting briefed on the Karen McDougal payoff was released.  Also, Cohen said Trump knew of the June 9th meeting, because he told him about it on June 7th. (Daily Check-In 07/26/2018). That prep meeting included 6 people.  Trump, Donnie Jr., Paul Manafort, Cohen, Trump’s secretary Rhona, and Paul’s second Rick Gates. (Daily Check-In 07/27/2018)

Paul Manafort’s tax evasion trial began on Daily Check-In 07/31/2018.

 

AUGUST 2018: MANAFORT FOUND GUILTY

While the Manafort trial was underway, more news about Roger Stone came out.  His crew has been under investigation for a long time. Long enough to make the constant jokes about him being in a barrel feel like they need thrown in a barrel.  (Daily Check-In 08/10/2018)

Omarosa released a book.  While talking about it, she let it be known that she was interviewed by Mueller’s team and that Trump knew about the Wikileaks email dump beforehand, (Daily Check-In 08/14/2018)

Don McGahn interviewed with the Special Counselor’s team for more than 30 hours.  As the White House Counsel, nothing he said was covered under privilege. (Daily Check-In 08/20/2018)

Paul Manafort was found guilty on 8 of his 18 counts in his tax evasion trial.  It came out that one juror didn’t convict on the charges related to money laundering.  (Daily Check-In 08/21/2018)

Bob Dole’s involved in a bank so corrupt even the Russians won’t do business with it. (Daily Check-In 08/28/2018)

Sam Patten, an associate of Manafort who worked with Cambridge Analytica, pleaded guilty to FARA violations. (Daily Check-In 08/31/2018)

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 felony counts the same day that Manafort was convicted.  In his plea deal, Cohen said flat out that Trump directed him to pay off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.  Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg and the head of the National Enquirer David Pecker were given immunity for their assistance in the Cohen and Trump investigations.

 

SEPTEMBER 2018:  KAVANAUGH, FEAR, AND FLIPPING.  OR SO WE THOUGHT

Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear” is released.  Around the same time, an anonymous Op-Ed is published in the New York Times that describes Trump as dangerous. (Daily Check-In 09/06/2018).

Paul Manafort appeared to flip on Trump on Daily Check-In 09/14/2018.

Supreme Court Justice Kennedy retired, allowing Trump to nominate Brett Kavanaugh.  During his confirmation hearings, reports of multiple sexual assaults involving Brett made the news.  This led to possibly the most disgraceful performance by the Senate in modern history.  They decided to half-heartedly reopen the investigation into the allegations.  They also agreed to hear Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, but pussed out and hired a woman to interview her.

Devin Nunes used this distraction to release transcripts (Daily Check-In 09/28/2018).

 

OCTOBER 2018:  THE COMING STORM

The Mueller front was rather quiet during October, for the most part.

Elena Alekseenvna Khusyaynova, Accountant from Project Lakhta was indicted on 10-19-18. Daily Check-In 10/19/2018. Elena was the accountant in charge of Project Lakhta, Russia’s project to influence the 2018 Election.  She received a Criminal Complaint for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.

On Daily Check-In 10/02/2018 the New York Times dropped a big story destroying the myth of Trump being a self-made millionaire.  His daddy bailed him out all the time, and his siblings took part along with him in schemes to avoid paying taxes.  His sister was a federal judge.

In October, news about the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.  (Daily Check-In 10/12/2018).  Jamal was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.  While the free world lined up to blame Mohammed Bin Salman for his role in the murder, Trump and Kushner bent over backwards to cover for their buddy, the Saudi Crown Prince.

 

NOVEMBER 2018:  THE BLUE WAVE

Dmitry Ryobolev, the Russian Oligarch who paid $95 million for a Trump property worth less than $40 million, was busted on Daily Check-In 11/06/2018.

The Democrats won control of the House of Representatives.  In overwhelming fashion.  Halfway through the following day, Trump fired Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. (Daily Check-In 11/07/2018). Matt Whitaker was named as Acting AG.

Steve Bannon’s role in Brexit came to the foreground (Daily Check-In 11/19/2018).

Trump finally submitted his written answers for Mueller’s questions. (Daily Check-In 11/20/2018).

Mueller’s team pulled their deal from Paul Manafort, saying that he lied to them and fed Trump information. (Daily Check-In 11/26/2018).  This likely implicates Trump on lying to investigators and committing perjury.  Only Trump could get caught cheating on a take-home test.

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to Lying to Congress. (Daily Check-In 11/29/2018).

 

DECEMBER 2018:  SENTENCING AND THE WHEELS FALL OFF

Michael Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in jail. (Daily Check-In 12/12/2018). During his sentencing, Cohen once again said that he committed his crimes at Trump’s direction. Most importantly, he said that all of the crimes he did, he did at Trump’s direction.

The Special Counselor recommended that Flynn not serve prison time because of how helpful he’s been.  Then Flynn tried some “But I was entrapped” shit.  That didn’t sit well with the Judge, who flat out asked if Flynn committed Treason at his sentencing. (Daily Check-In 12/18/2018)

Bijan Kian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, Turkish nationals were indicted on Daily Check-In 12/17/2018.  Bijan Kian was the second in command of Flynn Intel Group.  Kamil Alptekin set up Inovo BV, a Dutch company designed to hide payments from Turkey’s government.  Kamil and Bijan were both indicted for FARA violations and Acting as a Foreign Agent.

Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from Syria.  Jim Mattis resigned in protest. (Daily Check-In 12/20/2018).  And for the third time this year, there’s a government shutdown.

 

HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED?

At this time last year, it felt like screaming at a brick wall to get people to pay attention to the criminality of Donald Trump, let alone anyone else in his retinue.  Now, there’s no doubt that he’s at least surrounded by criminals.  It’s kind of hard to have a personal attorney who’s going to jail for three years, who implicated him in his crimes, and have the Federal attorneys say that there is ample evidence to charge him with multiple crimes.  Plus, the Trump Foundation was shut down for being a slush fund.

I didn’t include some of the other crazy shit like the border policies of separating children from their parents, or GOP’s attempt at rigging electoral systems across the country.  I also barely touched on how big the Democrats won in the election.  They claimed about 40 seats in the House, and won in places like Utah and Oklahoma.  They won legislative victories in Wisconsin and Michigan.  The only major races they lost are covered in so much controversy that those races are tainted, and one of them is currently headed towards a rerun.

I have no clue when the Mueller probe will end, or how big it will be when it ends.  Anyone who says they know is full of shit.  But things have changed in the last year.

I feel a sense of inevitability about impeachment.  It’s no longer a question of “if” but “when” and “for which crimes?”  This isn’t just because the Democrats won the House, but because of the continuing pile-on of crimes.  Everyone in Trump’s orbit is up to their necks in some criminal behavior.  It’s only a matter of time before we have to answer the following:

  • Can a sitting President be indicted by the Federal Government?
  • What about a state?
  • How many countries are involved in the Grand Bargain/Russian Conspiracy?
  • Is treason the worst of the crimes?
  • How long will Mike Pence be President?
  • What about Nancy Pelosi?
  • How many people will Maria Butina link up with?

As of the end of the year, there have been…

Gimme a second…

34 to 45 people indicted in 2018, depending on who gets counted.  That’s a lot of witches for this witch hunt.

 

That’s it for today.  I have one more post for the year covering the weekend and New Year’s Eve.  Aside from that, I’ll see yinz next year.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

Daily Check-In 12/28/2018

Friday, December 28, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

New Jersey prosecutors have collected evidence that supervisors at President Trump’s Garden State golf club may have committed federal immigration crimes — and the FBI as well as special counsel Robert Mueller have played part in the inquiry, the Daily News has learned.

Anibal Romero, a Newark attorney who represents several undocumented immigrants who used to work at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, said Friday he recently met with investigators from the state attorney general’s office and handed over fraudulent green cards and Social Security numbers that management at the club allegedly procured and gave his clients, Victorina Morales and Sandra Diaz.

…

Before he met with the state prosecutors, Romero said he reached out to Mueller’s office because, while he wanted to contact federal authorities, he was concerned about looping in the Justice Department, which was headed by Jeff Sessions at the time.

“I wasn’t sure, one, if they’d take me seriously and, two, if this could backfire on my clients,” Romero told The News, referencing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration agenda.

Mueller’s office, which is separately investigating Trump’s campaign for possible collusion with Russians during the 2016 election, made contact and informed Romero the matter was not within their jurisdiction.

A few weeks later, an FBI agent in New Jersey called Romero.

“He said to me that he had received a referral from Robert Mueller’s office and that he already knew the specifics and that he wanted to meet with me in person,” Romero said.

Romero then met with two agents at a federal office in Branchburg, N.J., and outlined the same evidence he had already given the AG prosecutors. The agents said they would “coordinate” with the AG’s office, according to Romero.

Romero said he’s stayed in touch with the FBI and the attorney general’s office but declined to confirm whether either of the agencies have formally opened investigations.

“I’m confident that federal and state authorities will conduct a complete and thorough investigation,” Romero said.

Remember the story a few weeks ago about Trump’s Bedminster club in New Jersey employing illegal immigrants, and they were provided with fake SSN cards and paperwork by the resort? (Daily Check-In 12/06/2018) It’s another one of those stories that got lost in the shuffle of a crazy day, but the short version is that Trump’s Bedminster golf club and resort hired at least 5 illegal immigrants.  To get them on the payroll, the supervisors at the company produced fake paperwork like Social Security Cards for the illegals.

This is… highly illegal.  So illegal that the lawyer for the illegal workers went to the New Jersey Attorney General and Bobby Three Sticks.  Since this isn’t directly associated to Russia, they said it wasn’t their jurisdiction but did refer it to the FBI New Jersey office.

Nothing like an investigation across multiple sovereignties to raise the holiday spirits.

 

SHUTDOWN

 

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

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

56% of all abortions are by white women. 89% of which consider themselves Christian. Instead of being up in my mentions pretending you give a #%#* about black babies being aborted, you hypocritical evangelicals need to go have a talk with your own wives, daughters & mistresses.

You hypocritical bigots talking about black abortions are the same ones who want to take away healthcare & assistance programs from the Black women you want to have the babies, stereotype them as irresponsible & promiscuous, and label the kids as ‘thugs’ when cops murder them.

All while you erroneously use the ‘immorality’ of Black people to sound your fake moral alarm, you evangelical ‘christians’ are supporting pedophiles, rapists & sexual predators for elected office & think a porn star banging unrepentant racist pathological liar is God‘s anointed.

When it comes to the vile, degenerate profligacy of your morally deficient ‘anointed’ leader in the WH, you evangelical charlatans bend over backwards lowering the standards of moral living to excuse away his malfeasance in the name of grace, which you never offer anyone else.

Evangelicals use ‘Black abortions’ as a racist cudgel to delegitimize Black Lives Matter. They minimize the legitimate grievance of the extra judicial murder of Blacks by police because of abortion, a practice legalized by white Republican judges to benefit white women.

Evangelicals harp on ‘Black abortions’ but turn a blind eye to their GOP heroes like Scott Lloyd, Elliott Broidy, Tim Murphy, & Scott DesJarlais, who push anti abortion legislation while simultaneously knocking up their mistresses/girlfriends and insisting they have abortions.

There is something very wrong with your theological and political ideology when your “pro life“ champion is a POTUS who tried to have his daughter Tiffany aborted and has paid for at least eight other mistresses to have abortions.

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

This is gonna give me nightmares for a while.  Macs are much harder to get into and pwn, but it is possible.  The Fruitfly malware took advantage of three elements to get access to a system.

  1. Users leaving the default functionalities like Back to My Mac open.
  2. Weak or no passwords
  3. Most Mac users don’t run antivirus software.

I could go into the specific details and fill a couple papers with the security differences between Windows and MacOS, but the short version is that MacOS s a Unix operating system with a really pretty front end.  Because it’s Unix, functionality for different user roles is sandboxed off from each other.  This makes standard virus exposure just from visiting a site next to impossible, but like I’ve said before in Voter Rolls – The Easy Target, there’s more than one way into a system.

Most Mac malware infections come from either phishing attacks or trojans.  Both require the user doing something stupid.  Given a lifetime around computers and their users, I can categorically say the weakest part of any computer security system is the user.

Where Fruitfly differs is that the infector installed it directly on the computer using built-in backdoors for Apple software like Apple File Protocol or Back to My Mac.  These programs would default to a set number of ports on the computer.  The infector would scan those port numbers (which is actually pretty easy to do) and see what was there.  If they came back with the default apps, the infector would try to connect to the Mac.  If he hit little or no resistance on the user name and password, he would go in and install his little program buried so deep in the computer that nothing would find it.  He’d then use that program to occasionally connect back to his server and upload pics from the target computers.

If the port numbers didn’t have the default apps, he wouldn’t go further.  That means that either the apps he needs to use as a backdoor are either offline or moved.  If they’re offline, he can’t get in.  If they’re changed, then he’s dealing with a power user, and if they’re going to the trouble of changing port numbers, then they probably have a bunch of booby traps and tough passwords.

This also explains why Back to My Mac was discontinued in Mac OS Mojave a few months ago.

What’s Ming getting at?  I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear about Republican operatives trying to use similar methods to pwn various devices of Democrats and others.

Daily Check-In 12/20/2018 first mentioned this story, but Sara breaks down a very peculiar past for Brian Kolfage.  This is definitely worth a read, but the main takeaway is that starting in 2011 he went from organizing for Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona to getting caught up in Sheriff Joe’s shenanigans in Maricopa County.  Joe Arpaio is “allegedly” mobbed up to his neck, and this Kolfage guy bounced around from Arizona to Ukraine (while Manafort was there) to Florida.

Also, this GoFundMe attracted A LOT of attention from the Russians.

This is the part that historians will point out that this is the third shutdown in 2018, and the only times that a shutdown occurred when one party had control of the White House, the Senate, and the House.  That’s like an NFL team losing a game to a High School JV team, and accusing the JV team of cheating.

This is once again splitting hairs on the Cohen Prague story, but is worth a deeper look.  Louise’s sources said that Cohen’s device accessed the hotel WiFi, but didn’t say if it was a phone, tablet, or laptop.  Other sources are saying it was one of his phones that pinged cell phone towers.  It’s possible they could both be correct.  If Cohen used his laptop at the hotel to check his mail, his phone could independently contact the cell tower.  I talked about how that works yesterday. (Daily Check-In 12/27/2018)

There is so much shady shit going on in Dubai and the related area that anyone tied to Erik Prince should be very, very worried right now.

Remember, Rand Paul hand delivered a letter from Trump for Putin. (Daily Check-In 08/08/2018)  That’s not standard operating procedure for an open and clear communication channel.  That’s the kind of shit spies and mobsters do.

I’m going to make a Jill Stein/Green Party primer, so that any time someone pulls some Pro-Stein bullshit, I can send them a list of her shadiest shit.

So, sometime in the next few weeks, get ready for this story to drop.  By the way, accepting hacked emails is a crime.  Especially if they came from a foreign government and were meant to sway an election.

 

That’s it for Friday.  I’m going to start on my retrospective piece in the next few hours, along with other some work on the site.  It’s time to update the Russian Hypothesis and create a page for the Grand Bargain Theory.

Like I said yesterday, I’m putting the weekend on Monday’s post, and starting fresh on Tuesday with a new year.  I also want to do some housecleaning on the site.  One idea is to go through the Daily Check-In Collection and put a quick blurb next to each day with the highlights.  It might help with navigating the site.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur