Tag: Politics

Daily Check-In 04/12/2018

Thursday, April 12th

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: PAYOFFS, COHEN HAS TAPES, FBI WANTS ALL THE THINGS, COMEY MAKES A TAPE, MUELLER/TRUMP INTERVIEW LIKELY OFF, THE BATTLE BEGINS

Ronan Farrow broke a story this morning about the National Enquirer spiking another story.  If the story sounds familiar, it is, but it isn’t.  One of the doormen at Trump Tower heard a rumor that Trump knocked up one of his housekeepers back in the 80’s, and she kept the baby.  The doorman met with The National Enquirer, and paid him $30,000 in November 2015 to buy the story from the doorman, then buried it.

Notice the timing.  November 2015.  During the Presidential Campaign.

The story ain’t that Trump knocked up his maid.  The story’s that a tabloid newspaper with VERY close ties to Trump (Daily Check-in 02/16/2018) has paid for multiple story spikes during the Presidential campaign, and they weren’t claimed as contributions to the campaign.

Yeah, Michael Cohen recorded a lot of his conversations.  Hell, he’d brag about it, then play the conversations back to people to piss them off.  He recorded EVERYONE.  All the people he worked with, all of the reporters who called him, and his client Donald Trump.

Remember the scene in Casino where the guy was bitching about all of the crimes while being wiretapped, and the guy getting admonished by his mom for swearing?  Besides it having Martin Scorsese’s mom as the mother in the scene, what’s scaring Trump and his team is what Cohen was talking about and recorded aside from what the FBI already knew.

James Comey is starting his press tour.  I look forward to listening to this next week.

The move to protect Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein is reaching a crescendo.

Trump is worried, and acting stupid.  How stupid?

Trump is using the Republican National Committee to openly attack law enforcement officers.

Think about that for a moment…

The President of the United States of America is ordering the party leadership he represents to attack the former FBI Director and the Deputy Attorney General.

Why pardon a former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff that was convicted of Lying to the FBI by a Special Counselor appointed by the then Deputy Attorney General James Comey?  He’s testing the waters of his pardon power.

But why is he freaking out so much?

Now, according to two sources, Mueller’s team may be able to close the obstruction probe more quickly as they will not need to prepare for the interview or follow up on what the president says.

…

Three sources familiar with the investigation said the findings Mueller has collected on Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice include: His intent for firing former FBI Director James Comey; his role in the crafting of a misleading public statement on the nature of a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his son and Russians; Trump’s dangling of pardons before grand jury witnesses who might testify against him; and pressuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

Not only does it look like the Mueller/Trump interview won’t happen, but Mueller is moving ahead without it.

Why is this big?

Daily Check-In 01/24/2018, Daily Check-In 04/03/2018, and Daily Check-In 01/23/2018 all talk about Trump and Mueller’s team negotiating the terms of meeting, 1/23/2018 described that Mueller wanted to meet with Trump by the end of February, and that the next wave of indictments wouldn’t happen until either after the interview, or until the interview was off the table.

Guess what?  The interview is off the table, which means the next round of indictments is coming in hot.  Especially if The Dotard tries anything stupid.

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

BLUE WAVE

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

COLD WAR 2.0

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS: Pompeo has problems in his confirmation hearing, Pruitt is corrupt AF

Here’s the PDF of the letter.

 

MISSOURI GOVERNOR SEX ABUSE SCANDAL

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

STORMYWATCH/RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION CROSSOVER EVENT

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

 

RUMOR MILL:  BACKPAGE AND CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING, AND HOW IT RELATES TO EVERYTHING ELSE

Spicy and Louise Neu(@ninaandtito) have been on this like white on rice, but I haven’t been following the tale.  Short version, Backpage.com’s owners were indicted for and convicted of human trafficking, running a prostitution ring, and benefiting and profiting from the child sex trade.

How does this relate to Team Treason?  To be honest, I’m not completely sure, I got lost a few layers in, but there is a lot of intermingling between the Backpage people and European and Russian organized crime.

Check their stuff out for more details.

 

That’s it for today.  I’ve got a bad feeling that Friday’s gonna be nuttier than my nut roll recipe.  Each nut roll has about 5-6 ounces of chopped walnuts.  I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but we might be on the precipice of history.  If shit does get weird, remember to keep your head on straight; freaking out in the middle of a clusterfuck just makes it a bigger clusterfuck.  Stay calm, and stay frosty.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/11/2018

Wednesday, April 11th.

 

PAUL RYAN TO NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION

So, Paul Ryan is retiring.  The Speaker of the House, who was facing a stiff battle in November, decided to abandon ship.

One question that I have; does this mean Paul Ryan will grow a spine and stand up to Trump, or continue his invertebrate ways?

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: COHEN IS SOL AND PWF, DANA BOENTE AND JAMES COMEY, TRUMP’S TEMPER TANTRUMS WORSEN, SENATE MAKING MOVES TO PROTECT MUELLER, DEVIN NUNES IS A FUCKWAD, MANAFORT IS MANAFUCKED

Michael Cohen is SOL and PWF.  Shit outta luck and pretty well fucked…

 

Dana Boente backed up Comey’s claims, and Comey taped an interview with ABC News…

 

Trump’s having more temper tantrums and getting shitty advice…

 

But as much as the Senate looks like it’s trying to protect Robert Mueller…

 

Dipshit Cowpoke Devin Nunes tries to do Trump’s dirty work.

 

That still won’t help Paul Manafort.  He’s not just fucked, he’s Manafucked.

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller asked a judge in Alexandria, Virginia, to issue 35 sets of subpoenas to witnesses for a July 10 appearance at a trial. That’s when President Donald Trump’s former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort is set to go on trial on tax and bank fraud charges.

Mueller asked for blank subpoenas, with names to be filled in later.

 

By the way, the Senate Intelligence Committee just received a bunch of documents from Jill Stein’s campaign.

 

COLD WAR 2.0: SYRIA, RUSSIA, AND TRUMP LEAKS ON TWITTER

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK: DAY 2 OF ZUCKERBERG’S SENATE TESTIMONY

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

 

RUMOR MILL: GETTING OUT WHILE THE GETTING IS…

With Paul Ryan leaving, expect even more retirements from Congress from Republicans. Especially as news comes out about the GOP taking Russian money during 2016, and before.

 

That’s it for today.  My plan for this weekend is to fill out the cast of characters a little bit, maybe include some media members as well.  Especially Maggie Haberman.  She’s an interesting character in this whole mess.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/10/2018

Tuesday, April 10th.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION:  ROSENSTEIN SIGNED OFF ON COHEN RAID, MUELLER MET WITH TRUMP’S LEGAL TEAM YESTERDAY, MULTIPLE SEYCHELLES MEETINGS TOOK PLACE AND MUELLER KNOWS ABOUT THEM, SPECIAL COUNSELOR OFFICE TOOK PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS WITH COHEN, RACHEL MADDOW HAS DANA BOENTE’S NOTES FROM JAMES COMEY, AND MAGGIE HABERMAN TRIES TO BURY THEM ALL WITH OLD NEWS

Back in December, Daily Check-In 12/06/2017, Trump threw a temper tantrum and said “I’m gonna fire Mueller! Wa, Waaa!” after news broke about  Mueller subpoenaing Deutschebank for Trump Org records.  His staff talked him down (not that he could do much of anything in the first place).  There were tons of rumors, and stories, about Trump wanting to fire Mueller.

Fast forward to Daily Check-In 01/25/2018 and Daily Check-In 01/26/2018.  The Dutch announce that they pwned the Russian GRU sponsored groups of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, and they have proof that the Russians fucked with the American Election, and it wasn’t the first time the Dutch helped the Yankees.

What was the big story of the day?  Maggie Haberman releasing a story that Trump wanted to fire Mueller back in June 2017 when Jared did something stupid.  That story took the stage and pushed the Dutch Intelligence story out of the spotlight.  While the MSM tripped over their own dicks talking about Maggie’s story, they completely dropped the ball on should have been the biggest story in the world.

So, when Maggie dropped another story about Trump wanting to fire Mueller, my first question is “What is she trying to cover up?”

Let’s go through today’s topics.

Michael Cohen gets his shit fucked up…

 

Congress doesn’t like cut of Trump’s jib…

“I have confidence in Mueller. The president ought to have confidence in Mueller. I think … it would be suicide for the president to want, to talk about firing Mueller,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said on Fox Business Network. “The less the president said on this whole thing, the better off he would be, the stronger his presidency would be.”

 

Trump attacks American law enforcement more ferociously than he has ever talked about the Russians…

 

Trump’s pick for the SDNY US Attorney had to recuse himself from the Cohen Investigation…

ABC News has learned that Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is recused from the Michael Cohen investigation.

Two sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News Berman was not involved in the decision to raid Cohen’s office because of the recusal.

The recusal was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The raid of Cohen’s handled by others in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and approved by a federal judge.

Berman is a Trump appointee with ties to Rudy Giuliani who donated money to the 2016 Trump campaign.

The U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment.

Wow.  That’s what happens when the President personally interviews attorneys; they have to recuse themselves from investigations regarding the team who interviewed them.

The Assistant US Attorney for SDNY would have made the call to move forward with this line, but ultimately doing a no-knock raid on multiple locations belonging to an attorney requires high level DOJ sign-off, Associate AG or higher, and only after proving that there is no other way to get the required evidence.

The choice to the raid was probably pushed by Berman’s second, but was ultimately agreed to by Rosenstein.

Berman is located in the chart below.  Then again, so is everyone else.

Here’s a flowchart someone made showing the interconnections.  Who needs red string and a pegboard when Visio exists?

 

There were multiple meetings in the Seychelles, and Mueller knows because George Nader set them up…

 

The meetings – which included players from the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – have become a key focus in Mueller’s probe, and suggest that investigators have become increasingly interested in whether foreign governments, particularly Gulf states, have sought to leverage influence in the Trump administration.

Several of those meetings took place around the same time that Blackwater founder Erik Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, a wealthy Russian banker, and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the de facto ruler of the UAE, in January 2017, NJ.com reported.

The sources said several of those meetings took place around the same time as another meeting in the Seychelles between Erik Prince, founder of the security company Blackwater, Kirill Dmitriev, the director of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the effective ruler of the United Arab Emirates (also known as “MBZ”). Details of that earlier meeting were first reported by the Washington Post last year.

That is meetings.  Plural.  As in more than one.

 

Problems from 2016 are coming forward…

 

Trump’s legal team met with Mueller’s team while the raid was going on…

 

 

Trump’s own people either signed off on the raid or know he’s wrong…

 

 

The raid involved Cohen’s communications with Manafort AND Stormy Daniels…

 

 

 

 

The Stooges helping him are cornered…

 

 

 

Oh, and by the way…

Former EDVA, Acting Deputy Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and current FBI General Counselor Dana Boente has been approached by the Special Counselor’s Office to testify before the Grand Jury as a witness.  Boente, the poison pill from Daily Check-In 02/09/2018, and hired into a position by FBI Director Christopher Wray into a position where Sessions and Trump can’t touch him (Daily Check-In 01/23/2018  and Daily Check-In 01/29/2018).

Comey took notes on his meetings with Trump.  Know who he talked to?  Know who took notes?

Dana Fucking Boente.

And Rachel Maddow has some of those notes, and just broadcast them to the world.

This directly ties Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, to criminal activities.

Take a guess as to which story Maggie’s trying to cover up.

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK: MARK ZUCKERBERG TESTIFIED BEFORE CONGRESS, REDDIT OUTS THE TROLLS

I have battled more than a few names on that list.  Instead of deleting them, I would like to see Reddit flag and tag them.  Illuminate the accounts and their actions, and highlight the trolls for the world to see.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE:  FOX NEWS TELLS TRUMP TO FIRE MUELLER, SINCLAIR ATTACKS CNN AS PARTISAN, RUPERT MURDOCH’S OFFICES IN LONDON RAIDED

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS:  JOHN BOLTON FIRES TOM BOSSERT

 

#NEVERAGAIN:  A RED HOT POKER?

He reportedly said Hogg should expect push-back if he’s going to “get his hands dirty” in political issues and advised him to “just be a grownup about it.”

“Which, in Allman’s world, apparently means being threatened publicly with sodomy before you’re even old enough to vote,” the Riverfront Times wrote.

Really?  Ass play with a red hot poker?  What the fuck, over?

 

 

STORMYWATCH:  NOW WITH THAT CRIMINAL FLAVOR

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY:  PEPPERIDGE FARM REMEMBERS

 

COLD WAR 2.0:  TROUBLE IN SYRIA

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

 

RUMOR MILL:  BE READY TO WALK, RACHEL’S STORY, AND THE BATTLE OF THE REGULATION

The chatter about large-name firings is louder than normal, but still not completely freaking out.  That being said, I want to be like a little person with a stepladder in their backpack; ready for anything.

One thing that does strike me as odd is the subtext about Rachel Maddow’s show tonight. How did she get copies of the actual notes?  How long ago did they get this?  How long have they worked on this story?

Finally, it would be nice if some of these journalists actually looked at the Special Counselor regulation.  Trump can’t fire Mueller directly.  Only the AG, or DAG in this case, can fire him.  Firing the DAG moves the authority down the line to the next in line, and so on and so on.  Problem is, there’s no guarantee that would actually work.  Trump’s “action of last resort” would be to try to wipe out the regulation by changing the regulation himself, but that’s an even bigger legal battle.  Not only would DOJ slow walk this through, but it would be challenged in court faster than an NFL Instant Replay.

 

That’s it for today.  It’s only TUESDAY!  If things calm down this week (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha) I’ll update a few of the smaller articles, like who flipped, the various Russians involved, the spies, et cetera.

Remember, this is gonna get crazier before it calms down, but liberty, democracy, and freedom are worth the fight.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 04/09/2018

Monday April 9th and the weekend.

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: FBI RAIDS COHEN’S HOME, OFFICE, HOTEL.

Yeah, that happened.

Southern District New York, operating under a referral from Robert Mueller’s team, executed multiple search warrants against the President’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, at multiple locations, at the same time. This included seizing tax documents, campaign records, communications with his client Donald Trump, contracts, bank records, and other information related to several legal matters, including Stormy Daniels.

I hate to sound hyperbolic, but this is huge. The prosecutors were able to convince a judge of the following…

  • Cohen had information vital to the investigations.
  • Communication between Trump and Cohen was not covered completely under Attorney-Client privilege.
  • That information likely includes criminal activity.
  • If served with a subpoena, Cohen would not cooperate.
  • Cohen would likely move to destroy evidence.
  • Cohen’s behavior was so bad, a judge decided that several no-knock raids executed at the same time was the least intrusive method of obtaining this information.
  • The information on file was so atrocious that the judge ordered these actions, despite Cohen being the personal attorney of the President of the United States.
  • The prosecutors and judge feel that there is enough information to refer to Stormywatch as a criminal matter.

Yes, that’s right.  Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations, according to a person familiar with the case.  One of these matters is the Stormy Daniels payoff.  They’re also looking into a Ukrainian’s $150,000 Payment for a Trump Appearance.

Investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization this year for an array of records about business with foreign nationals. In response, the company handed over documents about a $150,000 donation that the Ukrainian billionaire, Victor Pinchuk, made in September 2015 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute appearance by Mr. Trump that month through a video link to a conference in Kiev.

$150,000 for a 20 minute speech?  From a man who has donated millions to the Clinton Foundation for years, and was accused, by Trump supporters no less, of paying for access?

Remember, everything they do is projection.  Every attack against an opponent is designed to distract.  That’s gonna make Pizzagate look pretty fucking awkward.

But aside from the why, what, where, and how, it’s who.  More precisely, who is the SDNY, and why did Mueller refer Cohen’s case to him?  This article explains Why Robert Mueller Handed Off the Michael Cohen Raid.  There are several reasons why Mueller handed this off to Geoffrey Berman, but the biggest reason is to use SDNY as a clean team, or taint team.

Ok, short version of a clean team.  Because they’re seizing documents related to conversations between an attorney and their client, the investigators have to go through them with a fine toothed comb.  If they found something that wasn’t covered by the warrant but was criminal, it would be inadmissible in court.  So, they have another group of people go through all of the correspondence to see what’s covered by the warrant and what’s not.  This way, the clean team can then forward on what’s covered, and leave the rest behind.

Cohen’s office in 30 Rock belongs to Squire Patton Boggs.  They also represent Gazprom, SCL, and Cambridge Analytica.  Well, used to be his office.  He got shitcanned via press statement.

By the way, Michael Cohen is a Deputy Finance Chair for the Republican Party.  They’ve wasted no time scrubbing his profile from their page.

 

 

RUSSIAN ECONOMY TAKES A HIT

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

TRUMP HATES BROWN PEOPLE

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

STORMYWATCH, FROM THE STORMCENTER 6000 METEOROPORNOLOGICAL CENTER

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

 

TRUMP TOWER FIRE

 

RED STATE TEACHER STRIKE

 

CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS?

 

RUMOR MILL:  WAG THE DOG, AND AN EVIDENCE BURNING PARTY

This is the first time I’ve ever put WaPo in the Rumor Mill, but given the rest of the news, a few voices on Reddit were talking about Trump using Syria as a distraction from the news of Cohen’s raid, sort of a Wag the Dog scenario.

Wag The Dog was a movie about a White House Official that hires a Hollywood Producer to make a war to distract the country from a sex scandal.

I don’t think this will happen, but I wanted to mention what I was seeing.  None of the main Rumor Mill voices were talking about this being a possible scenario, so take it as it is.

 

That’s it for today.  If the week starts off with Cohen’s shit getting seized by the FBI, then we’re looking forward to a crazy week.  Real fucking crazy.

Time to grab on and hold tight.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur