This has been a week beyond all weeks.
First we had the incredible March For Life protest against gun violence in Washington DC and 800 other cities around the world. And of course in response we have multiple right wingers lose their damn minds and attack these brave kids, claiming that instead of lobbying for people to not get shot they’ should “Learn CPR” or that they’re a bunch of “Traitors Playing Hooky over the blood of their classmates.”
Because — uh — not classy.
Second we had finally had a White House reaction to Russian aggression, but only after every other nation did it first in a massive case of “Mother May I” while at the same time Trump seems to be dropping lawyers like a car with a broken crankcase and since he’s moving closer and closer to a face-to-face interview, or probably a grand jury subpoena, with Mueller and his team not being properly prepped and prepared could end up being a really huge problem for him since he’s really down to just one sole lawyer now -— Jay Sekulow — and that guy is better known as a radio show host.
“Sekulow has no experience handling federal criminal investigations,” he writes. “Asking him to quarterback the defense to this important investigation would be like asking a neurologist to be your heart surgeon.”
Even the big switch of H.R. McMaster for John Bolton for National Security Advisor has been overshadowed. Where as McMaster took Russia as a serious threat and was probably the source of the “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” notice on the PDB that Trump ignored, we have by contrast Bolton who helped shill for a Russian gun proliferation group “Right to Bear Arms” which may have funneled $Millions into the NRA illegally during the 2016 election cycle, which is fairly “collusiony” [And also the NRA just admitted to doing by transferring funds from foreign money they receiving into accounts used for the election. $30 Million of which was spent in support of Trump.]
That’s on top of his wanting to Nuke North Korean and do a first Strike on Iran Nuclear sites, even though they’ve been shutting those sites down and allowing inspections in accordance with the International Deal that was brokered by President Obama.
Allow that to simmer on a low fire, as GOP members of the House Unintelligence Committee released their “Findings” in the Russia Probe, which is to say — they magically managed to not really find a damn thing.
And then for the appetizer there’s the Stormy Daniels situation which is probably not really a political or legal problem for Trump, yet, but it could get Michael Cohen prosecuted just like John Edwards was when he solicited a campaign contributor to help pay expenses for his baby-mama Rielle Hunter.
”“By all accounts, a $130,000 hush money payment on the eve of the presidential election in 2016 could constitute an in-kind contribution made to influence the outcome of that election,” the MSNBC legal analyst continued. “And if so, then Michael Cohen is going to be looking at felony charges for having done that.”
But what’s even worse than all that and a brilliant main course is that it appears that for months now the White House itself has been investigating jared Kushner for all his attempts to use his government position to funnel hundreds of $Millions into his families real estate company.
Ho boy.
First the funny stuff.
Then the serious stuff which goes like this...
White House lawyers are probing whether two loans made to Jared Kushner’s family business violated criminal law or ethics regulations, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The loans from Citigroup and Apollo Global Management—which totaled over $500 million—were made to the Kushner’s private real estate company Kushner Cos., shortly after Kushner, a top White House aide and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, met with executives of those companies at the White House.
Repeat, that’s not Mueller investigating these issues — although all indications are that he is — it’s the White House doing it, and the truth is that Kushner had his Security Clearance demoted from Top Secret to just Secret because the call was coming from inside the White House.
“Mr. Kushner’s legal exposure in the Russia scandal started off deep, but they have been getting deeper ever since,” the host noted.
Maddow then listed, in detail, the timeline of revelations over Kushner’s legal jeopardy and financial entanglements.
“So to keep his Kremlin communication secret, he was offering that he would go to the Russian embassy to make his calls to the Kremlin,” Maddow reminded. “And yeah, Abbe Lovell is good, but that’s nuts! That’s nuts!”
“With Mr. Kushner, at least, it seems clear his lawyers are very much earning their pay,” Maddow concluded.
If you look at all these events in total it’s pretty clear that the flat-spin death spiral that the Trump Administration has been in since it’s earliest days is only getting faster and more violent, flinging off WH advisors, lawyers and soon the engine and tail section any moment now.
The biggest bonehead move yet of reaching out to Joe diGenova, the Fox News conspiracy nut bomb thrower, to pull into his legal team without first consulting with his current legal team is likely what sent Dowd stomping out the door. And that’s hard to fix since Trump was already known as a bad client since he has a tendency not to pay his attorneys.
President Trump can’t find a top law firm that wants to represent him. He and his top aides have tried. They’ve looked around. They’ve had conference calls. But they got zip, nada, bupkis. The top litigators and their firms have various reasons why they won’t agree to represent the president of the United States. Here are some of them:
- They won’t get paid.
- Their client wouldn’t follow their advice.
- They represent clients who have been or might be subpoenaed in money laundering aspects of the case.
- It would destroy the image and reputation of their firm.
- It would ‘kill’ efforts to recruit top lawyers to their firm.
- They’ll be washing their hair that year (“I’m too busy to represent the POTUS.”)
- He can’t be saved.
To me, that’s a damning list. Under ordinary circumstances, I can’t think of anything more prestigious for a law firm than to be able to say that when the shit hits the fan, they’re the ones who take the call from the president. But, with this president, they’re not even confident that the client won’t stiff them on their bill. They’re also savvy enough to realize that the Trump Organization is up to its ears in money laundering and that this will create a conflict with the large banking institutions they represent. And Trump is so toxic, guilty, and unsympathetic that simply advocating on his behalf would cause people to shun and disdain their whole organization. Plus, they’d lose the case anyway in part because their advice wouldn’t be followed.
Yeah, ok, gotta take a breath after that one.
Just remember he didn’t even pay Michael Cohen back for what he gave Stormy Daniels.
President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen reportedly complained to friends that he had yet to be reimbursed for the $130,000 payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels less than two weeks before the election.
Michael is a friend of his, so he’s definitely not going to pay the rest of these guys.
He’s screwed, and he largely did it to himself.
Meanwhile back in the ongoing Cambridge Analytic follies of foolishness which are still bouncing merrily along it appears that they may have violated Federal Law by having their employees — who are foreigners since they’re an English company — working directly with the Trump campaign.
Reporting on the request sent by Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Jerrod Nadler (D-NY), two leading Democrats in the House, Axios noted the crux of their statement hinges on whether British Cambridge Analytica employees worked for the Trump campaign — an act that would violate laws barring foreign nations from working for American candidates.
This is Update #44 in the Trump Russia Timeline. Daily details are as follows:
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March 20th —
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Huckabee-Sanders refuses to call Russia’s 70% re-election of Putin a sham: ‘We don’t dictate how other countries operate’. [Yeah, so much for “beacon shining on the hill, standing up for human rights”...] A Fifth Bomb goes off in Texas, this time in San Antonio — but the WH sees no link to terrorism. [Because we all know — it’s probably a white guy.] Trump says “we have to find the suspects immediately.” [Hey wow, that’s an idea I’m sure no one else has even considered.]
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School Shooting at Great Mills High School in Maryland — 2 dead including the shooter who was reported taken down by school resource officers. [It’s later discovered that his wounds were self-inflicted.]
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Rep. Barbara Lee blast Education Sec. Betsy Devos for her nonchalant attitude toward racial disparities in school discipline. She also asks her if she understands how children of color might feel when their teachers who are already singling them out for harsher discipline are armed, but doesn’t get a real answer.
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Kremlin reports that Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his election victory, and that they planned for yet another face-to-face meeting. Chemical Attacks and Election Meddling were not discussed.
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Local Fox News host cuts off Great Mills survivor as soon as she mentions ‘gun control’.
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Parkland teens call out lawmakers failure to act for Great Hills shooting. ‘This is on their hands’:.
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Former FBI Agent Phill Mudd slams Trump’s cynicism in hiring conspiracy-spouting attorney DiGenova to rile up the kook base.
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Even Rick Santorum is now saying Trump’s attacks on Mueller makes him look ‘like he’s got something to hide’ [That’s because he does.]
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Facebook demands to look at Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie’s phone and computer while the UK seeks a warrant to look into their servers, and they also happen to have offices located inside Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp building in New York.
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Nikolas Cruz 18 year-old younger brother Zachary is arrested for trespassing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. Saying he wanted to “soak it all in” he had bypassed the locks and gates and was apprehended while skateboarding through the school. This was his 3rd break in.
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Ben Carson throws his wife under the bus with his $31,000 dining table strapped to it. “I left it to her.”
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Politico reports Rep. Goodlatte is preparing to subpoena the DOJ Inspector General for his report on the Clinton email probe, which hasn’t been released yet. Sen. Grassley promises to have hearings on the report once it’s released. [Oh great we’re back to Benghazi-ville again.]
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In more relevant news Sen. Feinstein requests hearings on Cambridge Analytica. [Oh, Snap!]
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WaPo reports that Trump apparently attempted to recruit superstar attorney Ted Olson, but was instead shot down in flames via tweet.
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Former Intelligence Office Lt. Col Ralph Peters quits his “Strategic Analysis” job at Fox News and excoriates them as a Propaganda Machine that “dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI … all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of ‘deep-state’ machinations” and “is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit,” He also says.. “As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things,”
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Cambridge Analytica suspends CEO Alexander Nix as his boasts about buying off and blackmailing politicians airs on live British TV, right after Channel 4 airs part 3 of the special on CA where Nix bragged that “We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy” for the Trump campaign, and admits it was all based on deliberate Fake News: “We just put information into the bloodstream to the internet and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again over time to watch it take shape. And so this stuff infiltrates the online community and expands but with no branding – so it’s unattributable, untrackable.” [Yeah, just like the Russian trolls and bots did too. So if this was the strategy that won Trump the election, was it because of Russia paying CA to develop these strategies, or because Russia used these strategies too?]
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Former Playboy model Karen McDougal is now also suing Trump to void a “catch and kill” story deal the Enquirer Companies which she had signed for $150,000 after alleging Trump had a 10 month affair with her.
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The Senate Intel Draft Report indicates that the integrity of the 2018 elections remain in jeopardy. [Wha? The Hell you Say!]
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The Guardian reports on the Trump/Cambridge Analytica’s project to depress the Democratic vote which was created in San Antonio where 13 members of Cambridge Analytica came to huddle with Donald Trump’s IT director Brad Parscale using three key prongs which was presented to their Russian benefactors.
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Convince black voters that Clinton secretly hated African Americans, but thought she could deceive them into supporting her during the election.
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Convince Bernie Sanders supporters that Hillary Clinton was a neo-liberal war hawk who had stolen the primaries.
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Convince younger women that Clinton was from a different era and didn’t understand their concerns while reminding them that Clinton stuck by “sexual predator” Bill Clinton.
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Wapo Reports that Trump ignored an all caps “DO NOT CONGRATULATE PUTIN” message in his PDB, and his also didn’t follow advise to condemn the Russian WMD attack on England.
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New York’s Attorney General and City Council want explanations for Kushner Co’s false documents about their rental properties.
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CA Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome calls the head of ICE an ‘A-plus prick’.
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Sen. Jeff Flake says that if Trump fires Mueller ‘our only constitutional remedy is through impeachment’.
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WaPo reports that Steve Bannon led Cambridge Analytica’s efforts to collect Facebook data on millions of Americans according to Chris Wylie.
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A New York State Judge rules that former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit against Trump can move forward “He’s not above the Law.”
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The Daily Beast reports that Cambridge Analytics employee Emily Cornell wrote an email about Hillary’s emails one week after Wikileaks began releasing the DNC emails ““With her campaign getting hacked, I can only imagine what a new swatch [sic] of emails will do to her already fractured base!” she wrote.
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March 21st —
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AP reports British corporate records show that Alexander Nix is also director of a company called Emerdata Ltd. that was incorporated in August 2017. Other Emerdata directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, who also deputy chairman of Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, whose chairman is Erik Prince.
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Sunni Hostin on The View calls BS on Melania Trump’s cyber bullying campaign: ‘She can’t control it in her own home’.
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Austin Texas serial bombing suspect 23 year-old Mark Anthony Conditt who was killed by one of his own bombs after a police shoot out was a white, homeschooled, self-described conservative from a church going family from Fflugerville who wrote a blog where he exposed his views against abortion, same-sex marriage, the sex-offender registry and in support of neoCon Torture proponent Marc Theissen and the Death Penalty. [So his signup papers to be an Official Army of God Terrorist got lost in the mail?]
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Fox News guest host Geraldo Rivera on Tuesday suggested that a bomber targeted Austin, Texas because it is one of the most liberal cities in the state. [Yeah, ya think?]
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The Times of London report that a leaked email reveals that Alexander Nix referred to two prospective black clients as “N*ggers.”
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The Investigative Fund reports that Don Jr had travelled to India multiple times in the last decade in attempts to illegally restart a Trump project that had been shutdown due to a suspected $100 million fraud scheme and “gross violations”.
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WH goes on it’s own “Witch Hunt” for the leaker who revealed that Trump had completely ignored the advise not to congratulate Putin in his PDB.
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During a 2010 New Yorker profile Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had bragged in a chat to a friend that he had access to private data from “any” Harvard student because the “Dumb Fucks” had voluntarily shared or submitted that information through his platform.
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Buzzfeed reports that the RNC spent over $270,000 at Trump properties during February, which was 86% of their spending on local venues and is in addition to $2 Million that Republican campaigns have spent on his properties. The RNC is also still paying Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller’s security consulting firm KS Global $15,000 per month.
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Politico reports that Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt spent over $105,000 on first-class flights during his first year as the department’s secretary.
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Crank Crack-Pot Wingnut Rep. Louie Gohmert argues that Mueller should be fired, even though there is no legal cause or justification for it.
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ABC news reports that Andrew McCabe along with Rob Rosenstein had investigated Jeff Sessions for lying under oath to Congress about his and other Trump campaign officials communications with Russians.
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The Hill reports that Mueller is investigating links between the Trump Campaign and Cambridge Analytica which other reports indicate worked directly together along with Facebook representatives in their campaign offices.
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Mueller’s list of questions to Trump including details about Don Jr. Trump Tower meeting, Trump’s involvement in the original false statement about that meeting, as well as the firings of James Comey and Michael Flynn.
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Buzzfeed reports GOP campaign staffers who also used Cambridge Analytica are whining about being ‘unfairly targeted’. “We’re the victims here.” [No, not even a little bit.]
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Former CIA Director Brennen says there’s a 98% chance that Russia has dirt on Trump: Putin ‘can wipe him out’.
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The Intercept reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly bragged about having White House senior counsel Jared Kushner “in his pocket” and may have used highly sensitive intelligence from the President’s Daily Briefing in his violent crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia.
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Devin Nunes is under investigation for possible Campaign Finance Violations.
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March 22nd —
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Trumps signs his Chinese Tariff executive order and the stock market crashes 724 points.
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Sen. Warren hammers Ben Carson for delaying an anti-discrimination rule until 2020: ‘That’s the scandal that should get you fired’.
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Details of the WH meeting for new rules on anti-leaking — get leaked.
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AP reports that a New York City regulator is probing 13 buildings controlled Jared Kushner's family over possible “illegal activity” related to work permits, according to public filings.
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EPA Director Scott Pruitt’s security detail went with him on his $800k worth of first class flights.
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Bannon denies all knowledge of data-mining by Cambridge Analytica and entirely blames Facebook.[Who wrote and distributed the Facebook personality survey app that gathered all the data then? That’s like saying ‘Hey Facebook left the door open, so it’s not my fault my company ransacked the house with the open door…!!’]
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Newly minted Opiod Czar Kellyanne Conway says : ‘Eat ice cream, not fentanyl and ‘it all works out’
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China considers targeting Trump-voting states in trade war.
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Trump announces he’s dumping McMaster as national security advisor to be replaced by John Bolton. [Hello Apocalypse, here we come!]
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Former playmate Karen McDougal tells Anderson Cooper she has proof of a 10-month sexual relationship with Trump including photos and notes.
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John Dowd — the guy who claimed he wrote the tweet which suggested Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI but just didn’t care, who just recently praised Sessions for firing McCabe and suggested Rosenstein should fire Mueller — quits as Trump lead defense attorney reportedly because he won't take his advice, so after asking 4 other attorney’s who all turn him down — including Ted Olsen and Emmet Flood— Trump hires Joe diGenova’s wife Victora Tensing who happens to already represent a Uranium One conspiracy theorist and wants to have Meuller investigated by yet another Special Counsel because he was FBI Director when that deal was approved even though he — like Clinton — had nothing to do with it.
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The Daily Beast reports that Guccifer 2.0 has been confirmed not be a “lone hacker” but is instead a front operation for Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) [Wait, who didn’t know that? Oh yeah, Roger Stone and Republican consultant Aaron Nevins.] They discovered this because he apparently made a post and forgot to mask his IP address which linked back to a point inside FSB headquarters. [Whoops!]
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ABC News reports that McCabe oversaw an investigation in potential perjury by Sessions in response to a letter sent to him by Sens. Leahy and Franken due to his false testimony during his confirmation hearing denying he or other Trump surrogates had had contact with Russians.
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CBS confirms that they will interiview Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes.
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Wapo Reports that in addition to congratulating Putin against advise during their recent phone call, Trump’s claim that he and Putin would meet again soon was also a surprise.
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Trump responds to Biden’s “take him behind the Gym” comments about Trump needing a beating since High School by saying Joe “would go down hard and fast, crying all the way...” [Yeah, sure, that’s just what you told Stormy and McDougal I’ll bet.]
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WH says the “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” leak was a “firing offense” but since they haven’t caught who did it yet, I guess they’ll just have to fire everyone in the building one at a time including McMaster who's last public statement — just like Tillersons’s — was blasting Russia for their chemical attack on England.
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Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) blames “somebody in the deep state, not one of [Carson’s] people’ for his $31,000 dining set, even though a long time HUD employee Helen Foster was demoted for opposing the purchase and had stated that it was people in the WH — who said you can’t buy a decent chair for $5,000” — and Carson’s wife who had pushed for it.
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New York Times reports UAE Rep George Nader and RNC Fund Raiser Elliot Broidy corresponded and worked to influence the Trump WH by advocating for the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and pushing the interests of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who had both blockaded Qatar.
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NPR reveals that John Bolton had done a video statement on behalf of the NRA-Linked Russian gun rights group “Right to Bear Arms” which is lead by mobster Alexander Torshin and is reported to have helped funnel Russian money into the 2016 election.
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Trump again says he’d like to talk to Mueller and his team.
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CNN President Jeff Zucker calls Fox News ‘State-Run TV, A Pure Propaganda Machine’. [You noticed did you?]
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March 23rd —
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March 24th —
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Andrew McCabe writes a scathing WaPo Op-Ed about his firing where he denies he had a “lack of candor” [especially compared to Sessions false statements under oath] and bemoans Trump’s cruelty. “President Trump’s cruelty reminded me of the days immediately following the firing of James B. Comey, as the White House desperately tried to push the falsehood that people in the FBI were celebrating the loss of our director,” McCabe said. “The president’s comments about me were equally hurtful and false, which shows that he has no idea how FBI people feel about their leaders.”
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Foreign Policy reports that incoming National Security Advisor Bolton is planing a “massive shakeup” of NSC staff at the WH and plans to fire dozens of current staff. [That would be the guys who actually did get their clearances right? To be replaced by who…?]
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WSJ reports that Trump is weighing wether to publicly fight back against Daniels and McDougal’s claims over their NDA’s even though his voters don’t seem to care either way.
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Bloomberg and CNN reports that Trump has been advised to expel dozens of Russian diplomats over the English chemical attack, and he’s considering it for Monday, but the decision “may not be final.”
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House GOP Intel Committee releases the findings in their version of a “Russia Probe” and they find that Russia did something, but they’re not sure what — they know it didn’t change the election although they didn't ask, and that they didn’t want to help Trump, but they did want to hurt Clinton which wouldn't help Trump at all, and Trump had nothing to do with it — except for publicly endorsing it, privately soliciting it and trying to cover it up. So there — nothing to see here. Mission Accomplished. Move along now.
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Parkland Students stage their “March For Life” in Washington, New York, LA and 800 cities worldwide.
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Another Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Shahmir Sanni comes forward and claims that the company linked to Analytica illegally received donations of $880,000 to influence the Brexit vote on behalf of the Vote Leave campaign, and that the evidence was hidden and destroyed.
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Jesse Waters whines to Kellyanne Conway about the Omnibus Bill — “What happened to the Wall?” [It got smashed… by common sense.]
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March 25th —
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March 26th —
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Trump implements Operation:Distract From Stormy and tweets that the Economy is looking lovely this morning.
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Cohen’s lawyer Brent Blakley sends Daniels a “cease and desist” letter claiming she made “false and defamatory” remarks during her interview.
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AP reports that VA Director David Schulkin may be the next contestant defenestrated out the window on this weeks episode of Celebrity WH Cabinet: Death Match Edition.
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60 Russian Diplomats get the boot over the Chemical Weapons attack in Salisbury. Axios reports that Trump refused to do the expulsion until after France, Germany and other countries had done it first.
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CBS reports that Trump had dinner with Michael Cohen the night 60 Minutes airing of the Daniels interview.
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NYTimes reports the former RNC finance deputy chair Elliot Broidy had pitched that he could setup clients and potential clients with a meetings in the WH.
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Steve King blasts Emma Gonzales for wearing a Cuban Flag patch on her jacket, claiming that that island became a dictatorship because the people were “disarmed.” [I think people on both sides of that revolution were armed, man.]
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Stoneman Douglas student David Hoog call BS on Santorum “if you're shot in the head — no amount of CPR will save you, you’re dead.”
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WH deputy spokes shill Raj Shah states Trump doesn’t believe Daniels was threatened in 2011, and claims payments like Cohen’s to her are “nothing out of the ordinary” although they continue to deny there was an affair/ [But if there wasn’t an affair — why’d she get paid?]
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Shah also claims “The President is the only one whose been consistent” basically continuing the talking point that Daniels can’t be trust because she signed some claims provided by Cohen that “there was no affair” when she was acting in accordance with the NDA — which basically means they’re calling her a liar for the times she’s agreed with Trump and Cohen.
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Daniels’ lawyer sues Cohen for Defamation adding it to their previous suit against the NDA.
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Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke Don’t. Not. Grok. Diversity.
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Daniels’ attorney : ‘She can describe his genitalia’ [Oh lord, we just found ourselves in Michael Jackson pajama party land...] Then he dares Trump to post a tweet in response to the 60 Minute interview.
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Politico reports that Trump’s attorneys — well, what’s left of them — are very concerned about what Rick Gates has been telling Mueller since he pleaded guilty. “They’ve been very concerned about it,” said a defense attorney working on the Russia case. “It’s something they’re worried about.” “He saw everything,” said a Republican consultant who worked with Gates during the campaign. [Ruh Roh!]
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Ex-federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti write Trump is treading on increasingly dangerous ground without properly experienced legal counsel to help him prepare for an interview with Mueller and his team. “Sekulow has no experience handling federal criminal investigations,” he writes. “Asking him to quarterback the defense to this important investigation would be like asking a neurologist to be your heart surgeon.” [Or perhaps asking a former pediatric neurosurgeon to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Hijinks could ensue.]
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Melania’s spokesperson won’t say if she watched the Daniels interview. ‘She’s focused on being a mom’ and ‘future projects’.[Or perhaps future husbands...]
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Megan McCain lashes out at David Hogg for using profanity because kids don't do … ah fuck fit I can't even finish that thought.
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Wingnut Televangelist claim Parkland students are like ‘demonic’ Nazis who ‘rape’ gun owners. “Hitler took the guns.” [Actually, no he didn’t — Hitler expanded gun rights to everyone except the Jews] This new Conserva-narrative that that Parkland Kids are pocket-sized Nazis seems to be quite deliberate and planned even if it’s factually flawed, and one that the Nazi actually did do was implement the “Big Lie” strategy.
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Eagles of Death Metal Jesse Hughes who is a survivor of the Bataclan Massacre accuses the Parkland Teen survivors of “Treason” and that they are capitalizing on classmates’ deaths to take time off — “multiple days off of school playing hooky at the expense of 16 of your classmates blood.” — singling out activist Emma Gonzalez in particular as a “liar” while posting the fake photoshopped picture of her supposedly ripping the constitution, when she was really ripping a shooting target.
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Former homicide prosecutor Katie Phang explained why longtime Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen may be facing felony charges during an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur. ”“By all accounts, a $130,000 hush money payment on the eve of the presidential election in 2016 could constitute an in-kind contribution made to influence the outcome of that election,” the MSNBC legal analyst continued. “And if so, then Michael Cohen is going to be looking at felony charges for having done that.”
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CNN panels goes bonkers after Daniels’ attorney calls Michael Cohen ‘a thug’ to his lawyer’s David Schwartz face. Schwartz criticizes the polygraph test — which wasn’t even mentioned in the 60 Minutes interview — for not having a “galvanic skin response test” claiming it was therefore phony and Avanetti paid $24,000 for it, even that he that was in 2011 and paid for by In Touch Weekly, he also accuses Daniels of participating in “legal blackmail” for her efforts to reach a deal on the NDA.
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Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd argues Daniels allegations may shows the the Steele dossier ugliest allegations may be true. “Did the president ever do anything overseas, and particularly in Russia, that would be embarrassing and that he’d like to hide… If that turns out to be true — and I think we have information that suggests the FBI has corroborated some of that — I could see a national security implication,” Mudd concluded. “But for Stormy Daniels, that one’s out in the open, I don’t see how you can blackmail someone for something that’s public knowledge.” [Well, that “Blackmail” was behind closed doors to keep it private, until it wasn’t anymore]
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March 27th —
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NYTimes reports that Trump still talks to his wife beating ex-staffer Rob Porter on the phone, and quietly wishes he could come back even though he still wouldn’t have the clearance needed to do his job.
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Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb, of the firm Winston & Strawn, confirmed to The Daily Best that the White House asked the pair to serve on Trump’s team, but they had to decline. [So, still not the “Best Lawyer People”]
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Earlier in March, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) wrote to OGE asking whether Kushner’s meetings with companies who later loaned money to his family presented a ethics issues for the top White House aide. In response OGE Director David Apol said that Kushner’s loans and meetings were worth investigating and that the White House had already launched a probe. Rachel Maddow reports that this internal WH probe, not just issues involving Mueller, may be why Kushner can’t get his clearance.
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FEC Chairman Trevor Potter says it would be impossible for the FEC to finish an inquiry into the Cohen/Daniels payment before next year as they’re still analyzing other 2015-2016 election issues. That would put it right in the start of Trump’s 2020 campaign.
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WaPo reports that although Trump may be quiet in public, he’s raging in private over Daniels claiming she’s a “hoax.” [Right and the pictures and the phone calls and the witness who says he tried to invite her over for a 3-some are all a hoax too.] He also says “She's not the sort of woman he finds attractive” — even though she looks a lot like the models he hands picks for Miss Universe, and a lot like McDougal… and Ivanka.
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The National Rifle Association acknowledged this week that it has moved money from accounts with foreign donations to accounts that are used for spending on U.S. political campaigns. The organization insists the transactions are “permitted by law.” [And just how exactly is that possible?]`
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Pulse shooting survivor Brandon Wolf slams back at Steve King for his attack on Emma Gonzales. “Are you serious attacking a shooting survivor for her ethnic identify?” [Yep, he did.]
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Salon reports that Cambridge Analytica may have violated federal law by having their foreign work force directly involved in the Trump campaign.
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Aaron Rich, brother of murdered DNC staff Seth Rich sues Trump ally Ed Butowsky; conservative activist Matt Couch and his media group America First Media; and the Washington Examiner for defamation in promulgating a conspiracy theory that Aaron somehow aided his brother Seth leak DNC emails to Wikileaks.
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Manafort again files a motion to have his indictment by Mueller dismissed, this time in Virginia Federal court instead of DC, arguing that Mueller “overstepped his bounds” by taking on a case unrelated to Russia [even though it is related to Russia because that’s where most of the money he laundered or accepted as an unregistered foreign agent came from.]
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Huckabee-Sanders claims Trump has a “great experienced legal team” except the only lawyer he has that works for him personally and not the WH and therefore has full attorney-client privilege — is jay Sekulow and he’s never tried a case with a Federal Criminal defendant.
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Arpaio promise he’ll “Talk about Obama Birth Certificate Again, if he's elected Senator.”
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Still whining that only $1.6 Billion was slot for his wall in the budget bill Tweets that he’d like to “Built the Wall through the Military” — which I’m pretty sure isn’t legal since their funding is already slotted for specific projects, unless he plans to take out for the troops pay raise that was included in the bill.
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DOJ announces that it will be investigating the police killing of Sacramento’s Stephon Clark.
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Orange County California joins the DOJ Federal lawsuit against the state over the new Sanctuary City Law.
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NRA “only a good guy with a gun” narrative falls apart in regards of the Great Mills High School in Maryland when it’s discovered that the shooter actually died from self-inflicted wounds, not because he was killed by school resources officers.
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Politico reports that President Trump and his administration paid far less attention to the island following Hurricane Maria last September than they had other places in the United States following similar tragedies — namely Texas after Hurricane Harvey.
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Whereas Texas was granted $141.8 million in individual assistance funding, for instance, Puerto Rico, which suffered a far more drastic fate, received a small fraction of that, with only $6.2 million for individual assistance.
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To date, authorities believe the total cost to repair the island’s decimated electrical grid could reach up to $94 billion. Although the official number of fatalities was estimated at a little over 100, Puerto Rican officials say the real death toll may actually be closer to 1,000.
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According to Politico, within six days of Harvey making landfall in Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved the aforementioned $141.8 million in “individual assistance” to hurricane victims; within nine days, it had supplied 5.1 million meals, 4.5 million liters of water and over 20,000 tarps to the Houston region, which saw some of the worst flood damage. In the first week and a half following the hurricane, the government was able to provide 30,000 emergency personnel and had deployed 73 helicopters capable of bringing residents supplies and transporting victims.
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By contrast, rescue and recovery efforts in Puerto Rico were severely lacking: within the first week and a half after Maria made landfall, FEMA had approved the relatively meager $6.2 million in individual assistance for hurricane victims and supplied 1.6 million meals, 2.8 million liters of water, and around 5,000 tarps to the entire island. It took nine days for 10,000 emergency personnel to respond to the crisis and three weeks for the U.S. Northern Command to deploy more than 70 rescue and supply helicopters. Approvals on contracts and federal relief applications continue to move at a snail’s pace.
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After completely ignoring the Stormy Daniels story on Monday, Fox & Friends finally devoted a segment to it but host Ainsley Earhardt went to extreme lengths to downplay it, making the case that the media has “a double standard” because they have “forgotten about Bill Clinton,” who was impeached 20 years ago.