Daily Check-in 10/25/2017

HSIOW. Holy Shit, It’s Only Wednesday.

KASPERSKY LABS GETS HANDS ON NSA SOFTWARE FROM US PC, SAYS IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

Here’s another reminder.  IF YOU HAVE KASPERSKY LABS ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE INSTALLED, GET RID OF THAT SHIT NOW!!!

They ended up with copies of NSA software in their system.

That ain’t right.  That ain’t even close to right.  That’s across the river from right.  Ain’t nowhere near right.

Their “excuse” is that they accidentally uploaded them.  But they deleted them right away, so no bad.

Right?

Kaspersky has some serious ties with the Russian FSB, their main Intelligence group.  Several Kaspersky employees were arrested last year for espionage against Russia, who were believed to have been spies for the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France, among others.

It’s also been heavily speculated on the Rumor Mill that Edward Snowden has been working with them since he fled the United States and was granted asylum in Russia.

 

HEAD OF CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA TRIED TO GET HRC EMAILS FROM JULIAN ASSANGE

Alexander Nix, head of Cambridge Analytica, the data company behind the demographic microtargeting of voters during the 2016 election, reached out to Julian Assange of Wikileaks in an attempt to get Hilary Clinton’s missing emails.  This is not the first story of someone “outside” the campaign tried to get these mails.  Peter Smith, of Arkansas Troopergate Fame from the 90’s also tried, and even set up an LLC with the tacit acknowledgment that this was condoned by Mike Flynn, KellyAnne Conway, and others in the campaign.This story about Barbara Leeden, an aide to both Mike Flynn and Chuck Grassley, came out less than two weeks ago.

After the article was published, the author received comment from Julian Assange, and he said that he was contacted by Nix, but did not hand any information over.  Of course, we always believe the paragon of virtue that he is.

If this were Reddit, that last sentence would have a /s after it to indicate sarcasm.  Personally, I prefer using hypertags for sarcasm, like <Sarcasm> and </Sarcasm>, but then again, I grew up having to actually write code to make programs work.

 

MANAFORT IS MANAFUCKED, PART 395

Yep. Another article on how Manafort is Manafucked.  It’s not every day that the former Director of the FBI tells you that you’re about to be indicted.  Or that a fuckton of cash from an Oligarch on the Magnitsky Sanctions list connects you, them, and multiple banks under investigation for money laundering, including one which was partly owned by a member of the Cabinet. (Wilbur Ross, former number 2 at the Bank of Cyprus).

Plus, the Ukrainians want him for war crimes.  Part of me wants to say that they would at least have a trial before his public execution, but that’s me being optimistic.

 

MICHEAL COHEN MADE A LOT OF MONEY ON SHADY REAL ESTATE DEALS

Who would have thought that Michael Cohen read my Article on Money Laundering, traveled back in time, and followed it like a how-to guide?

Oh, he didn’t time travel?  He’s just a slimy, criminal who did this on his own?  That makes more sense.

Michael Cohen is Trump’s personal lawyer.  He orchestrated 4 cash real estate deals with Herbert Chaves of the Chaves and Perlowitz Law Firm on 4 properties Cohen owned, which cost him about $2 million each.  Cohen sold them on deals to Chaves for LLC’s with hidden partners for many times what they were appraised at, around $10 million each.

I need to find out if there was ever a lawsuit between these two.  Not that I don’t think something shady happened, but lawsuits can be used as a way to launder money.  I’m thinking Chaves might sue Cohen, Cohen puts money into an escrow account, then they settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.  That money, after sitting in escrow, goes to Chaves, who then takes his cut and sends it to his clients.

 

CONGRESS CUTS OFF ROHRBACHER’S TRAVEL ACCOUNT

This is from a couple days, but it got lost in the shuffle.  Congress has cut off funding for Dana Rohrbacher’s trips under fear that he may be committing espionage.  He has been the most outspoken supporter of Putin and Russia in Washington, and that includes the Russian Embassy.  This man suggested that Alaska be returned to Russia, if they voted to leave.

His latest stunt was to fly to London and meet with Julian Assange with Chuck Johnson, and is trying to organize a pardon for Assange in exchange for his “proof” that Wikileaks did not receive the DNC emails from the Russians.

As of this writing, Assange is still sitting in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid prosecution by any of a dozen countries for crimes ranging from sexual assault to espionage.

 

HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE IS A CLUSTERFUCK

There are 13 Republican Members of the HIC. Only 3 are showing up to the hearings.  Meanwhile, they would rather keep investigating Hilary Clinton instead of asking “Did the President commit Treason and a bunch of other illegal stuff?”

 

TRUMP’S TWITTER FOLLOWERS ARE MOSTLY NON-EXISTENT

Here’s an article with a breakdown of how few people actually follow Donald Trump on Twitter.  It’s a great breakdown of the various numbers and stats, but I included quite possibly the most important part.

Key Trump follower figures:
    21.2 percent: Trump followers who have tweeted five times or fewer
    25.3 to 25.5 percent: Trump followers who have never tweeted
    33 percent: Trump followers that are “egg accounts”
    37.7 percent: Trump followers who created Twitter accounts since the election
    46 percent: Trump followers who haven’t tweeted in the past year
    56.7 percent: Trump followers who created accounts since candidacy announcement
    66 percent: Trump followers who haven’t tweeted in the past 90 days
    74 percent: Trump followers with fewer than 50 followers
Trump’s following also includes 13.7 million “egg accounts,” or inactive accounts with no profile pictures—a clear indication of a bot, or fake follower, Kharly Stauber, SocialRank’s head of content and accounts, told the Daily Dot. The number of these kinds of accounts following him has increased by 2.2 million over the past two months. This summer, SocialRank found that only 11.1 million people following Trump as of September were active.
Stripped away of the egg accounts, Trump is left with roughly 27.5 million followers, a far cry from the 41.1 million he boasted as of Tuesday evening. When you factor in the number of accounts that have not tweeted in the past year—18.9 million, according to SocialRank—and the 27.1 million accounts that have not shared content in the past 90 days, the number of active and engaged followers of @realDonaldTrump plummets considerably.
Both Social Rank and Trump or False compiled their data as of early October.

Let’s do the math.  41.1 million followers.  13.4 million of them are likely bots.  That leaves approximately 27.5 million followers.  Out of those, 27.1 million have not shared any content in the last 3 months.

That leaves 400,000 active users.  Out of 41.4 million.  Or, 0.966% of his users are involved.  Less than 1 percent.

Another stat was the breakdown of number of tweets by user.  Almost 60% of all of Trump’s followers have fewer than 20 tweets in their history.  20 tweets!  I’ve done more than that in an hour.  I can punch out 20 likes, retweets, quotes, and reply tweets during a good coffee break.  Hell, I think I’ve insulted Trump to his account more than 20 times.  One of my bonus goals on Twitter is to get blocked by Donald Trump, without getting banned.

Anyway, most of his followers aren’t real people.

 

BILL BROWDER, CANADA, RUSSIA, INTERPOL, AND ISIS

Canada gave Russia a middle finger yesterday when they told Interpol that they’ll decide who can or can’t enter Canada, not Russia.

Here’s the short version.  Bill Browder, the investment banker turned political activist behind the Magnitsky Act, has an Interpol warrant issued for his arrest by the Russians.  They claim that Browder killed Sergei Magnitsky.  While he was exiled from the country and Sergei was in a Russian Prison.

Last year, while the rest of the world was distracted by the Trump Shitshow, the Interpol leadership body was taken over by Russians and Chinese members.  So far this year, both of those countries have abused this by issuing Red Notices on their critics outside of their borders.  A Red Notice is a type of arrest warrant issued by Interpol.

This is the fifth time since 2010 that Russia has tried to use Interpol to arrest Bill Browder.  The previous four times, the warrants were dismissed within a couple days as being politically motivated, but this time, it’s been in the system for over a week.

 

JEFF SESSIONS AND THE BIRMINGHAM COAL BRIBERY CASE

Alabama is weird.  There’s been an ongoing scandal down there that’s already taken down a politician or two.  A coal company has been fighting against having to clean up the North Birmingham area, which they screwed up, and they were caught bribing several state officials.  This case should be going to Federal Court.

One of the people that this coal company donated money to is Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General who will get to decide whether or not to bring this case to court.

Can you say “Conflict of Interest”?

 

That’s it for today.  At least, that’s all I pulled together for the day.  The rest of the news was catching up on stories from the last couple of days, like the HRC paying for part of the Steele Dossier, the Niger Ambush, or that the Nimitz Carrier Group is now in the Pacific along with the Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Regan Carrier Groups.  North Korea is still talking about doing a nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean.  I don’t know how this ends without being  a complete and total cock-up.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one

Daily Check-In 10/24/2017

Tuesday.

SENATOR FLAKE ANNOUNCED RETIREMENT WITH EPIC REBUKE OF TRUMP

Jeff Flake, Senator from Arizona and frequent target of Rage Tweets, announced his retirement at the end of term.

Take twenty minutes and Watch his speech.

His speech will be in history books. Jeff Flake spoke out against President Trump in a rebuke attacking everything from his rage tweets, his inability to say a sentence, his divisive nature, and how his policies are poisoning this country and the Republican Party.

Flake pointed out the ridiculousness of how our discourse has devolved over the last decade, and fell off of a cliff under Trump.

To quote Senator Flake, “None of this is Normal.”

SENATOR CORKER SAYS THAT US POSITION IN WORLD DEGRADED DUE TO TRUMP

Elsewhere in the Capital, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has had enough of Trump’s act.

Bob is the head of the Foreign Relations Committee. He hears directly from Ambassadors and World Leaders, and Trump has them scared.

Whom ever takes down a traitorous administration first will have schools named after them.

SMALL TWO-MAN COMPANY FROM SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR RYAN ZINKE’S HOMETOWN SELECTED TO REBUILD PUERTO RICO ELECTRIC GRID

This is just straight up corruption. There isn’t a valid reason why a two-man company should get a contract to do what dozens of companies do all the time for less money.

Sure, they could be really good at their job, and be specially qualified for this task, but being from Zinke’s hometown makes this reek of corruption.

FROM THE “NO SHIT, SHERLOCK” DEPARTMENT: HILARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN PAID FOR PART OF STEELE DOSSIER.

No fuck, Buckwheat. The Clinton Campaign took over funding of the Steele Dossier in April, just as the Republican Primary was winding up and the unknown candidate *cough*Jeb Bush*cough* withdrew from the race.

Expect this to be blown out of the water by Right Wing Media. They’ll ignore the fact that this was paid for by a GOP Candidate.

NPR ARTICLE ABOUT MONEY LAUNDERING

Thanks, Ryan. This is an even better description of money laundering than I wrote a month or so ago.

BRAD PARSCALE, MICHAEL COHEN INTERVIEWED BY SENATE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital media expert who was vital in spreading propaganda, and Trump’s personal lawyer who supposedly met with Russians last year in Europe, both met with Congress today.

MANAFORT IS MANAFUCKED, PART 347

SDNY, Southern District of New York, is coordinating with Mueller’s team on multiple money laundering investigations.

RUSSIAN MACHINE NEVER BREAKS, TUESDAY EDITION

Russian journalist attacked with knife.

Russian propaganda hosted on website run by immigrant to New York.

McCain statement on Bill Browder having visa revoked.

House Intelligence Committee turning into a clusterfuck because of Dipshit Cowpoke Devin Nunes.

FBI extradited Stanislav Nazarov to United States on money laundering charges.

Florida Company tied to Russian propaganda via New York websites.

That’s it for tonight.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 10/23/2017

Monday.

A lot of stories came out this weekend and today. Where I may normally try to talk about all of them, or at least as many as possible, I want to focus on just a couple that might’ve flown under the radar. I’ll mention several more in the lightning round.

BILL BROWDER, INTERPOL, AND A VISA

Over the weekend, Putin used a loophole in the Interpol system to issue a warrant for Bill Browder’s arrest. This ended up causing his visa to the United States being revoked over the weekend. It was reinstated just a couple hours ago.

This is just the latest attack on Bill Browder by the Russians. Sadly, it won’t be the last.

HILARY CLINTON AND THE SPIES AROUND HER

Get ready for some Whataboutism.

We’re going to get a few stories, starting this week, talking about the spies and agents of influence got close to Hilary Clinton.

The purpose of the stories is to show how deep the Russians have gotten in to our political system.

Expect the trolls to use this as their “what about the Russians around Hilary? Trump’s awesome!” moment.

Also, get ready for news about the Party of Regions. They were the Pro-Putin Party in Ukraine that Manafort worked with. Several of the party members approached HRC and her team over the years.

BANNON AND HIS MIDDLE EAST CONNECTIONS

Steve Bannon is up to some shit.

Remember a few weeks ago, or was it months ago, when stories came out about Flynn, Manafort, and Bannon tried to set up multiple nuclear deals with several Middle Eastern countries? Well, that’s coming back around.

Russia is just one piece of the corruption map.

RUSSIAN MACHINE NEVER BREAKS, MONDAY EDITION

Trump launders Russian money in Toronto.

Trump promises to pay legal fees for White House staffers in Russian Investigation.

Dipshit Cowpoke Devin Nunes goes rogue in search of Steele Dossier patrons.

FBI, DHS warm about cyber threats to power infrastructure.

Tony Podesta’s marketing firm registers with FARA after working with Paul Manafort.

Russian Troll account @TEN_GOP spread propaganda that was retweeted by Trump family.

JFK Papers to be released soon. Not only will Trump take credit for a law written in 1992, but if anything even slightly conspiratorial involving the CIA comes up, expect Trump to beat that drum like John Bonham.

IN OTHER NEWS

CREW lawsuit against Trump about emoluments clause gains strength.

McCain has no fucks left to give.

This is crazy. Not that Arpaio is guilty and won’t have his record wiped clean, but that obvious corruption like this isn’t even in the top 10 stories.

Senators stunned to find out that almost 1,000 American soldiers are in Niger.

Prepare for a debate on the Authorization of the Use of Military Force.

Politicians feel that Trump is a pretty shitty deal maker.

16 pieces of Obstruction of Justice.

Trump couldn’t remember name of fallen soldier while talking to widow.

Ivanka left “charity” Trump Foundation off of financial disclosure form.

That’s it for today. I’m going to start coming up with all of the ways that Trump could fuck up the Traditional Turkey Pardoning. I will come up with the worst things I can think of (that I’m okay publishing), then will revisit it afterward. I’m afraid that whatever I come up with, Trump will be even worse.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 10/20/2017

Finally. FFS. It’s Friday.

It’s Time. It’s TIME. IT’S TIME. FOR THE NEWS DUMP!

PAUL RYAN ROASTS DONALD TRUMP AT CHARITY EVENT

Speaker Paul Ryan was a guest of honor at the Al Smith charity dinner. Part of it is a comedy routine wear guests tell some jokes. Paul Ryan had more than a few jokes about Trump. Some of them were pretty funny.

BUT HE IS STILL LOSING FRIENDS

Several GOP congressmen have already announced their retirements from the House for next year.

They sense a bloodbath coming for them. Anyone attached to Trump is a target next year.

OBAMA CALLED OUT TRUMP AND HIS POLICIES

I covered this a little yesterday, but here’s another article on Obama speaking about Trump, saying how he’s putting America back 50 years.

BUSH 43 JOINS THE FRAY

Add W to this as well.

JOHN KELLY AND THE REPRESENTATIVE

This one isn’t just weird, it’s downright nuts.

Chief of Staff John Kelly is stuck trying to defend Trump’s Snafu with the soldiers killed in Niger. In doing so, Kelly picked a fight with Rep. Frederica Wilson, who was with Mrs. Johnson when Trump called her.

Kelly’s story was debunked in about 4 seconds, and Walleye Sanders said it’s not appropriate to criticize a 4 Star General. Then Trump called everyone liars, countering what he said.

Here’s a list of 4 Star Generals Trump has criticized. There is a tweet for everything.

The media is tearing Kelly a new one, but #TeamPatriot and others on Twitter is taking a different view on this.

They’re holding true to the idea that Kelly is doing whatever he has to do to keep Trump from doing something stupid. Ok, dangerously stupid which kills a lot of people. Kelly’s statement was carefully parsed out. It sounds bad, carries Trump’s talking points which keeps Trump happy, but doesn’t deny what Representative Wilson said.

Kelly is walking a fine line.

I’m withholding judgment, but I’ll give Louise and the crew the benefit of the doubt on this. They were right with Comey. McCain, and others.

NIGER BASED OFF OF BAD INTELLIGENCE

FBI INVESTIGATES NIGER ATTACKS

THE NIGER RESCUE CHOPPER CONTRACTOR

TRUMP FUCKING WITH THE ACA ENROLLMENT PERIOD

What a fucking surprise.

TRUMP MOB TIES WITH FAT TONY. NO, NOT THE CHARACTER FROM THE SIMPSONS

Supposedly, Fat Tony helped speed up construction of Trump Tower by keeping the unions in check.

WHITE HOUSE EXECUTIVE ORDER ALLOWS FOR QUICK RECALL OF VETERAN OFFICERS TO ACTIVE DUTY

Shit. This is bad. This basically says that at the discretion of SecDef, officers can be brought back to active duty immediately, and in unlimited numbers. This was previously capped at 25 officers per year.

AIR FORCE RECALLING 1,000 PILOTS

This is scary. Hopefully this is all the above EO is used for, and not a useless war.

HOW IN THE CRYSTAL PEPSI FLAVORED FUCK DOES IVANKA HAVE A SECURITY CLEARANCE?

Seriously. How Treason Barbie have a clearance?

JOE ARPAIO STILL GUILTILY

That’s what happens when a pardon is accepted. The conviction stays on the books.

HYPOCRISY METER IS BORKED. PERSONAL EMAIL USE IS OK NOW, PER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

I … I … I can’t even.

RUSSIAN MACHINE NEVER BREAKS, FRIDAY EDITION

SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE MEETS WITH RUSSIANS PRESENT AT JUNE 9 MEETING

This was behind closed doors. Otherwise, I would have watched it on C-SPAN. Yes, I’m that big of a nerd.

JEFF SESSIONS IS NEGLIGENT ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN NEXT YEARS ELECTION

He has nothing planned for 2018.

THERE ARE MULTIPLE TROLL FACTORIES

Tip of the large collection of frozen water floating in the ocean.

TWITTER GIVES CONGRESS BARELY INFORMATION AT ALL

Either they don’t know how much shit they’re in, or they don’t care.

PAPADOPOULOS TRIED SETTING UP MEETINGS WITH TRUMP AND RUSSIA AS EARLY AS MARCH

I’ve talked about this before, but with so many things, it slipped through the cracks. Members of the Trump campaign tried to work with the Russians at least as early as the Primaries.

@JACK RETWEETED RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA

Holy Fucking Shit, Twitter. Really?

POLAND FIGHTING BACK AGAINST RUSSIA

Poland is fighting against Russia in cyberspace. The Poles don’t like or trust the Russians. They are getting ready for something. They saw what happened in Crimea, and don’t want that to happen to them.

22 stories. In one day.

Jesus Fucking Tapdancing Christ.

That’s it for today. I’ll do something this weekend. Not sure what yet.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Thank you, and have a good one.