Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 11/08/2018

Thursday, November 8, 2018

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

No one is above the law.  No one.

Mueller’s team has begun writing its final report, multiple sources told CNN.

Before that happens, one of the major questions in the Russia investigation remains to be answered: What happens to Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser who has been at the center of a whirlwind of legal activity behind the scenes even during the election-related public quiet period by Mueller.

As recently as a month ago, Mueller asked Trump’s lawyers to produce call and visitor logs related to Stone from Trump Tower in New York, according to a source briefed on the matter. The request at this late stage of the investigation came as something of a surprise to lawyers involved, given that the Mueller team has been focused for months on Stone and his activities before the 2016 election.

Among the questions Mueller has asked the President to provide written responses on are queries about Stone and his communications with then-candidate Trump, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Expect the shit to hit the fan very soon.  As far as that request goes, remember when Paul Manafort flipped? (Daily Check-In 09/14/2018). In the last two months, he’s spent over 40 hours interviewing with the Special Counselor’s team.  My guess is Paulie Walnuts told them about Roger Stone visiting Trump Tower on certain dates, and gave them proof of the visits.

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

SCOTUS 

 

#METOO

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

1/ Some observations on the Jim Acosta situation: I watched the exchange just moments after it happened, then sent out a tweet saying the woman who tried to get his microphone should be lose her job. Swiftly, I was hit with a bot-driven response.

2/ The responses, as you’d expect from bots, were strikingly similar. It was either “Acosta assaulted that woman” or “he karate chopped her arm.” (I thought the karate reference was odd, since nothing in the live video suggest such a motion. It’s also just a random word choice.)

3/ My mentions swiftly filled up with other MAGA accounts – maybe real, maybe more bots – parroting the same language. That soon became the narrative on the right: Acosta attacked that woman! Hours later, the White House released a statement making a similar allegation.

4/ The statement said Acosta placed “his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.” A few hours later, Sarah Sanders releases a doctored video that has been sped up so it looks like Acosta’s arm is moving in – you guessed it – a chopping motion.

5/ I bring this up because I happened to be tuned in to the whole evolution of this thing. It shows just how swiftly an absurd disinformation campaign can be set in motion and how willingly the White House embraces these campaigns and uses them to stir the pot.

6/ I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ponder whether this could all have been a set up. Personally, I don’t think this administration is clever enough for that. I think they just stumble into other people’s nonsense and roll with it if it helps them. But this should concern us.

7/ Both because this administration is a moral vacuum that will leverage disinformation – and disseminate it – without a second thought. And because we’re clearly in an age where an administration that’s both soulless AND clever could easily create untold chaos. END

8/ This thread has now become a column, with expert insight from Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who studies social media disinformation campaigns.

Absurd Acosta story shows how disinformation bubbles from bots to the White House – Chicago Tribune

 

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTION 2018

Something that gets lost in the discussions about gerrymandering is that while it usually guarantees a certain number of seats for one party, it does so at the risk of getting blown out.  Here’s why.

Let’s say that a fictional city and surrounding area, like Gotham, have 10 representative districts.  Even though the city has most of the population for the area, the map was gerrymandered so that 80% of the population, mostly Democrats in the city were packed into 3 districts, and the remaining 7 are lightly populated but slightly above 50% Republican.  Under normal circumstances, the 3-7 math stays the same every year, especially at the beginning of the decade.

However, over time, some of the people living in the city move out to the suburbs, settling down out there.  Because of this, those 7 Republican districts go from 50% registered Republicans to only 40%, and it’s across the board.  Those 7 safe districts are no longer safe.

There are two main tools involved in the practice of gerrymandering.  Packing and Cracking.  Packing places those in one group in a small number of districts, while cracking splits them into several districts.  Utilizing both tools, a map can be drawn to completely neuter the majority in most cases.  Thing is, that packing and cracking can fail if there’s a demographic change over time, or a wave style election that overcomes the safety margin.  If each safe district is drawn with a +10% lean toward on party, the opposition would have to have more than that to win.  It’s like playing basketball to 50, but spotting the opponent 10 points at the start of the game.  If there’s a difference in talent or abilities, that 10 points can be overcome under special circumstances.

And it’s those demographic changes and special changes that are changing the politics around Dallas.

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

I’m cautious about getting too deep on this story for a few reasons.  Mostly, this article from Yahoo was the only piece I found on this even that didn’t come from the Right Wing Media.  A video surfaced on Twitter for a little while, but that was it.  It makes me wonder whether or not this actually happened, or if it was a planted story.

With Tucker Carlson, I don’t doubt he would do it at all.

 

That’s it for Thursday.  I’m on the road tomorrow.  I’ll try to keep up with some stuff, but when Donnie Jr., Roger Stone, or someone else gets indicted tomorrow morning, I’ll try to cover it when I get time.  In the meantime, I’ll wait for the alerts from WaPo and listen to some podcasts and audiobooks.  I’m about 8 hours into Presidents of War by Michael Beschloss, and I’ve got the Bag Man podcast from Rachel Maddow saved on the phone.  I can at least nerd out on the road.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 11/07/2018

Wednesday, November 7, 2018.  The day after the election.

 

Yesterday, Daily Check-In 11/06/2018, I mentioned how things would get crazy, but I honestly thought that wouldn’t happen until at least Thursday or Friday.

Boy, was I wrong.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

 

Sessions Forced to Quit

 

Let’s all take a deep breath and look at this for what it is: a desperate, last minute attempt by an idiot mobster to make an investigation into him and his family disappear.

Trump is hoping that he can make this “Russia Thing” go away by firing Jeff Sessions and replacing him with a pick of his choice. Cute, but expected.

This is a little league play, and Mueller is the New York Yankees. They have this wargammed out.

First, if at any point Trump so much breathes, implies, tweets, or says that he picked Whitaker to stop Mueller, then Whitaker becomes an accomplice in a Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice. Whitaker then has the choice between trying to follow Trump’s orders, or follow the DOJ’s rules. If he does try to execute Trump’s wishes after Trump makes such a stupid statement, then his actions would have criminal intent.

Second, notice how Mueller has outsourced so much work to other groups?  That’s to prevent everything from getting buried in the event of Mueller’s firing. Whenever a matter is investigated but not pursued, the attorney in charge has to go on record and explain why they’re not pursuing it for each case. While one corrupt lawyer might be able and willing to pull a Robert Bork, most of the U.S. Attorneys won’t do that.

Third, there are several Dead Man Switches built into this investigation. The best lawyers in the world spent the last year and a half planning for this contingency. The Special Counselor’s Office has instructions that in the event of the dismissal of the Special Counselor, then the Senior Assistant Special Counselors are free to pursue the investigations as they see fit. There are about half a dozen Assistant Special Counselors, all of them existing U.S. Attorneys from various jurisdictions around the country. This includes unsealing a whole crapload of indictments against EVERYONE.

Finally, don’t forget the states. When the indictments are unsealed, there will be talk of pardoning the family and the like. Pardon’s are a last ditch effort, and don’t work against state crimes.

The timing kind of sucks, but there are two more things to remember. First, if Mueller is fired before January 5th, the Senate Intel Committee will likely immediately hire him as their investigator. If he’s fired after that date, the House Intel Committee will hire Mueller.

This is a chickenshit move by Trump that reeks of desperation. If this is the opening move in his final play to kill the investigation, he has severely underestimated his opponents.

Supposedly, Jeff Sessions asked to stay on until Friday but was told no.  Coincidentally, Mueller’s grand jury meets on Friday.  Now, it could just be that Jeff doesn’t want to spend the next two days moping around his apartment, or he had some meeting that he wanted to go to, but there are too many coincidences for this to be a coincidence.

This does open up a lot of new avenues.  It’s been rumored for a while that Sessions flipped.  (I’m still looking for the related article, but this date was the first rumblings).  We know that he interviewed with Mueller a long while back (Daily Check-In 01/23/2018), but it wasn’t in front of a grand jury.  Jeff’s up to his neck in his own shenanigans, and Trump just fired him from his dream job with no sign of the loyalty that he showed him.  We know how well that worked with Michael Cohen (Daily Check-In 08/21/2018)

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

That pic was taken from a place off the normal tours.  Even the special tours don’t allow that kind of access.  This little Neo-nazi fuck had some special level of access.

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

No, it’s not Jamal Khashoggi.

 

#METOO

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

It’s on, mother fuckers.  5PM local time, check for locations.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Washington residents will face more scrutiny on the purchase of semiautomatic rifles.

Described by both supporters and opponents as one of the most sweeping new gun laws in the country, Initiative 1639 will put new restrictions on the sale of semiautomatic rifles and required guns that are kept in a home to be safely stored.

It was was easily passing Tuesday night despite opposition in many Eastern Washington counties. But it was narrowly passing in Spokane County with about 52 percent support.

Although the ballot title for the initiative refers to “semiautomatic assault rifles” the actual text of the measure makes no distinction between those rifles with certain military features like pistol grips or flash suppressors, and more standard hunting rifles.

So-called assault rifles – a general term for AR 15s and similar firearms that gun-rights advocates scoff at – have featured in many mass shootings, including the recent Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburg.

Starting in December, a buyer of any semiautomatic rifle will have to be 21, rather than the current age limit of 18, and pass a more thorough background check. Supporters said the change merely puts the rifles on par with handguns, which have similar requirements in Washington. Opponents said it’s unconstitutional age discrimination against people who are old enough to serve in the military, marry and sign contracts but won’t be able to buy a rifle that can fire a round each time the trigger is pulled. Single shot, bolt action and lever action rifles aren’t covered by the initiative.

Safe Schools Safe Communities, raised about $5.3 million overall with big donations from the late Paul Allen, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer and his wife Leslie. The National Rifle Association backed an opposition campaign that raised about $600,000, and several other groups mounted smaller efforts.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

On the same day that Trump fires Sessions, he picks a fight with the press.  This is example #7,509 that Trump has no sense of long-term strategical thinking.

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTION 2018

You can’t always get what you want. But you get what you need: 1. The House. Big time victory overcoming geographic concentration plus gerrymandering, requiring Dem +8.5 margin. If we didn’t get past 218, the ACA and more would have been in huge trouble…

The House committees’ powers to subpoena, to hold public hearings, to hire Mueller if he is fired, then impeach. So Mueller has more job security than ever. (But GOP Senate wins are a reminder not to rush impeachment, and acknowledge that Senate 2/3 removal is not happening.)

The overall national House vote was around D +8.5. I worry about Trump’s re-election. I am less worried today. That solid D majority, much of it booming in the swing states Trump won, is a strong showing for 2020, and you can’t gerrymander it away. (But don’t take for granted)

4/ Look where Dems did well: the key 2020 battlegrounds. PA and Michigan swung back solidly. Wisconsin voted out Scott Walker (who had survived repeated recall attempts). Hillary’s purple states VA, NH, CO and NV stayed solid. Those 7 states are the road to victory.

Here’s the thing.  This election was a lot like Christmas.  We didn’t get the LEGO Millennium Falcon or the Tuxedo T-Shirt or Front row tickets to the Royal Rumble, but we did get the PS4, a bunch of games, aisle seats to the Rumble so we’ve got a good chance of high-fiving some wrestlers, and we got a stack of gift cards.

We got what we needed.  The rest was wishful thinking.

As my colleague Max Rosenthal explained, only a third of Senate seats come up for reelection every two years. Some of them run for office in states that are much more populous than others. This year, Republicans were also in luck because 26 of the 35 Senate seats up for election were held by Democrats. That means the GOP had much less to lose than the Democratic Party. On top of that, many of those previously Democratic-held seats were located in states where voters supported Trump in 2016.

So, even to preserve the status quo, Democrats would have had to win more voters overall than the Republicans did.

There are lot of screwed up things with American politics.  One of them is the selection of Senators.

Back in the day, in 1787, the Founding Fathers of the United States debated over how representation should be set up.  The smaller states, those with small populations, wanted each state to have an equal voice.  The larger states wanted representation based off of population.  Eventually, a compromise was reached so that both solutions would be used.  The House of Representatives would be based off of population, while the Senate would have equal numbers of people per state.  This was loosely modeled after the British Parliament, with the House of Commons and the House of Lords.  It was also decided that certain functions had to begin in different places.  Requests for money have to come from the House, while the Senate gives consent on appointments.

House members are up for election every two years, in even number years.  A senator serves a six year term.  It was decided a long time ago to have one third of the senators run for a new term every two years.  Since a President runs every 4 years, that means that every other senate race is at the same time as a presidential election.

From 1789 until 1911, Senators were appointed by the states.  This was changed with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which made Senators a position directly elected by the people of each state.  Before 1911, each state would select their own senators, usually by the state legislature choosing one of their own to send to Washington.  This caused some problems when the states couldn’t decide or agree.  Eventually, this amendment made it so that the people elected them directly.

In the event that a Senator is not able to complete their term, the state can choose a replacement until a special election is held to fill the vacancy.  Each state is a little different, but generally they’ll hold a special election to line up with an already scheduled election.

Now, to understand how it is that the Democrats could lose Senate seats while gaining a fuckton more votes, let’s look at who was running, and where.  There were 35 senate races yesterday.  33 regular ones and 2 special elections to fill seats that were vacated due to resignations.  Out of those 35, 26 of them were Democrats.  Remember when I said that a Senator serves 6 years but a President serves 4?  They run in years that are cleanly divisible by 4.  Or, for the computer programmers out there:

if Year mod 4 = 0 then Election(POTUS);

Sorry, my syntax sucks.  Mod is modulo, or the mathematical way of looking at the remainder of a division problem.  In this case, if the year is divisible by 4, then it’s a Presidential run.

So, it’s the 2018 election for these senators that were elected in 2012.  What happened in 2012?  Barack Obama won reelection, and a lot of Senators rode his coattails to victory.  In the six years since then, the political landscape has changed.  Several of those 26 senators are now running in states that voted for Trump in 2016.  There was nearly no room to improve, but so many ways they could lose.  They only way for the Democrats to gain a majority in the Senate would have been to hold each seat they had, and pull of at least a few upsets.

This was unlikely to happen.

However, things aren’t all doom and gloom.  Demographics are changing.  The Democrats picked up a decisive win in Nevada, were very close in some places that they shouldn’t have been close at all like Texas and Florida, and won seats in states that Trump won in 2016, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

As far as the 2020 Senate Map looks, it’s almost the opposite of this year’s.  Only 12 of the 33 seats up for reelection are held by Democrats, and only Alabama’s Doug Jones and Michigan’s Gary Peters are in a state that went for Trump.  Out of those 19 Republican senate seats, at least a dozen of them are in competitive locations.  Plus, we have no clue what will happen in the next two years, but a lot of it doesn’t look good for Team Red.

 

THINKING AHEAD

Yes, it’s time to start thinking about the future.  Fuck.

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

Just, don’t.  Ever. Propose. In. Public.

 

RUMOR MILL

THREAD: What should we make of Trump’s firing of Jeff Sessions?

1/ Today Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The letter above is written as a “resignation” by Sessions, but it makes clear in the first line that Sessions resigned at Trump’s request. This has been rumored for months, so it doesn’t come as a surprise.

2/ The most immediate consequence of this firing is that Matthew Whitaker is now the Acting Attorney General. (Trump was able to appoint an Acting AG partly because Sessions agreed to resign rather than to be formally fired.)

3/ Whitaker previously wrote in this op-ed for that Mueller should not be permitted to investigate Trump’s finances, arguing that Mueller was “going too far.” He argued that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein should order Mueller to rein himself in.

4/ Unless Whitaker is confirmed by the Senate, however, he will not oversee the Mueller investigation. For right now, until/unless Rosenstein is fired, Rosenstein still oversees the Mueller investigation.

5/ If Rosenstein is fired, Solicitor General Noel Francisco would oversee the Mueller investigation until a new Attorney General is confirmed. Many are concerned that Francisco would limit or impede Mueller.

6/ Francisco is a former partner at a law firm that represents the Trump Campaign, which could be a conflict that would prevent Francisco from overseeing the Mueller investigation. But he obtained an ethics waiver in April relieving him of the conflict.

7/ (The article linked in the last tweet discusses potential issues with that waiver.) In any event, a new Senate-confirmed Attorney General would oversee the Mueller investigation regardless of whether Rosenstein is fired. For that reason, the GOP Senate majority matters.

8/ As a practical matter, if Rosenstein is fired and/or if the Senate confirms a new Attorney General, the Mueller investigation is at risk because whoever oversees Mueller could limit his actions or impede his investigation.

9/ Under the special counsel regulations, the AG can require Mueller to explain steps he takes and overrule them if they are “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”

10/ If Mueller is overruled, Congress must be notified. In addition, Mueller can be removed for “misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of Departmental policies.”

11/ So the firing of Sessions has obvious potential practical consequences. It also has significant potential legal consequences for Trump. Mueller is already investigating Trump for obstructing justice, and the biggest hurdle in an obstruction case is proving “corrupt” intent.

12/ The firing of Sessions could provide relevant evidence because many of Trump’s statements and actions indicate that he was angry at Sessions for recusing himself and because he wanted an Attorney General who would protect him.

13/ For example, Trump reportedly ordered the White House Counsel to stop Sessions from recusing himself. When McGahn was unsuccessful, Trump reportedly erupted in anger, saying he needed Sessions to “protect him” and “safeguard” him.

14/ Then, according to , Trump erupted at Sessions after Mueller was appointed, accusing him of “disloyalty” for recusing himself from the Russia investigation at the recommendation of career Justice Department staff.

15/ All of this (and other comments Trump made since) suggests that Trump was angry that Sessions would not interfere with, stop, or restrict the Mueller investigation. This and other evidence could indicate that Trump fired Sessions with the intent of impeding the investigation.

16/ As I write this thread, many of you are indicating to me that Rosenstein has reportedly been removed from oversight of the Mueller investigation. That appears to be inconsistent with prior Justice Department practice, and could provide additional evidence of obstruction.

17/ If Trump wanted to minimize the ability of others to argue that he was obstructing justice, he would have waited to try to remove Rosenstein from overseeing the Mueller investigation and done so in a manner that could not be challenged or questioned.

18/ This suggests that Trump’s intent is to restrict or end the Mueller probe. He fired Sessions a day after the midterm elections, replaced him with a man who publicly called for Mueller to be reined in, and that man has already removed Rosenstein from overseeing Mueller.

19/ House Democrats will be able to investigate these matters, and could ultimately impeach Trump, but 67 votes in the Senate would be needed to convict and remove Trump from office. As long as Senate Republicans back Trump, he may feel he has room to act against Mueller.

20/ It would be difficult to end all of the various investigations that comprise what we typically call the “Mueller investigation,” and there are investigations that Mueller doesn’t oversee, such as the Manhattan investigation looking at Michael Cohen and the Trump Organization.

21/ But there is no question that Whitaker could severely burden, restrict, or even remove Mueller. As a practical matter, whether Trump faces consequences depends a lot on Senate Republicans or, in the alternative, state Attorneys General like the newly-elected New York AG. /end

CORRECTION: As and point out, Whitaker is not an “Acting Acting AG,” so he immediately can oversee Mueller if he is lawfully appointed. (I’ll discuss this and other issues in a special podcast out tomorrow morning.)

 

That’s it for today.  The fucked up thing is, for the first time in a very, very long time, I felt relaxed after seeing the election results.  I had a hop to my step, I wasn’t stress eating, the pain in my chest was gone.  Things felt good for a few hours.

Then the Jeff Sessions news broke.  Then the pain returned.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Jeff Sessions.  I don’t call him the Keebler Nazi as a term of endearment.  He is a racist little shit, and quite possibly the worst person to ever be Attorney General of the United States.  But, because of the importance of the Mueller investigation, keeping Sessions in place sort of guaranteed that nothing bad would happen.  That guarantee is gone.

The other thing that I saw that was completely nuts was the timing of this firing.  Literally, the day after the election, he fired his Attorney General for not protecting him.  This could have been orchestrated before, but why not do this before?  There was no evidence that firing him before the election would make a difference.  If anything, it might have galvanized Trump’s base a bit.  Sure, it might have cost the Republicans a few more seats in Congress, but not enough to risk a supermajority.  No, something else is up.

Remember over the last couple weeks all of those stories about Donnie Jr. and Roger Stone about to be indicted, and how they’re becoming concrete in the last few days? (Daily Check-In 11/05/2018,Daily Check-In 11/06/2018). I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some fire to that smoke and Trump is trying to end this investigation now because his son is about to get arrested.

Not only do I expect some shit to happen this week, I’m counting on it.  Mueller’s team has traditionally dropped indictments on Friday morning.  This weekend, I’ll be out of town on a trip.  I won’t have access to the internet most of the weekend, so I fully expect the fecal matter to strike the manual air circulation device.

I’m not a pessimist.  I’m optimistic that shit will go sideways at the worst possible moment.

We’ll get through this.  One thing I always try to do is when things get crazy, I look to the Rumor Mill and see how they’re reacting.  While everyone else is pulling their hair out, they’re cooler than the other side of the pillow.

We got this.  It just might not feel like it in the moment.

As I’ve said before, we will come through this crisis.  But we have to live through it first.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 11/06/2018

Tuesday, November 6, 2018.  Election Day.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Dmitry Rybolovlev

Rybolovlev…placed in police custody at the request of a Monegasque judge, Tuesday 6 November in the morning, a few hours before the match, in the Champions League, his club at FC…The billionaire was still in custody Tuesday in the late afternoon,

In case you don’t have a translate button…pretty sure Putin & Mogilevich are BOTH losing their marbles right about now.

Also pointing out it’s been -almost- 30 days since Firtash’s Attorneys notified the NDIL Court Based on the Oct 10th letter Firtash’s attorney indicated a determination was eminent and thus impacting his extradition The docket has been silent since then..

Like I said Firtash’s docket has been silent since the Oct 10th letter to the Judge…

To understand why et al are possibly 💩ing their 👖 Trump purchased 515 Country Road for $41M, then sold in 2008 at a recorded $95 million. Fertilizer King’s acrimonious divorce, hide the 💰💰 FAA Records are also super interesting/snort

Just pointing out that if you don’t think it’s real…updated articles show the Judge’s name cc ergo I’m inclined to believe the veracity of the original article

Pretty sure Dmitri Rybolovlev will be spending the night in police custody give his attorneys issued the following statement It’s G L O R I O U S 😂🤣😂 cc

Oh even BETTER: “The billionaire’s residence in Monaco, La Belle Epoque, was searched Tuesday morning…” Bloomberg IMO is a trusted news organization granted they are regurgitating Le Monde’s reporting but I’d consider this to be fact vs rumor DAHYUM😂

 

Dmitry Rybolovlev got busted by Monaco.  This is huge.  Remember the $95 million mansion sale that Donald Trump made at the height of the housing crash?  The sale that was for more than twice the price he paid for it a couple years earlier with no improvements to the property? (Daily Check-In 01/12/2018). Well, Trump made that sale, and a bunch more in condos to Dmitry.  He’s also been involved in some questionable art sales with MBS as well.

In other words, a lot of Money Laundering.

And this has been on the Special Counselor’s radar for a while.

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

SCOTUS 

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

I know it’s a cold day in Hell when I link to that site, but this article is not crazy, not conspiratorial, and is pretty well reasoned.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

Today we restore the Republic. And come what may, we will never surrender it.

The Republic is not restored because of this election, nor by Muller, nor a wave of any color. It is restored because of this wave of passion and determination to claim this democracy from the clutches of the powerful, cynical, and malevolent.

We reclaim this Republic because the truth is self-evident: America belongs to its people, endowed with unalienable rights to seek happiness and prosperity free from the rule of tyrants. Self-evident in. 1776. Self-evident in 2018. Self-evident forever.

American patriots will not be ruled by would-be aristocrats, nor criminal gangs, nor foreign despots. This Republic belongs to its free citizens who shall rule themselves, with justice for all.

We will never, ever surrender this Republic. Today, we only begin to reclaim it. </>

 

 

 

That’s it for today.  This post will be a little different.  Aside from a few comments above, the Coda will be more of a live blog tonight until I post.  Yes, I just found out that this last paragraph is called a Coda.  Don’t I sound all SMRT.

7:38- Polls have closed in a couple states, but not in Pennsylvania.  I’m trying to get my notes organized from the day.  I am a giant ball of anxiety right now.  I’m making typos, I was stress eating a little, and I’m jittery.  Normally, I’m not this jittery until after my 7th cup of coffee.  I might have a problem.

Why am I so stressed out? HELLO, been paying attention for the last couple years?  I’m freaking out.  2016 taught me not to relax until the votes are counted, and even then, don’t relax.

7:53- Polls have closed in Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, South Carolina.  NBC is calling the first flip to the Democrats of the night from incumbent Barbara Comstock.  Let’s see how things go.

8:08- I’m finishing up organizing the notes for the day.  Polls have closed in Pennsylvania and several other states.  I’m waiting until after the first segment of SmackDown is over before flipping over to MSNBC for a while.  I need to relax a little bit.

8:43- I finished organizing the page.  There’s an interesting breakthrough with Dmitry Ryobovlev getting busted.  I talked about it in The Russian Investigation.

8:46- Steve Kornacki on MSNBC knows his shit, but he’s very loud.  Like walking on squeaky floors with a newborn loud.

8:56- That’s it, I’m leaving 538 alone.  Nate Silver’s model is drunk.

9:20- I’m done with updating the article and the news.  I need to remind myself that it’s still VERY early, and anything short of blowouts won’t be called for a while.  Reading the Reddit Megathread is like giving my eyes cancer.  The number of trolls and bots in there is nuts.  When your environment makes Twitter look like a well-maintained and cultured community, you need to fix some shit.

9:37- As nice as it would have been to take the Senate, that was a long shot.  Reason for that was some ugly math.  Every 2 years, one third of the Senate is up for reelection.  The third that was up this year was mostly Democrats, and many of them were in red states.  They would have needed to keep all of their old seats, plus win almost every Republican seat.  They’ll lose ground, but as long as they still have at least 40 seats for cloture votes, there’s at least that.

10:19- More polls have closed. NBC has called the Texas Senate race for Ted Cruz. But they’re calling the House for the Democrats.  I’m still looking for more confirmation, but it could actually be happening.  I’m not getting excited until California.  I want to see Rohrabacher and Nunes humiliated.

10:55- There will be victories and losses.  This is one battle in the fight to restore democracy in this country.  A good story while waiting for California to close their polls; Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples lost her reelection bid in Kentucky.

11:23- I’m going to wrap things up for the night soon.  I need to get up in the morning, but one thing that was just mentioned is that for the first time ever, there are at least 100 women in the House.  Oh, Fuck you Kris Kobach!!!!!!!!!!!  You lost, Mother Fucker!

That’s it for tonight.  Me thinks things will get nuts over the next few weeks, so I’m going to get a few hours of sleep while I can.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 11/05/2018

Monday, November 5th, and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

 

RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM

 

KHASHOGGI & SAUDI ARABIA

 

COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS

 

SCOTUS & #METOO

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

FIGHTING BACK

One justification the press should use in covering what Trump does and says a lot less is that he doesn’t actually spend much time Presidenting.

Why cover a crazy old man’s Fox-watching habit? Would you do it if he were your senile dad?

But if you’re going to cover Mr. Trump’s carnival barkering, it should be clearly labeled as such: “While Trump was neglecting Puerto Rico after Maria, he spent 3 hours on Twitter creating this faux scandal and watched 4 straight hours of Fox and Friends”

Then talk about what the people who are doing the job of the President are doing. “While Mr. Trump watched his third hour of Fox, John Bolton was dismantling the global legal order based on his own authority, and Stephen Miller was kidnapping brown children.”

Enough indictments to field a football team?  According to my running list on The Indicted, there 42 people and companies that have been indicted so far.  5 of them have not been indicted by Mueller’s team, and 3 of them are companies.  Even still, that gives us 34 people that have been charged with crimes by the Special Counselor’s Office.  That’s more than an average High School Varsity Football team in a decent sized school district.  Considering that 11 players are on the field at a time, we could realistically meet that statement with 17 or 18 indictments.  But 34-42 puts us in a small college team, almost at an NFL sized active roster.  An NFL team dresses 46 players for a game, with 7 more listed at inactive.  We’re only 4 indictments away from determining who’s riding the pine.  That means sitting on the bench.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

FIXING THE INTERNET

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE

 

ELECTION 2018

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for the last few days.  And tomorrow’s the big day.  Whatever happens, it’ll resonate for a long time.  Either we’ll see the most corrupt politician in American history get a free pass from his party to trash this country, or the people send a message that this is a nation of laws.

Right now, it feels like things are paused as everyone holds their breath, waiting to see what happens.  There are lots of rumors from both sides that things will get crazy starting Wednesday, but I’m not so certain about that.

Here’s why.  The House and Senate aren’t in session every day until next year, working weekends and burning the candle at both ends.  They’re scheduled for 19 more working days this session.  19.  They work 4 days next week, the last week of November, and the first two weeks of December.  A lot of that time is going to be spent organizing for the next session, selecting the new leadership bodies, and passing some last minute resolutions and appointments.  This type of session is called a Lame Duck Session.  Traditionally, nothing gets done.  Imagine the mentality of a workplace where 1/3rd of the staff has either put in their notice or will be fired at the end of the month.  Now, combine that don’t-give-a-fuck attitude with the replacements coming in, acting like they’ll make a difference, and you’ve got nothing getting done.

This is why I’m hesitant to buy in to the rumors surrounding Jeff Sessions or Rod Rosenstein getting fired or resigning.  If one or both of them get fired, who’s going to replace them?  Even if they were fired on Wednesday and a replacement nominated the same day, there is no guarantee that the Senate would be able to clear their calendar to make room for this appointment.  Unless the Republicans hold on to the Senate, firing is a dangerous option as there’s once again no guarantee that they’d be able to get anything other than a known quantity through the Senate in a hurry.

As far as Mueller dropping some bombshells this week, that once again depends on timing and the election results.  I’ve never gotten the sense that partisan politics plays into this, but if Mueller releases dangerous information against Trump and Pence that implicates them directly in crimes against the United States, I can see the craziest scenario taking place where, in an effort to keep the White House under Republican control until 2020, they fast track an Impeachment against Trump and Pence, get Pence to resign, vote in the Senate to remove Trump from office, and following the chain of succession, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan gets sworn in as President to finish out the term.  The odd of that happening are pretty damn low.  More likely would be Pence resigns, Trump appoints a safe choice as VP like Marco Rubio or John Kasich, then gets voted out in the next session.  Still highly unlikely, but I like to spitball these things.

Things will get crazy later this week.  Wednesday morning will be spent doing a Postmortem by one party and a celebration by the other.  But we’ve got at least a day before that happens.

Go out and Vote.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur