Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 07/19/2018

Thursday, July 19th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Manafort’s trial is set to begin on July 24th, and a lot of the evidence is paperwork.  Looks like we were right about Jeffrey Yohai flipping (The Indicted,Cooperating Witnesses).

Deborah Curtis, the newest member of The Justice League.  She’s very familiar with prosecuting spies.  Just ask Chelsea Manning.

So, we’ve got at least TWO supporters of Donald Trump and Putin’s regime that traveled to Russia, with at least one of them having their expenses paid for by a Russian spy.  Remember, Trump wanted David Clarke for a government position, but he couldn’t get passed the approval process. Daily Check-In 01/18/2018 has a lot of in-depth work, including a picture of David Clarke and Alexander Torshin.  That was 6 months ago.  Imagine what is known by this point.

 

TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Wow.  Another meeting, this time in D.C.?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Wait, let me check the timeline… dammit, not a joke.

 

TRAITOR TOTS

While writing this, I saw another report that Rand Paul used a fuckton of campaign funds for personal use.  I’ll have that link in tomorrow’s post.

 

FIGHTING BACK

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

TRADE WAR

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

MAIN STREAM MEDIA

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Something to keep in mind when seeing articles like “85% of Republicans support Trump’s most recent garbage, is America screwed?” and it deals with how statistics work.

The Republican Party is shrinking.  Fewer Americans identify as them, and their numbers are dwindling.  Their policies for the last 30 years have slowly pushed away anyone who isn’t either a rich person looking to avoid paying taxes, or white men who feel like their power is slipping away.  The last decade accelerated that, and the only people that flocked to the GOP were Baby Boomers.  News flash: they’re old and dying off.  Now, they can add open racists, Russian sympathizers and wannabe autocrats to their list.

Everyone else was pushed away or pushed out of the party.  The Log Cabin Republicans of two decades ago were shoved aside by the Religious Right.  The Hispanic Catholics are leaving as the Neo-Nazis openly attack them.  The young fiscal conservatives are leaving as they can’t reconcile the take-it-or-leave-it party package of misogyny, bigotry, and ignorance of science with their desire for responsibly sized government.

Getting back to statistics.  A higher percentage of a smaller sample size doesn’t correlate to a larger number of people in the whole.  Also, that percentage doesn’t take into account the quality of the individual item, either.

Think of it like football, with two quarterbacks playing in a game.  One completed 60% of their passes, the other completed 75%.  That means the 75% is a better quarterback, right?

Not necessarily.

First quarterback completes 30 of 50 passes for 500 yards, 6 touchdowns, and no interceptions.  The second quarterback completes 6 of 8 passes for 3 yards and 2 interceptions, and didn’t throw a long pass all game.  The two interceptions were returned for scores against his team.  In this example, the second quarterback sucks, even though they’re more accurate.

These headlines are meant to grab attention, but always remember, the pie is smaller.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Thursday.  It wasn’t as crazy as the previous couple days, but still nuts.

I updated The Justice League with the new lawyers added to the team.  One of them, Deborah Curtis, is working on the Maria Butina case.

Heads up for Friday, the FBI has a recording Michael Cohen made of himself and Donald Trump talking about paying off Karen McDougal back in 2016.  Just in case anyone was wondering what happened to that thread.

I wish I was more surprised by how bad the Republicans in Congress are acting, but I can’t.  The entire GOP is complicit at this point, thanks to their accepting Russian money.  The only question is how many will split off when they see that Trump is completely, totally, absolutely finished.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 07/18/2018

Wednesday, July 18th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION:  PUTIN ORDERED THE ATTACK AND TRUMP KNEW; BUTINA WAS A HONEYPOT

WASHINGTON — Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.

The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.

…

The Jan. 6, 2017, meeting, held at Trump Tower, was a prime example. He was briefed that day by John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director; James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence; and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and the commander of United States Cyber Command.

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, was also there; after the formal briefing, he privately told Mr. Trump about the “Steele dossier.” That report, by a former British intelligence officer, included uncorroborated salacious stories of Mr. Trump’s activities during a visit to Moscow, which he denied.

According to nearly a dozen people who either attended the meeting with the president-elect or were later briefed on it, the four primary intelligence officials described the streams of intelligence that convinced them of Mr. Putin’s role in the election interference.

They included stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee that had been seen in Russian military intelligence networks by the British, Dutch and American intelligence services. Officers of the Russian intelligence agency formerly known as the G.R.U. had plotted with groups like WikiLeaks on how to release the email stash.

And ultimately, several human sources had confirmed Mr. Putin’s own role.

That included one particularly valuable source, who was considered so sensitive that Mr. Brennan had declined to refer to it in any way in the Presidential Daily Brief during the final months of the Obama administration, as the Russia investigation intensified.

Instead, to keep the information from being shared widely, Mr. Brennan sent reports from the source to Mr. Obama and a small group of top national security aides in a separate, white envelope to assure its security.

Mr. Trump and his aides were also given other reasons during the briefing to believe that Russia was behind the D.N.C. hacks.

The same Russian groups had been involved in cyberattacks on the State Department and White House unclassified email systems in 2014 and 2015, and in an attack on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They had aggressively fought the N.S.A. against being ejected from the White House system, engaging in what the deputy director of the agency later called “hand-to-hand combat” to dig in.

The pattern of the D.N.C. hacks, and the theft of emails from John D. Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, fit the same pattern.

After the briefings, Mr. Trump issued a statement later that day that sought to spread the blame for the meddling. He said “Russia, China and other countries, outside groups and countries” were launching cyberattacks against American government, businesses and political organizations — including the D.N.C.

Still, Mr. Trump said in his statement, “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”

Mr. Brennan later told Congress that he had no doubt where the attacks were coming from.

“I was convinced in the summer that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election,” he said in testimony in May 2017. “And they were very aggressive.”

For Mr. Trump, the messengers were as much a part of the problem as the message they delivered.

Mr. Brennan and Mr. Clapper were both Obama administration appointees who left the government the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated. The new president soon took to portraying them as political hacks who had warped the intelligence to provide Democrats with an excuse for Mrs. Clinton’s loss in the election.

Mr. Comey fared little better. He was fired in May 2017 after refusing to pledge his loyalty to Mr. Trump and pushing forward on the federal investigation into whether the Trump campaign had cooperated with Russia’s election interference.

Only Admiral Rogers, who retired this past May, was extended in office by Mr. Trump. (He, too, told Congress that he thought the evidence of Russian interference was incontrovertible.)

President Trump, meeting with Mr. Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, said he accepted Mr. Putin’s denial of Russian election intrusions.Doug Mills/The New York Times

And the evidence suggests Russia continues to be very aggressive in its meddling.

I know that this is a giant block of text to open with, but this article, which came out late Wednesday, is behind a soft paywall at the New York Times, and cements down what I’ve suspected for a long time, and what anyone following along at home has likely put together.

Vladimir Putin ordered the attack on the United States 2016 Presidential Election, and Donald Trump has at least known about it since before he was sworn in as President.

He fucking knew.

This isn’t the smoking gun of him knowing early on in the campaign, that’s still to come.  But this article tells me three things.

  1. Expect high level Russians to be indicted before too long, possibly even Putin himself.
  2. Every time Trump deflected, obfuscated, or denied that the attack was done by Russians, he lied.
  3. We’re approaching the end.

After Monday’s clusterfuck where Trump committed treason in front of the world (Daily Check-In 07/17/2018), the Intelligence Community will not stand by any more and watch as Trump tries to destroy this country.

We know that this meeting took place a while back from a few direct sources.  Susan Rice sent herself an email about a meeting in the Oval Office preparing for this meeting ( Daily Check-In 02/12/2018).  James Comey mentioned it in his book, for fucks sake. (Daily Check-In 04/12/2018)  He described who was there and what each person did after receiving the information in the briefing, but didn’t describe the details of the briefing itself, other than it was a highly classified intelligence meeting.  The Trump Team acted weird AF.  From The Indy Star…

“They were about to lead a country that had been attacked by a foreign adversary, yet they had no questions about what the future Russian threat might be,” Comey writes in A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. “Nor did they ask how the United States might prepare itself to meet that threat.”

Instead, Trump’s team shifted into a strategy session about “how they could spin what we’d just told them.”

“You found there was no impact on the result, right?” Trump asked, according to the book.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper replied that while investigators found no evidence that the vote count was altered, they did not have the ability to analyze how Russia’s involvement affected the race.

Still, Comey writes, Pence was among those debating “how to position these findings for maximum political advantage.”

“I had been in many intelligence briefings with the two previous presidents and had never seen Presidents Bush or Obama discuss communications and political strategy in front of intelligence community leaders,” Comey writes. “There had always been a line.”

Pence has continued to misstate what Clapper says he was told at that meeting, including during a February interview with the news web site Axios.

“Irrespective of efforts that were made in 2016 by foreign powers,” Pence said, “it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any effect on the outcome of the 2016 election.”

Clapper told NPR that while “I have great respect for Vice President Pence. … I must respectfully disagree with what he said.”

“The intelligence community has neither the authority nor the capability to make such a judgment as to whether there was or was not impact on the election, and we did not say that,” Clapper said in February.

I’m looking for the text from the book, but I’ve got an audio version, kind of a pain in the dick to convert to text and pull a page number.  But the point of the matter is that upon reading the fucking evidence that Putin ordered an attack on the United States, Mike Pence’s first reaction was how to spin this?

After both the Intel meeting and the Comey meeting, The Moscow Project reminds us that Trump spewed the following statement:

“While Russia, China, other countries, other groups and people are constantly trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our government institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democratic National Committee, there was no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”

Within three months of this meeting, several Russians with ties to the Intelligence world start dying of “accidents” and “heart attacks.”

Let’s put the pieces together…

We have an outgoing Presidential administration who just witnessed a hostile foreign power attack this country and steal the election for Donald Trump, but they can’t completely cut him out of everything.

We have a cadre of intelligence experts that brings evidence of the attack, including the marching orders from emails of the people involved.

We have one President-Elect who grudgingly accepts the results, but doesn’t act the way that an innocent person acts when shown evidence they were involved in a crime.

We have a Vice President-Elect who tries to see how he can twist this new information around to make it look good for his group.

We have the same President-Elect and Vice President-Elect who both issue statements immediately after this meeting, claiming that Russian didn’t attack the United States, and that said attack didn’t influence the election one way or another.

We have about dozen dead Russian spies over the next few months, all starting after January 6.

We have a President who spends the next several months asking the people at this meeting to go on the record by saying he’s not under investigation, or that it didn’t take place, or if they could make investigations go away.

Ladies and gentleman, these are not the actions of an American Patriot, but those of a Traitor to the United States.

 

This might be worth remembering.  Accessory  after the fact.

18 U.S. Code § 3 – Accessory after the fact

Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.

Except as otherwise expressly provided by any Act of Congress, an accessory after the fact shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the principal, or both; or if the principal is punishable by life imprisonment or death, the accessory shall be imprisoned not more than 15 years.

Think of it like this…

Let’s say Bob robs an ATM.  His roommate Tom was out of town during the robbery, but when he comes home, he finds Bob flush with cash, paying rent, and buying nice things.  Tom figures out that Bob did something, but when he sees a news report of a man matching Bob’s description robbing an ATM, he gets suspicious.  Tom finds evidence of Bob stealing from the ATM.  At this point, Tom decides that instead of calling the cops on Bob, Tom instead helps Bob get out of town and covers for Bob by providing an alibi.

Tom is now an Accessory after the fact.

Each and every time Trump cried out on Twitter “WITCH HUNT” or said “Maybe it was someone else” or said “No Collusion”, he is knowingly breaking the law.

But why are we seeing this story now?  Why not months ago?  Why not after the story was first researched?

My guess is that the IC source that said “run this” knows that we’re fast approaching the next phase of this drama.  We’re getting to the point where spies will be prosecuted and and Americans tried as collaborators.

Speaking of spies…

The gun-loving Russian woman charged with being an unregistered foreign agent and cozying up to politicians to infiltrate the U.S. political system tried to swap sex for influence, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

The “Red Sparrow” scenario was unveiled in a memorandum that laid out reasons why prosecutors believe Mariia Butina, 29, should remain jailed until trial. Butina, who allegedly conspired with a Russian politician and banker to push Moscow’s agenda in the U.S., is due in federal court in Washington on Wednesday afternoon for a detention hearing.

In arguing that Butina is a flight risk, prosecutors said her only tie to the U.S. is a “personal relationship” with an unidentified man — which is branded “duplicitous,” suggesting she was using him for her own means. According to The Washington Post, the man’s description matches that of Republican operative Paul Erickson.

“Butina appears to treat it as simply a necessary aspect of her activities,” the memo says. “For example, on at least one occasion, Butina offered an individual other than U.S. Person 1 sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization. Further, in papers seized by the FBI, Butina complained about living with U.S. Person 1 and expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate with U.S. Person 1.”

In a new court filing, the FBI alleges that Butina during her time in the United States cohabitated with an unidentified 56-year-old man as part of her cover while conducting her work in the United States.

“Butina, age 29, and U.S. Person 1, age 56, are believed to have cohabitated and been involved in a personal relationship during the course of Butina’s activities in
the United States,” the filing states. “But this relationship does not represent a strong tie to the United States because Butina appears to treat it as simply a necessary aspect of her activities.”

To back up this assertion, the FBI goes on to claim that “on at least one occasion, Butina offered an individual other than U.S. Person 1 sex in exchange for a position
within a special interest organization.”

It is not known from the filing what job Butina was seeking or whether her offer of sex in exchange for the job was accepted, however.

Butina, who was arrested this week on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent, has worked for years to forge ties between Russia and the National Rifle Association.

Looks like Maria Butina was a honeypot, or Red Sparrow.  A honeypot is a trap used in spycraft that is too enticing to pass up, like an attractive woman used to lure in a middle aged man.  The woman will use her gifts to entice the man to do what she wants, then report back with the information she gathered.

Public Service Announcement: If you stuck your dick in Maria Butina, call a lawyer right away.

Dana Rohrabacher (R-Moscow CA ) should know that he has the right to remain silent.

Rachel Maddow had a great segment on this when she was reading the transcripts, and because Butina could go to any consulate or diplomatic vehicle to claim immunity, she is an inherent flight risk.

Which really ought to give pause to those who imagine that Russia is sincere in its supposed desire to unite with America’s religious conservatives over a putatively shared variety of Christian values. Why would anyone assume that Mr. Putin means what he says about spiritual matters?

The religious right thinks that it’s using Mr. Putin to advance its aims. But a far more plausible interpretation is that he is using them — to infiltrate, divide and weaken our country.

This is the tie-in I’ve been waiting for; the Religious Right.  Their name is about as Orwellian as the Ministry of Truth.  They are neither right as in correct, right as in conservative in how government works, nor do they follow any actual religious teachings other than twisting Jesus’s words around to fit their existing bigotry.

There will be a lot of Americans tied up in this.

“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” the N.R.A. member and conservative activist, Paul Erickson, wrote. “He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. Let’s talk through what has transpired and Senator Sessions’s advice on how to proceed.”

…

“The Kremlin believes that the only possibility of a true reset in this relationship would be with a new Republican White House,” Mr. Erickson wrote to Mr. Dearborn, adding, “Ever since Hillary compared Putin to Hitler, all senior Russian leaders consider her beyond redemption.”

…

Congressional investigators obtained the email as part of their inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Mr. Trump’s campaign aided the efforts. It appears to have caught the attention of senators as well. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, penned letters to several Trump campaign foreign policy advisers last week asking for all documents related to the N.R.A., Mr. Erickson, Mr. Torshin, Mr. Clay, Mr. Dearborn and others.

Mr. Erickson, a longtime conservative operative who has been involved in several presidential campaigns, presented himself in the email as a well-connected intermediary to the upper reaches of the Russian government. By “happenstance” and the reach of the N.R.A., Mr. Erickson wrote, he had been put in position to “slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin” in recent years.

…

Mr. Erickson has known Maria Butina, a former assistant to Mr. Torshin and the founder of the Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun-rights group, for several years. Ms. Butina, who helped Mr. Torshin make the request through Mr. Clay, hosted Mr. Erickson at a September 2014 meeting of the group at its Moscow office. And in February 2016, the two incorporated a company, Bridges LLC, together in South Dakota. What the company does is unclear.

…

In the United States, the hospitality was returned. Mr. Torshin and Ms. Butina attended the N.R.A.’s annual convention in 2014 and 2015. Ms. Butina told the conservative news site Townhall that she attended the N.R.A. Women’s Leadership Luncheon as a guest of Sandra S. Froman, a former president of the group. And in 2015, she was given a tour of the N.R.A.’s Virginia headquarters.

Paul Erickson.  Get ready to hear that name a lot in the coming weeks.

 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has received wiretaps obtained by Spanish police which implicate Donald Trump Jr. in a plot to meet with Alexander Torshin, a high-ranking official of Russia’s Central Bank, according to a federal prosecutor in Spain on Friday. And, the prosecutor notes, those wiretaps don’t bode well for the president’s son.

The above information was originally reported in May of this year but is receiving revived interest across social media because Torshin is said to have been the handler of alleged Russian agent Mariia “Maria” Butina. Butina was recently arrested on charges of attempting to influence U.S. politics and policy on the Kremlin’s behalf.

This Torshin-Trump meeting is alleged to have occurred at and during the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky in May of 2016.

Prosecutor José Grinda leads high-profile investigations into Spanish and foreign organized crime operating in Spain. According to Grinda, FBI officials recently requested and received transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov. The latter man, Romanov, was convicted of money laundering–after pleading guilty–in mid-2016.

On one such recording, Romanov apparently refers to Torshin as “El Padrino,” or the godfather.

Yep, Donnie Jr.’s gonna have a real bad time soon.  The Spanish got him trying to arrange a meeting with Alexander Torshin at the 2016 NRA Convention.

How’s the rest of Team Traitor doing today?

Lawyers for Andrew Miller, a former Roger Stone aide who is fighting a grand jury subpoena in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, as well as at least five attorneys from Mueller’s team spent nearly an hour and a half Wednesday in the D.C. courtroom of Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell.

I fully expect Roger Stone to have his indictment unsealed by the end of the month.

 

HELSINKI FALLOUT/THE RUSSIAN ASSET

Like I said yesterday (Daily Check-In 07/17/2018), that rebuke didn’t last a full day.  In a few days, he’ll call all the anger against him “fake news.”

This is absolutely absurd.  This is some Grade A WTAF.  Any response to a request to send an Ambassador to a dictator for “questioning” that doesn’t begin and end with “Fuck You” is treasonous.  It betrays the men and women who serve this country.  What’s next, handing Marines over to ISIS for interrogation?

 

FIGHTING BACK

The split ballot was a pure Deza op from Russia.  Same with the secessionist movements.  And yes, we do need to either include Cyber in NATO (which it’s already in there, but needs better enforced), or a separate treaty for Cyber Warfare.

 

PROTECT THE INTERNET

 

STORMYGATE

 

IMMIGRATION

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

SCOTUS

 

TRADE WAR AND ECONOMY

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

 

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISAM

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL

Last time there was a FEATHERS takeoff tweet was Daily Check-In 07/11/2018.  The landing tweet came on Daily Check-In 07/13/2018 with the indictments.  Laurie Brenner updated her spreadsheet, but I forgot to include a link.  2018 is a weird year.  I never thought I’d be this excited to see a spreadsheet updated after reading the tweet of an anthropomorphic bird talk about planes and runways.

I wonder if Roger Stone has any plans this weekend?

 

That’s it for Wednesday.  Thursday will be late coming up, but I’ll try to get it up a little sooner.  Thursday includes the list of evidence being used for Paul Manafort’s trial next week.  After a quick look, he is screwed worse than Maria Butina by a fat, middle aged, out of shape white politician.

I missed an article last week about new lawyers that were added to Mueller’s team.  I’ll update them to The Justice League soon.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 07/17/2018

Tuesday, July 17th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Five witnesses being offered immunity for their testimony.  This is pretty interesting.  This could be part of why the judge offered a delay in the previously scheduled hearing. (Daily Check-In 07/16/2018)

A grand jury has formally indicted Russian national Maria Butina on two charges, conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent without prior notification of the attorney general. She is alleged to have tried to infiltrate U.S. political organizations on behalf of a high-ranking Russian official over several years. At one point during the presidential campaign, she and the official tried unsuccessfully to broker a meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The indictment states that the 29-year-old Butina, who was arrested Sunday, entered the U.S. in August 2016 on an F-1 student visa. On her visa application, Butina stated she had been previously employed as special assistant to a Russian official, Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, but her employment with him had ended on May 20, 2016. In April 2018, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Torshin.

Acting as a foreign agent.  That’s legalese for being a spy.  This felony carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

 

HELSINKI FALLOUT

Previously, on Treason: The Series

When offered the opportunity to state, for the record, how he feels about the IC’s unanimous finding that Kremlin spies meddled in his election, Trump did not obfuscate, he did not meander: he made abundantly clear that he considers the word of the Kremlin boss, the man who meddled in our 2016 election, to be as valid as the assessment of our vast, highly informed, 16-agency Intelligence Community.

Trump showed the world that he is Putin’s bitch.

Walkback

Don’t buy this for a second.  Trump has only apologized publicly once before, after the Billy Bush tape dropped.  Trump read a prepared statement with the enthusiasm of a hostage video, then within days started attacking everyone related to the video.  Within a few weeks, he claimed the video was “faked” and that it wasn’t him.

Senator Warner might be a little generous.  I’d be sadly unsurprised if by Thursday he wasn’t tweeting attacks at journalists “twisting his words” into “fake news”, only to breathlessly slob on Putin’s nob once again.

UPDATE: Trump denies Russia is targeting U.S. at Cabinet meeting .  Really?  He can’t stay on script not even one fucking day?!  Time to start day drinking.

 

Kompromat

Remember when talks about the Pee Pee tape were considered the realm of jokes and conspiracy theorists?

Welcome to the party.

 

Congress

1:50 p.m.

House Republicans have used a party-line vote to block a Democratic measure aimed at condemning President Donald Trump’s stunning comments in Helsinki, Finland, about Russia. It was the first vote testing how Congress will react to Trump’s remarks.

On Monday, Trump stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin and challenged American intelligence agencies’ findings that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections. He seemed to accept Putin’s insistence that his government had done nothing.

By 230-183, the House rejected a Democratic measure endorsing Speaker Paul Ryan’s remarks criticizing Russia. The Wisconsin Republican said “there is no question” Russia interfered in the elections and said there is “no moral equivalence” between the two countries.

The two-page Democratic proposal summarized Ryan’s points and said the House “expresses its agreement” with them.

In case anyone is wondering why the GOP would vote down a statement criticizing Russia, check out the list of people Maria Butina’s been in contact with.

 

Bill Browder

In addition, the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign has investigated and found the $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky exposed and was killed over. There are now a number of live law-enforcement investigations around the world determining just who benefited from this crime. These have resulted in tens of millions of dollars of frozen assets. Furthermore, these investigations don’t only put at risk the beneficiaries of this crime, but the benificiaries of many other similar crimes. These people are ready to kill to keep their money. Losing it would be devastating.

Putin’s latest allegation that I donated $400 million to Hillary Clinton is so ludicrous and untrue that it falls into delusion. I’ve never made a political donation to Hillary Clinton or any other political candidate. It’s in the same category as other Russian government allegations against me: they accused me of being a serial killer; they accused me of being a CIA/MI6 agent determined to destroy the Russian government; and they accused me of somehow stealing $4.8 billion of IMF money back in the 1990s that was destined for the Russian Treasury. These guys have seriously lost their cool and are beginning to make mistakes.

The biggest mistake that Putin made in his offer today to effectively swap me for the 12 Russian agents is that he went to the wrong head of state. Although I was born in America, I emigrated to the United Kingdom 29 years ago and am a British citizen. If he really wants me, he better go talk to Theresa May, who might have a few choice words for him after Russian agents spread the military-grade nerve agent Novichok across the cathedral town of Salisbury, England.

Bill’s a Brit now, not a Yankee.

 

Protests

Protests aren’t just physical, they can take place anywhere on the internet, too.

 

Attack on the United States

I prefer the phrase “Act of War.”

 

Republicans

It’s nice to see that some of them are still Country of Party types.

 

Impeachment

Remember, Impeachment starts in the House, and is not removal from office.  That second part is done by the Senate.  GTKYG-Presidential Removal Processes.

 

Staffers Caught By Surprise

 

MH17

 

Players Speak

Obama’s been quiet for a long time, he doesn’t speak unless something big is going on.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

IMMIGRATION

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE: DEFENDING TREASON EDITION

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018

The nation’s top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had “provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,” which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. “None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software,” the spokesperson said.

ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it’s not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.

…

In May 2006 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ES&S technicians used the pcAnywhere software installed on that county’s election-management system for hours trying to reconcile vote discrepancies in a local election, according to a reportfiled at the time. And in a contract with Michigan, which covered 2006 to 2009, ES&S discussed its use of pcAnywhere and modems for this purpose.

…

The presence of such software makes a system more vulnerable to attack from hackers, especially if the remote-access software itself contains security vulnerabilities. If an attacker can gain remote access to an election-management system through the modem and take control of it using the pcAnywhere software installed on it, he can introduce malicious code that gets passed to voting machines to disrupt an election or alter results.

Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

By the way, those are the same machines used in Allegheny county to this day.  We need paper ballots yesterday.

 

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

 

RUMOR MILL

 

That’s it for Tuesday.  Things are starting to come together, the threads are meshing together.  The American Project included several vectors of attack, and we’re seeing more of them converge.  We’ve already seen Michael Cohen’s shady business deals tie in with the Russians, now it’s the NRA’s turn.  As more comes out, the weirder this will get.

In the meantime, I’m adding Maria Butina to The Indicted.  She may not be charged by Mueller, but she’s involved.  She’ll go in the other section.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 07/16/2018

Monday the 16th and the weekend.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: NRA/TRUMP/KREMLIN BACKCHANNEL MARIA BUTINA ARRESTED

A criminal complaint was unsealed today in the District of Columbia charging a Russian national with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie K. Liu, and Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Maria Butina, 29, a Russian citizen residing in Washington D.C., was arrested on July 15, 2018, in Washington, D.C., and made her initial appearance this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was ordered held pending a hearing set for July 18, 2018.

According to the affidavit in support of the complaint, from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank.  This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018.

The court filings detail the Russian official’s and Butina’s efforts for Butina to act as an agent of Russia inside the United States by developing relationships with U.S. persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation. The filings also describe certain actions taken by Butina to further this effort during multiple visits from Russia and, later, when she entered and resided in the United States on a student visa. The filings allege that she undertook her activities without officially disclosing the fact that she was acting as an agent of Russian government, as required by law.

The charges in criminal complaints are merely allegations and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The maximum penalty for conspiracy is five years.  The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes.  If convicted of any offense, a defendant’s sentence will be determined by the court based on the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The investigation into this matter was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Here’s the affidavit

Holy crap on a crap cracker, this is big.  Huge.  I’ve got this as the main story on a day where Donald Trump gave Vladimir Putin a verbal blowjob in front of the entire world.  That’s how big I think it is.

I’ve been on the NRA is a bunch of money laundering, traitorous assholes like black clothes on a goth kid since at least Daily Check-In 10/2/2017.  Many of the players are well known at this point, including Alexander Torshin’s right hand woman, Maria Butina.  I first discussed Maria, also spelled Mariia, on Daily Check-In 03/09/2018, when a YouTube clip of her surfaced asking Donald Trump at a rally how he’d deal with Russia.

Before and after her time asking questions, she’s posed as a “gun rights enthusiast”, often showing up at NRA events alongside or representing Alexander Torshin.  She’s had meetings with everyone from Scott Walker to Rick Santorum to Sheriff David Clarke, both here in the U.S. and in Russia.

Sunday,  she was arrested for being an Agent of the Russian Federation without prior notification to the Attorney General.  That’s legalese for being an unregistered spy, diplomat, or lobbyist.  Spycraft gets a little weird on the laws surrounding it, but every country is allowed to have legal spies working for them in the United States, just so long as they register with the State Department and/or Justice Department.  They’re usually called diplomats or attaches, but in reality they’re legal spies.

Where Maria’s concerned, she apparently never registered, and like many Russians in the country, never intended to.   That’s one problem with Putin’s regime; everyone with ties to the Kremlin does some type of spycraft.

Maria has been a subject of an investigation since at least April, when the FBI raided her apartment and seized her laptop.  The arrest warrant was signed by the judge on Saturday, and she was taken into custody on Sunday.

What I think happened is that after the indictments dropped on Friday (Daily Check-In 07/13/2018), Putin made the call to his agents in the United States to either get home right away, or go to a country with no extradition.  Before she could get out of the country, she was tagged.

That’s why I think this is so important; she’s under arrest in the United States.  The GRU hackers will likely never see the inside of an American courthouse, but Maria is here.

She ties everyone together.  She ties together the Republican Party, the National Rifle Association, Dana Rohrabacher, Donald Trump, the Kremlin, the Russian banks, and all the intermediaries.  She can bring everyone down.

As of this writing, she’s being held in prison on a psychiatric hold.  Getting arrested for being a spy can screw with a person’s well being.

 

  1. How do Erik Prince, the Seychelles, and the inauguration fit in?
  2. How do the UAE, Qatar, and Jared Kushner fit in?
  3. What role did Sergey Kislyak, the GOP convention, and the finances of the Russian Embassy play?
  4. How do Roger Stone, Wikileaks, and other Americans and Brits fit into the GRU indictment?
  5. What did Mueller learn from George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn?
  6. What’s in those 291,000 Michael Cohen documents?
  7. What’s up with that Trump Tower meeting?
  8. How relevant is Cambridge Analytica and was there a coordinated effort by the Trump campaign or associates to gather intelligence or untoward opposition research on Hillary Clinton?
  9. Do people like Carter Page and Felix Sater matter?

 

This was treachery that occurred before Helsinki.

As we take more time to parse what we’ve learned, expect to hear more and more about the various “coincidences” that no longer are, like changes in Trump’s campaign strategies that line up perfectly with them getting their hands on HRC’s analytics.

 

So, where to next?

I’m a little suspicious of The Independent, but the idea that Breitbart, Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit and others helped spread Russian propaganda isn’t just smoke.  There’s a four alarm blaze behind it.

 

This is another interesting development.  Rachel Maddow covered this, but the short version is that yesterday the judge in Manafort’s case in the Eastern District of Virginia, known as the “Rocket Docket” for their breakneck speed, allowed a postponement in a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Tuesday.  While there’s many reasons for this, it could indicate that Paulie Walnuts is ready to make a deal.

Funny how a few days in the general population of a maximum security prison could make a person more willing to cooperate.

 

This should have been the biggest story of the week, but instead I’m bringing it to you as the “Steal of the Week!”

Yeah, enough hyperbole.

The big takeaway from this story is that Mueller’s team has been moving pieces of their investigation to other jurisdictions and areas of the government for them to prosecute.  This way, not all of the investigations into this sprawling mess are handled by one team, and it protects Mueller’s team even more by removing the “it’s all Mueller” talking point from the shills like Hannity.

He’s outsourcing the investigation to other U.S. Attorney Offices.  He’s already done this with Michael Cohen, and likely Maria Butina.  Many more will come.

 

HELSINKI SUMMIT: THE EVIDENCE OF TREASON

Jesus fucking Christ.  I’m getting sick and tired of thinking that there is a set lower limit to how bad things can be, just to be proven wrong.

The President of the United States defended the head of a foreign power who committed an Act of War against the United States, then proceeded to verbally attack the country he’s sworn to protect.

Donald Trump colluded with the Russians in front of the entire world, and defended their actions in meddling in the election.

No, not just colluded.  Conspired.

Not just meddled.  Attacked.

Donald Trump committed treason.

Even if, in the infinitesimal chance he didn’t do so during the campaign and election (Spoiler Alert: He was involved in every step), Trump committed treason by siding with a foreign power against America’s interests.

As far as the narrow legal definition goes, he provided aid and comfort to a foreign power in a time of war.

That’s treasonous.

 

HELSINKI REACTIONS

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) today issued the following statement:

“There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world. That is not just the finding of the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on Intelligence. The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy.”

When the spineless one says this, you done fucked up.

 

The reactions ranged from the subtle…

Comey: ‘Patriots Need to Stand Up and Reject’ Trump’s Behavior

Crime A Day throwing some shade

Hillary Clinton to Trump ahead of Putin summit: ‘Do you know which team you play for?’

Hillary Clinton: ‘Now we know’ which team Trump plays for

Schwarzenegger: Trump looked like a ‘little wet noodle’ during Putin press conference

 

To strongly worded rebukes…

Is this how a President should act like? Really shameful…

John McCain: Today was “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory”

McCain: ‘No Prior President Has Ever Abased Himself More Abjectly Before a Tyrant’

 

To pointing out the obvious

The CIA Had a Rule Against Meeting the KGB Alone. Trump Was Reckless to Ignore It With Putin.

Trump and Putin: what we know is damning

U.S. Intel Community Reacts with Fury to Trump’s Rebuke

Donald Trump Is Fulfilling All of Those Obama Conspiracy Theories

Vladimir Putin Sees Donald Trump As ‘Weak’ And ‘Incoherent’ After Phone Call In March, Former U.S. Ambassador To Russia Says

 

To asking what kompromat Putin has on Trump…

Donald Trump ‘Owned’ By Russia ‘For Many Years,’ Says ‘Art Of Deal’ Ghostwriter, Calls Trump ‘America’s Enemy’

Ex-CIA chief tears into Trump for one-on-one meeting with Putin: What is he hiding?

Ex-RNC chairman: Trump sounded like an ‘asset’ next to his ‘handler’

Pelosi: ‘The Russians have something on the president’

Who’s Your Vladdy? What does Putin have on Trump?

 

To the flabbergasted…

‘Shameful,’ ‘disturbing,’ and an ’embarrassment’ — Congress reacts to Trump’s press conference with Putin

“He Should Have Defended Us”: Even Fox News Is Sick of Trump’s Putin Worship

Anderson Cooper: Trump-Putin presser was “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president”

The Most Incompetent Demagogue In History | HuffPost

This Was Among the Most Disgraceful Moments in the Modern History of the American Presidency

We are a deeply stupid country

 

To calls for resignations…

If you work for Trump, quit now

It’s Resignation Time

Southeast Ohio Republican Party leader resigns over Trump-Putin meeting

Ohio Republican Party county chair leaves GOP after Trump-Putin meeting over ‘sense of duty’

 

To people finally recognizing what this has been all along: treason.

Dictionary.com shares definition of ‘traitor’ after Trump press conference with Putin

Donald Trump is the new Benedict Arnold

Opinion | Trump, Treasonous Traitor

The Way Trump and the GOP Deal with Russian Attacks is ‘Textbook Treason’

‘Treason’ Is Top Searched Word After Trump-Putin Press Conference | HuffPost

Yes #TreasonSummit, There’s Legal Basis For Impeaching Trump Now

That was treason, Donald Trump. We all saw it

July 16th, 2018 will be a historic day.  It’s the day that all doubt was erased about whether or not President Donald Trump is a traitor to the United States of America.  It’s the day that the world saw, many for the first time, how deep this rabbit hole goes.

I’m not going to ridicule, insult, or attack anyone who’s just now coming to the party.  I’m glad you finally arrived.  There’s punch and pie in the back.

 

COHEN, SACHA BARON

This was funny and sad at the same time.  Funny because Sacha Baron Cohen is a comedic genius who can pull some truly messed-up shit out of thin air, and sad because it didn’t take much to get people like Dana Rohrabacher to go on camera and give a testimonial and endorsement of the Kinderguardian program.  Watch the clip and you’ll see what I mean.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

EUROPEAN UNION

 

BREXIT

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

MAIN STREAM MEDIA JOINS THE PARTY

 

TREY GOWDY

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

SCOTUS

The battle over court packing is being fought on the wrong terms. Americans of all political stripes should want to see the court expanded, but not to get judicial results more favorable to one party. Instead, we need a bigger court because the current institutional design is badly broken. The right approach isn’t a revival of FDR’s court packing plan, which would have increased the court to 15, or current plans, which call for 11. Instead, the right size is much, much bigger. Three times its current size, or 27, is a good place to start, but it’s quite possible the optimal size is even higher. This needn’t be done as a partisan gambit to stack more liberals on the court. Indeed, the only sensible way to make this change would be to have it phase in gradually, perhaps adding two justices every other year, to prevent any one president and Senate from gaining an unwarranted advantage.

GOP: THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

ELON MUSK

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

ELECTION 2018: THE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE EDITION

I haven’t bullshit-coughed that hard since the first time I saw ‘Attack of the Clones’ and Chancellor Palpatine said “I love democracy.”

 

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

 

TRAITOR-TOTS

 

IN OTHER NEWS…

 

RUMOR MILL AND CITIZEN JOURNALISTS

 

That’s it for Monday.  Holy shit, that was crazy.  It’s Tuesday Afternoon, and I’m just wrapping things up.  I hope Tuesday will be lighter, but we’re in the shit now, someone’s gotta shovel it.

I’m not sure exactly what’s next, but expect protests and calls for action.  How Congress reacts I think will rely heavily on how screwed they think they are, and whom they’re more afraid of; their base or the masses.

One thing I didn’t include was a tweet I saw from Pace.  He said he received a tip from one of his USSS buddies that several GOP senators had an emergency meeting last night over the phone.  The timing was right after the Helsinki meeting, but before news of Butina’s arrest broke.  With two major stories breaking, the meeting could have been about either thing, or both.  As always take it with a grain of salt.

I just realized something.  The meeting took place in Helsinki, Finland.  It made me think of Die Hard, where they’re talking about Helsinki Syndrome.  It’s actually Stockholm Syndrome, but they’ve become somewhat interchangeable by this point.  Stockholm Syndrome is the psychological condition where one being held captive begins to feel attachment to their captors.  That might explain a little bit of the MAGA mindset…

Yeah, bad joke.  I’ll see myself out.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur