2018

It’s Thursday, or as they say in the native language of my people…Thursday.

TRUMP SENDS CEASE AND DESIST LETTER TO BANNON, ANOTHER TO MICHAEL WOLFF AND PUBLISHER OVER “FIRE & FURY” BOOK

This is rich. Trump’s legal team sent a cease and desist letter to Steve Bannon in regards to an interview in a book that place more than six months in a workplace where not only are non-disclosure agreements aren’t binding, but the reporter who wrote the book was given permission from complainant to interview everyone.

Let’s count the ways this won’t fly…

First, the NDA cited was signed in late 2016 for the Trump Campaign. The campaign ended with the election. The NDA, assuming it’s not worth less than toilet paper, which it is, would only apply to privileged events during the campaign. It would cease immediately upon the creation of the Trump Transition Team, since that was a separate legal entity.

Second, NDA’s can’t be applied to the White House. Everything that occurs in the day-to-day operation of the government is a matter of public record, aside from information restricted for security purposes. Because everything is on the public record, a non-disclosure agreement would be in direct violation of this. FUN FACT: The career politicians refused to sign the NDA’s before joining the White House, because they knew it wasn’t worth the toner used on the paper.

Next, Bannon gave his opinion on a topical event in the news as it was breaking, and talked about people and events he was not involved with. Trump wasn’t even the person Bannon was disparaging, it was Trump’s child, son-in-law, and a campaign staff member who was yet to be named the head of the campaign.

Trump’s standing for defamation is dubious at best. He’s a public figure, and the bar for libel and slander is VERY high. Not only would his team have to prove that what Bannon said was false, but that it was said with obvious malicious intent, and was intended to be injurious to the complainant. Trump would have to prove that Bannon was lying, knew it was a blatant lie, and intended to hurt Trump with this lie. This is a nearly unreachable legal bar to attain.

Finally, not only did Trump give permission for Bannon and the rest of the staff to speak to the author of the book, Trump took part in it, lambasting and attacking his staff and allies at every opportunity. Trump let Michael Wolff set up shop in the West Wing, and everyone and their mother talked with him, including Trump.

Trump doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on, and is trying to scare Bannon into staying silent. This will never see the light of day, but what it does do is create an enemy out of the head of one of Trump’s biggest supporters in Breitbart.

Worse yet for Trump, any attack in the courts against Bannon would likely be met with countersuits and motions to dismiss his precious NDA’s, which would open the floodgates for everyone who’s ever worked for Trump, but didn’t have the ability to fight him in court. Trump doesn’t hire good attorneys, because good attorneys wouldn’t work for him. Instead, he gets lousy attorneys from lousy law schools, that likely used the same boiler plate NDA for each and every Trump venture. All it would take is one lawsuit, and any and all NDA’s with that same language would be null and void.

By the way, Wolff taped dozens of hours of interviews.

WHITE HOUSE STAFF EXPECT MUELLER TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP

This book is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only does everyone think he’s an idiot, but Mueller is going to destroy him.

Might explain the stress eating.

U.S. TO END POLICY THAT LET STATES DECIDE MARIJUANA RULES

The Associated Press reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered the Department of Justice to roll back the Obama era orders that gave the states leeway on how and whether or not to prosecute marijuana related crimes. This move may effectively end medicinal marijuana in the country.

Last year, more than 64,000 people died of opiod overdoses. Not one person overdosed on THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

I look forward to Jeff Sessions receiving his eventual comeuppance.

TWO MEMBERS OF FREEDOM CAUCUS CALLING FOR JEFF SESSIONS TO RESIGN

Two members of the Freedom Caucus, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, also called the Tea Party, are asking for Jeff Sessions to resign. This is being seen by anyone paying attention as an attempt to get Sessions out of the way so that Trump can get Mueller fired.

How? Since Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian Investigation, that puts Rod Rosenstein as the only person who can fire Robert Mueller. If Rod is fired and Jeff Sessions is still in the Attorney General position. If Rod is fired now, the power to fire Mueller goes down the chain, not up. But, theoretically, replacing Jeff Sessions would allow that power to go back up the chain, or at least let them choose a crony under Rod who would do their bidding.

At this point, Mueller has game planned this out. He knows that Trump will try to fire him at some point, and has likely prepared for that scenario.

One of the lawyers on his team is Michael Dreeben, the best Appeals Prosecutor alive. He is one of a handful of attorneys to argue over 100 cases before the Supreme Court, and he has won most of them.

Why do I bring this guy up? Because I think part of Mueller’s plan is for Trump to either try to pardon him and/or his family, and to fire Mueller. Both of those actions are unconstitutional and/or illegal, but have never been argued before in Federal court.

Here’s what I think will happen: as soon as Trump tries to fire Mueller, or attempt to pardon himself or his family, sealed indictments charging him with felonies of Obstruction of Justice, and a few other things, will be unsealed. Simultaneously, lawsuits will be filed in both criminal and civil court, claiming that these actions by Trump are unconstitutional, and that they should be immediately stopped with an injunction. The Appeals court issue the injunction, and this case will get fast tracked to the Supreme Court. As this is going on, the greatest leakstorm will flow, including tapes of Trump conspiring with the Russians to sway the election.

When I say immediately, I’m talking less than a week from the time Mueller is fired to showing up before SCOTUS, and the injunction would be filed the same day.

Who better to argue the case of a lifetime in front of the SCOTUS than the best lawyer alive?

BLOOMBERG: MONEY LAUNDERING IS SERIOUS, TOO.

I’ve talked before about Money Laundering. Now, Bloomberg goes into some of what Bannon said in the book.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we may or may not see charges against Team Trump for espionage or treason, but we will definitely see some financial crime charges, including money laundering.

That’s is for today, so far. It’s early in the day, though, and as every other time I write a post in the afternoon, something explodes at night. I look forward to editing this post by 9pm EST.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 01/03/2018

Happy New Year! It’s Wednesday, and a crazy one. I’m still getting caught up from being sick all of December, and there’s a few things I want to go over from my sick leave, but that’ll wait till my next post.

DEPUTY AG ROSENSTEIN, FBI DIRECTOR WRAY MEET WITH SPEAKER PAUL RYAN ABOUT DEVIN NUNES AND RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Nothing like a surprise meeting in the Capitol.

This is likely in relation to subpoenas that Devin Nunes, not the House Intelligence Committee, issued to the DOJ and FBI about their investigation into Russia.

NEW BOOK “FIRE & FURY” SHOWS THAT EVERYONE HATES DONALD TRUMP, LEADS TO FIGHTING BETWEEN TRUMP AND BANNON

This is gonna get good. I think this might be my next book purchase.

Here’s an excerpt. Holy Shit.

The author of the book, Michael Wolff, set up shop in the West Wing.

The staff thinks Trump is an idiot, and vice versa.

MANAFORT SUES MUELLER IN CIVIL COURT IN DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO GET SPECIAL COUNSELOR GUIDELINES THROWN OUT

Paul Manafort is trying to use a civil suit to keep his ass from a long prison sentence.

This is a desperate move to try to get the Special Counselor removed from the case, and his charges of money laundering and conspiracy against the United States thrown out.

It’s desperate, and will most likely be thrown out as frivolous.

FUSION GPS ATTACKS NUNES AND GRASSLEY IN NEW YORK TIMES OP ED, CALLING FOR TRANSCRIPTS OF TESTIMONY TO BE RELEASED.

The New York Times released this opinion editorial from Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, the company behind the Steele Dossier, laid into the Republican led Congressional committees over their partisan behavior, including how they ignored basic information about Trump and his history and attempted to discredit his company.

This is definitely worth a read, but the biggest part of the story to me was Glenn saying that the FBI had a source inside the Trump Campaign.

Read that sentence again. The FBI had an inside source telling them about Russia.

LEAKED RACIST STORY ABOUT MUELLER GRAND JURY SOUNDS A LOT LIKE TRUMP

Think Progress has a good write up about a very racist story that showed up in the New York Post, one of Trump’s favorite papers, written by one of his favorite writers, using phrases that he constantly uses like “Central Casting.”

There’s a good chance the story was made up by Donald Trump, and told to a friendly writer to try to make it look like a bunch of minorities were on the jury, trying to bait his racist base.

Trump has a history of using the tabloids to smear his opponents. He would often call the Post or National Enquirer under the alias John Barron, and attack his opponents or brag about his sexual conquests.

VOTING COMMISSION KILLED BY WHITE HOUSE

Good. This panel was being set up to suppress voting rights across the country.

This is just one night back! There’s a few things I want to go over from the last couple weeks, like Ivanka getting caught up in a $100 million diamond scam, and the increased attacks on the FBI and DOJ for the Right Wing Media.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

2017 Retrospective

Hello there, it’s been a while. December has been a very rough month for me. I’ve had maybe 3 days this month where I haven’t been sick, and 2 of those were spent fighting a broken furnace.

But it’s that time of the year when everyone and their mother throws together a compilation list of the best and worst stuff that happened in the past 365ish days, then go on vacation for the rest of the year.

I hate those posts.

I don’t like nostalgia for nostalgia sake, and 2017 doesn’t deserve a “best of” send off.

I hate it when people talk about the “good old days” and wax poetically about a memory of a time that was a hell of a lot worse than their rose-tinted glasses made appear.

Instead, I want to talk about what changed in 2017, what stayed the same, what was learned, and why it’s worth fighting.

While this is mostly concerned with what has happened in the News, I’m also including personal change as well. I’m hesitant to call it growth, but change is accurate.

WHAT CHANGED IN 2017?

For anyone reading this after waking up from a coma that started the last week of October 2016, I’ve got some bad news. Trump won the Presidential election. But, as we’ve come to learn, he didn’t do it alone. He had a lot of help from his friends in Russia, and there were more than enough Americans that helped him as well.

2017 started off weird, as the Obama Administration has just instituted several major new sanctions on Russia. Trump didn’t seem to want to do anything to Russia, and evidence was still coming in about what happened in November. The MSM was still hoping that Trump, a 70 year old misogynistic, racist, ignorant fool would somehow not embarrass the country in front of the world, and that if we gave him a chance, he might actually not suck.

That hope lasted all of about two days.

After a small inauguration event, Trump’s team went into full-on propaganda mode by distributing false photos of the event where they photoshopped a much larger crowd, while going after anyone who spread the real photos. At the same time, his Administration went after the Parks Service, trying to erase any mention of climate change from Government sites.

That’s when the Resistance started.

The Women’s March. The Alt accounts. The March for Science. The Airport Protests. The March for Reason. More people had marched against Trump by April of 2017 than against Cancer all year long.

It’s also the first whispers that something wasn’t right in the White House. In between trying to undo everything Obama did and implement his Muslim Ban, word came around that Mike Flynn was in some serious legal jeopardy. (SPOILER ALERT: He’s now a convicted felon.) Trump’s team was told in late January by Acting Attorney General Sally Yates that Flynn had lied to the FBI. She was fired the next day. Flynn resigned 18 days later.

This is just up to February.

A couple things changed in February for me.

First, I found PostimusMaximus on Reddit, and read a lot of his posts. I assume it’s a him, but I could be wrong. Reading his work was eye opening, but insane. I saw many of the markers of old school conspiracy theories, but there was something different with his work. Instead of citing places like Coast to Coast, he cited real sources like the Washington Post and New York Times. I decided to keep an eye on him.

Next, I rejoined Twitter and started following a few people. Claude Taylor, Louise Mensch, and John Schindler. Eventually I followed a lot more people like Countercheckist, Tea Pain, Eric Garland, Rick Wilson, and more politicians, lawyers, and spooks than exist outside of D.C.

There was a weird feeling following these people on Twitter. It was sort of like joining a conversation halfway through and only catching small slivers, and then realizing that the slivers are in a different language. They were talking about indictments and grand juries and investigations by the FBI, the Steele Dossier, SIGINT from the Mayflower Hotel, while the rest of the world was still stuck on Trump and Twitter.

In March, that’s when Russia came roaring in to the picture. During a late night rage tweet, Trump said Obama had tapped his phones. Even though this was a horseshit claim, the House Intelligence Committee decided to hold a hearing about it and invited FBI Director James Comey to testify.

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations confirmed, under oath, that the Trump Campaign was under a counterintelligence investigation that started in July 2016, and that grand juries had been impaneled to deal with that investigation.

Hole. Lee. Shit.

This confirmed that at least part of what the Rumor Mill was saying was true, and that it was worth looking into the rest of their chatter, if just to see if it was a case of a broken clock being right twice a day, or if there was something to this group fighting for Democracy.

Over the next few months, I noticed a few other changes. I stopped viewing the CIA and FBI as “the enemy.” I questioned the source of my news more often. I viewed what other people took as gospel and investigated it myself. I became more politically active. I started sounding like a complete nutter when I tried to describe what I was seeing and hearing about Trump and Russia. I was becoming more and more outspoken in my criticisms.

I also realized that these were historic times, and I should write down what happened so one day my kids could ask me “What The Fuck, Dad?”

I toyed with the idea of doing this blog back in May when Trump fired Comey and Robert Mueller was named the Special Counselor. I was looking into it when news of the June 9 meeting broke, and Donnie Jr proved to be the Dumbest Mother Fucker in the history of Dumb Mother Fuckers. I eventually got around to it in July, and I’ve been here since.

WHAT STAYED THE SAME IN 2017?

This is still the United States of America, a country of laws, not men, or wealth, or personalities.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

I learned not to take the press for granted.

There are quite a few people willing to sacrifice the future for small gains now, and those people must be dealt with. Unfortunately, there are quite a few more of them than I originally thought, and a lot of them have too much money. That doesn’t mean they’re invincible, it means the battle will be that much harder.

Sometimes conspiracies do exist.

A conspiracy is only as strong as the weakest person involved. It’s been 5 months since George Papadopoulos turned States Evidence against the Trump Campaign, and less than a month since Mike Flynn was convicted and flipped. George is a young man who doesn’t want to grow old in jail, and Mike Flynn just became a granddad.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Trump and Russia, but the evidence at this point leads to a conspiracy between them to steal the election in Trump’s favor. Nearly every member of his campaign and transition team either had contact with Russians, or knew about it.

Trump is a micromanaging asshole. No one in his circle does anything without his approval.

Donald Trump is unable or unwilling to change his ways.

The Trump Family is a crime family.

Some laws are easier to convince a jury about than others.

IS THIS WORTH FIGHTING FOR?

Absofuckinglutely. The moment we give in is the moment that everything this country was built on dies.

This is America. Churchill said it best when he said that we will always do the right thing, we’ll just try everything else first.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I want my kids to grow up in a world where the United States is still that shinning city on the hill where dreams can and do come true, where everyone is equal under the law, and a persons worth isn’t measured by their bank account, but the content of their character.

That’s it for today. I hope to be back up and writing on a normal schedule soon. Stuff did happen over the past couple weeks, including a confirmation of sorts that the RNC knew about the Trump Campaign colluding with the Russians, and that they actively took part in targeting specific zip codes, using information gained by Russians.

Thank you, and have a good one.

Daily Check-In 12/22/2017

Once again, I’ve been under the weather for the last few days. But, aren’t we all under the weather? Unless you’re in orbit on the International Space Station or in a plane, everyone on planet Earth is under the weather.

Anyway, I’ve been sick for the last few days. Plus, things have been a little hectic.

That being said, I wanted to write about a few stories that came out in the last couple days about the Russian Investigation. Most of them center around one main aspect that has come to light in the last week since Trump signaled he was thinking on his Hail Mary play.

The Obstruction of Justice by key members of Congress on behalf of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States.

One of the things I pointed out in Daily Check-In 12/13/2017 was that when people get desperate, they do stupid things, and leave nothing to the imagination about what side they’re on.

Politico reported earlier this week that Dipshit Cowpoke was working with a few members of the House Intelligence Committee to covertly investigate the FBI and DOJ for an “apparent bias on behalf of Clinton.” Then, on Tuesday and again yesterday, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified before them for a combined total of 15 hours. All of this is part of their campaign to smear the FBI and Justice Department.

Think about it for a second…

The FBI, one of the most conservative organizations in the world, where the vast majority of their staff around the country are registered Republicans, is biased in favor of Hilary Clinton, even though James Comey announced that her investigation was being reopened just days before the election, and was seen as the largest turning point (aside from all of the treason with Russia) as to why she lost. Then, after Trump fired Comey as head of the FBI, and used the opinion of one of his appointees, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the official reason, Trump then admits to the nation in a televised interview that he fired Comey over the “Russia thing.” THEN, we’re supposed to believe that Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee and lifelong Republican, appointed another lifelong Republican and former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead an investigation into Trump’s connections with Russia, which has so far netted 4 arrests and 2 guilty pleas, but everyone involved with this is completely and totally biased in favor or Democrats.

That’s what they want you to believe, and they’re pumping their friends at Fox News and across Right Wing Media to make the case for them.

Of course, it has no basis in reality, and is a thinly veiled attempt at trying to discredit the investigation before it gets too close to them.

By them, I mean the members of Congress working with Trump to bury the investigation.

As more and more evidence of the White House cover-up comes out, the behavior of certain members of the House and Senate will seem unusual, erratic, or downright crazy. Like, why would Trey Gowdy, head of the House Ethics Committee, say that it doesn’t make monetary sense to investigate Trump’s White House, but thinks that Hilary Clinton’s email server deserves another look? Or, why would Devin Nunes, the recused head of the House Intelligence Committee, leak the bank records of Fusion GPS to the press? Or, why does Bob Goodlatte, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, keep asking for a second Special Counselor to investigate the Uranium One deal, but won’t life a finger to look into Flynn’s work with the Russians to set up nuclear reactors in the Middle East?

These aren’t the actions of innocent people looking for the truth, or even partisans trying to weather a political storm. No, these are the actions of guilty, complicit individuals actively taking place in a cover-up.

It’s time to name some names.

Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes were members of the Trump Transition Team, and as it was released last week, all of their email conversations have been in the hands of the Mueller team since September. Combine that with their co-worker Mike Flynn flipping like a pancake, they’re boned.

Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, and Ron DeSantis have been in regular communication with the White House concerning strategy, and Matt and Ron recently traveled on Air Force One with Trump.

Bob Goodlatte’s retiring at the end of 2018, and is just one of many Republicans leaving the House. This supposedly also includes Speaker Paul Ryan, who has been rumored to have been caught on SIGINT discussing details of getting Russian Money into the Republican National Committee. Here’s a little walkthrough on what’s known so far.

So, we’re now at the point that the Republicans in Congress, an equal branch of the government, are playing henchmen to the wannabe dictator, and are actively trying to block any chance of doing their duty to the Constitution or the people of this country. And this is before the next round of indictments come raining down.

Which leads us to, who’s next?

Reports are circulating on the Rumor Mill that McGahn, Preibs, and Spicer are each in some deep shit, and at least two of them are working on plea deals. Jared and Ivanka have been extremely quiet recently, as have the rest of the lucky sperm club. Bannon and Corey have been requested to testify before the House Intel Committee in January. And, now that Trump has signed the Tax Bill, there’s some debate about whether or not he has outlived his usefulness to the GOP. They might protect him out of self-defense like I mentioned above, but they know that, as things stand right now, 2018 will be a bloodbath at the polls. If they don’t dump Trump before too long, they’ll go down with him.

That’s it for right now. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to writing on a normal schedule. It might be as soon as next week. Like I said, I have a couple stories I want to write before the end of the year that are more meta than anything else.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Jounralists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur