Friday. Time for the news dump.
RUSSIANS, ROGER STONE EDITED DNC MAILS, THEN GAVE THEM TO JULIAN ASSANGE TO RELEASE ON WIKILEAKS
Remember when Roger Stone, one of Trump’s campaign leaders, bragged about how he was in contact with Guccifer 2.0 about the DNC emails?
Turns out that contact included editing the stolen mails to make them even more salacious than they were before. These edits made turned the DNC mail story into one of conspiracy and vote rigging in the Democratic Primary, where the Democratic National Committee’s hand picked choice of Hilary Clinton, a lifelong Democrat, defeated the fringe candidate Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont. Meanwhile, Hilary beat Bernie by MILLIONS of votes, and Bernie Sanders would have been a terrible choice to run for President.
Did I mention that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian state sponsored hacker? This person may have been a part of, or an alias for Fancy Bear.
After Roger and the Russian Hackers edited the DNC mails, they then gave them to Julian Assange, who released them on Wikileaks.
What also gets interesting is how this narrative of what the mails contained seemed to come out a day before the mails dropped. Almost like someone knew.
According to one source that CBS spoke to, it’s every man, and woman, for themselves in the Mueller investigation. Everyone is throwing each other under the bus to try to get the best deal.
This reminds of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Two people, let’s call them Al and Bob, are arrested, and taken to separate interview rooms. The cops interview both of them separately, and offer each of them the same deal.
If neither accept the deal, both Al and Bob are looking at 5 years in prison.
If Al accepts, and Bob doesn’t, the one who accepts gets 2 years, but the other one gets 20 years. The opposite applies.
If they both accept, Al and Bob will both rat each other out, and both will get 10 years.
It sounds like that everyone is trying to give Mueller and his team all of the information they can, in order to not die of old age in prison.
MORE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN UKRAINE, RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME, MANAFORT, AND TRUMP
Yep. This time, some of the same Russian Oligarchs that worked with Manafort in Ukraine also have connections with Trump’s casinos dating back to the 1990’s.
MANAFORT TRIAL SET FOR MAY 8, 2018, PROSECUTION PLANS A 3 WEEK TRIAL
From what the lawyers on Twitter are saying, this is a pretty quick timetable for a trial of this magnitude. Either they have some pretty damning evidence, or everything they have is flimsy.
Considering that Mueller team member Andrew Weissman was able to successfully argue that Manafort’s lawyer was a party to these crimes and thus waived the right to attorney-client privilege, and was subpoenaed by the Grand Jury to testify against Manafort, and they’ve had a FISA warrant on Paul since last year, I’m guessing they have a pretty powerful case.
In Trump’s morning tirade, he went after Senator Elizabeth Warren. She claims to have some Native American ancestry, which is more common than people think.
Trump, in his morning tweet tirade, called her Pocahontas. This might not seem like much, but there’s a good number of people that would consider it at least slightly racist.
This was also the beginning of Native American Heritage Month. Think about that for a second. I’m honestly afraid of what he’ll say to Senator Cory Booker in February.
NEWS SOURCES CITED RUSSIAN TROLLS
WaPo, NYT, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS. All of them got fooled by the Russians.
CANADA ADDS 52 NAMES TO THEIR MAGNITSKY LIST
Most of them came from Russia. 19 from Venezuela, and 3 from South Sudan. Way to go, Bill!
FACEBOOK HAS 60 MILLION FAKE ACCOUNTS
About 2-3% of accounts on Facebook are duplicates or fakes. Some of those are used to spread propaganda. Surely not all 60 million, but enough.
TWITTER DIDN’T TAKE RUSSIAN ACTIONS SERIOUSLY
On the other hand, Twitter seems to thrive off of fake accounts. Thousands of fake accounts are added every day, many of them from Russian, Indian, or Chinese IP’s. Their business model is driven by views, not content. If views and hits are all that are important, creating armies of bots to swarm to a post to view and interact with users or posts to drive hits is all that is needed to make something appear big.
This is Twitter’s problem. And as more information comes out, it’s only going to get worse.
TWITTER CUSTOMER REP DELETES TRUMP TWITTER ACCOUNT, GONE FOR 11 MINUTES For 11 glorious minutes, in one of the best “Fuck it, I’m out” moves in history, a third party contractor blocked @realDonaldTrump on their way out the door.
For 11 minutes, he did not exist on Twitter. And the world was safe and sound.
It was quickly fixed, but reports out of the White House said that he went absolutely batshit when it was blocked.
Just imagine how bad he’ll get if he gets slapped with a gag order soon.
RIGHT WING BLOGGER JENNA ABRAMS WAS A RUSSIAN CREATION
I’ve never heard of her before, but apparently this blogger, who had 70.000 followers, wasn’t real, but a Russian creation.
TRUMP HEARD OUT GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, PER JD GORDON
Another member of Trump’s NatSec team, JD Gordon, said that Trump heard George Papadopoulos out on his Russian meeting idea during the March meeting, and didn’t say no.
Of course “Greatest Memory in the World” Donald Trump doesn’t remember that. And yes, last week he claimed to have the World’s Greatest Memory. This is gonna bite him in the ass.
PAPADOPOULOS CONSIDERED CONGRESSIONAL RUN BEFORE ARREST
According to his LinkedIn profile, George was looking into a run for Congress before he was indicted. He asked people for help in finding staffers, campaign finance people, and what districts would be good to run in.
After his indictment, he asked for recommendations on publishing houses, saying that “he has a a story to tell.”
No fucking shit.
TRUMP MAY MEET WITH PUTIN IN VIETNAM ON ASIA TRIP
Trump has met with Vladimir Putin twice. Vietnam will be the third time.
That’s more times than he’s met the Mexican or French President, or the Canadian or British Prime Ministers.
And they didn’t commit an Act of War against the United States last year.
LONGTIME TRUMP BODYGUARD TO MEET WITH MUELLER ABOUT 2013 RUSSIAN TRIP
Phil Schiller knows where the bodies are, both literally and figuratively. He has been by Trump’s side for nearly 20 years.
That includes Trump’s trip to Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant. And to the Ritz Carlton where the “Pee Tape” was supposedly made.
“I AM THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS”
When he asked by Laura Ingrahm of Fox News why he hasn’t filled senior positions at the State Department, this was his response.
This cult of personality has gone too far already.
TRUMP NOT HAPPY ABOUT RULE OF LAW
Trump doesn’t want to be President, he wants to be a dictator. We still have rules and laws here in the U.S., and he’s going to find out the hard way how much that means to people.
“THIS IS AUTOCRAT 101” SAYS EX-OBAMA SPOKESMAN
Yep. Just like I just said, Trump thought being President meant he could do whatever he wanted. He was wrong.
CARL BERNSTEIN SAYS THIS COULD BE WORSE THAN WATERGATE
Watergate was an attempted break-in of a campaign headquarters, followed by a massive cock-up of a cover up. A handful of burglars and a few principles in the administration knew at first, but it grew quickly.
The Russian Affair was a Presidential candidate working with a hostile foreign power to subvert Democracy itself.
40 men went to jail, with 69 indicted. When it’s all said and done, it’ll make Watergate look like a parking ticket.
VESELNITSKAYA ENTRY VISA TO UNITED STATES DENIED
The lawyer from the June 9 Meeting was denied entry into the U.S.
DONNA BRAZILE AND DNC MAILS STORY PUSHED BY RIGHT WING BEFORE GUCCIFER 2.0 STORY BROKE
This one was a weird one to make the rounds today, but in hindsight it makes sense. The RWM and Donald Trump were pushing the DNC rigging storyline pretty hard today. It confused me as to why, until I saw the story about Guccifer 2.0.
This was deflection, distraction, and projection. Pure and simple. This is their weapon of choice.
CARTER PAGE NAME DROPPING JEFF SESSIONS A BIT TOO MUCH
Carter Page is a fucking idiot. A useful fucking idiot. One of the things that he did, a little too much in the last couple days, was drop Jeff Sessions’ name in connection to his Russian trip. Several times.
Did Jeff know? Absolutely.
Is Carter likely a Russian Spy? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Could he be trying to implicate Jeff even further, and get it to the point that he’s pushed out of the door and Jeff is replaced with a new Attorney General who can fire Mueller?
That’s what I’m worried about.
IVANKA STILL USES PRIVATE MAIL FOR WHITE HOUSE BUSINESS
Of fucking course. Irony must be a rare commodity in Washington these days.
This report needs to be released every four years, and the EPA and other departments released it to the public. Not only does it come to the pretty obvious conclusion that Climate Change is real, but we’re causing it.
How are them coal jobs coming along?
CYPRUS GAVE MUELLER MANAFORT’S BANK RECORDS BEFORE INDICTMENTS
From the Manafucked Chronicles, when the Government of Cyprus gives the Special Counselor you’re bank records, showing your transaction history from Russian Mafia and Oligarchs and to businesses owned by you in the United States, that’s Manafucked.
LIN WEBER, HEAD OF MERCURY LLC, UNDER INVESTIGATION
Mercury LLC was one of the two lobbying groups that Manafort commissioned to work on Ukraine’s behalf, and they did not register with FARA while doing so.
REDDIT HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL IN SPREADING FAKE AND ALTERNATIVE NEWS
The fake news order goes a little like this. Someone makes something up on 4chan or Reddit, out on the fringes like The_Donald. The person who made it puts it on Twitter. It gets picked up on other, more popular pages, then on other media sites like Daily Caller or Breitbart. Next thing, Fox News is running a story about it.
LARA TRUMP ANGLING FOR WHITE HOUSE POSITION
Eric Trump’s wife, the head of the reelection committee, and founder of Trump TV, is trying to get an official position in the White House.
MARY TRUMP WONDERED WHAT KIND OF MONSTER SHE CREATED
Most of Trump’s mental problems started with Mommy and Daddy. This article goes into some details about her.
John Schindler writes about The Professor, a Russian Spy who worked with George Papadopoulos in London.
He has disappeared for the time being, and hopefully we catch him before the Russians do. He has some explaining to do.
MNUCHIN BEHIND POWELL FED NOMINEE
Steven Mnuchin was behind the pick, no matter what Trump wants to say.
TRUMP NOMINATED CLUB MEMBERS TO IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN GOVERNMENT
In yet another example of blatant corruption, high ranking positions like diplomatic assignments are going to people who are members of Trump’s resorts.
If you thought this year was bad, wait till next year. Not only will the Russian Investigation be in full swing, but the government still has many unfilled openings across many departments, and the parties will be at each others’ throats next year.
STRATEGIC DECEPTION FROM THE RUSSIAN PLAYBOOK
A nice little description about how the Russians do what they do, and how they do it.
THREE CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS OF FREEDOM CAUCUS FILE RESOLUTION ASKING MUELLER TO RESIGN
At this point, I’m strongly in the “If you’re trying to end this investigation to protect Trump, you are a co-conspirator” camp. There is no other way to describe it at this point.
RICK GATES FAILED TO DISCLOSE SECOND PASSPORT
This just came in a short time ago. I’d ask how he forgot that he has a second passport, but then again, I forgot my keys on my work desk 5 times this week when I left the office. What’s really impressive is I only worked 4 days.
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s kind of hard when the person pals around with Paul Manafort.
That’s it for today. At least, most of what happened. Trump left on his Asian trip, but as far as I heard, there were no new arrests or indictments unsealed. Part of the trip was a rider that included some crazy requests, like having the heat in the hotels set to 81 F, 3 XXXL silk robes, which I believe are also called Parachutes, and a bunch of unhealthy food, with not a vegetable in sight.
I’ve got a couple story ideas for this weekend, assuming I get some time to write. Since Bernie is back in the news, and there are more than a couple voices saying that he might be complicit in some stuff with Russia, which I don’t necessarily believe, I want to write about how Trump vs. Bernie would have been Putin’s best available outcome. The other story is about an article I didn’t cover this week, about why I don’t use the T word.
Thank you, and have a good one.
None of this is Normal 