Tag: Rumor Mill

Daily Check-In 05/02/2018

Wednesday May 2nd.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

Robert Mueller wants to question President Donald Trump about a change to the 2016 Republican Party platform’s language about Ukraine and Russia, rekindling a subject that House Republicans dismissed as a nonstarter.

After news broke Monday night of an effort by conservative House Republicans to draft impeachment papers against Rosenstein, just in case they’re needed, he issued a striking rebuke for a top Justice Department official. He first noted that “nobody has the courage to put their name on” the impeachment document and poked at its authors for leaking word of their efforts.

Then came this: “I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”

“Extorted.” The guy who is in charge of the scope of the Russia investigation just accused House Republicans of attempted extortion.

Cobb, who served as the White House point person in dealing with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, is stepping down, according to senior administration officials.

He is expected to be replaced by Williams & Connolly partner Emmet T. Flood, a Republican defense lawyer who helped President Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings and was interviewed by President Trump earlier this year.

“For several weeks, Ty Cobb has been discussing his retirement and last week he let Chief of Staff Kelly know he would retire at the end of this month,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

 

COHEN

Long before he was a personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen was a personal injury lawyer for clients who reportedly staged car accidents to collect hefty sums from insurance companies and worked for other clients involved in medical insurance schemes.

Cohen, whose office and residence were raided by the FBI as part of an unrelated investigation, has come under fire for his work for Trump over the last decade. But prior to his gaining Trump’s attention, Cohen represented clients who would rent cars and trucks, along with insurance, and careen the vehicles into friends’ cars for a huge payout, according to a Rolling Stone investigation published Tuesday.

For instance, in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in 1999, the car Tara Pizzingrillo was sitting in was struck by a rental car driven by Brian McFarland. Three years later, Cohen represented Pizzingrillo and filed a complaint seeking $1 million from the rental company’s parent company, ELRAC Inc.

But as that case continued, both McFarland and Pizzingrillo were indicted in a similar scheme involving U-Haul trucks and slamming into other vehicles. Passengers in the struck vehicles would then claim personal injury and seek a payout.

Holy shit, Michael Cohen is a real-life version of Saul Goodman.  The only thing missing from his story is a chemistry teacher making meth out of an RV.

 

STORMYGATE

This story came out at 10PM EST.  Right as I should be finishing up, but this is such a WTAF, that it needs a few paragraphs.

Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, former U.S. Attorney in SDNY, went on Fox News and shat the bed.

While he was there to talk about the Russian Investigation, and after calling FBI agents “Stormtroopers,” (Nazi, not Imperial), and after attacking James Comey pretty damn hard, Sean Hannity asked Rudy to stay on and answer some questions about Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.  Rudy said “sure”, and done fucked up.

How bad did he fuck up?  Let me count the ways…

  • Rudy said that Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for paying Stormy Daniels.
  • Rudy said that Trump paid him back over months.
  • Rudy said that Trump paid Cohen through a law firm.
  • Rudy said that Trump used his own money.
  • Rudy said that Trump can use as much of his own money to pay his campaign as he wants.
  • Rudy said that James Comey was fired because he wouldn’t say that Trump wasn’t a target.

If Rudy had dropped his trousers, shit on the floor, grabbed the shit, smeared it on the wall, and painted a scene of a lynching from 1930’s Alabama while singing some Kanye, then started masturbating furiously over his own painting, he still wouldn’t have fucked up as bad as he did in that interview.

Trump has said repeatedly that he knew nothing about the payment to Stormy Daniels.  Rudy said that was a lie.

Cohen said he wasn’t reimbursed for the payment.  Rudy said he was, and that the money was “shuffled” from Trump to Cohen through a law firm.  The legal term for that is Money Laundering.

Rudy said the payment was made over months.  If it was structured in a way to avoid tax reporting or campaign finance reporting, that’s a felony.

If Trump used his own money, and reimbursed Cohen for this payment, and the payment is an in-kind campaign contribution, and it wasn’t reported, that’s a felony.

If Trump is using campaign as a slush fund, and dumping cash into it willy nilly, he’s got even more legal troubles.

If Trump fired Comey for not clearing him in an investigation, that’s Obstruction of Justice.

Rudy done fucked up.

 

DOCTOR, DOCTOR

What ought to worry Trump is not the shattering of his image as the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”; what should concern him is that Bornstein is suddenly saying unhelpful things in the press — and that could embolden others who feel burned by Trump to do the same.

…

Cohen and Bornstein have similar reasons to feel betrayed by Trump. The Washington Post reported last month that Cohen was, at one point, a leading candidate to become White House counsel and felt wounded by his ultimate rejection.

…

Bornstein reportedly hoped to accompany Trump to the White House, too, but was similarly left behind. He told NBC that early last year, after he disclosed the president’s use of a drug that can be used to treat hair loss and an enlarged prostate, he received an angry phone call from Trump’s longtime assistant. “So you wanted to be the White House doctor? Forget it, you’re out,” she allegedly said.

I didn’t write about this yesterday when this broke yesterday, but here’s the short version…

Dr. Bornstein, the hippy dippy looking doctor that served Trump for 35 years had his office illegally raided by Keith Schiller and a couple others.  They took Trump’s medical records, illegally.

During an interview with NBC News, Bornstein also revealed that Trump dictated the “extremely healthy” letter that sounded like it was written by a six year old with a brain tumor.  That explains a lot…

Trump’s showing that he has no loyalty to his supporters.  Once this sinks in to them, it’s on like Donkey Kong.  Nothing is more dangerous than a wronged fanatic.

 

COLD WAR 2.0

As soon as Ukraine dropped their investigations into Paul Manafort, the Trump Administration changed their minds on selling anti-tank missiles to them.

I wonder, does extorting a foreign nation into dropping an investigation count as Obstruction of Justice?

That’s right baby, the United Kingdom passed the Magnitsky Act, and he’s going to work on getting our cousins down under to join the train.

More good news for Bill, he gets to file another affidavit against the Cypriot Attorney General (or lead attorney) to keep him from cooperating from Russia’s attempts to prosecute Browder.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

Beware of Emerdata

  • The power players behind Cambridge Analytica have set up a new company and the daughters of Donald Trump-supporting billionaire Robert Mercer have just joined as directors
  • Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer joined Emerdata on March 16, but it is shrouded in mystery.
  • Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO of Cambridge Analytica, is also a director, as well as other executives from parent firm SCL Group.
  • Emerdata also lists Johnson Chun Shun Ko, a Chinese executive from Frontier Services Group, the military firm chaired by prominent Trump supporter Erik Prince.
  • It isn’t clear what Emerdata does, though the company is listed under “data processing, hosting, and related activities.” It shares an address in Canary Wharf with Cambridge Analytica’s parent, SCL Group.

 

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

 

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

“Marco Polo” producer Alexandra Canosa, who hit Weinstein with a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit in December, filed paperwork Monday detailing his alleged sexual impropriety. Weinstein was an executive producer of the Netflix series.

Canosa charges that Weinstein sexually assaulted her on Aug. 12, 2010, in the Tribeca Grand hotel, and that his “misconduct” continued until September 2017 — about one month before bombshell reports detailed numerous allegations against him.

During this period, “Harvey Weinstein constantly threatened Plaintiff and made it clear that if she did not succumb to his demands for sexual contact or if she exposed his unwanted conduct there would be retaliation, including humiliation, the loss of her job and loss of any ability to work in the entertainment business,” she alleges in court papers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has again asked a U.S. court to dismiss a suit accusing him of flouting constitutional safeguards against corruption by refusing to separate himself from his business empire while in office, claiming “absolute immunity.”

Absolute immunity?  Are you fucking kidding me?  What’s he going to claim next, that the Frog King of Rigel 6 has bestowed upon him Super Immunity?

Check out Lincoln’s Bible in the Rumor Mill for more ties between Hobby Lobby, Mark Burnett, and ISIS.  Yes, ISIS.

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

Vice President Mike Pence is literally praising a convicted felon as a shining example of the “Rule of Law.”  In this case, “Rule of Law” means being a racist prick.  So, by that definition…

The Speaker of the House of Representatives just admitted to using his office to cover up and run interference for President Trump.  Let that sink in.

BLUE WAVE

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

Yep, gas prices are rising.  Right after I traded in a Fiat for a Minivan.

PUFF, PUFF, PASS

 

RUMOR MILL

Lincoln’s Bible has done a lot of research into Mark Burnett, Executive Producer for many reality shows, including The Apprentice.  LB’s been on this for a long time, and when tapes from The Apprentice drop, I wouldn’t be surprised if LB’s on the front line of that battle.

 

That’s it for today.  Shit’s getting crazy, yo.  At this point, it looks like Trump thinks he can fight his way out of the investigation.  He’s abandoned all pretense of listening to advice, and will try anything to protect himself.

Rudy’s fuck up throws a wrench in things. What he said will play to the Fox News crowd, but everyone else, including the Federal prosecutors trying the Cohen case, will take this information and run with it.

It feels like something big is coming this week, especially now that we’re getting tons of leaks from and about the Trump legal team.

Hopefully, it’s not too crazy.  I’ve got a ton of things to do.  That being said, get ready for history.

 

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Check-In 05/01/2018

Tuesday, May 1st.  May Day.

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION

This is an interesting development.

In a tense meeting in early March with the special counsel, President Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But special counsel Robert S. Mueller III responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.

Mueller’s warning — the first time he is known to have mentioned a possible subpoena to Trump’s legal team — spurred a sharp retort from John Dowd, then the president’s lead lawyer.

“This isn’t some game,” Dowd said, according to two people with knowledge of his comments. “You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.”

Trump’s team threatened to not talk to Robert Mueller’s team, and Mueller responded with a threat to subpoena his ass.

We’ve known this was a possibility, even a likelihood, since the rumors of interviews started, but it’s all been hypothetical, not much basis in reality.  Now, it hasn’t only entered the realm of reality, but hangs in the air like Damocles’s Sword.

Bobby Three Sticks wouldn’t make this threat lightly.  He wouldn’t threaten a subpoena without sign-off from DAG Rosenstein, a team looking at privileged information and where it falls, investigators review every possible angle and the legal team has gone through all of their evidence with a fine-toothed comb.

Dropping this bomb is like threatening divorce.  It’s not done lightly, and once it’s used, everything changes.

By the way, we’ve got a good idea where the questions came from…

After investigators laid out 16 specific subjects they wanted to review with the president and added a few topics within each one, Sekulow broke the queries down into 49 separate questions, according to people familiar with the process.

Jay Sekulow’s notes.  That explains the following stories:

The leaked questions had some grammatical errors that those close to Mueller claim he wouldn’t make.  So Jay took the subjects, wrote a few questions out of those, then what?

What happened March 5?  Daily Check-In 03/05/2018 Sam Nunberg went nuts.  Daily Check-In 03/06/2018. George Nader flipped, Mueller was looking into Cohen’s activities, and Stormy sued Trump.  The legal teams meet, and two weeks later Jon Dowd nopes the fuck out of Team Trump.  Probably because he saw his actions in the list.  (Dangling a pardon for Flynn Daily Check-In 03/28/2018)

Here’s some more articles about those questions.

“There have been people who have been making threats privately & publicly against me for quite some time & I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”

COHEN

Michael Cohen, already under pressure from a federal criminal investigation into his business and financial dealings, has been hit this month with more than $185,000 in new state warrants for unpaid taxes on his taxicab companies.

Added to his previous tab, that brings the total to $282,000 owed to New York state by 16 taxi medallion-holding companies owned by Cohen or members of his family, including Mad Dog Cab Corp., Smoochie Cab Corp., Golden Child Cab Corp. and N.Y. Futon Taxi Corp. A lawyer for Cohen declined to comment.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR

In February 2017, a top White House aide who was Trump’s longtime personal bodyguard, along with the top lawyer at the Trump Organization and a third man, showed up at the office of Trump’s New York doctor without notice and took all the president’s medical records.

The incident, which Dr. Harold Bornstein described as a “raid,” took place two days after Bornstein told a newspaper that he had prescribed a hair growth medicine for the president for years.

In an exclusive interview in his Park Avenue office, Bornstein told NBC News that he felt “raped, frightened and sad” when Keith Schiller and another “large man” came to his office to collect the president’s records on the morning of Feb. 3, 2017. At the time, Schiller, who had long worked as Trump’s bodyguard, was serving as director of Oval Office operations at the White House.

“They must have been here for 25 or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos,” Bornstein said, who described the incident as frightening.

A framed 8×10 photo of Bornstein and Trump that had been hanging on the wall in the waiting room now lies flat under a stack of papers on the top shelf of Bornstein’s bookshelf. Bornstein said the men asked him to take it off the wall.

Bornstein said he was not given a form authorizing the release of the records and signed by the president known as a HIPAA release — which is a violation of patient privacy law. A person familiar with the matter said there was a letter to Bornstein from then-White House doctor Ronny Jackson, but didn’t know if there was a release form attached.

“He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. “I just made it up as I went along.”
The admission is an about face from his answer more than two years when the letter was released and answers one of the lingering questions about the last presidential election. The letter thrust the eccentric Bornstein, with his shoulder-length hair and round eyeglasses, into public view.

Here’s a video, even better hearing his passion.

COLD WAR 2.0

Remember this, then think back to Brexit and the fallout from that.  Part of the backlash to Brexit was a reinvigoration of the Scottish independence movement.  Which, guess who pushed the propaganda for that?  Ding ding ding!  If you guessed Russia, give yourself two points.

#NEVERAGAIN

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IN DEAD

BLUE WAVE

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The Bible he ate wasn’t cooked, marinated, or even slathered in ketchup.  He just ate it straight up.

Eating that much pulp and fiber could really mess up his digestive system long term.  If he doesn’t change his diet, he’ll never make it to be an old man.

Oh, shit… Nevermind.

Did Roy Moore not pay attention  to a fucking thing that happened to Bill Cosby?  Suing his accusers led to discovery, which led to even more shady ass shit.

The number of reported sexual assaults is up 15%, but they’re claiming this as a victory on two fronts.  First, more people are coming forward to report sexual assaults, and less assaults are happening.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

RUMOR MILL: WHO OWNS WHAT?

Here’s a good roundup of what happened throughout the day.  They’re doing a similar thing to what I’m doing, but look better and have a staff.  Not exactly rumors, but I don’t have a section for them yet.

That’s it for today.  For the last couple days I’ve been listening to “Thug Notes” on audiobook.  It’s a pretty good book.  It describes literary classics in gangsta terms.  Which leads me to another issue.

I have a tendency to write like what I’m reading or listening to.  Whether it’s music or a book, I mimic what I’m exposed to.  So, if my writing gets a little crass, or I start talking like I’m a straight up gangsta, or start flexing, that’s why.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 04/30/2018

Monday April 30th and the weekend.  This was supposed to be a shorter post,

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: NYT HAS THE QUESTIONS MUELLER WANTS TO ASK TRUMP

The New York Times got their hands on a series of questions that Mueller’s team wants to ask Donald Trump in their interview, and it’s likely that Jon Dowd, or someone from his office, gave these questions to the press.

Back in March, Jon Dowd was Trump’s lead lawyer, but fought hard against his client’s desire to interview Robert Mueller. (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018).  He knew, like every sane person, that Trump would lie his ass off and incriminate himself in a matter of seconds.

Let’s take a look at the questions.  The following is from Reddit /u/McIgglyTuffMuffin

What did you know about phone calls that Mr. Flynn made with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in late December 2016?

What was your reaction to news reports on Jan. 12, 2017, and Feb. 8-9, 2017?

What did you know about Sally Yates’s meetings about Mr. Flynn?

How was the decision made to fire Mr. Flynn on Feb. 13, 2017?

After the resignations, what efforts were made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or possible pardon?

What was your opinion of Mr. Comey during the transition?

What did you think about Mr. Comey’s intelligence briefing on Jan. 6, 2017, about Russian election interference?

What was your reaction to Mr. Comey’s briefing that day about other intelligence matters?

What was the purpose of your Jan. 27, 2017, dinner with Mr. Comey, and what was said?

What was the purpose of your Feb. 14, 2017, meeting with Mr. Comey, and what was said?

What did you know about the F.B.I.’s investigation into Mr. Flynn and Russia in the days leading up to Mr. Comey’s testimony on March 20, 2017?

What did you do in reaction to the March 20 testimony? Describe your contacts with intelligence officials.

What did you think and do in reaction to the news that the special counsel was speaking to Mr. Rogers, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Coats?

What was the purpose of your calls to Mr. Comey on March 30 and April 11, 2017?

What was the purpose of your April 11, 2017, statement to Maria Bartiromo?

What did you think and do about Mr. Comey’s May 3, 2017, testimony?

Regarding the decision to fire Mr. Comey: When was it made? Why? Who played a role?

What did you mean when you told Russian diplomats on May 10, 2017, that firing Mr. Comey had taken the pressure off?

What did you mean in your interview with Lester Holt about Mr. Comey and Russia?

What was the purpose of your May 12, 2017, tweet?

What did you think about Mr. Comey’s June 8, 2017, testimony regarding Mr. Flynn, and what did you do about it?

What was the purpose of the September and October 2017 statements, including tweets, regarding an investigation of Mr. Comey?

What is the reason for your continued criticism of Mr. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew G. McCabe?

What did you think and do regarding the recusal of Mr. Sessions?

What efforts did you make to try to get him to change his mind?

Did you discuss whether Mr. Sessions would protect you, and reference past attorneys general?

What did you think and what did you do in reaction to the news of the appointment of the special counsel?

Why did you hold Mr. Sessions’s resignation until May 31, 2017, and with whom did you discuss it?

What discussions did you have with Reince Priebus in July 2017 about obtaining the Sessions resignation? With whom did you discuss it?

What discussions did you have regarding terminating the special counsel, and what did you do when that consideration was reported in January 2018?

What was the purpose of your July 2017 criticism of Mr. Sessions?

When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?

What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?

During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?

What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?

What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?

What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?

What involvement did you have concerning platform changes regarding arming Ukraine?

During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?

What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?

What did you know about communication between Roger Stone, his associates, Julian Assange or WikiLeaks?

What did you know during the transition about an attempt to establish back-channel communication to Russia, and Jared Kushner’s efforts?

What do you know about a 2017 meeting in Seychelles involving Erik Prince?

What do you know about a Ukrainian peace proposal provided to Mr. Cohen in 2017?

edited to include questions in case someone can’t access the article for any reason

There’s about 4 dozen questions here, and I’d put real money down that Mueller’s team has the answers to all of them.  A good prosecutor doesn’t ask a question in an interview they don’t already know the answer to.  And we’re talking about The Justice League.

Need more proof that they know the answers?  Look at Cooperating Witnesses.  More than half of those questions involve people on that list.  The rest involve law enforcement officials like James Comey, Sally Yates, and Andrew McCabe, who were cooperating with Robert Mueller from Day 1.  (Daily Check-In 9/8/2017, Daily Check-In 03/19/2018)

COHEN:  FBI MET WITH RUSSIAN MMA STAR

The FBI has interviewed a Russian mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter with ties to President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.

Affliction Entertainment  was an MMA company started by the Affliction clothing brand.  The UFC banned their equipment when they learned that Affliction was starting up their own company.

Affliction partnered with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.  Their primary shareholder was Donald Trump, and their COO was none other than Michael Cohen.

The fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, is a multi-time MMA champion who also happens to be one of Vladimir Putin’s favorite fighters.  Affliction made Emelianenko their star attraction.

Affliction had two pay per views in 2008.  Their third was cancelled less than two weeks beforehand due to one of the fighters popping a piss test for steroids, and they couldn’t find a replacement for the main event in time.

Trump demands the spotlight everywhere he goes, and all of his business ventures look more like efforts at Money Laundering than actual business ventures.  What makes this look even more ridiculous is what we’ve learned in the past couple years about Trump’s business ties, his desires to work in Russia, and the general shadiness and corruption surrounding sports.

There are so many ways to launder, lose, and find money in sports, it should be criminal.  Actually, many of them are.  For example, fixing fights, outsourcing the fight promotion to a subsidiary of the parent company, or throwing VIP Only parties that hide and mix the cash flow can all be used as methods of cleaning dirty money through sports.  And I haven’t even talked about endorsements, sponsorships, or media access rights yet.

So, we have a known Russophile and alleged money launderer, and his fixer, running a sports business that had deep ties to the betting community (read: organized crime), who’s star attraction has ties to the head of the country he’s been trying to work with since the 1980’s.  And, it’s an interesting enough connection that the FBI thought it was worth looking into.

This is gonna get interesting.

$20 says that the FBI found incriminating evidence against AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer.

STORMYGATE

WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER: SWINE CLUTCHING AT PEARLS, A SPECIAL TWIST ON “THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE”

Hey mags! All these jokes were about her despicable behavior. Sounds like you have some thoughts about her looks though?

I’m not going to fan the flames on this one.  This is another case of faux outrage by the same people that enable Trump and his ilk to attack democracy and decency every day.  It’s like accusing someone of being bigoted against bigots.  “How dare you be mean about the meanest person alive?  How dare you say a known liar and racist is a liar and a racist?  That makes you just as hate-filled as them”. Fuck those people and that line of thought.  One group is enabling a liar, thief, racist, and rapist.  The other is calling out the enablers.

MEANWHILE, IN MICHIGAN HIDING FROM MEAN COMEDIANS…

Seriously.  That just fucking happened.  Donald Trump admitted that the Russian Lawyer was working for the Russian Government, and he said it’s coming out now because Putin was afraid of how tough he was.

Sometimes, I can’t even.

#NEVERAGAIN

Wait, the NRA won’t let guns in the hall for the Vice President’s speech?  After all that bullshit they cried about how only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns, and we need more guns for safety, they want to ban guns from their convention.

Fuck the NRA.

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

CARL ICAHN

Carl Icahn is a corrupt asshole.  Daily Check-In 8/18/2017 described his efforts to set up these exemptions, and Daily Check-In 03/02/2018 show him engaging in insider trading.

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND FACEBOOK

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

COLD WAR 2.0

PARIS (AP) — The French president’s office says there’s nothing mysterious about the disappearance of an oak tree he planted on the White House lawn.

It was put in quarantine, like other plants or animals brought into U.S. territory.

The sapling was a gift from French President Emmanuel Macron for his state visit to U.S. President Donald Trump last week.

An official in Macron’s office said Monday that Trump insisted on holding a symbolic planting ceremony alongside Macron despite the quarantine requirement. The official said both sides knew all along that the tree would go later into quarantine.

A pale patch of grass now covers the spot.

The oak originally sprouted at the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood in northern France, where about 2,000 U.S. troops died fighting a German offensive.

For once, nothing nefarious happened.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

BLUE WAVE

TRUMP ORG AND CORRUPTION, FROM THE WATER IS WET DEPARTMENT

SCIENCE, BITCHES

RUMOR MILL

Look forward to this when I eventually bend space and time, and get around to writing my piece on Maggie Haberman.

That’s it for today.  Remember on Daily Check-In 04/27/2018 I said I was going to write about the House Intel Report?  Well, I did.  I spent 5 hours working on that Sunday night. Then another hour with tech support trying to recover the post that magically disappeared.  2800 words disappeared into the ether.  More than 50 links, gone.  All that work, just…

Was I upset?  Yeah.  But this ain’t my first rodeo.  I’ve lost work before, and it’ll happen again.  I adjust my workflow to avoid a catastrophic failure, and move on.  Shit happens, it’s how we deal with it when the Poop Parade comes to town.

I’m going to redo that piece, work on it over the next several days, and republish it.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 04/27/2018

Friday, April 28th.  This is going to be a long one.

 

THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION:  VESELNITSKAYA IS A SPY, ADMITS TO BEING AN INFORMANT

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general.

Natalya Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with top Trump campaign officials at Trump Tower in 2016, admitted to being an informant for a top Kremlin official, reports the New York Times.

Why it matters: Veselnitskaya previously denied having ties to Russia’s government and insisted she was a private attorney. The revelation now raises questions about who she was working for when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner in 2016. The meeting is a focus of Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation.

What she said: “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant … Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

What she did: She “worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm,” the NYT’s Andrew Kramer and Sharon LaFraniere write.

How we know: Newly released emails, obtained by Dossier, an organization run by a former tycoon and anti-Putin campaigner, reveal Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Kremlin official. And when presented with the emails in an interview with NBC News’ Richard Engel, she revealed she had been informing the official.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian Lawyer Spy that met with Trump’s team during the June 9th meeting, admitted in an interview with Richard Engle that she was “an informant” for the Crown Prosecutor of Russia, their equivalent of our Attorney General. She was caught editing legal documents that originated from the Crown Prosecutor, and modified them to work on a case she worked on.

The Swiss called her a spy a couple months back. (Daily Check-In 01/29/2018)

But the Russians only reached out to Trump before the election, right?

The outreach from the Russians after the 2016 election was one of the new details that stemmed from the release of the Republican report on the Russia investigation, as well as a lengthy Democratic dissent that disputed the Republican conclusion there was no evidence of collusion between Trump’s team and Russia.
In the dissent, Democrats cite a November 28, 2016, email from publicist Rob Goldstone to Trump’s assistant, Rhona Graff, which said that “Aras Agalarov has asked me to pass on this document in the hope it can be passed on to the appropriate team.”
“Later that day, Graff forwarded to Steve Bannon the email with Agalarov’s document regarding the Magnitsky Act as an attachment, explaining, ‘The PE [President Elect] knows Aras well. Rob is his rep in the US and sent this on. Not sure how to proceed, if at all.'”
…
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Friday that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya reached out to the Trump family after the election with a request to follow up on efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 Russian sanctions the US enacted over human rights abuses.

Wow.  November 28th, 2016.  That’s less than a week before Jared Kushner’s and Michael Flynn’s meeting with the Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in Trump Tower. (Daily Check-In 12/01/2017). Of course, they wanted to talk about the Magnitsky Act.

But I’m sure that the Russians wouldn’t try to contact the Trump Team through other methods, right?

Washington (CNN)The National Rifle Association is setting aside years of documents related to its interactions with a Kremlin-linked banker, as the gun-rights group appears to be bracing for a possible investigation, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The NRA has faced fresh scrutiny from congressional investigators about its finances and ties to Alexander Torshin, one of the 17 prominent Russian government officials the US Treasury Department recently slapped with sanctions. The gun-rights group has said it is reexamining its relationship with Torshin, who is a lifetime NRA member, in the wake of the sanctions.
The renewed attention has highlighted the close-knit if sometimes uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin — a relationship that ensnared members of Trump’s team during the presidential campaign, inviting further congressional scrutiny.

Ok, so the Russians used the NRA to establish contact with Team Trump through Jeff Sessions and the Foreign Policy team.  I’ve been on the NRA’s nuts like a tick on a dog’s dick for a while, (Daily Check-In 10/2/2017 and Daily Check-In 01/18/2018) but this is the first I’ve heard about them using the Keebler Nazi to get Trump to talk to the Russians.

But it’s not like these activities started back during the infancy of the campaign, right?

Oh, For Fuck’s Sake!

On their way to meet with Putin at the Russia Today Gala, they met with Kislyak at the Ambassador’s OWN FUCKING HOUSE?!  Really?!

This not only puts the seeds of treason being planted, but also directly implicates Mike Flynn Jr.  Flipping Flynn described several of their crimes, and that Flynn likely flipped to save his son’s life.

Of course, Mike Flynn is now a cooperating witness.  I wonder if he thought for a second about his battle if he didn’t cooperate.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Fuck you Manafort!

This was a Hail Mary by Paul Manafort.  He had no realistic chance of getting the criminal charges dismissed through a civil lawsuit, but he could disrupt things and force Mueller to expose his plans against him.

But fuck that noise.

 

HIJINKS ON THE HILL:  HOUSE INTEL REPUBLICANS CLAIM NO COLLUSION EVEN AFTER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MET WITH ADMITTED SPY, CATHOLIC PAUL RYAN FIRES CATHOLIC HOUSE CHAPLAIN FOR DOING GOOD CATHOLIC THINGS LIKE PRAYING FOR POOR PEOPLE

House Intelligence Committee Republicans released a redacted version of their final reportfrom a year-long probe into Russia’s “multifaceted” influence operation, which accuses the intelligence community of “significant intelligence tradecraft failings” in determining that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump.

The report generally absolves Trump and his associates of wrongdoing, finding “no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government.” The report does, however, criticize both the Trump and Clinton campaigns for “poor judgment and ill-considered actions,” such as Trump campaign officials’ decision to meet with a Russian lawyer offering compromising information on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower in June 2016.

It also criticizes the Obama administration for a “slow and inconsistent” response to mounting Russian threats.

House Intelligence Committee Democrats refused to endorse the report, claiming that the GOP intentionally steered the investigation away from scrutiny of the president as well as manipulating the interview schedule, refusing to issue subpoenas, and otherwise undermining the integrity of the probe, which they believe is still incomplete.

House Intelligence Committee Republicans stated that the report is based on interviews with 73 witnesses and a review of over 300,000 documents.

The Republicans in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence just declared war on the United States Intelligence Community.  It will not end well for the Republicans.

Giving it a quick glance, this is one of the most twisted, ridiculous, partisan hack jobs that has ever come out of Congress.

Here’s a link to the report.

Nearly all of their findings can be debunked using OSINT (open source intelligence) like this blog, and ignore obvious things like facts.

The only thing it does, aside from piss off the IC, is give Trump the release and vindication he’s been looking for.

Screen Shot 2018-04-27 at 9.02.32 PM

If I was in the prediction game, I’d say that we’re going to hear a lot about Devin’s role in leaking Intel to Portugal in the next week, and several other skeletons in his closet will be coming out soon.

I have not had a chance yet to read the minority view, but there was a ton of interesting information.

One of those pieces was the case of the blocked caller ID.

On June 9th, 2016, Donnie Jr. received three calls before the meeting.  The first and last were from people known to the investigation and related to the meeting.  The middle was a blocked number.  So, the call log was Meeting Member, Blocked, Meeting Member. All right in a row on a private cell phone that wasn’t widely circulated.

So, who was the blocked number?

According to testimony and research, Donald Trump uses a blocked number.  Karen McDougal confirmed this in her interview with Anderson Cooper. (Daily Check-In 03/22/2018).

Was the blocked number a bill collector, or Donald Trump?  This sounds like an important piece of information, and an easy one to get.  A subpoena or two to some telephone companies would identify the numbers and who owns them.  This should be something that the whole investigation wants to get to the bottom of, right?

Wrong.  The GOP blocked any and all efforts to find out whose number that was, and instead ran interference for the Trump Campaign.

Don’t worry about the phone number too much.  Mueller has it.

He is the Republican representative from PA-7, and is the 45th Republican member of Congress to retire this in this session.

Funny how it is that as soon as old white men stand to make money from weed, there’s a consistent push to legalize it.

The Hill reported that four different sources ― two Democrats and two Republicans ― said Conroy was told he had to quit or he would be fired. There’s been no reason given for why he was let go, but Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) tells HuffPost that his GOP colleagues have pointed him to a prayer that Conroy made on the House floor last fall amid the debate on the GOP tax bill.

I know good Catholics, good Christians, and good people.  Paul Ryan is none of the above.

 

COHEN/STORMYGATE

My question is what was the condition of these phones, what types, and how old were they?

I can see how a family could easily have a bunch of old phones lying around from the last decade or so. Between my wife and I, we probably have a dozen iPhones floating around the house, but only two are in use at one time. The kid isn’t old enough for his own phone yet, but in the next upgrade cycle or two, he’ll get one of our hand me downs. In that case, I can see how a man would have 16 phones in his house.

That said, it’s still a lot of phones to have lying around, and the Feds aren’t likely to bust a search warrant by grabbing a pile of phones belonging to the family. They probably had phone numbers, s/n’s, sim card numbers, and a bunch of other identifying info from the last few months, which indicates that these phones were active over the last few months. That’s some shady ass shit.

The judge is putting this on hold for 90 days.  Why 90 days?  Because Cohen will likely be indicted by then.

So, the mobbed up lawyer who had to take out a second mortgage to pay a porn star $130,000 somehow had enough money laying around to loan $26 million to one of his buddies that owned a taxi medallion business?

 

COLD WAR 2.0

After 65 years, the two countries on the Korean Peninsula are finally ending their war.  It’s about time, but I’m suspicious about all of the underlying factors.

WHITE HOUSE CHAOS

I’m sure that if I worked at the White House, I’d need a ton of drugs, too.

Here’s a great post about how the bad people around Trump have suffered.

If you ever feel bad about 45, think of how good his associates’ lives would be if he lost in 2016 and enjoy a little schadenfreude:

Adm Jackson would be up for promotion – instead he’ll head towards retirement

Manafort, Gates and Cohen would be happily taking money from oligarchs

Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer would be running an RNC on the cusp of major 2018 gains

Steve Bannon would be a primary kingmaker with a fully funded outrage machine

Keith Schiller and Hope Hicks would be making good money as top aides to Trump TV

Melania Trump would have returned to a life of lazy luxury, easily ignoring her husband’s myriad affairs

Michael Flynn and Popadopalous would be rich from lobbying for authoritarian governments like Turkey

The Mooch ~~would still be married to his wife and ~~ would have witnessed the birth of their first child

Tom Price would still be a congressman and head of a major committee

Rex Tillerson would still be CEO of Exxon have happily retired without being humiliated for a year before being canned on the can

Gary Cohn would still be at Goldman Sachs

H R McMaster wouldn’t have had to retire

And Finally –

Donald Trump wouldn’t have to wake up every morning knowing that he will fail in the biggest, most humiliating way possible, as his precious empire crumbles and the presidency he won turns into the dictionary definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

They made their choices. And they will all end up with nothing.

Edit: Mr. and Mrs. Mooch made up! You can make up the “suck his own cock” reference from there

Edit 2: for the “drain the swamp crowd”, this group consists of true public servants whose lives have been wrecked (McMaster), unqualified individuals who would never be near the White House in another administration, and individuals with sketchy/problematic pasts. These staffing failures begin and end with Trump’s belief in loyalty over quality.

A second note – he’s not “draining the swamp”. He brought a lot of this flotsam with him. Our institutions (the media, DoJ, FBI, the courts, congressional oversight) are pushing them out.

Edit 3: I forgot some!

Paul Ryan wouldn’t be retiring as Speaker

Rob Porter wouldn’t have been outed as a wife beater

Don Jr. wouldn’t have gotten divorced

 

WORLD LEADERS AND TRUMP

 

#NEVERAGAIN

 

GOP:  THE PARTY OF LINCOLN IS DEAD

 

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE

I was almost starting to like RedState.  They offered good insight from a conservative point of view without going full MAGA.

PUERTO RICO

I look forward to one day welcoming Puerto Rico into statehood for the United State of America.

Espero algún día darle la bienvenida a Puerto Rico a la estadidad para el Estado de los Estados Unidos.

I hope Google didn’t fuck me on that translation.  Mi espanol es muy mal.

 

SAY GOODBYE TO THE ECONOMY

Funny how it is that a tax cut for the wealthy that increases uncertainty on the middle class results in lower consumer spending.  That’s crazy talk, like saying the grass gets wet when it rains.

 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

According to the sources, Yiannopoulos had been expecting to instead receive significant financial backing from the banking heir and cryptocurrency billionaire Matthew Mellon. But those hopes were dashed with Mellon’s unexpected death from an apparent drug overdose on April 16.

As sad as I would be about seeing Tom Brokaw get hammered on his accusations, I will doubly enjoy watching Milo suffer.

Besides, I’m getting used to watching my childhood heroes fall.  I grew up in the 80’s with Hulk Hogan, Joe Paterno, and Bill Cosby as some of my idols.

 

TIME FOR A CIVICS LESSON

Connecticut is looking to join the National Popular Vote Coalition.  The idea behind this is pretty simple; states that join the coalition will pledge their votes in the electoral college to the winner of the national popular vote.  When a plurality of the electoral votes are pledged to the coalition, then the winner of the popular vote will also automatically win the electoral college as well.

Currently, including Connecticut, 11 states have pledged 165 electoral votes.  270 is needed to win the election, so another 105 votes are needed to enact the coalition.

 

RUMOR MILL

I recommend reading all of the threads.  Especially the craziness of the last one.  Eric’s ideas only sound crazy when compared to normal reality, and not the clusterfuck of this timeline.

 

That’s it for today.  This is one of the longest daily entries yet.

Thanks to the House Intel Committee, I have an idea for an article in the next week or two.  I’m going to debunk their findings, using my findings, as far as possible, and see how much of their findings can be disproved using open source intelligence.  I want to see how much I’ve gotten so far.

That assumes I get time to write this weekend.  I have a very busy weekend ahead.

Thank you, and have a good one.

 

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur