Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 08/06/2018

Monday, August 6th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Day 5 of the trial began in the late afternoon with Cindy Laporta being cross examined.  The basis of the defense came down to two main points.

  1. Rick Gates did all of the bad and intentional stuff.
  2. Paul Manafort wasn’t criminally evil, he was disorganized and procrastinated, and that’s why documentation always came in at the last minute.

Both of these are pretty flimsy points, and don’t look like they provide enough benefit of the doubt in Manafort’s behavior.  Blaming the assistant is one thing, but saying that someone forgot they had a bunch of foreign bank accounts and owned companies because it’s tax day is a bit too much.

Following Cindy on the witness stand was Paula Liss of FinCEN.  She testified that neitehr Manafort nor his wife did not file any reports of foreign bank accounts from 2011 to 2014.  The defense tried to muddy the waters, but the prosecution cleared them up on redirect.

Last up for the day is the star of the show, Rick Gates.  He took the stand, and described his relationship with Paul Manafort (employee/employer), how long he’s known him (since the 90’s), why he’s testifying against him (he cut a plea deal and hopes not to go to jail), and did he commit any crimes with him (Hell Yeah), and whether or not he committed these crimes at Paul Manafort’s request (Hell Yeah).

By the way, he also admitted to embezzling a couple hundred thousand dollars from Paul over the years.

While that might seem like the big news of the day, here’s the piece I took away as the bombshell: Gates met with investigators 20 times during his plea deal process.

20 meetings.  That’s a lot of time spent talking about tax forms.  Too much time, in my opinion.

Let’s do some math.  Assume that these meetings last, on average, 2 hours a piece.  I think that’s pretty low, but let’s run with that.  That’s 40 hours, or one work week, Rick Gates spent in interviews with Mueller’s team, telling them everything he knows.  40 hours seems like a lot of time to spend verifying that Manafort and his wife didn’t check a box on a tax form.

I think Rick Gates gave up a lot more than just Paul Manafort.  Remember, Rick was Tom Barrack’s Chief of Staff on the Trump Inaugural Committee (Cooperating Witnesses) and was the Deputy Campaign Manager under Paul Manafort.  Everything that Paul was involved in, Rick was involved in, and Rick stayed on after Paul was fired in August 2016.

 

Gee, what a surprise, the Russians helped Jill Stein.  It’s not like she had any ties to Russia or Putin, or spouted off Russian propaganda during and after the campaign.

That above paragraph was sarcasm.  Here’s how deep in this she is…

img_5419

Like I said yesterday (Daily Check-In 08/03/2018), Trump will absolutely throw Donnie Jr. under the bus to save his own ass.

 

INFOWARS BANNED

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Fuck you, Alex!!!

Alex Jones isn’t just a monster making money on spreading lies and filth about murdered children, but he’s also a traitor to the United States of America, and deserves the fate reserved for them.  InfoWars has long been a tool for Russian propaganda, where they have shared and rehosted well over a thousand stories that originated from Sputnik and Russia Today / RT (Daily Check-In 11/08/2017), not to mention spouting countless Kremlin talking points like the Seth Rich Conspiracy, their love of Wikileaks, and countless crazy attacks against the government over the years.

As much as he deserves to lose his media business, his livelihood, family, and freedom, I feel that I do need to defend one point and that is his right of free speech.

Yes, he has the right to say whatever crazy horseshit he can come up with in his twisted mind.  He can scream it from the rooftops, from the streetcorner, or from his own website.  That right does not, however, mean that the rest of us have to listen to it or have to broadcast it.  It also doesn’t mean that other people have to amplify it for him.  Content providers are no under no legal obligation to distribute everything that’s created, especially hate speech.

Apple is under no legal obligation to host content they don’t agree with.  Neither is Google, FaceBook, Spotify, or any other company.  If WordPress decided to yank my website for repeated violations of the Terms of Service, that’s my problem, not theirs.  They are responsible for what they share.

Besides, from what I’ve seen in the Rumor Mill over the past year plus, this could be the best consequence to happen to Alex Jones.  I hope for far, far worse.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

 

TRAITOR TOTS

I’m curious.  How much of Rand Paul’s stance is based off of kompromat they have on him, how much is based off of kompromat they have on his father, and how much is him willingly going along with this.  Remember, in all of those 98-1 votes and 97-2 votes on sanctions against Russia, he’s always on the wrong side of that vote count.

 

FIGHTING BACK

What makes QAnon different from other right-wing conspiracy theories, University of Miami professor Joseph Uscinski told The Daily Beast, is that it was born at a time when Republicans are already in control.

“Normally you don’t expect the winning party to use them, except when they’re in trouble,” Uscinski said.

In a new twist, BuzzFeed News published a look into whether the theory was actually invented in an attempt to trick right-wing, conspiracy theory–pushing Internet users, particularly of the Baby Boomer generation.

In screenshots of forums published in BuzzFeed’s piece, one user writes, “Q is just a huge prank on boomers.” Another wrote, “…look how many normies and boomers got sucked into our lulz chaos. Good job anons, looking forward to our next big prank.”

Some believe the QAnon conspiracy theory was invented by leftists or anarchists as a way of proving the alt-right’s gullibility, or, as BuzzFeed reported, “to make the far-right look deranged.” In fact, BuzzFeed noted, there are similarities between the theory and the plot of the Italian novel Q (yes, really).

Q (the novel, not the possible prank) is thought by many to be a manifesto for activists looking to disrupt society. Its authors told BuzzFeed, “We often described it as ‘playbook,’ an ‘operations manual’ for cultural disruption.”

Elaborate “gotcha” or not, there are people who truly believe the QAnon theory. And it’s having real-world consequences beyond computer screens.

 

Former “Doctor Who” actor David Tennant slammed President Trump “on behalf of the Scottish nation” over the weekend.

“When he was over here and he was talking about England and he was saying ‘I’m going out to Scotland for my golf course in Scotland cause people in London are protesting but obviously [in] Scotland they really like me, ‘ ” Tennant said on a British TV show, “can I say on behalf of the Scottish nation, we f—ing don’t?”

My third favorite Doctor basically telling Trump to fuck off.  Ok, third favorite sounds bad, but there have been 12 Doctors, 13 if you count John Hurt’s War Doctor.  Being third on this list is like asking what is my third favorite movie or third favorite Penguins Stanley Cup Championship.

For the record, first is the 9th Doctor, Christoper Eccleston.  He was the first one of the reboot series and I loved the dark optimism that he showed.  Second is the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith.  I enjoyed his whimsy, and he was my son’s favorite for a long time. Third was the 10th Doctor, David Tennant.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CALIFORNIA FIRES

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for today.  Tuesday will have Rick Gates continuing his testimony, and a breaking story about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross being accused of stealing $120 million.

Let’s see how this plays out.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/03/2018

Friday, August 3rd and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

Day 4 began with Manafort’s tax preparer Phillip Ayliff returning to the stand to state that Paul Manafort did not disclose any foreign bank accounts on his taxes.  He then discussed a suspicious loan that Gates and Manafort, at Manafort’s instruction, said shouldn’t be considered income.  Phillip asked for proof, but was given the flimsiest definition of proof.  It mostly consisted of a letter from a company that Manafort is accused of owning.  They then covered his “rental properties”, which are basically This is carryover from Daily Check-In 08/02/2018.

Manafort’s defense team made the brilliant defense of “if he intended to break the law, why would he leave this information lying around?”  He said this of the man accused of witness tampering by backing up his encrypted WhatsApp messages to his iCloud account AFTER the feds had a warrant to monitor that account. (Daily Check-In 06/04/2018, Daily Check-In 06/05/2018, Daily Check-In 06/06/2018)

Following the preparer was Cindy Laporta, the first of five witnesses granted immunity in exchange for their testimony.  (Daily Check-In 07/23/2018)  Cindy was Paul Manafort’s accountant, and took over for Philip after he retired.  She testified that she didn’t believe them on their claim of the loan either, but went along with it because she was afraid to confront Manafort.  She also testified that later on she falsified documents at the behest of Manafort and Gates to allow Manafort’s company DMP (Davis Manafort Partners) to qualify for more loans.  By doing so, she opened herself up to legal ramifications of felony wire fraud and other tax avoidance crimes.  This is why she was granted immunity for her testimony.

 

Alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina talked openly about her contacts with Russian intelligence officials when she got drunk, CNN reported Thursday.

According to people who knew her at American University where she attended graduate school, on at least two occasions Butina bragged about her Russian government connections after she had imbibed and even said the Russian government was connected to her Moscow gun rights group. According to CNN, classmates were unnerved by her comments and reported her to law enforcement twice.

Other classmates told CNN that in classes she was a constant defender of Vladimir Putin and claimed that she was a middleman between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

Why can’t we get a better quality of spy in this story?  It’s like they sent the Cleveland Browns of spycraft to attack the United States.

Not only do we have Maria Butina getting drunk and bragging about being a middleman for Putin and the GOP, but she did it enough times that her classmates as American University called the cops.  Repeatedly.

Remember the timing on this, too.  She didn’t start school until getting her student visa in 2016, but was in the U.S. before that.  And, don’t forget, but she met with Donnie Jr. at the NRA convention back in May 2016. (Daily Check-In 07/18/2018).

Gee, I really hope Donnie Jr. doesn’t have more bad news coming at him from this weekend.

SPOILER ALERT: IT GETS WORSE, SEE NEXT BOLD SECTION.

This might be the strangest part of the Russian Investigation so far, but as I’ve said before, it’s only going to get weirder from here. (Daily Check-In 07/20/2018).

How weird?  Does a tweet from Tom Arnold saying that Roger Stone was crashing on the Madam’s couch while Al Franken was being attacked sound weird enough?  Maybe not as weird as Steven Segal becoming a diplomatic envoy for Russia weird, but still pretty damn weird.

 

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Sunday that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was misleading.

Mr. Trump made the comment in a tweet on Sunday morning that was intended to be a defense of the June 2016 meeting and the role his son Donald Trump Jr. played in hosting it. The president claimed that it was “totally legal” and of the sort “done all the time in politics.”

But the tweet also served as an admission that the Trump team had not been forthright when Donald Trump Jr. issued a statement in July 2017 saying that the meeting had been primarily about the adoption of Russian children.

That statement is being scrutinized by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining a broad array of Mr. Trump’s tweets and public statements to determine whether he made them as part of an effort to deceive investigators.

Yep.  That just happened.  The President of the United States, after years of saying that there was “no collusion” from his campaign with Russia, just admitted to it on Twitter.

The goalposts have moved.  We’ve gone from “No contact with Russians” to “No one that was on the campaign talked with the Russians” to “People contacted the Russians but it wasn’t collusion” to “Collusion isn’t illegal, but it still didn’t happen” to “No senior members of the campaign colluded” to “My son met with the Russians, but it wasn’t illegal” in a little over a year and a half.  I think the next steps are below:

  • Senior members colluded, but it wasn’t illegal.
  • Trump didn’t know about the collusion until after it happened, but it still wasn’t illegal.
  • Ok, it might have been a little illegal, but only in a technical sense.
  • It was illegal, but the campaign did it to stop the evil HRC.
  • There was only bad collusion that one one time.
  • Trump only knew about it the day before and thought it was a joke.
  • Trump knew about it but didn’t call in to the June 9th meeting.
  • Trump called in, but wasn’t an active participant.
  • Trump called in, but only asked a couple questions.
  • Trump called in, but was only involved in this episode of collusion.
  • Trump didn’t know about the NRA work, the RNC work, the Mayflower Meeting, the December meetings in Trump Tower, the meetings in the Seychelles, or any other meeting that hasn’t been discussed yet.
  • Trump was involved, so what?

I don’t like to talk about Trump’s tweets here because most of the time it’s a distraction from the real news, but every so often he wakes up in a panic in the middle of the night and unloads his narcissistic projections on the world, simultaneously accusing his enemies of his crimes while trying to play the victim card.  In this case, he managed to not only destroy each and every talking point that his team has used for the last year, but also threw Donnie Jr. under the bus.

Correction.  He didn’t throw his son under the bus.  He dug a whole, hit Donnie over the head with a shovel, threw the body in the whole, covered it up, hired a road crew to lay asphalt over the whole, painted lines on the fresh asphalt, chartered a bus, then drove the bus over the fresh road.

After studying narcissistic personality disorder for a while, the sense of self, I’m not surprised by this one bit.  Trump only cares about himself.  If he cares about his children at all, it’s about how their actions affect him.  They exist to him as tools and resources, not as individuals.  His mentality never progressed to the point where sense of self can coexist with the idea of others.

By the way, getting dirt on an opposing political candidate isn’t illegal, it’s how one comes across it that determines the legality.  Getting it from the Intelligence Services of a foreign nation is illegal.  Having someone hack into their computers is illegal.  Getting that information from a foreign government pretending to be a hacker from another country is illegal.

 

 

 

COHEN

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Hope Hicks is back in the news, this time it looks like potential witness tampering.  Hope left the White House as the Communications Director earlier this year (Daily Check-In 02/28/2018), after interviewing Mueller’s team about her role in various activities, including the cover-up of the June 9th meeting.

At best, this just looks bad.  At worst, this is a blatant attempt at witness tampering.  Hope is a witness and participant to the investigation that Trump is a subject of.

I’m waiting for all of the Republicans that bitched about Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton on board his plane to scream from the rooftops any time now over how this is inapporpriate.

Anyone?  Anyone?

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

ATTACKS ON THE VOTING SYSTEM

Here’s the thing when it comes to voter fraud: it doesn’t happen, at least not the way that it’s portrayed.  The way that most **coughwhitecough** people think voter fraud occurs is that buses full of dark-skinned people get shipped from one polling place to another, show up at the polls, then vote as people who didn’t bother to show up.  Never mind that the logistics of this are completely bonkers and raise more questions like “How could thousands or millions of people being paid to vote keep their mouths shut?” or “Who paid for the buses?” or “Who has such a pathetically weak ego that the only way they can justify losing is to blame non-existent Hispanics?”

The reality of the matter is that this kind of Voter Fraud is damn near non-existent.  What does happen is that the bogeyman of voter fraud is used as a justification for making restrictive voter ID laws that target minorities, poor, young, and other groups that typically vote Democratic.  Every state that has implemented Voter ID laws saw a spike in the Republican polls on the next election after they were implemented.  I’ve covered ad nauseum how the vote difference in Wisconsin was reportedly less than the number of voters prevented from voting.

The sole purpose of the Voter Fraud panel was to make a report that would be used to recommend to every state to enact their own forms of Voter ID laws, and would use states like Wisconsin and North Carolina as the template.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

Either the NRA is losing money hand over fist, or they lied under oath.  If they lied, screw’em, they deserve whatever punishment befalls them.  If they are bleeding money, I’ll send them thoughts and prayers.  You know, the same actions they take each time a bunch of innocent children are murdered because they want to oppose every kind of gun control.

Fun Fact: The NRA supported a ban on open carrying firearms back in 1967 when the Black Panthers “invaded” the state capitol.

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

DISTRACTION TIME: TRUMP INSULTS LEBRON JAMES, DON LEMON

 

HATE RALLY IN PORTLAND AND NAZIS

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CHRISTIAN FASCISM

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

RUMOR MILL

Claude Taylor on Matt Gaetz:

Call me old fashioned but dicking around with the intern when you’re a 36 year old member of Congress used to be frowned upon. Have things changed ?

Can we talk about ? He has his own live in “Intern-with-benefits”. Yep…brace yourself…the intern IS A GIRL!!! That’s cool right? She’s 21. So what if the US Taxpayer pays to fly her around, right? It’s 2018 and this is more convenient than the married Minister…

I don’t care who is getting it from. I don’t care if it’s an intern. I don’t care if she’s 21-22. I don’t care if they live together. I just want to know if any taxpayer funds have been used in support of this relationship. I also want to know if her folks know.

 

 

That’s it for Friday and the weekend.  Once again, I have plans on doing some maintenance on the site, and once again crazy stuff happens on the weekend.  I’d like to clean up the intro section, the Russian Hypothesis, and the Cast of Characters.  Also, I want to write a post about how the Trump team keeps moving the goalposts.

Monday should be interesting.  Rand Paul is in Russia, and Rick Gates could be called to testify against Paul Manafort.  And my third favorite Doctor tells Trump to fuck off.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/02/2018

Thursday, August 2nd

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial: Day 3

The third day of the Manafort trial started with more vendors talking about Paul Manafort’s lavish expenses and unusual methods of payment.  They all also included each of them being shown a fake invoice from their company.  What that’s establishing yet is unknown, but it’s building to something.  My guess is that it will establish a pattern of falsified business statements to cover the source of payments and to make it look like Manafort’s money comes from somewhere other than offshore.  Or, it could be part of his money laundering attempts.  If he used the fake invoices to justify moving money from one account to another, that could show that he deliberately falsified business records to pay less money on taxes.

After a while, his bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn took the stand for two hours and discussed how she worked for Paul, how he was in charge of how every penny was spent, and how Rick Gates worked with him, but Paul ultimately made the decisions.  She also testified that she had no knowledge of the offshore bank accounts that Paul used for purchases.

The day ended with Philip Ayliff, Manafort’s tax accountant , taking the stand.  He discussed the details of their working relationship in which Gates was his right hand man, but didn’t hide anything from him as Paul made the decisions.  He’ll take the stand Friday morning and go over the tax forms.

 

A former aide to longtime President Trump confidant Roger Stone must testify before the special counsel’s grand jury, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday.

The judge rejected a challenge from Andrew Miller, a former assistant to Stone who tried to block subpoenas from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The redacted opinion from U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell affirming the legal legitimacy of the special counsel’s appointment does not identify Miller by name, but his attorney confirmed that the ruling is in response to Miller’s request.

Howell’s ruling orders Miller to “appear before the grand jury to provide testimony at the earliest date available” and to provide subpoenaed records.

“We’re disappointed with the court’s ruling,” Miller’s attorney, Paul Kamenar, said in an interview. “But the judge obviously took our challenge to Mueller’s constitutionality seriously, as evidenced by the 93-page opinion.”

 

COHEN

I’m noticing a pattern with Michael Cohen in the news.  Something happens for a few days, then he disappears for a day or two.  After he disappears, he comes back with a vengeance, like a neglectful parent trying to make up for missing his little girl’s soccer game by taking her on a shopping trip to the Disney Store, or to the stables to rent a pony.

Today’s attempt at making up for not being in the news yesterday is him accepting a bribe to help get a $5 billion loan secured to build a nuclear plant in Alabama.

I should be pissed about the audacity of this move, but I’m honestly impressed.  $10 million as a finders fee for a $5 billion loan is a pretty small return on investment.  That’s like paying $1,000 to get a $500,000 mortgage.  People would kill for that kind of closing costs.

They’re all criminal shits, but I’ve got to give credit where credit is due.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

I’d like to say I’m surprised by Trump bitching about the “hoax” of Russian interference just a couple hours after his OWN FUCKING STAFF SAID IT’S HAPPENING, but I can’t.  Now, it’s almost like a game.  How many hours after his staff does something until he counters it?  Remember how he said he agreed with the Intelligence Community’s assessment on Russia only to say he didn’t less than 24 hours later? (Daily Check-In 07/17/2018Daily Check-In 07/18/2018)

 

This is the battle I’ve been waiting for.  Who will the rank and file Republicans back?  Will they side with the donors that bankroll their entire campaign, or with the demagogue who’s voting base could make or break their chances at reelection?

 

One advantage of Trump being as big of a narcissist as he is: he’s too self-absorbed to realize that he can’t out think the best lawyers in the world.  He also thinks he’s smarter than everyone telling him it’s a bad idea, and is driven completely by ego.

Tell him that Obama didn’t have the guts to sit down with Mueller.  Trump will schedule the interview right after Fox & Friends.

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

Two words.  Merrick Fucking Garland.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Harvey Weinstein‘s lawyer plans to ask a New York judge to toss the sprawling sex assault case against him on the grounds an accuser supposedly sent the disgraced movie mogul “exculpatory” emails, new court filings reveal.

The revelation came Wednesday in Delaware bankruptcy court filings involving Weinstein’s former movie company.

The lawyers representing Weinstein in the bankruptcy matter are asking a judge to let his criminal defense team file emails revealed in the company’s Chapter 11 case as exhibits in defense motions that are due Friday.

The emails are now under wraps because of a protective order.

 

ELECTION 2018

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

 

WOOPSIE

 

RUMOR MILL

  1. After having been in and around U.S. politics now for 25+ years and attended 100s of rallies, what we are seeing now is faked. Fake outrage against media. Faked attendance # + always the same level of anger towards media no matter what city. #Followthemoneyto craigslist ads.

    Search “crowd fillers needed’ on Craigslist and google. Tie those ad dates to a week or so ahead of rallies… bang. There it is. Probably in plain sight. Djt rallies being propped up by paid actors being told to scream at media. Not all actors and actresses are beautiful ppl.

    some examples already: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2017/08/20/questionable-craigslist-ad-offers-pay-actors-donald-trump-supporters-phoenix-rally/584350001/ …+ https://1075theriver.iheart.com/featured/producer-zac/content/2018-05-30-president-trumps-nashville-rally-allegedly-hired-seat-fillers-for-100/ …+http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ad-actors-trump-rally-briefly-emerges-craigslist-article-1.3436041 …+this explainer: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/crowd-hiring-politics-campaign-2016/399002/ …+ more explainer: https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/how-much-does-trump-pay-people-to-cheer-at-his-rallies.html/ …+ this points our journos sort of know:

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/1025043824974819328?cardname=summary_large_image&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=344&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22home%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22permalink_overlay%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default522&xdm_p=1

    I would add, listings for such things would be spread out through multiple terms, and places, like gigs, crowd, rally, extras needed, actors + actresses needed etc… it won’t be obvious like “Donald Trump wants to pay you to support him at a Rally.” Will be more surreptitious

     

    Lastly on this. I am speaking as former advance aide to a President + Vice President. I personally organized dozens of rallies. We controlled image, crowd, backdrops, cutaway shots. We controlled as much as we could. Paying for crowd fillers known campaign trick, on steroids now.

    PS – There are also organized companies that do this, may not use craigslist but own mailing lists. For example: https://crowdsondemand.com/ + http://www.crowdsforrent.com/services.html obvious for some investigative reporter to start asking how much these cos get from Trump/Affiliated money groups?

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/1025051498076463105?cardname=summary&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=130&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22home%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22permalink_overlay%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default523&xdm_p=1

     

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has ever done media work or been around a campaign.  Everything is planned from the tiniest detail.  All of the crowd fillers, the signs, the banners, the questions, the people asking the questions, and the cute little photo ops are all screened and planned ahead of time.

This is a great thing to remember when we look back and see that Maria Butina asked Donald Trump a question about Russian sanctions at a campaign rally in July 2015. (Daily Check-In 03/09/2018)

 

That’s it for Thursday.  The trial continues on Friday, as the accountant will likely talk about how he didn’t know about Manafort’s offshore accounts.  Also, it looks like Maria Butina would brag about being a spy when drunk.

This is how I know this is real life.  If someone were making a movie about this and said that one of the villains would get shitfaced at a party and brag about their illegal deeds, it would get thrown out for being too ridiculous.

Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 08/01/2018

Wednesday, August 1st

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

The Manafort Trial

The trial continued with the prosecution talking about Manafort’s lavish lifestyle and outrageous expenses, and how he paid for those goods using wire transfers from multiple offshore accounts from various shell companies.  Among those purchases included nearly a million dollars in suits from Alan Couture, even more suits from House of Bijan, real estate purchases for him and his family, multiple renovations, and luxury cars.  All of those were paid by wire transfers from offshore accounts, and in each instance the recipients described it as either unique or unusual for their businesses to accept that form of payment.

One interesting development is that the prosecution said they may or may not have Rick Gates testify, depending on how their case is going.

Check out Kara’s tweet if you want to see a crime against fashion.  That jacket officially belongs in the “Why the fuck would anyone buy that?” category.

 

Butina and Russian Spies

The Senate approved the release of the transcripts to the DOJ and the FBI, not for the public.  We’ll have to get those the old fashioned way, through some leaks.

 

Lobbyists

Like I’ve stated the last couple days, Daily Check-In 07/31/2018, Daily Check-In 07/30/2018, these cases are getting farmed out to other offices around the country for two main reasons.

First, this spreads out the work across the department in case there’s a move against Mueller.

Second, it frees up Mueller’s team to focus on other things.  What other things?

 

Interview with an Idiot

Here we go again.  We were here a few months ago (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018, Daily Check-In 04/10/2018) and we’re back again.  This has dragged out long enough, but here’s where I think this is going…

Mueller wants to interview Trump for two main reasons.  He wants his “side of the story”, and wants to remove the argument that when the Obstruction Report comes out, since Trump didn’t interview Mueller it shouldn’t count and doesn’t represent a full picture.

It’s time to end that argument right here and now.

Mueller has more than enough information at this point to nail Trump’s fat ass to the wall for Obstruction of Justice, Witness Tampering, and at least a dozen other Federal statutes just related to the cover-up of his crimes.

Trump’s lawyers are afraid that he’ll outright lie during the interview.  Hell, Trump can’t even keep his story straight in a single tweet.  How’s he going to last against Robert Mueller’s team for a couple hours?  Trump is a walking perjury trap, and somehow they’re using that as their defense against meeting Mueller.

Think about that for a second.  Then, after your brain stops hurting at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole affair, give it another thought.

Trump’s legal team is trying to keep the President of the United States from interviewing with prosecutors and investigators working on a case of whether or not he interfered or attempted to interfere in another ongoing investigation, in which he is the subject of said cover-up investigation, because they know that he can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and they know that if he told the truth, he’d implicate himself.

Trump has pushed this interview off for months, claiming that he was too busy to meet with Mueller, that his lawyers said no, that the timing only worked when Mueller wasn’t available, or that something came up, or his time’s too valuable but he’d love to meet with him, or some other lame excuse.  Meanwhile, since news of this attempted interview has broken out, Trump has cried from the rooftops about ending this investigation, including today.  (It’s the lead of the next section.)

Based off of what I’ve seen, heard, and surmised, the Obstruction Report is about 99% ready.  The only parts missing are Trump’s words.  And it’s nigh infinitesimal that whatever Trump says would change the view that he has tried to obstruct.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Friends don’t let friends tweet and obstruct

What did I just fucking say?

 

This one’s rich.  Trump, who has known Paul Manafort since the early 80’s, blames the FBI for not telling him that Paul Manafort was under investigation when he hired him out of the blue to lead his campaign.

I’ve been involved in hiring decisions before, so I know what’s it like to hire someone who is completely inexperienced in the field that I’m pursuing, but has vast criminal connections around the world with various mobsters, oligarchs, and generally terrible people, then get surprised when that person I hired turned out to be the target of several criminal and counterintelligence investigations, including possible espionage and treason cases.

Oh, sorry.  I meant “I don’t know” because I’m not a fucking mobbed-up narcissistic criminal who views law enforcement as my mortal enemy.  Whenever I’ve had to hire someone, I check their references and make sure they’re not mobbed-up.

 

 

TRAITOR TOTS

 

QAnon

The Russia investigation is a sham. It’s actually a cover story for special counsel Robert Mueller and Donald Trump working together to expose thousands of pedophiles hidden in plain sight — including Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama), who will soon be under arrest. (Or perhaps already have been and are on their way to Guantanamo Bay.)

The GOP lost the Alabama special election for Jeff Sessions’s Senate seat on purpose — a plan devised years ago to reveal the use of fraudulent voting machines and, ultimately, take down none other than George Soros. Or the Rothschilds. Or the Illuminati.

And there’s no White House chaos at all; in fact, despite legal scandals and special counsel investigations and bile-laden tweets, everything, absolutely everything, is going just as Donald Trump intended it.

Welcome to QAnon, sometimes referred to as “the Storm.” It’s a conspiracy theory that’s swept social media and is starting to break into the mainstream, with Trump rally attendees in Florida on July 31 holding signs and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “We are Q” and the conspiracy theory’s main catchphrase, “Where we go one, we go all.”

Roseanne Barr, formerly the star of the No. 1 show on network television, is just one of Q’s biggest supporters. And the conspiracy theory is being pushed by some of the far right’s biggest voices, including Alex Jones and Sean Hannity. Still others are winking and nodding at it, retweeting #QAnon references while pretending to be none the wiser.

And it has one overarching — and, if you’re a Trump supporter, hopeful — message: Donald Trump is in complete control. Of everything.

Conspiracy theories create order out of chaos, attempting to make sense of events that don’t make sense. And researchers have found that fact-based arguments against them only serve to reinforce them in the minds of believers. That’s what makes QAnon or Sandy Hook trutherism or any other conspiracy theory so difficult to combat: Because conspiracy theories aren’t based on facts, conspiracy theorists aren’t receptive to them either.

So if the first year and a half of the Trump administration has been enmeshed in confusion and chaos, QAnon is the conspiratorial response: Everything is fine. As a popular saying among Q adherents proclaims, believers must only “trust the plan.”

I really, really hate conspiracy theorists.  And yes, I know the irony of me, the author of a site tracking conspiracies as they occur, talking about how much they hate conspiracies.  The worse the conspiracy, the worse the mental gymnastics needed to make it work, and the harder it is to “disprove.”

QAnon is up there with Moon Landing Hoaxers and 9/11 Truthers.  Possibly worse.

I’ve dealt with conspiracy theorists my whole life.  Hell, I used to be one, until I studied logic and critical thinking.  Instead of following the cute, crazy “theories”, I learned how to analyze evidence and followed the evidence to its conclusion, not force the evidence to meet a predetermined conclusion.

Nothing pisses me off quite like a person digging through piles of evidence and information looking for that one tiny piece that supports their claims while simultaneously discarding the mountain they dug through to get it.  I also despise the goal-post moving that occurs when part of their argument is defeated.

For example, let’s use the 9/11 Truther’s classic statement of “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.”  This is based off of the fact that the ignition temperature of jet fuel is less than the melting point of steel.  This also ignores that steel doesn’t have to melt to be weakened enough to bend, which anyone who has ever used a welding torch can attest to.  Jet fuel burns more than hot enough to weaken steel.  When the truther is encountered with this evidence, they’ll curtly discard it or talk about controlled explosions or time travelling ninjas, or whatever it takes to make their theory work.  The worst is the “that’s what they want you to think.”

Fuck them.  As soon as someone pulls that bullshit response, I hit them with Hitchen’s Razor.  That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

And let’s be clear about something, QAnon isn’t some vast group full of millions of people, or representing the entire Republican Party…well, not yet on the second part.  There isn’t much of a Republican Party left at this point.

Personally, I’ve learned to question the validity of any post made by an anonymous comment made on social media by anyone who claims to be a member of the government.  And yes, I know I post things from Twitter and Reddit in the Rumor Mill.  At least most of those sources either have a good batting average or qualified it somehow.  Plus, it’s “Rumor Mill,” not “Absolute Fact Mill.”

 

 

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

As soon as I first heard about the forced separation, it was just a matter of time until this headline came out.  A child died because of this.  This is a completely preventable death.  This whole thing is crazy.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

“THE” OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY ABUSE SCANDALS

 

ELECTION 2018

 

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

 

PROGRESS IS PROGRESS

Honestly, I could use a laugh.

 

RUMOR MILL

 

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Let’s see how Thursday goes.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur