Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 12/13/2018

Thursday, December 13, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Butina

THREAD: What can we learn from the cooperation deal with Russian spy Maria Butina? (Answer: A lot.)

1/ Today Russian spy Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to secretly work as a Russian agent within the United States. As part of her plea, Butina and federal prosecutors agreed on the facts that proved her guilt, and they are shocking. See here:

2/ Butina pleaded guilty to working with “U.S. Person 1” (her former paramour, GOP operative Paul Erickson) to secretly act as a Russian agent at the direction of “Russian Official,” which @CNN has identified as Alexander Torshin.

3/ Butina admitted that she drafted a proposal in Russian called “Description of the Diplomacy Project” that suggested Russia could use “unofficial channels of communication” to build relations with Political Party #1 (the Republican Party).

4/ In the proposal, she pointed to her attendance at conferences organized by “Gun Rights Organization” (the National Rifle Association or @NRA), which she told the Russian government had influence over the Republican Party.

5/ She told the Russian government that she believed the Republican Party would win the next presidential election and that she “laid the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication with the next U.S. administration.”

6/ In the proposal, Butina also claimed that she had been introduced to Republican Party leaders as “an unofficial representative” of Russian official Alexander Torshin. (It’s worth noting that there are photos of Butina with Trump Jr., Santorum, and many others.)

7/ What shocks me most is that Erickson helped write this proposal! His behavior amounts to what most Americans would regard as outright treason. (As I discussed on my latest #OnTopic podcast with @Mimirocah1, our Constitution defines “treason” narrowly.) What was he thinking?

8/ In the joint statement to the court agreed to by the government and Butina, they said Erickson reviewed a Google-translated version of the proposal and gave advice, including information about U.S. political figures and connection with a Russian media commentator.

9/ Butina sent the proposal to the Russian official (Torshin) and asked for $125,000 from a Russian billionaire to attend NRA conferences as well as “separate meetings with interested parties,” including the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

10/ She then traveled to the U.S. in April 2015 to attend a NRA convention. and was introduced to “influential members” of the Republican Party, including Donald Trump. (As @washpost recently noted, she was later able to directly ask Trump a question.)

11/ (The question was about sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2014 invasion of Crimea, and Trump gave an answer–“I don’t think you’d need the sanctions”–the Russian government would have favored.)

12/ Butina and federal prosecutors noted that part of the conspiracy was also inviting NRA leaders to Moscow in December 2015, and using Torshin to set up meetings with high-ranking Russian politicians because doing so would advance Russian interests.

13/ According to Butina and federal prosecutors, Butina sent the following message to Russian official Torshin about the NRA, translated from the original Russian: “We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.”

14/ Butina also hosted “friendship dinners” with individuals who she believed “would have the ear of the next U.S. presidential administration.” She told Torshin about one attendee who Erickson connected her with, and then sent an email to that attendee, copying Erickson:

15/ “Torshin is very impressed with you and expresses his great appreciation for what you are doing to restore the relations between the two countries. He also wants you to know the Russians will support the efforts from our side.”

16/ Butina then helped organize a Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast after Trump’s election. Butina emailed Erickson that a list of invitees was handpicked by her and Torshin and were “coming to establish a back channel of communication.”

17/ Erickson emailed someone (we don’t know who), copying Butina, stating “Reaction to the delegation’s presence in America will be relayed DIRECTLY” to Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister. As the statement makes clear, Butina did all of this work under Torshin’s direction.

18/ So what does today’s news mean legally? Now that Butina will testify against him, Erickson faces what appears to be overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Indeed, as @woodruffbets and @ErinBanco reported recently, Erickson received a target letter.

19/ That means that federal prosecutors intend to indict him. One reason why prosecutors send someone a target letter is because they *want* the person to find a criminal defense attorney. I’ve done that before myself when I was a federal prosecutor.

20/ Why would prosecutors want Erickson to get a good federal criminal defense attorney? Because they hope the attorney will tell Erickson that he faces overwhelming evidence and needs to cooperate.

21/ What did Erickson tell GOP leaders, NRA leaders, GOP operatives and others when he was connecting them with a Russian spy? Those conversations will be of very great interest to federal prosecutors because they might reveal others who also acted as Russian agents.

22/ Even if they didn’t act as Russian agents, it is important for the United States to know whether the Russian government can blackmail any powerful American. Securing Erickson’s testimony is the logical next step for prosecutors. The big question: Where does he lead them? /end

Butina flipped.  Or at least appears to.  Aside from her admitting to everything that she’s done so far, I’m left with two main questions. (Daily Check-In 12/12/2018)

  1.  Why is she cooperating?  Is it to get out of jail early, do the right thing, or spread chaos?
  2. What does she think will come of this?  Unless she asks for asylum in the United States after her sentence is over, she’ll likely be deported back to Russia where it’ll take about 5 minutes before she suffers a Russian Heart Attack.

One thing that is certain is that everyone from the NRA to the Religious Right to the GOP should be very, very worried.

 

Flynn

 

Cohen

 

Incoming & Upcoming

 

Middle East

There’s a ton of connections to the Middle East from everyone involved in Team Trump.  This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been following along, but needs a reminder from time to time.  George Nader flipped a long while back. (Cooperating Witnesses)

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Cohen Hush Money

So, when Michael Cohen was discussing paying off Trump’s former affairs with David Pecker and a third person in the room, it looks like the third person was… Individual-1 himself, Donald Trump.  Trump is a micromanaging asshole.  Anyone who doesn’t think that he was heavily involved in coordinating this attack on his brand doesn’t understand him or his unrelenting narcissism.

 

Inauguration

YAY!!!  Time to investigate the slush fund.

 

Speed Freak

Aderrall use and soliciting favors from teen girls.  I can’t wait for the Religious Right to defend this shit.

 

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

A classic example is how he “regifted” Ivanka to Jared as a wedding present.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

EPSTEIN

I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.

  1. In 1992, Trump is quoted in an interview as saying the above.
  2. In the 1990s up through when he was reportedly barred in 2007, Epstein was known as a regular at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
  3. It was widely reported in the early 2000s that Trump socialized with Epstein, for example attending a dinner party [1][2] at Epstein’s that was thrown in honor of Bill Clinton.
  4. In 2004, court documents revealed Epstein’s address book/journal. Among the many names found inside was Donald Trump. “Under his name were 14 phone numbers, including emergency numbers, car numbers, and numbers to Trump’s security guard and houseman.” Also included were at least 21 separate numbers for Bill Clinton; 16 separate phone numbers for Prince Andrew, 3 numbers for former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, 1 number for ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, etc. (source).
  5. In 2009, Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, testified that “Trump flew on Jeffrey’s private jet at least once”.
  6. The same year, Trump was reportedly subpoenaed in a case involving Epstein victim Virginia Roberts, who claimed she was recruited as Epstein’s sex-slave while working as a $9-per-hour locker room attendant at Mar-A-Lago in the late 1990s, and subsequently pimped/loaned out by Epstein to various friends of his, including Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz. Both of them denied it.
  7. In 2010, Epstein was asked under oath if he had “ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18”. He pleaded the fifth.
  8. In 2016, Trump was accused, along with Epstein, of having on 3 occasions sexually assaulted and one 1 occasion raped a 13 year old girl at Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 1994. Trump and Epstein categorically denied it ever happened. The lawsuit was dismissed for technical errors and the plaintiff’s failure to pay the cost of litigation. She filed another lawsuit in New York, this time as Jane Doe, but withdraws 3 months later. She refiled in New York again and was set to appear at a press conference 6 days before the election, but canceled, citing threats on her life, and ultimately dropped the lawsuit.
  9. In 2017, Trump nominated Alexander Acosta as labor secretary. Acosta was briefly questioned about the Epstein case during a Senate confirmation hearing but he didn’t offer any new details. He was confirmed and sworn inand serves in that post today.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quietly given up her Republican registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, saying Thursday she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the GOP’s direction nationally and in the state.

In a phone interview with CALmatters, Cantil-Sakauye—who was a prosecutor before becoming a judge 28 years ago and California Supreme Court chief justice in 2011—said she made the final decision to change her registration after watching the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“You can draw your own conclusions,” she said.

In those hearings, Kavanaugh denied allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto professor, that he assaulted her when they were high school students in Maryland.

“I’ve been thinking about it for some time,” Cantil-Sakauye said, adding that she talked it over with her husband and friends. Their consensus, she said, was that “you didn’t leave the party. The party left you.”

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

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 Thursday.  Let’s review what happened…

  • A Russian spy admitted to being a Russian spy and implicated her handler, her boss, and her patsy boyfriend.
  • The President’s personal attorney and tabloid publicist handed over information on a criminal cover-up to the Feds.
  • Same attorney had documents on the Trump Inauguration slush fund, which is under a criminal investigation.
  • A comedian who worked for Trump said in his stand up routine that Trump tried to fuck teenage beauty pageant contestants and snorted a drug for ADD which, if taken by someone who doesn’t have that disease, makes them get all wired.  He also said how a lot of those girls looked a hell of a lot like Ivanka.
  • Trump is on Plan D or E for his Chief of Staff, and is thinking of having Jared do the job.
  • The Senate said “Fuck You and Fuck MSB” with their Yemen War vote.
  • Mueller’s been looking into the Middle East and all of their ties.

Damn.  That’s a lot to take in.  The Middle East one is particularly interesting.  I’ve been thinking about the Grand Bargain Theory for the last couple of weeks, and how it ties together Russia with the Middle East.  I like it so much I’ll try to write about it in the upcoming weeks.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/12/2018

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Cohen Gets 3 Years

“Today is the day that I am getting my freedom back,” Cohen told U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley, a Bill Clinton appointee who minutes later handed down the prison sentence. “I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired.”

Ouch.  I wonder what the Special Counselor’s team had to say about Michael Cohen.

Special Counsel’s Office prosecutor Jeannie S. Rhee said that Cohen provided “credible” and “valuable information” regarding “any links between a campaign and a foreign government.” “Mr. Cohen has sought to tell us the truth,” Rhee said. “There’s only so much we can say about the particulars at this time, given our ongoing investigation,” Rhee said.

Lordy, lordy, lordy.  Former Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee and personal attorney to President Donald J. Trump Michael Cohen has been sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for tax evasion, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.  But that’s not the interesting part.

What’s interesting is that the makings of a solid case against Donald Trump exists for multiple felonies, and SDNY sounds like they’re ready to pull the trigger on going after his orange ass.  And that might be the least of his problems.

First, Cohen directly said that he committed the campaign finance violations and related tax evasions, at the direction of and in coordination with Donald Trump.  The main crimes he was charged with was organizing payoffs for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels back in 2016.  These payoffs used campaign money to keep these women quiet about affairs with Trump back in 2005.  In both cases, money was laundered from the Trump Presidential Campaign through middlemen to the women with the caveat that they couldn’t talk about their experiences.  Karen’s payoff went through AMI and the National Enquirer, while Stormy’s went though an LLC that Cohen set up for this specific cause, Essential Consultants LLC.  That last one bit Cohen in the ass when he used that shell company for selling “access” to the President as a lobbyist of sorts.  (Daily Check-In 11/29/2018, Daily Check-In 12/11/2018, Daily Check-In 08/21/2018, Daily Check-In 01/12/2018)

 

National Enquirer

Next, David Pecker and AMI, the publishers behind the National Enquirer, are cooperating with federal prosecutors in exchange for immunity from the Cohen case.  Pecker has a safe full of embarrassing info on Trump which included the McDougal story.  It’s almost a certainty that Pecker gave the Feds the contents of that safe so he could walk away. (Daily Check-In 07/27/2018)

How does this get worse for Trump?

 

Cooperation with Congress

Michael Cohen was in the room where it happened.  He organized, handled, and coordinated activities between the Trump Organization, the Trump Campaign, and all of the ne’er-do-wells that wanted to work with them, like the Russian government, Cambridge Analytica, or the National Enquirer.  And he’s willing to testify before Congress about all he knows.

 

Hannity Deletes Cohen Tweets

Trump’s not the only person shitting bricks right now.  One of Cohen’s other clients spent most of the day deleting tweets.  Sure, it could be completely coincidental that a man whose lawyer was getting sentenced in federal court tried to delete tweets that tied him to various efforts to obfuscate his dealings, but if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

 

Implications

U.S. Attorneys said in no uncertain terms that Donald Trump committed crimes with Michael Cohen.  They can’t say that unless they’ve got the proof and are ready to use it.

Remember when Cohen’s shit was seized, and there was this big hubbub about Cohen recording all of his conversations with Trump?  Only a small fraction of Cohen’s work was deemed as privileged information, and then Trump blows up his confidentiality anyway.  The feds have those recordings.

 

Flynn

Something that gets lost in the shuffle with this whole “Lying to Investigators” story is the caliber of the lie.  They’re not bringing criminal charges for forgetting that he sent an email when he said he didn’t, or said he ate steak when he had chicken, or lied to his buddies about banging some chick he brought home from the bar when instead he went home and jerked off to the underwear section of the weekly Walmart ad.  No, they caught him lying repeatedly in the same conversation about a pretty big deal.  It’s akin to asking a husband if he cheated on his wife and he said no a dozen times, even though he was a dumbass and streamed it to PornHub.

What freaked out the investigators the most was that here was the fucking NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  They should be on the same side.  And Flynn was the head of the DIA, one of the major intelligence organizations.  Being the head of an intel group should make him paranoid AF.  Instead, the thought never crossed his mind that someone might be bugging the phone line of the Russian Ambassador right after all of the national intelligence organizations signed on to a report that they attacked the United States.  And cops, feds, and investigators don’t like to ask questions they don’t already know the answer to.  If Flynn said “Yeah, I talked to that fat fuck and told him to chill the fuck out and let’s talk when DT’s in house”, then the investigators would be cool with that.  Instead, Flynn lied when he didn’t have to lie, and dug himself even deeper.  When they looked into his story more, they uncovered a trash pile of treasonous activities.

 

Butina

Looks like we’re waiting until Thursday to hear from Red Sparrow.

 

Simona says she is looking forward to pursuing a Hollywood career now that she and her man are ‘at the end, I hope, of a dark period’. She’d already landed a part as Brigitte Bardot in an unfinished film called Affairs on Capri, directed by a British man called Paul Wiffen.

Wiffen, it turns out, is the former Chairman of UKIP London, a contributor to Russia Today, a fierce opponent of George Soros, and somebody who once attended a party with Anna Chapman, the former Russian intelligence agent turned media personality. That background will do nothing to quell rumors that somehow Simone Mangiante Papadopoulos is part of a sinister Kremlin plot

Funny how it is the international relations expert from Italy who speaks with a Russian accent and lied on her passport suddenly thinks that she’s an actress, and is staring in a play financed by someone with suspicious ties to Russia.

On second thought, scratch that.  This suddenly makes sense.

 

 

NEW YORK, EMOLUMENTS, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

Here’s your friendly reminder that a President cannot pardon state crimes.

 

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

Calls for Violence

People underestimate these calls for violence, but think about it like this.

A puppet madman dictator wannabe with delusions of grandeur and has rallied the most deplorable members of society to his cause while creating a cult-like atmosphere of fanatical dipshits who, coincidentally, are both afraid of everything and armed to the teeth, calls upon his cult to rise up and attack those who seek to unseat Dear Leader from his golden toilet.  Do we forget the MAGABomber? (Daily Check-In 10/24/2018)

This is why when the case is made to remove Trump, the worst and most vile evidence has to be released.  There will still be some crazies out there, but the first step to avoiding violence is breaking the will to do so.  Nothing will do that quite like treason, theft, ties to murder, human trafficking, and pedophilia.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

“Career prosecutors here in New York have evidence that the president of the United States committed a felony by ordering and paying Michael Cohen to break the law,” Napolitano said while speaking on Fox News. “How do we know that? They told that to the federal judge. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they actually have that hardcore evidence. Under the rules, they can’t tell that to the federal judge unless they intend to do something with that evidence.”

When Fox News says Trump’s fucked, Trump’s fucked.  And he’s fucked.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

North Carolina

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Damn.  Thursday’s gonna be busy too, with Butina pleading guilty to conspiracy and the like.  Plus, we’re hearing that Mueller is looking into Trump’s ties in the Middle East.  Makes the Grand Bargain sound more likely all of the time.

The walls are closing in, and things are accelerating.  We’ll probably get a lull around the holidays, but the stream of incoming news feels like it’s accelerating to something big.  Something that will shake people to their core.  Remember, most people aren’t paying attention to the details and only get a piece of the picture.  Once they get all of it, things could get ugly.  Hopefully, it’ll get ugly in a good way.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/11/2018

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Flynn and Manafort

I didn’t have time to dig into this in depth, but his sentencing is scheduled for December 18th.  Both Mueller’s team and Flynn’s team argue for no jail time for this crime due to how much he cooperated.  We’ll see how this goes.

Butina

Remember, she has ties to EVERYONE.

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

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

Shutdown and Temper Tantrum

Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and don’t bring a Pence to a Pelosi fight.

Here’s the setup: Trump & Pence invite Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over to the White House for negotiations to avoid another government shutdown.  Trump wants $5 Billion for his border wall, and since he’s the shittiest businessman to ever fail up, he won’t accept anything less than that.  During the negotiations, Trump invites the Press into the Oval Office.  Tangerine Tojo thinks this will pressure Nancy and Chuck into caving into his demands.  Instead, he gets his ass handed to him by two expert fighters.  They proded Trump into saying, damn near yelling that he’d be “proud to shut down the government” over the wall funding.

Trump got played like a fiddle.  Nancy emasculated him by saying that the wall must be about his manhood, Chuck let him screw himself, and Pence sat on the chair like the guy at the party who smoked too much.

Trump.  World’s Worst Negotiator.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

Epstein

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS

 

#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

Google at Congress

 

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Comey is, or at least was until recently, a Republican.

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT ISSUES

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

CONGRESS

 

ELECTIONS

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

Sean Hannity’s time in the barrel must be close at hand bcuz he’s spent some considerable time this morning deleting tweets. Orly Sean? 👀 H/t and all photos credit to 👇1/

2/

3/

4/

And finally this one, from back in April and on the subject of NoKo? Maybe this wasn’t going to age so well, eh Sean?🖕 /end

Looks like someone’s a bit nervous.  Good.

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  I was busy most of the night, so the editorializing is a little on the light side.  Sometimes life happens.

Cohen’s sentencing and Maria’s plea deal are scheduled for Wednesday.  Let’s see how this goes down.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 12/10/2018

Monday, December 10, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Butina

Alleged Russian agent Maria Butina is asking the judge to set a change of plea hearing, and pitched several days this week. “The parties have resolved this matter”

Butina pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in July. She was indicted on two counts: acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the US govt, and conspiring to do that. She’s been in jail this whole time:

So a “change of plea hearing” would indicate she’s now going to plead guilty to something, but it may not be those two charges. We know from earlier court filings that she’s been negotiating an agreement with the govt

Federal public defender AJ Kramer is still referenced in this latest request as “advisory counsel” and we don’t have addl info on what exactly that means. But we may get more info soon: Butina’s lawyers are okay unsealing the part of last week’s hearing that was sealed

New: Maria Butina’s change of plea hearing has been set for Wednesday (12/12) at 3:15pm

Well, ain’t that interesting.  Maria Butina, the Red Sparrow, is about to plead guilty and become a cooperating witness for the United States government.

Maria, who was arrested on Daily Check-In 07/16/2018 for being an unregistered agent of Russia.  She spent the previous couple years developing backchannel communications between Russia and the Republican Party through the NRA and Religious Right organizations.  She has met with everyone from Donnie Jr. to Congressmen, Senators, and leaders in the PAC community.  She was able to help pull enough strings to make sure that her “boyfriend” Paul Erickson called in favors to keep Mitt Romney from being appointed Secretary of State.  She helped connect Russians like Alexander Torshin, an accused money launderer, together with senior figures in the Republican Party through the National Rifle Association, in the year where they donated between $30 and $70 million to candidates from a part of their organization where they aren’t required to identify their donors.

According to reports, she’s prepared to plead guilty on Wednesday and become a cooperating witness.

If I were David Clarke, Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, anyone in the NRA or National Prayer Breakfast conference, or John Bolton, I’d be pretty nervous right now.

 

Rudy

I talked about his yesterday (Daily Check-In 12/07/2018), but it’s good to see that someone is going after Rudy for this.

 

Round-Up

 

Abandonment Issues

Like I said yesterday, I want to see how long this lasts.  If this survives a couple news cycles, be prepared for Individual-1 to have a lot fewer friends come springtime.

 

Impeachment and Indictment Talk

 

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

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

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Stories this weekend lead to unmistakeable conclusion that Kushner is compromised (debt) and immoral (“weather the storm” re Saudis), but also that he’s in deep trouble. Both IC and LE communities are making that clear. Kushner is going to have one hell of a week. #No1inlaw1/

Here is story. nytimes.com/2018/12/08/wor…3/

I think those who say he does good work in criminal justice reform have run their course. The president could care less. And Kushner can no longer represent a noble cause. People are complicated. But Kushner is complicit in serious criminality now against the country. 4/

That Kushner wanted Comey fired wasn’t his original sin. It began long before that. And for two years this country has been witness to Kushner covering up political, election and financial malfeasance, let alone murder. 5/

He must know options closing. He may be arrogant but the Kushners and Trumps are keenly aware of self preservation. Will the Kushner/Trump alliance hold? God knows. But Jared has been selling us (our democracy, our tax money, our security) for long enuf. Its Kushner time. 6/6

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

SCOTUS & COURTS/#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

STUDENT LOANS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

PRIESTS & RELIGION

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

One of the things that made me stop in my tracks and do a hard reset on self-driving or even semi-autonomous cars is when someone pointed out that they could detect and prevent vehicle attacks like James Fields’s.

I’ve talked before about the ethics of autonomous vehicles, and how the Trolley Problem isn’t even a real-world issue. Because the ethical issue underlying the Trolley Problem is not the choice of the innocent bystander, but the existence of the amoral actor.

What we have with the rise of vehicle attacks is actually the closest real-world scenario we’ll ever get to the Trolley Problem, and the solution is still the same: fix the bad actor.

But we can actually get to the point where the car can detect a crowd and prevent the driver from driving into it. Or at least prevent the driver from fleeing.

 

CONGRESS

Hatch dismisses allegations of Trump crimes over hush money. Asked if he had any concerns, Hatch said: “The Democrats will do anything to hurt this president.” Told it was alleged by SDNY, Hatch told me: “Okay but I don’t care; all I can say is he’s doing a good job as President”

Hatch added this when asked if he was concerned about allegations. “No because I don’t think he was involved in crimes but even then, you know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws; if you want to you can blow it way out of proportion you can do a lot of things.”

Hatch also told me: “President Trump before he became president that’s another world. Since he’s become president this economy has charged ahead. … And I think we ought to judge him on that basis other than trying to drum up things from the past that may or may not be true.”

Grassley, the Senate Judiciary chairman, similarly dismisses the federal prosecutors’ argument: “They based it on what a liar says, so it hurts the credibility of it.”

 

ELECTIONS

Florida

 

 

THINKING AHEAD

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Monday.  To be honest, I’m tired.  Very tired.  There’s a part of me that wants to take time off, but screw that, there’s a job to do, and this week is promising to be explosive.

With the Butina plea deal, SDNY calling Trump an unindicted co-conspirator, and Flynn, Cohen, and Manafort due back in court this week, it feels like we’re heading into the home stretch.  Really, we’re maybe a third or halfway through this battle.  It’s a long battle, but it’s worth it.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to take a few days off to rest and relax, but I’m not good at resting or relaxing.  I don’t like sitting still, laying down for too long unless I’m sleeping, or generally not doing something constructive.  That’s just how I’m wired.

I updated the Daily Check-In Collection last night.  I’ve been due to update the site and do some basic maintenance for quite some time.  I took a half-hour on that last night.  I still have a lot to do around here, but at least I got that done.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur