2017

HSIOW. Holy Shit, it’s Only Wednesday.

SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE FINDS THAT RUSSIA MEDDLED IN ELECTION. CONTINUES INFLUENCE OPERATION TO THIS DAY.

The Senate Intelligence Committee had a press conference today. This is not standard operating procedure. Normally, they wouldn’t announce anything until the final report.

Why did they do this?

To light a fire under the asses of the states to get their shit together for next year’s elections.

What they said and didn’t say was important. Very important.

What did they say?

The Russians meddled in the 2016 election in the United States, and in elections around the world.

They continue their operations to this day, and show no signs of stopping.

They’ve interviewed over 100 people, and cannot rule out collusion between Trump and the Russians.

They hit a wall with reverse engineering the Steele Dossier.

What didn’t they say?

They didn’t say that Trump, his family, or his staff were exonerated.

They didn’t say that the investigation was wrapping up immediately.

They didn’t say that they were giving up on the Dossier.

STEELE DOSSIER PART OF MUELLER PROBE.

Speaking of the Steele Dossier, guess who’s coming?

Mueller’s coming.

He has the same information the FBI has. Which means that he has the sources that Steele gave them months ago.

TILLERSON AND THE FUCKING MORON.

Ever call your boss a moron? I prefer idiot, jackass, nincompoop, fucktard, waste of skin, or useless sack of electrified meat.

Well, I have. Many times over the past 20 plus years that I’ve been in the workplace.

This is one thing that I have in common with the Secretary of State. We have both questioned the mental state of our immediate supervisor, threatened to quit, denied the quitting part, but not the calling out the boss’s mental state.

Pro Tip: Call out the decision first, then the decision making process, then the decision maker, in that order. Offer suggestions at each step. Never open with “You’re a fucking moron!”

TRUMP KIDS, SoHo PROJECT, AND BRIBERY.

A big story broke today about corruption, bribery, and organized crime involving the Trumps. This time, though, it implicates Ivanka and Donnie Jr.

Trump SoHo was a clusterfuck from day one, which was used as a money laundering front. Many of the people who bought condos sued for fraud.

Did you know that lawsuits are another way to launder money? Party A sues Party B, dirty money is put into escrow, case gets dropped, then the now clean money gets returned.

The NYC AG Office wanted to prosecute the children. NYCAG Cyrus Jones overruled his staff following a visit from Mark Kasowitz, and $75,000 in campaign donations.

Well, Mueller’s team is looking into this.

This is a development worthy of hyperbole.

This is the first time that Ivanka has been directly implicated in a crime from before her time in the White House. Not just that, but she was the brains behind the operation.

Next, NYC was ready to prosecute. The only reason they didn’t was what looked like bribery.

Finally, they partnered with Bayrock Property. Who runs that? Known FBI informant Felix Sater.

Get the popcorn.

RUSSIA’S FAVORITE REP MET WITH LAWYER FROM JUNE 9TH 2016 MEETING.

Yep, it’s Rohrbacher.

FURIOUS REPUBLICANS TRYING TO SHIT DOWN RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION.

WaPo reports that GOP groups around the country are putting pressure on House and Senate members of the various committees investigating Trump to stop their work, because of what they might find, and how much it’s killing Trump’s work.

This will end badly.

Years from now, when people ask “When did the Republican Party die?”, this will be one of the pivotal moments that I’ll point to.

Instead of letting them work to find the truth, they want to protect one man. One man, who isn’t worthy of respect or loyalty, and who has no loyalty to them.

They are putting party over Country during a war. History will not look kindly on them.

That’s it for today. Oh, wait, one more…

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 10/3/2017

Tuesday.

Today was a weird one. On one hand, we’re dealing with the fallout of the Las Vegas shooting. On the other, the world continues.

TRUMP IN PUERTO RICO MAKES AN ASS OF HIM SELF. DEATH TOLL RISES TO 34 HOURS AFTER HE LEAVES.

That last part is a little confusing. Earlier in the day, the official death toll was 16. Hours later, it was raised to 34. 18 people didn’t just spontaneously die. These people were dead for a while, but there is a process to declaring someone deceased. I’m not completely sure of the process, but if there aren’t any clerks or coroners to sign off on the deaths, they aren’t officially dead.

Expect more people to officially die in the next few days.

PUTIN THREATENED CANADA OVER MAGNITSKY ACT

Canada is debating their own version of the Global Magnitsky Act, which targets those who routinely commit human rights abuses. This targets Russia in general, and Putin specifically. Putin threatened retaliation against Canada if they pass this bill.

As a side point, it looks like Russia is ramping up its attacks on Canada and their upcoming elections.

MORE DETAILS EMERGE ON RUSSIAN USE OF FACEBOOK

We’re just getting started with learning how the Russians did it. 10 million ad views on 3,000 ads, at a cost of $100,000. The ads were targeted to people in key districts that had tendencies to either buy into crazy ideas, or were already sympathetic to their cause.

MERCERS PAYING PART OF TRUMP’S LEGAL FEES

The Mercer Family, the money behind Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica, are paying some of Donald Trump’s legal fees, and started this the day that Comey was fired.

The Mercer’s are in it up to their necks. If Trump goes down, they’ll follow.

RUSSIAN HACKER EXTRADITED TO UNITED STATES.

One of the hackers involved in Russia’s hacking of the election was arrested in Spain. Peter Leshayov, a man responsible for one of the largest bot nets in the world, was nabbed while on vacation in Barcelona.

Where it gets interesting is, while in police custody, he told his wife that he was arrested for his role in the American election.

Russia fought his extradition to the United States.

JARED AND IVANKA SET UP PERSONAL EMAIL FOR WHITE HOUSE BUSINESS ON TRUMP SERVERS.

So, let’s say that the most powerful attorney in the United States says “hand over all of your emails concerning White House business. Do something stupid, and we will fuck your day up.”

What is the stupidest thing that a person could do?

If you answered “set up a personal email server hosted by my family in the company headquarters, and possibly open everyone up to even further investigation” then congratulations, you are the dumbest motherfucker in Washington, D.C.

You’re also either Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump.

The article that I linked to did some quick, yet in-depth network tracing that showed that the mail servers used for ijkfamily.com, the domain they created for their mail, were actually two mail servers used by trumporg.com.

This is incredibly stupid. If those servers weren’t already under investigation, they are now. And there’s a good chance that one of those two forwarded classified documents to this unsecured email.

Those servers open up the entire IT infrastructure of Trump Org to a subpoena. This includes backups, servers they communicated with, and any devices they talked to.

Don’t forget the IT Staff. Think any of them are loyal enough to do time for Jared?

The irony that email could take down the Trump’s is not lost on me.

IN OTHER NEWS:

MUELLER IS PLANNING FOR PRE-EMPTIVE PARDONS, HIRED MOST EXPERIENCED APPELLATE LAWYER

FLORIDA RUSSIAN WHO PURCHASED TRUMP PROPERTIES FIRED AFTER GETTING CAUGHT BUYING MULTI MILLION DOLLAR CONDOS ON $75,000 SALARY.

MOST NEWS SHARED DURING ELECTION WAS FAKE.

WHITE HOUSE ANTICIPATES DAMAGE AND FALLOUT FROM RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION.

That’s it for today. I’m expecting to hear some bigger news about Jared Kushner before the end of the week. There’s been too much noise recently.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 10/2/2017

October is here.

This is going to be a little different today. This was one hell of a rough day.

Ever have one of those days where it feels like everything is wrong? That’s today.

To be honest, I don’t feel like writing. I want to be lazy and take the easy way out today, but too much shit happened, and there’s this form of self-therapy that overtakes me when I write. It’s like working out. I feel better when I do it, even if I didn’t want to in the first place.

Even with Trump attacking Puerto Rico and North Korea on Twitter over the weekend, the biggest story, by far, is the terrorist attack in Las Vegas. 59 people were murdered last night by a white guy that sort of, but not quite fits the profile of a lone gunmen.

This is the largest attack of its kind in the United States in a long time, possibly ever. The inevitable attacks on both sides of the gun control debate are going to heat up again. A bunch of GOP politicians will offer their hopes and prayers.

And that’s it. They won’t do a goddamned thing. They won’t dare push against the NRA.

Fuck The NRA.

I am sick and tired of watching innocent people die in the United States of America because we as a culture don’t want to fight the National Rifle Association.

Fuck them. Why are they working with Russia? Why?

There are too many questions left unanswered.

Why did this man do what he did?

What was his motive?

Why shoot up a country music concert?

Was he working for someone?

Why did a ton of disinformation, or deza, come from Twitter immediately after the attack, in the early afternoon Moscow time?

It’s going to be a few days at least before all of the information comes in. I’ll update with whatever information I find out.

In other news…

HP SHARES SOURCE CODE OF ArcSight SECURITY SOFTWARE WITH RUSSIANS.

ArcSight is a software suite used by the US Military and other federal departments to check for attempted network breaches. And HP let the Russians check out the source code.

It sounds worse than it is, but still, REALLY? WHAT THE SHIT, HP?

US SUPREME COURT COMING AFTER KIM DOTCOM.

Keep an eye on this. This doesn’t have anything to do with Russia, that I know of, but if the US is successful in seizing assets, expect to see this playbook used on the Russians involved.

MORE MAILS RELEASED IMPLICATING MANAFORT WITH OLEG DERIPASKA.

Yeah, he’s Manafucked.

MORE UNDISCLOSED CONTACTS BETWEEN TRUMP AND RUSSIANS.

Yeah, so that happened. Two meetings. One before the Republican National Convention, and one in November 2015.

That’s it for today.

Thank you, and …

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, JARED! Another Fucking Email Account?

Fuck. I’m getting myself a drink and listening to Tom Petty.

Have a good one.

Did Pence Flip On Trump?

Time for a little bit of a departure from the normal posts, and speculate about some rumors.

I alluded to this on Friday, but I didn’t want to include this in the Daily Check-In, since I felt this could be significant for future developments.

Did Mike Pence flip on Donald Trump?

WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW

First, a little background.

I’ve described on multiple occasions about how Vice President Mike Pence is dirty AF. (That means “as fuck” for the old people out there.)

He’s up to his neck in shit. Pence was Paul Manafort’s pick for Vice President, over Chris Christie, Jon Kasich, and Michael Flynn (yes, THAT Mike Flynn.) Pence was the head of the transition team, which was responsible for ensuring a smooth transition and hiring key people. He hired Mike Flynn, and was informed by multiple members of Congress about Flynn being compromised BEFORE the inauguration. Sally Yates testified in front of Congress back in March or April about Pence knowing about Flynn being compromised AFTER the inauguration. Pence has been implicated in several of the campaign shenanigans, including hiring hackers to scour for the emails. Since then, he’s also been implicated in Obstruction of Justice charges surrounding Jim Comey’s firing.

Back in May, after Comey was fired, Trump met with the Russians in the Oval Office, and Pence lied about all of it to the public, Robert Mueller was named as the Special Counselor in charge of the Russian Investigation. Pence was in the Oval Office with Trump, Jeff Sessions, and McGahn when the call was made.

That was May 17th.

On May 18th, set up a Political Action Committee, or PAC, for his future political concerns. It’s a pretty unusual move for a VP to do this, less than four months into the job, in the first term of a presidency that spews chaos.

In June, it was reported that Pence had hired Robert Cullen in late May. Cullen, a former US Attorney, previously worked with Mueller.

It’s also been reported that Cullen has met with Mueller’s team on multiple occasions.

RUMOR TIME

Starting Thursday night on twitter, @AngrierWHStaff, Angry White House Staffer, got into an argument with some people about whether or not Pence would end up in jail. Angry was adamant that he wouldn’t. Over the next couple hours, Angry mentioned that he had seen Cullen meet with Mueller multiple times, and had handed over a lot of information. Angry concludes that Pence had flipped on Trump, and was feeding Mueller info to bury Trump and save his own ass. By doing so, he’ll avoid prison time and will succeed Trump as President, and would avoid jail time.

Quick sidebar. To “flip” on someone in legalese is to turn over incriminating evidence on a person, group, or organization.

Later that day, Ale (@aliasvaughn) put together a thread detailing the many ways in how Pence has implicated himself, and how this move was a smokescreen, likely to confuse and confound the investigation.

MY TAKE

Here’s my take on Pence. He’s dirty, he’s a liar, a zealot, but scariest of all, he’s competent.

He lies. A lot. Not only does he lie, but he’s he’s good at it. So good, he convinces his target that he was right the whole time. It’s called Gaslighting.

Pence thinks that he’s ordained by God to lead the United States. He probably saw Mueller as a sign from above.

He was ready to move on to presidency on January 20th. He doesn’t plan to be Trump’s VP on the 2020 ticket. He doesn’t plan on Trump being President by then.

This is part of Pence’s plan.

He started his PAC the day after the Special Counselor is named, and hired an attorney who was a good friend of Mueller’s.

Pence flipped on Trump. He’s selling him down the river, but trying to make it look like he’s loyal to Trump. Pence is loyal to himself.

Will this stop Mueller from coming after Pence? Not likely. He’s screwed 8 ways to Sunday.

Will Pence become President? Very likely. Unless he gets indicted first, or at the same time, Pence will succeed Trump. How long is the interesting part. He’s a lame duck from the start, and may only be in office long enough to ensure a peaceful transition.

Will Pence go to jail? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I picture him receiving a pardon to avoid jail time, and he would disappear into obscurity.

Thank you, and have a good one.