Trump Russia Timeline #17: Is Mueller's criticism of the Buzzfeed report a giant headfake?

In this monthly update to the Master Trump Russia Timeline we’ve had multiple bombshells go off only to have them immediately appear to fizzle as more information has come in.  Or have they?

The first is obviously the blockbuster report this weekend by Buzzfeed that Trump had personally ordered Cohen to lie to Congress by maintaining the bogus cover story that he “had no dealings in Russia” during the campaign while he was working on a $Billion Trump Tower project in Moscow. 

The cover story had been that this project had been abandoned by Cohen in January 2016 after he had attempted to reach out to Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov about it but didn’t get a response.  The lie is that he did get a response, and that with the aid of Peskov and Felix Sater had continued to work on the project at least until July while Trump was updated on it’s status not just 3 times, but as many as 10 times. 

Democrats were up in arms, some calling for impeachment hearings right now without waiting for the final Mueller report.

This story supposedly died when Mueller’s office made a rare public statement saying the “some of the characterizations of discussions [...] and documents [...] were inaccurate.”   But the problem here is that Trump asking Cohen to lie to congress isn’t really all that different from him asking him to pay off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal then lie about it.  SDNY has already stated in their sentencing of Cohen that this is the case, Mueller did not say this in his sentencing statements, but he did say several things that are just as bad, for Trump.

As documented by Mueller’s sentencing memo on Cohen.

The defendant amplified his false statements by releasing and repeating his lies to the public, including to other potential witnesses. The defendant was scheduled to appear before both intelligence committees in closed sessions. Prior to testifying, the defendant made a public appearance at the U.S. Capitol and released his prepared opening statement, which falsely claimed that the Moscow Project “was terminated in January of 2016[,] which occurred before the Iowa  caucus and months before the very first primary.” By publicly presenting this false narrative, the defendant deliberately shifted the timeline of what had occurred in the hopes of limiting the investigations into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election—an issue of heightened national interest.

The defendant’s false statements obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues. The fact that Cohen continued to work on the project and discuss it with Individual 1 well into the campaign was material to the on going congressional and SCO investigations, particularly because it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.

There were in fact multiple cases where Trump was in the loop on what was happening.

Cohen admitted that he had lied to Congress and to the SCO about the Moscow Project.He provided detailed information about the true circumstances of the Moscow Project, including its duration, the persons involved in the discussions, contacts with Russian government officials, and discussions during the first half of 2016 about the possibility of travel to Russia in connection with the Moscow Project. In addition to correcting the timeline and detailing the contacts he had during pursuit of the Moscow PFroject, Cohen explained financial aspects of the deal that would have made it highly lucrative for the Company and himself. The information provided by Cohen about the Moscow Project in these proffer sessions is consistent with and corroborated by other information obtained in the course of the SCO’s investigation

The defendant, without prompting by the SCO, also corrected other false and misleading statements that he had made concerning his outreach to and contacts with Russian officials during the course of the campaign. For example, in a radio interview in September 2015, the defendant suggested that Individual 1 meet with the President of Russia in New York City during his visit for the United Nations General Assembly. When asked previously about these events, the defendant claimed his public comments had been spontaneous and had not been discussed within the campaign or the Company. During his proffer sessions, the defendant admitted that this account was false and that he had in fact conferred with Individual 1 about contacting the Russian government before reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting.  The meeting ultimately did not take place.

When this occurred over a month ago Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis elaborated somewhat on the circumstances of Cohen’s lies about the Moscow project saying that his false statements were made in coordination with the White House, and by extension, Trump. 

The special counsel’s team interviewed Cohen for about 70 hours, but little is known about what he shared. Cohen has admitted to lying to Congress and Mueller’s investigators about the timing of a proposed Trump tower in Moscow and Trump’s involvement in the project. Davis said that false testimony was shared with the White House before Cohen submitted it to Congress and it is possible Trump was aware at the time that Cohen would make false statements.

"Mr. Trump and the White House knew that Michael Cohen would be testifying falsely to Congress and did not tell him not to," Davis said.

The only difference between this and Buzzfeed’s report is that they confirmed that not only was Trump and the White House aware that Cohen would falsely testify that the Moscow project ended in January, this was part of a larger plan, plot, conspiracy, order — whatever you want to call it — to keep the the continuation of this project under wraps. 

After he was elected Trump proclaimed in Feburary 2017: “I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does” which is the same as he’d claimed all during the election.  That was a lie, and based on Cohen’s sentencing statements — Trump knew it was a a lie.

Michael’s own sentencing document states this: 

Michael’s false statements to Congress likewise sprung regrettably from Michael’s effort, asa loyal ally and then-champion of Client-1, to support and advance Client-1’s political messaging.At the time that he was requested to appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Michael was serving as personal attorney to the President, and followed daily the political messages that both Client-1 and his staff and supporters repeatedly and forcefully broadcast. Furthermore, in the weeks during which his then counsel prepared his written response to the Congressional Committees, Michael remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel to Client-1.As such, he was (a) fully aware of Client-1’s repeated disavowals of commercial and

Michael’s loyal service to his famous former client is well-known amongst his friends, as is that the relationship has now led to a criminal case. He spoke of him constantly. It was obvious he was in CONSTANT contact with him running ideas, proposals, etc. by him for his approval.”). political ties between himself and Russia, as well as the strongly voiced mantra of Client-1 that investigations of such ties were politically motivated and without evidentiary support, and (b)specifically knew, consistent with Client-1’s aim to dismiss and minimize the merit of the SCO investigation, that Client-1 and his public spokespersons were seeking to portray contact with Russian representatives in any form by Client-1, the Campaign or the Trump Organization as having effectively terminated before the Iowa caucuses of February 1, 2016. Seeking to stay in line with this message, Michael told Congress that his communications and efforts to finalize a building project in Moscow on behalf of the Trump Organization, which he began pursuing in 2015, had come to an end in January 2016, when a general inquiry he made to the Kremlin went unanswered.   He also stated that his communications with Client-1 and others in the Trump Organization regarding the project were minimal and ceased at or about the same time.In fact, Michael had a lengthy substantive conversation with the personal assistant to a Kremlin official following his outreach in January 2016, engaged in additional communications concerning the project as late as June 2016, and kept Client-1 apprised of these communications. He and Client-1 also discussed possible travel to Russia in the summer of 2016, and Michael took steps to clear dates for such travel. In the heated political environment of the moment and understanding the public message that Client-1 wished to propagate, Michael, in his written statement to Congress, foreshortened the chronology of events and his communications with Client-1 to characterize both as having terminated before the Iowa caucuses. At the time, Michael justified his false summary of the matter on the ground that the Moscow project ultimately did not go forward. 

To not put too fine a point on it, it was a known Trump campaign talking point that there were “no deals with Russia” during 2016 — and by lying to Congress about it Cohen was merely supporting the standard Trump and White House cover story on this, even though he knew it wasn't true and Trump knew it wasn’t true. 

So did Trump have to specifically tell him to “lie to Congress” or was Cohen quick enough to pick up the hint and do the lying without being specifically ordered to do it? 

I think the latter is probably the case.  This coincidentally was part of the same construction that Ken Starr used against Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky “having an understanding” that they wouldn’t tell anyone else about their affair without him having to specifically says the words “Lie to everyone.” 

They were always on the same page. 

This, without getting too fancy about it, explains the discrepancy between Buzzfeed and Mueller in that the words just simply didn't need to be said out loud, never-the-less the understanding was in place.

There’s also the fact that Buzzfeed, as is their common practice, specifically emailed Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr before they published their report to explain that there were releasing a story that said “Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress” and they initially responded they had no comment on that subject before then responding about 12 hours later that they some of it “wasn’t accurate.”

Even though Brian Stetler tries to take Buzzfeed to task for not “asking the right way” that’s basically missing the point, they had no objection to the idea that Trump had told/influenced/directed Cohen into lying — they were just quibbling about the verbiage.  He never had to be explicit out about it, they always had an understanding. 

And as long as everyone involved in the project, Cohen, Sater, Don Jr and Ivanka all stayed on the same page — they were golden, no one would ever catch them.

Except for the fact that on the other end of this transaction the Russians knew what had really been going on, and for a time Putin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov agreed to go on with their lies.  

Cohen -- who was executive vice president of the Trump Organization at the time he sent the email -- said Monday that he had contacted the Kremlin for assistance in mid-January 2016 about building a Trump Tower in Moscow when the mogul was running for president, but denied that the project was related to Trump's campaign. But the revelation appears to contradict Trump's vehement denials of any such business connections to Russia in the past.

ohen told CNN on Monday his message to Peskov was "an email that went unanswered that was solely regarding a real estate deal and nothing more."

Peskov confirmed that his office had located a copy of the email, which said the development deal wasn't moving forward and requested support.

He said the email was sent to the public "Press Office of the Kremlin" address -- which receives thousands of queries, relevant or otherwise -- and denied knowing Cohen personally.

While the Kremlin seeks to quickly answer queries related to the activities of the Russian president, Peskov said, those related to business are not normally responded to or passed up to Putin.

"This email said that a certain Russian company together with certain individuals is pursuing the goal of building a skyscraper in the 'Moscow City' district, but things aren't going well and they asked for help with some advice on moving this project forward," Peskov said. "But, since, I repeat again, we do not react to such business topics -- this is not our work -- we left it unanswered."

Cohen plead guilty to lying to Congress and the SCO because Russia didn’t leave it unanswered, they did answer it, Peskov’s assistant contacted Cohen and they made arrangements for a meeting first between Cohen and Putin, and then later for Trump to meet Putin.

And then they decided to lie about it in the same way that Trump was lying about it which  begs the question — was that done under the direction of Trump, or was it Putin?

Simply put this — all of this, yet again — is collusion and conspiracy.  The Trump organization including Sater, Junior and Ivanka, the campaign, the White House and Putin were all in cohoots, in coordination, in harmony, in agreement — whatever you want to call it — at first to do this deal, then to lie about this deal. 

Cohen was just the first person in this mess to get caught, but he’s not the only rat on the ship. 

Mueller then has a potential conspiracy case on deck against all of them, including Trump, just as SDNY has a case to issue a sealed indictment against Trump personally for his involvement in the Daniels/McDougal payoffs as handled by Cohen.

And all of this is worse because the bank that Sater had lined up for this project was sanctioned.

On Friday, Sater told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that a local developer in Russia worked on behalf of the Trump Organization to secure financing for a Trump Tower in Moscow from VTB Bank, Russia's second-largest bank and a US-sanctioned entity.

"I had a local developer there [in Russia], and I had the Trump Organization here [in the US], and I was in the middle," Sater said. "And the local developer there would have gotten financing from VTB and/or another Russian bank, but VTB at that point was the go-to bank for real-estate development."

This mean that the entire project was in violation of sanctions laws which are much more serious than lying to Congress or lying to the FBI. 

Punishment for violations of the sanctions can be severe. Civil fines range from $11,000 to $1 million for each violation. Civil fines may be imposed even if the violation was committed unknowingly and with innocent intent. The majority of the fines imposed are most likely the result of corporations simply failing to recognize trade transactions involving a targeted country or SDN. Additionally, criminal penalties may be levied for willful violations and include fines from $50,000 to $10 million and imprisonment from 10 to 30 years.

In order for this deal to happen they would have to launder about $1 Billion from VTB to some other non-sanctioned funding source — which is yet another massive crime — and of course would need the support and aid of the Russian government, which is why Cohen reached out to them in the first place.  

This is a very good reason to cover this project up far beyond the political fall out of having claimed you have “nothing to do with Russia” when in fact you do.  It also could be a case the Mueller and the SCO might still be pursuing as part of the Counter-Intelligence investigation against Trump that they were given at the same time that began looking into his obstruction of justice in relation to Comey.

All of these lies are obstruction, and they are also collusion at the same time to avoid liability for having this illegal sanctions busting deal in place while Trump was running for President.  This in turn explains why Trump and his cohorts tried to have sanctions against Russia lifted multiple times for no apparent reason. The reason was because they were blocking his Tower deal, and his willingness to want to drop and cut sanctions was more than a good enough reason for Russia to be willing to hack and meddle in our election in order to help him.  If fact, this deal may have been why he was running for President in the first place because being in the race is what got Russia to pay attention to him, and then of course they began to hack the DNC.  

Not that ironically, Cohen cancelled his plans to travel to St. Peterburgh to meet Putin for the Moscow project on the exact same day that the Washington Post revealed that Russia had hacked the DNC.

Coincidence, I think not.

Mueller may have put out their late and vague push back on Buzzfeed because of a technically hair-split as I describe above or it could have been a deliberate head-fake not to reveal the real center of their investigation before they’re ready to admit and deliver this case.

It could be very much like the time that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe went to the White House to tell then Chief of Staff Reince Preibus that the NYTimes story that members of Trump’s campaign had been in communication with Russian Intelligence was “bullshit” particularly since that was completely inappropriate at the time.

The White House has confirmed that its chief of staff spoke with top FBI officials about the bureau’s inquiry into links between Donald Trump’s associates and Russia – a conversation which appears to violate justice department rules to ensure the integrity of investigations.

[...]

Another retired FBI special agent, Michael German, said the FBI leadership had potentially jeopardized an investigation.

“It is illegal for an FBI employee to take information from an ongoing criminal investigation and share it with a potential witness or subject of that investigation. Obviously, if the justice department ultimately initiates a prosecution in this matter, this purported conversation would be exculpating evidence. Again, if it is true that high bureau officials believe the current FBI investigation is [bullshit], they should close the investigation and be prepared to justify this decision, not leak their opinion to anyone outside of the investigation”, German said.

[...]

The conversations between Priebus and the FBI concern a New York Times article on 14 February, which reported that calls and phone records intercepted by US intelligence showed a pattern of communication between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence officials.

Following an administration meeting the next morning, according to the White House, McCabe told Priebus there was nothing to the New York Times’ report, using a colorful phrase. Priebus asked: “What can we do about this?” McCabe gave no answer, and told the White House chief of staff he would get back to Priebus on the issue.

When that happened the immediate and primary concern was the political favoritism by McCabe for Trump had motivated him to violation normal DOJ protocols and release this information outside the normal chain of command.  In hindsight we now know that the NYTImes story was more likely correct since it’s been confirmed that Manafort was in contact, through Rick Gates, with Konstantin Kilimnick [who is a GRU asset], Papadopoulous met multimple times with Prof. Mifsud [who now seems like a Russian intelligence cut-out], that Carter Page reportedly met with the Sechin [who has links to Russian intel], that Kilimnick on Manafort’s behalf was in contact with Boyarkin [who is Russian intelligence and an employee of Deripaska], that Jared Kushner had been with FSB Academy graduate Gorkov, that Don Jr. had been with Veselnitskay and her lobbyist associate Renat Ahkmetshin [who is former Russian intelligence] and that Don Jr. had also met with Alexander Torshin, who was Marina Butina’s handler in their infiltration of the NRA and National Prayer Breakfast.

Shake a tree around the Trump’s and a Russian intelligence office was likely to fall out of it.

Since the report was true, was McCabe going through all this to throw Preibus — and Trump — off the fact that the FBI was on their ass and essentially plug the leak?

Maybe, possibly, and it’s likely Mueller has now just done the exact same thing with Buzzfeed, thrown a spanner in the works to keep their (no longer entirely) secret counter-intelligence investigation into Trump and Russia — still slightly secret?

Hmmm….

There are the daily updates which mostly involve Rudy Giuliani doing rhetorical donuts to hide all the fire and smoke Mueller is generating and also the fallout of the shutdown as it drags on and on. 

Rudy is caught in a web of his own lies and Trump’s bullshit like a spider in someone elses web.

And it’s pretty hilarious to watch.

Here are this month’s daily details for the timeline.

• January 15th —
  • AP reports that Washington DC is taking a major economic hit as a result of the shutdown.
  • Ivanka will not be the new head of the world bank, but she will be involved in the selection processs. [Why!!??]
  • Former prosecutor Renato Mariotti says that Trump’s continued obstruction is the collusion with Russia.
  • NYTimes reports that Trump suggested withdrawing from NATO. [What a nice well wrapped gift to Putin that would be!]  They have also scrapped their 70th-year anniversary celebration which was scheduled for DC because of Trump.
  • Trump says “Rank and File FBI are disgusted with their leaders.”  [No, they weren’t — they were shocked when Comey was fired.]
  • Mueller is apparently not satisfied with Trump’s written answer and again asks for a face-to-face interview. He also issues a subpoena for Jerome Corsi’s stepson Andrew Stettner to come before the grand jury — Corsi claims it’s just ‘constant harassment.” [That’s not how grand juries work.]
  • Alisyn Camerota crushes Ken Starr’s flimsy excuses for Trump’s shady dealings with Russia. “Well hold on, judge,” Camerota interjected. “There was an interpreter at a couple of these meetings and the president confiscated that interpreter’s notes and swore that interpreter to secrecy. Wouldn’t that arouse your suspicion.”  When he then said launching an investigation was “a bridge too far” she then asked “How do you get to the bottom of it?” [Yep.]
  • Sen Kirsten Gillibrand announces her 2020 Exploratory Committee live on Colbert.
  • Bill Barr’s hearing for Attorney General begins.
    • He tells Judiciary Chair Lindsay Graham that he will investigate the text messages sent by Strzok and Page -— even though the Inspector General has already investigated them, and they’ve both left the DOJ — and that he’ll re-re-investigate Bruce Ohr and his wife, and the approval of the Carter Page FISA warrant, even though he says that he will pursue Justice in a non-partisan manner.  He discusses protecting the border and enforcing border laws, but he doesn't mention enforcing and implementing asylum laws.
    • He says to Ranking member Feinstein that he will release all that he can, under the rules, of the Mueller report and that he will ensure that the investigations are allowed to complete without interference.
    • Sen. Leahy asks him about the decision to pardon the members of Iran Contra, and whether a President could offer a pardon in exchange for his cooperation, and Barr says “No, that would be a crime.”  Leahy also asks him about the WH transferring funds from one agency to another and ignore congressional appropriations.
    • Sen. Cornyn claims that the counter-intelligence investigation of Trump was politically motivated, Barr says he’s not aware of the rationale for the investigation and that he agrees with Rod Rosenstein’s memo criticizing Comey on his handling of the Clinton investigation.
    • Sen. Durbin questions Barr on the asylum process and Session’s zero tolerance policy and separation policy, but he’s not fully up to speed on that.  Durbin re-reads a previous statement by Barr where he argues that a “strong policy on immigration” would help GHW Bush win in Texas — to which he claims its ‘Ok, for the AG to suggest political policy solutions.”
    • Barr tells Joni Earnst that our asylum system is being abused and it needs to be “fixed” before immigration can be solved.  He says “we need a barrier system across the border… to stop the influx of drugs” [Except that we already have one across the majority of the passable, and most drugs come through normal points of entry,.]  He also blames “sanctuary cities” for having a hydraulic effect attracting immigrants and that they don’t share information about criminals.
    • Sen. Klobachar points out that we had $25 Billion for border security in 2013. [Which Republicans blocked.]  She peppers him with questions on obstruction and Whitaker’s refusal to recuse himself despite the ethic recommendation which he claims he’s “isn’t aware” or “up to speed” or “don’t have enough specifics” to answer.
    • He tells Sen Kamala Harris that he won’t recuse himself from the Mueller investigation if the ethics experts recommend that he should, unless he agrees with their reasoning.
    • He also says he wouldn’t carry out a command from Trump to fire Mueller without cause, but he won’t release his report as-is if it contains anything that would be improper under DOJ regulations to release and that he won’t push to overturn Roe v Wade.  He also hasn’t looked at the 14th Amendment to form and opinion about birthright citizenship lately.
  • NYTimes releases a letter that indicates the Barr buys into right-wing Clinton Foundation/Uranium One conspiracy theories saying it’s more deserving of investigation than Russian collusion. Under questioning by Maise Hirono he downplays this and admits that it is being investigated — again — by U.S. Attorney John Huber.
  • Federal Judge finds that adding the citizenship question to the census is illegal.
  • Chris Christie claims in his new book that Kushner carried out a “hit job” on him over his past grudge for Christie sending his father to Federal prison.  He also blames Kushner’s support for firing Flynn and Comey for starting the Russia probe. [It was already in process, those just made it worse.]
  • Rep. Jim Jordan reveals that the FBI Inspector General in investigating former Comey counsel James Baker for unauthorized releases to the press. [Why haven’t they gotten to the NYFO guys who leaked repeatedly about Clinton to Rudy Giuliani?]
  • Airport check-in lines begin to grow out of control due to TPS absences: “It’s chaos out there.”
  • EPA hits a 30 year low in taking action against polluters.
  • Trump trade war causes stocks to plummet and commodity prices to ‘crater for America’s largest meat processor.
  • The Coast Guard misses their first paycheck, which is the first time active duty members of the military have not been paid.
  • Theresa May’s Brexit deal is overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament.
  • House Votes 424-1 to condemn Steve King’s “White Nationalism” statements. Only Rep. Bobby Rush votes against it, and that’s only because he thinks the condemnation didn't go far enough and King should be censured.
  • Mueller issues subpoenas for more associates of Jerome Corsi including his stepson Andrew Stettner he also releases a detailed 40 page filing of Paul Manafort’s lies to his investigation in violation of his plea deal including documentary evidence that he kept in contact with the WH and Kilimnick all during 2018.  CNN's Juliet Kayyam says “This isn't just arrogance, Manafort is protecting something.” [Uh, I think he’s protecting his own ass from mobster Oleg Deripaska.]
  • WSJ reports that Federal Prosecutors will likely limit Michael Cohen’s testimony since there are several ongoing cases pending as associate of his says that what he has to say is that he was working for a “madman” and that it’s explosive.
  • IRS recalls 46K employees to handle tax returns without pay.

• January 16th —
  • Former DOJ spokesman Mathew Miller tells Morning Joe that Barr may not be as impartial or “transparent” as he claimed: “When he talked about the end of the Mueller investigation, whether there will be a report,” Miller said. “We still don’t know if there will be a report. If there is one, he talked about other things like a declination of prosecution memo that they write and send up the chain if they decide not to indict someone or release an indictment — they’re always confidential.”
  • Maggie Haberman says that Jared Kushner is now the unofficial WH chief of staff rather than Mick Mulvaney.
  • Trump claims 77 walls around the world are 100% successful. [Nobody in the world knows how to climb, use a ladder or a rope?]
  • Nancy Pelosi tells Trump that he shouldn't have the State of the Union on Jan 20th because the security and Secret Service aren't being paid, he can have the SOTU in the oval office if he likes.  This causes Rep. Jim Jordon to fly into a rage, and Kevin McCarthy to call it “unbecoming" of the Speakership.
  • Al Jazeera reports that Ukrainian Oligarch Pavel Fuchs threatened violence over having bad seats at Trump's inauguration.
  • SOTU author Steven Miller was going to blame Democrats for the Shutdown — until Pelosi pulled the plug.
  • NYTimes says that Trump phoned one of their reporters from AF1 the day after his unrecorded G20 meetings with Putin and said Russia was wrongly and falsely accused for election interference. Putin had denied it three times and argued that if they'd done it, they wouldn’t have gotten caught — and Trump is dumb enough to agree with that bullshit. [Obviously, they aren’t *that* good because they got caught multiple times.]
  • Senate GOP blocks the Dem effort in a 57-42 vote to block the Trump admin from dropping sanctions on Oleg Deripaska's companies.
  • Karen Pence teaches at a school that bans LGBT students.
  • Air Traffic Controllers Union says flying is “less safe” than it was last month due to the shutdown.
  • ISIS takes credit for a blast in Syria which kills 4 US soldiers and injures 11.
  • Chris Christie says Trump's staff is full of “weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons.”
  • Florida City Commissioner Annabelle Lima-Taub says Rep. Tlaib is a “danger, who might blow up the Capitol” because she’s Muslim.
  • Kremlin says that the allegations of Trump being a Russian agent are “absurd and stupid.” [So now we know what SHuckabee is going to say about it.]
  • Speaking of SHuckabee she calls Steve King’s comment “abhorent” [Even though Trump has said the same thing about being a “Nationalist”] and attacks Dems for not shaming “extreme comments" by their own members — which is stupid since none of them have complained that “White Supremacy” doesn't get enough respect.
  • Theresa May survives a no confidence vote, barely.
  • Cruella De Nielsen says that the unfunded unpaid Secret Service is “fully prepared” to provide security for the SOTU.  Rep. Hakeem Jeffries asks “Does anyone take her seriously anymore?"  Meanwhile Senator Jeff Merkley refers Neilsen to the DOJ for possible perjury because of her repeated denials that there is a family separation policy at the border when there are DOJ memos discussing plans for a separation policy.
  • GSA Inspector General says that Trump’s lease for the DC Hotel should have likely been cancelled for violating the emoluments clause, but instead they “punted” on the issue.
  • Andrew Wheller Trump’s nominee to head the EPA, who is a former Coal lobbyist, says Climate Change is a “huge issue” but not “the greatest crisis”.
  • Rudy Giuliani tells Chris Cuomo “I never said there was no collusion with Trump's campaign. only that there was no collusion by Trump” [But he did say that, so did Trump.] and he claims that the “only crime” that could be found is “Trump personally ordering the Russians to hack the DNC.” [Which ignores Misprision of Felony if he and he people knew about the hack and didn't report it — which they did — ignores being an accessory after the fact and aiding and abetting and also ignores the fact Trump said “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails...”]
• January 17th—
  • While Trump is wailing for the Wall his companies have boosted their use of foreign worker visas to a ten-year high.
  • Trump vents to Mulvaney “We’re getting killed on shutdown coverage.” [As you should be.]
  • Steve King blasts Cheney and McCarthy “what gives them the moral authority to judge me?”
  • Juan Williams argues with Karl Rove that “Hannity, Coulter and Limbaugh are running the government.” [Truth from Fox for once.]
  • Trump threatens Cohen's family — particular his father in law for being “crooked” — causing Cohen to think carefully about testifying to congress.
  • WSJ reports that Cohen paid $12,000 in cash to an IT specialist John Gauger from LIberty University for 2 rigged online polls during the 2016 election for Trump at his direction.  Cohen tweets to confirm this.  The report says Gauger was supposed to be paid 50K, but says he wasn't. Cohen denies he was paid in cash, and says it was a check for which he was later reimbursed in full by Trump.  Gauger also created a fake twitter account @WomenforCohen.
  • Belurusian “Sex Guru” Anastasia Vashukevich who claims she has key information about the Kremlin and Oleg Deripaska has been extradited back to Moscow.
  • Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox says Cohen has confirming documentation about the polling payoff.
  • Former Homicide Prosecutor Paul Callen says “there is no way that Trump didn’t know his campaign was working with the Russians”
  • Richard Painter says there is “substantial evidence that Trump is being blackmailed by Putin.”
  • Sen. Feinstein says she’ll only vote for Barr if he promises to release the Mueller reports. [He sort of did, and kinda didn’t.]
  • Number of furloughed federal workers seeking aid doubles in one week. [They are now seven days beyond their first missing paycheck.]
  • It appears that there are thousands more cases of separated migrant children that DHS didn't count because CBP actually began the policy long before Sessions announced “Zero Tolerance.”  Exact numbers are not available.
  • Giuliani tried to do some damage control on his crazed statements to Cuomo.  He says he hasn’t changed his position, he was only misinterpreted in previous statements. [No, he wasn't.] He says he only represents Trump, not the campaign and the only “collusion” with Russia was by the Clinton campaign which he whines “has been ignored.”  [If he means the Steele Dossier or Uranium One — no, they haven't been ignored the FBI has looked into both]
  • Trump responds to Pelosi asking for the SOTU to be delayed by cancelling access to a military plane for her and a congressional delegation to visit Afghanistan.  He says they're welcome to travel commercially. [Which for one thing, violates security rules by announcing that she and other members of Congress were going to a war zone, so now they can't go without the Taliban expecting them.]  He says she shouldn't travel overseas while there's a shutdown, except that he flew to Iraq during the shutdown, Mike Pompeo flew to Saudi Arabia with his wife and unpaid State Dept Staff during the shutdown and Melania is, yet again, on her way to Mar-A-Lago aboard AF2 during the shutdown.]
  • Journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale who had helped expose corruption in FIFA is shot dead on his way home in Ghana.  [This is a case that was also investigated by Chris Steele and Bruce Ohr.]
  • Steny Hoyer calls out GOP House members who call for Rep. Cardenas to “go back to Puerto Rico.”  [Apparently they don't know that Puerto Rico is part of America.]  He also says it's “petty and ridiculous" for Trump to cancel the CoDel to Afghanistan.
  • Even Lindsay Graham says blocking Pelosi's trip is “inappropriate”, but he also criticizes Pelosi over the SOTU. [Russia is still getting their money's worth.]
  • Rep. Adam Schiff says it’s “totally irresponsible” to publicly announce the plans of Dems to travel to a war zone. and that Pelosi’s trip was intended to reassure our allies there that “we wouldn’t abandon them.”
  • Matthew Whitaker has DOJ officials fuming for violating shutdown protocols by giving a political speech to the Heritage Foundation.
  • House withdraws the passage of a bill to re-open the government when GOP object because they want a roll call vote rather than a voice vote.
  • Don Lemon: People summoned to work without pay is “slave treatment.” [That would be true for contractors summoned to work who will never be paid for it.]
  • El Chapo’s trial shows, again, why Trump’s wall would be ineffective due to their use of government corruption, bribery, catapults and tunnels to smuggle an estimated $3 Billion in narcotics to the U.S.
  • Sixteen coal ash pits in Texas are leaking arsenic, boron, cobalt and lithium into the ground water.
• January 18 th —
  • NYTimes reports that Mulvaney and other WH Aides goaded Trump into cancelling Pelosi's flight in retaliation and revenge over the SOTU delay.
  • Steve King tries to fund raise over the backlash to his White Supremacy comments.
  • CNN's Kaitlin Collins reports that Trump “bristled with anger” as Bill Barr described the depth of his long term friendship with Mueller and his family.
  • DOJ solicits for two attorneys to handle property seizures along the border.
  • GOP Rep. Jason Smith who shouted “go back to Puerto Rico" to Rep. Cardenas — apologizes.
  • Giuliani blows off the new Cohen report about Trump having him pay for a phony online poll. “If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.”
  • Lara Trump says the Cohen polling story is ‘Ridiculous” and “all made up.” [The Liberty University IT guy says it true also, so it’s not just Cohen]
  • Trump says Cohen is “Lying to reduce his jail time.”  [Well, no — this would be a case related to Mueller, and he already recommended the minimum in jail time, I don’t think SDNY cares about this, because isn't not technically illegal — well other than fraud —  it’s really about how many Trumpsters are going to lie about it and destroy their own credibility.]
  • Buzzfeed reports that texts and emails indicate that Trump personally directed Cohen to lie to congress about the Moscow project, which again is a lie that was repeated by he Russians, and which according to AG nominee Bill Barr would be obstruction of justice.  [ [Barr's admission under oath may be exactly why this was strategically released today]  Several Congressmen blow their stack and say this is impeachable. Schiff and Nadler promise to “get to the bottom of it.”  [This is likely not the only lie that Trump personally directed his staff and kids to make before Congress since the Senate intel committee has already made several criminal referrals to Mueller which included Cohen and others.]
  • Pelosi postpones the CoDel to Afghanistan — which she says they were going to take commercially — because Trump violated security and revealed it.  She says she doesn't think Trump would "be so petty” as to do it in retaliation. [He would be, because he is exactly that petty.]
  • Gingrich rallies to Trump and calls Buzzfed a “grocery store tabloid.” [Which is funny since Trump says the National Enquirer should have gotten a Pulitzer for their reporting on John Edwards.]  He also says Trump isn’t “dumb enough” to ask Cohen to lie. [Oh, yes he is.]
  • Buzzfeed reporter Anthony Cormier defends his report: “This 100 Percent Happened.”
  • WH Deputy propagandist Hogan Gidley trashes Cohen, but doesn't really dispute the story that Cohen lied to congress on Trump's orders.
  • Asha Rangappa asks the obvious question in response to “is the cover up worse than the crime” — by pointing out why were they trying to cover this up so desperately? Trump already said he had a “right to do business” while running for the WH, which is true — if skeevy — and not a crime.  So why did both Trump, Cohen and Russia all lie about this in perfect coordination?  It suggests that there was more to this deal that they're hiding we don't know about yet. [Perhaps the fact the deal was illegal since it used a sanctioned Russian bank for financing, and also what did Trump promise to give the Russians in exchange for green lighting this hotel project?]
  • North Koreans come to Washington to meet with Trump and Pompeo to arrange for a 2nd summit at the end of February since the first one totally failed.
  • Giuliani issues a full statement which blasts Cohen as being an unreliable witness on Trump ordering him to lie to congress [Except that Cohen himself isn't the source for the story — it was “members of law enforcement” who had confronted Cohen with the documentation and forced him to admit it.]
  • Kellyanne Conway — who apparently actually read the Buzzfeed report unlike Giuliani — says that leaks from “law enforcement are particularly distressing.” and “should send a shiver down everyone's spine.”  [Yeah, that didn't bother you much when anti-Hillary Feebs were leaking to Giuliani about the Abedine emails.]
  • Shuckabee denies the new new Cohen allegations as “absolutely ridiculous” and “categorically false.” However there were already mentions in the Cohen plea agreement which said that people in the WH were informed and aware that he would lie about this.  "Mr. Trump and the White House knew that Michael Cohen would be testifying falsely to Congress and did not tell him not to," Lanny Davis told Bloomberg in December. [Y’know since they have texts and emails on this, I think other people in the WH had to take dictation from Trump for that — so as Lanny says other people knew about it at the time and these current denials are compounding this into a wider conspiracy.]  She also says that Trump has cancelled the planned admin delegation to Davos.
  • Consumer confidence plunges to it’s lowest point in the Trump era.
  • Trump 2020 campaign takes donations to send fake bricks to Schumer and Pelosi.
  • Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd whose district has a largest single portion of the border says the need for a wall is “A myth.” [Actually it’s a hoax.]
  • Fox “Outnumbered” panel collapses into chaos as rabid Trumpster Matt Schlapp repeatedly denies Trump did anything wrong.
  • Some Democrats say they’re willing to begin impeachment proceedings without Mueller’s report including Juaqin Castro who says he needs to “resign or be impeached.” [I would say, “Hold you’re horses” — it’s bad now, it’s only going to get worse. Just wait.]
  • House investigators are planning to look at Trump’s ties to Deutsche Bank who were fined for laundering $10 Billion with Russia.
  • Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks says the Buzzfeed report could be enough for the GOP to turn on Trump. [What just because he told his personal attorney to lie to them?  Nah, that’s not enough.]
  • Trump again threatens Cohen’s father-in-law — which technically is witness intimidation since he’s going to testify to Congress next month.
  • Ivanka Trump issues a denial that she had “very much” to do with the Trump Tower Moscow project. [Except that she had planned to have a personally branded spa in the building and also picked the architect.]
  • Axios reports that former Trump aid Cliff Simms wrote in his book “Team of Vipers” that Trump asked for a “enemies lies” of 15 disloyal staffers. “I want these people out of here.”
  • Congressional investigators plan to question the staff at the London Ecuadorian embassy about visitors to Assange, likely to confirm or refute that he was visited by Manafort and Stone.
  • Neal Katyal : Impeachment is Trump’s best case scenario. [Oh, let’s go for the worst, shall we?]
  • Trump admin bans TSA officials from talking about problems caused by the shutdown. [He who has to issue a gag order over it — did it.]
  • Rep. John Garamendi says to CNN that Impeachment proceedings should begin if the allegation that Cohen was ordered to lie to Congress can be confirmed.
  • Mueller’s office issues an official statement which says that the Buzzfeed stories description of specific conversations and evidence is “not accurate”, but they don't elaborate in detail.
  • Trump and his allies go bonkers bashing the “Fake News” after Mueller’s statement who is now suddenly their favorite person in the world after two years of “Witch Hunt!”
  • Buzzfeed responds “We stand by our reporting” and requests details and clarification from Mueller on exactly what “isn’t accurate” — but that isn’t likely.  [Depending on what Cohen is allowed to say without interfering with current DOJ investigations, we may get to the bottom of this on Feb 7th when he testifies to Congress.]
• January 19th — 
  • CNN, Axios, WSJ and the AP all report that Trump may soon offer some concessions to Dems on TPS for his Wall and end the shutdown. [I’d say make DACA permanent, restore TPS, stop arresting asylum seekers and people inside courthouses, stop separating families, bring those who were wrongly rejected and deported back, give all the kids back to their parents, promise to consider a path to documentation — and we can talk about a wall, maybe.]
  • Trump rages at Pelosi for being “under the control of the radical left” [Yeah, more condescending insults are really going to make her want to talk to you.] and “everybody knows we need a wall” [Nope, no we don’t]
  • Kurt Eichenwald points out that perjury only has a 5 year sentence, but witness intimidation has a 20 year sentence, and Trump’s attempts to intimidate and threaten Cohen ramped up quite a bit after the Buzzfeed report.
  • Trump makes his 2nd ever visit to Dover AFB to pay his respects to 4 Americans killed in Syria by a “defeated” ISIS and it’s reported that he may offer some temporary concessions on TPS and DACA to offer Dems for the Wall and shutdown. [Technically he’s the one who cancelled both TPS and DACA so he’s just promising to temporarily undue his own sabotage in exchange for a $5.7 Billion permanent wall.]
  • Women’s March III hits DC and other cities.
  • Many Dems condemn MAGA hat wearing teens from Covington Catholic High School for apparently taunting and shouting “Build The Wall” at a Native American Vietnam Veteran Nathan Phillips outside the Lincoln memorial in DC.
  • Senior Dem Aide says Trump’s new proposal is just a rehash of previously rejected ideas.”No This is not a compromise as it includes the same wasteful, ineffective $5.7 billion wall demand that shutdown the government in the first place. This cannot pass”
  • Trump makes a live WH statement on his new proposal.
• January 20th — 
  • Trump tweets a climate change punchline because it’s cold somewhere.
  • Giuliani tells Meet the Press that the talks about the Moscow Tower project went on until Nov-Dec of 2016, and that this is what his answers to Mueller reflected. He denies that Trump asked Cohen to lie. [Cohen was prosecuted for having lied about the project ending in January when it went on at least until July, now Rudy says Oct-Nov?]  He argues that Trump wasn’t lying when he said in February 2017  “I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does” because it never went beyond the letter of intent.  [But it did, that’s the point.]
  • Giuliani also says that Michael Cohen's father-in-law “might be a criminal, linked to organized crime”. [This allegation may be based on reports that his father-in-law Fima Shusterman — who is the person who introduced Cohen and Trump — had pleaded guilty to a felony, conspiracy to defraud the IRS, in 1993 the year before Cohen’s marriage, but it’s actually Felix Sater and Cohen who have links to the “organized crime” through other parts of his family including his uncle who owned the El Caribe club which was the operating headquarters of the Mogilevich crime family while Felix Sater's father Michael Sheferofsky is a reportedly a capo in the Mogilevich crime family. ]
  • Chris Wallace tells Pence “You could open the government tomorrow.” [They could but McConnell would have to have a vote on one of the House bills.]  Later Pence tries to quote MLK’s “I have a dream" speech to justify the wall and the shutdown.
  • Sen Mark Warner: “It’s news to me [that Trump Tower went on to Nov.”
  • Many TSA workers are now calling in saying they literally can’t afford the cost to travel — including gas — in to work.
  • Rep. Hurd (R-TX) says that “some Americans think the GOP condones racism.” [That’s because it does.]
• January 21st — MLK Day.
  • Sen. Kamala Harris announces she’s running for President.
  • Senate Intelligence issues a subpoena for Jerome Corsi, who is apparently Roger Stones conduit to Wikileaks and Assange.
  • US calls on Russia to destroy it’s new SSC-8 nuclear cruise missile system because it violates the IMF treaty. [Russia laughs up their sleeve.]
  • Trump lashes out at Dems and says Pelosi is a “radical” and was acting “irrationally” when his latest proposal is flatly rejected. [Dems aren’t paying off the kidnapping extortionist to free the hostages, they go free first.] “Nancy Pelosi and some of the Democrats turned down my offer yesterday before I even got up to speak. They don’t see crime & drugs, they only see 2020,”  [No, they don’t see crime and drugs that more barriers will stop — because those aren’t coming through the open areas.]
  • CovCath student Nick Sanddman says that he wasn't being hateful to Nathan Phillips while standing quietly in front of him while he played native American songs. Apparently the students had been taunted for their MAGA Hats and being Catholic by another group of so-called Black Hebrew Israelites, who had shouted insults at the kids while they waited for their bus.
  • Buzzfeed Editor Ben Smith and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jonathon Cormier go onto CNN to explain that they remain 100% behind their story about Trump telling Cohen to lie, they explain that they had emailed Mueller’s spokesman before publishing their story and that he had originally declined to comment when they just said “we’re going to report that Trump told Cohen to lie”, then later said he would have commented further if they’d given him a more detailed heads up. [This seem to indicate that they don’t disagree with the core premise of the story — Trump told Cohen to lie, and knew he would repeat those lies to Congress — it’s something else technical they have a problem with.]
  • Excepts from Christie’s new book indicates he goes after Flynn for being a “Russian lackey” and Pruitt for being “Greedy.”
  • ‘What the f*ck were we thinking? ; Some Trump voters are finally starting to see the train coming at them from the other side of the tunnel as the shutdown continues.
  • TSA screener sickout hits 10%.
  • Sen Sheldon Whitehouse says ‘We’re one bad email away’ from proving House GOP is guilty of obstructing justice.
  • Colorado Republican claims that equal numbers of blacks and whites were “lynched for being Republicans.” [Uh, no — just No.]
  • Former US Attorney Harvey Littman says: Don Jr. looks ‘very exposed to criminal liability’ over his involvement in the Moscow Tower project.
  • IMF predicts that worldwide economic growth is slowing amid tariff and trade conflicts.
  • Former Trump exec Barbara Res explains to Anderson Cooper how Trump is actually a very bad deal maker.
  • Native American activist points out the the CovCath kids were mocking Nathan Phillips with “war whoops and tomahawk chops.”
  • Former prosecutor Micah Rocah says ‘Russia has gotten its end of the deal’ from their conspiracy with Trump.
  • Charles Blow blasts Steve Cortez out of the water for again trying to defend and deny Trump’s racism.
  • Ex Fox Host Bill O’Reilly says Kamala Harris “lost his vote” over the Kavanaugh hearings. [Stop the bullshit, Kamala never had O’Reilly’s vote.]
• January 22nd — 
  • Giuliani: It’ll be on my gravestone “I lied for Trump.” [Probably.]  Over the course of 5 weekend interviews he’s said the Moscow project went all the way until “Oct-Nov”, then said he was just “talking hypothetically”, claimed Trump doesn’t remember, then quoted him saying the Moscow project “started when I began my campaign and ended when I won”, said that he’s “heard all the tapes” — then said there aren’t any tapes he’s heard between Trump and Cohen where they discuss lying, and he meant text messages and emails. [Meuller doesn’t have to provide those unless they’re exculpatory and he’s filing charges]  Even Trump is supposedly getting exasperated by his confusing statements and NBC is reporting that senior WH officials are asking Rudy to get off the TV.
  • McConnell apparently is putting together legislation to match Trump’s latest proposal which will temporarily allow DACA and TPS protections for 3 years, but it also has these hidden changes and limitations on asylum seekers from Central America requiring them to apply while in their own home countries [Which like DACA and TPS was a program that already existed under Obama that Trump cancelled.] It also attempts to make it easier to declare an asylum request “frivolous” and spark immediate removal for any untimely documents or document discrepancies, which Schumer calls a “poison pill” placed in bad faith.
  • ABC News reports that UBS Banker Robert Forseman, who allegedly has ties to Putin, attempted to use former Apprentice producer Mark Burnett to arrange a meeting with Trump after the election via Tom Barrack.
  • Fox’s Outnumbered on Giuliani: ‘Rudy Giuliani needs to get his story straight’. [No shit, but don't hold your breath.]
  • Former FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry says Trump’s shutdown is putting national security at risk, particularly because they aren’t able to pay their terrorism CI’s and are losing those sources and disgruntled agents are now potential targets for foreign agents.  Many investigations are apparently on hold, including grand jury subpoenas including Mueller’s.
  • WH confirms that Trump may deliver his SOTU speech as a rally because he’s still not invited into the House by Pelosi.
  • Don Jr. claims that the media [Buzzfeed] is “trying to subvert Democracy” with the Trump-Cohen report. [Hey you were in on some of that project and also may have given false testimony to Congress which matched Cohen’s lies.]
  • Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT) says that Giuliani’s contradictory comments “smacks of illicit negotiations and dealings with Putin’s henchmen. [Such as Peskov who also repeated the same lies about the Moscow project ending in January] The fact is Putin had something on him, which may be the reason why he issued a statement about the Trump Tower meeting that was plainly false, [and] why Trump Jr.’s testimony may well be false insofar as he is saying ‘I didn’t tell my father.' [Yep.]
  • SCOTUS allows Trump’s transgender ban to go into effect while while the suit moves those lower courts.
  • MagaTroll Jacob Wahl who had failed to smear Mueller as a sexual predator now targets Kamala Harris with a new “birther” conspiracy.
  • PR firm connect to Scott Jennings [who played a role in the Bush US Attorney purge] helped provide positive spin for CovCath students like Sandmann and their conflict with Nathan Phillips.
  • WSJ reports that in 2014 Michael Cohen threatened CNBC over an online poll in order to make Trump look like a more influential business leader.
  • China grants Ivanka 5 more trademarks as trade negotiations drag on.
  • SHuckabee says she’ll hold a briefing “when she has a reason to do that.” [Previous WH Press Secretaries did a briefing every day.] And responds to Ocasio-Cortez saying we only have 12 years left to address climate change [which is a direct quote from the latest IPCC report] by saying she should “leave climate change up to God”
  • The Redacted Company continues to fight Mueller’s grand jury subpoena and files an appeal to the SCOTUS.
  • Pam Bondi lands a gig with a Pro-Trump DC lobbying firm.
  • Emin Agalarov cancels his U.S. Tour when talks break down with Mueller.
  • Trump’s lawyers request a copy of Mueller’s statement on the Buzzfeed report.
  • Top U.S. Diplomat to Europe Wess MItchel resigns after 18 months on the job, while the shutdown continues on.
  • Roger Stone unloads on Jerome Corsi for supposedly “flipping” on him and providing 3 “stunning lies” to Mueller about him. “First, that Corsi had informed Stone that former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails had been stolen [He didn’t have too, that was obvious.] ; second, that Stone had advanced knowledge that the infamous “Access: Hollywood” video would drop and instructed Corsi to “do something” about it  [He did]; and finally, that Stone had helped Corsi get a job at right-wing website InfoWars as part of a “hush-money” agreement to buy his silence.” [He did that too.]
  • Covington Catholic closes for the day amid the Lincoln Memorial controversy.
  • Since Cohen can’t talk about ongoing cases — including the Moscow Project — Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows question whether his appearance before Congress will be nothing more than a “media stunt” [No, we can get background into just what kind of corrupt scumbag Trump is in his business dealings.]
  • Don Jr. goes on Fox and attacks House Intel chair Adam Schiff for releasing details about his House testimony where he claimed “father-son” privilege not to answer questions.
  • House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler threatens to subpoena Whitaker to answer questions about Trump obstructing Mueller.
  • Frank Figliuzzi says Trump is ‘the greatest threat of all’ facing America.
  • Trump plans to meet the CovCath boys at the WH.
  • Belarusia “Sex Guru” Anastasia Vashukevich who claimed to have documents and video of Oleg Deripaska colluding with Americans is released from a Moscow Jail. after promising not to release any recordings or documents related to Deripaska.
  • Treasury continues plans to rollback sanction against Deripaski, still, for not apparent reason.
  • QAnon supporters are now “heartbreakingly lonely” trading pictures of cold bologna sandwiches for Christmas dinner.
  • Mueller is now reportedly investigating the NRA for their links to Torshin and Butina.
  • Nathan Phillips and some of the parents from Covington Catholic have a “peace meeting.”
  • Iowan farmers can’t believe that some of them are still standing behind Trump.
  • Some CovCath kids argue on Fox News that there’s nothing wrong with wearing black face: “It's just school spirit.”  
  • A MAGATeen video mocking Nick Sandmann goes viral: How the Midwest was built on violence against Native Americans.
  • Trump DOJ redefines ‘domestic violence’ and ‘sexual assault’ practically out of existence.
  • US Federal Courts only have enough funds to operate until Jan 31st.
• January 23rd — Shutdown Day #33
  • After all of Giuliani’s litany of denials that Trump Tower Moscow was only a “nothing” project,Buzzfeed releases architectural and planning documents including a signed letter from Russian developer Andrey Rozov.
  • Trump ignores Pelosi’s objections to the SOTU and sends her a letter saying he’s coming to the House anyway on the 29th.
  • Kellyanne Conway says “Pelosi doesn’t always have control of her temper” [Which isn’t a sexist “emotional woman” meme at all… except for totally.]
  • Furloughed Government Worker swarm the Capitol to protest the shutdown.
  • ADL reports that right-wingers committed every extremist murder (aka terrorist attack) in 2018.
  • FBI Union head says it’s utterly disgusting that their agents have to rely on free food.
  • Judge in Stormy Daniels suit against Trump shows signs he’s inclined to toss it because he says “It’s seems, you've achieved what you set out to achieve” because she’s basically free of the NDA she signed.

  • SHuckabee claims they aren’t having WH Briefings because they “Don’t want to make stars out of Journos who want to be on CNN.” [Jim Acosta isn’t out to be a star, and he’s already on CNN without you.] Then she says about CovCath that she “never seen the people so happy to destroy a young man’s life.” [You haven’t seen the right-wing and GOP go after David Hogg? Nick wasn’t alone there, people were reacting to all of them.]

  • Lara Trump says “Workers may feel a little pain, but the shutdown is more than any one person.”[Actually 800,000 people who are furloughed, plus another 1 Million contractors are going through more than a “little pain.”]
  • CovCath lawyers vow to sue Maggie Haberman and others for libel.  Nick Sandmann claims he doesn’t owe anyone an apology “I was not disrespectful”[What about your pals screaming “Build that wall”, making war whoops and tomahawk chops in the air?]
  • Trump has a new meme: “Build a Wall and Crime will Fall” [Which is inherently racist and also completely, totally, wrong!]  And he is apparently a big fan of his Deputy Press Secretary — “Hogan [T]idley” if he could only remember his name is Gidley.
  • San Diego's Republican Mayor says “We’re the safest big city in America.”
  • Rep. Hakeem Jeffries explains why he calls Trump the “Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”
  • Tami Lahren whines [on Fox of course] that Ocasio-Cortez “encouraged violence against me” with her Cardi B tweet.  [Really people??!]  Meanwhile Ocasio-Cortez and other House freshmen join the Oversight Committee which means they can investigate Trump and his admin. [Ruh Roh!]
  • Cohen postpones his testimony to Congress because of “threats from Trump.”  MSNBC security analyst Ken Dilanian says that this could be yet another felony of witness tampering for Trump.
  • CEOs are starting to turn on Trump policies saying they hurt business investment. [This sounds like that want even bigger tax cuts now...]
  • Former Clinton White House Counsel Jack Quinn: ‘Congress, if you’re listening — subpoena Rudy Giuliani’ [for witness tampering.]
  • House Dems begin investigation of WH Security clearances, starting with Kushner.
  • Trump tells activists on a conference call that he needs new walls because the existing barriers are ‘rusted’ and ‘disgusting’. [They’re 25 years old, and cosmetics is not going to make “crime fall.”]
  • Yet another Trump loving nutbag conspiracy theorist is caught threatening to bomb Muslim communities in up-state New York.
  • Pelosi officially blocks Trump from using the House for the SOTU address until the Government re-opens. “We must hold the line.” Then Kevin McCarthy submits a resolution to allow the SOTU to go on as normally scheduled for the 29th. [Good luck getting votes for that to pass.]
  • Trump fumbles when he finds out his SOTU is blocked from reporters and says “It’s really a shame, Democrats have become radicalized.” [Yeah,  but you and the GOP did it first.]  Later he rants that this is a “a great blotch” on the Nation and says Pelosi is “Afraid.” [She’s not acting afraid.]  And he claims in a WH rant that Pelosi is “dominating”  Schumer. [What’s he got to do with it — this is a House issue? But somehow she's both afraid and domineering and also a apparently a radicalized ISISer all at the same time?]
  • MSNBC panels says Pelosi ‘holds the cards’ as bumbling Trump ‘assumes he has powers he doesn’t have’: [Yep, he does that all the time.]
  • Cody Fenwick of Alternet argues that Trump’s behavior in plain sight is even worse than what Buzzfeed alleged.
  • CNN’s Karen Finney points out that polls show that Trump is taking the hit for the shutdown — 71% against shutdown for the wall and 57% blame Trump with his approval dropping 8 notches to 34%— because “Pelosi is a better negotiator than he is.”
  • Cohen’s friend Donny Deutsche says on Deadline: White House: “I’ll give it to you in real-time, because I had a front-row seat,” Deutsch replied. “I happened to speak to Michael after the interview. He said, ‘I’m not doing it, I’m not testifying. My wife is sitting here crying. They’re calling out my poor father-in-law, 80-something, a man who’s never done anything.’”
  • Rep Jackie Speier says “This is witness tampering, we now have another article that could be included in an impeachment trial.”
  • GOP Arizona lawmaker Gail Griffin wants to pay for the wall by taxing porn. [It would be more appropriate to tax drugs, sex trafficking and businesses who hire the undocumented — but then you’d have to legalize all that too.]
  • Trump dances on the grave of Cohen’s testimony:“He’s always been threatened by the truth.” [More projection I see.]
  • Manafort’s lawyers deliver their push back on Mueller’s claims he lied to them. They claim “Based upon the pleadings and record, Mr. Manafort does not believe the materials supplied by the OSC demonstrate any intentional falsehoods on this part” in relation to is continued contacts in 2018, while he was under indictment, with both the WH and Konstantin Kilimnick.
  • Lindsay Graham — who is still auditioning for become the next AG — calls Pelosi’s blocking the SOTU “absurd, petty and shameful.”
• January 24th —
  • Nathan Phillips says he forgives the Covington students and calls Sandmann’s interview “coached.”
  • Pelosi on postoning the SOTU: “Glad we could get that off the table.”
  • Lanny Davis calls for a criminal witness tampering investigation of Giuliani.
  • Senate Intel Committee subpoenas Cohen.
  • Former Trump economics Czar Gary Cohn crosses Trump; “The government needs to be open.”
  • Former RNC Fundraiser and playmate fracker Elliot Broidy files a lawsuit against GOP operative Nicolas Muzin, businessman Joey Allaham, and Mercury Public Affairs media strategist Gregory Howard, alleging that the trio – along with lobbying firm Stonington Strategies – took millions of dollars from the Qatari government to extort and defame him after hacking his emails.
  • Larry Kudlow says the GOP will “snap back” when the government reopens.  Then he says some Government workers are “volunteering” during the shutdown out of “Loyalty” to Trump.
  • Lara Trump tries to clean her “little bit of pain” comments by saying she has lot of “empathy for workers who aren't being paid,” then mucks it up by whining the criticism of her comment was “misconstrued and misrepresented.” [No, it wasn’t.]
  • Trump’s CBP plans to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico between their hearings. [So they’ll be busing them back and forth to the border and kicking them out each time without the authorization of a court.]
  • House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliott Engel plans to investigate if our foreign policy has been impacted by Trump’s business concerns. [Also check Kushner’s business impacts on foreign policy such as the UAE and Qatar!]
  • Lindsay Graham suggests a measure to temporarily fund the government for a few weeks while they negotiate border security [which is technically the same thing Dems offered to do weeks ago] and Trumps shuts the idea down and demands a “large downpayment” on the wall first.
  • Trump says that Wilbur Ross meant that “local grocers will work along with furloughed workers.” [You mean let them take home food for free and pay for it later? Like Hell.]
  • WaPo reports that Stone arranged to get Jerome Corsi a job at Infowars.
  • Roger Stone does an interview on Sirius XM radio where he claims Mueller “has no evidence against him.”
• January 25th —
  • Roger Stone is indicted by Robert Mueller, hours later the FBI performs a pre-dawn raid to search Stone’s residence and arrest him in Ft. Lauderdale FL with CNN cameras in tow.
  • Fox and Friends shrugs off Stone’s arrest and indictment for lying to congress about using Jerome Corsi and Ted Malloch to gain access to what information stolen by Russian spies that Wikileaks was going to release next and providing that infoto Steven Bannon in the Trump campaign so they could coordinate with the messaging by saying “Where’s the Collusion?” [Maybe their idea of collusion is Trump having multiple private secret meetings face-to-face alone with Putin then destroying the translator’s notes?]
  • Both Democratic and Republican bills to reopen the government fail in the Senate with six Republicans jumping ship to join the Democrats, causing them to turn on each other.
  • NBC reports that Jared Kushner’s security clearance was denied because of his frequency of his foreign contacts and travel, but that his denial and 29 others were overridden by Carl Kline head of personnel security office in 2017.  This is now being investigated by House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings.
  • Senator Chris Coons (D): “Either Trump colluded with Russians or he surrounded himself with people who did.”
  • Politico reports that Cliff Simms book documents that Trump wanted to do a an anti-opiod add showing people “dying in a ditch”
  • SHuckabee claims that Roger Stone’s arrest has “nothing to do with [Trump]” except that he’s one of Trump’s oldest friends and supporters and he lied to Congress about ferrying info about emails stolen by Russian hackers to his campaign and the indictment indicates that a “Senior Trump Official” directed someone on his staff to “contact Stone about Wikileaks.” [So a senior Trump official on his campaign has nothing to do with Trump?]
  • Ghouliani says “Trump is safe here, Stone just made false statements” [About getting Wikileaks info for the campaign at the direction of the campaign — but the campaign has nothing to do with Trump only because it’s his campaign.]
  • Stone’s lawyer complains that the “SWAT team arrest wasn’t necessary.” [Yeah, that’s exactly how they raided both Cohen and Manafort because they didn't want them to run or destroy documents- Stop Whining!]
  • US Diplomats leave Venuzuela over security concerns.
  • Judge schedules hearing on Manafort lying for Feb 4th.
  • John Brennan says that the meddling may have come from the “very top of the Trump campaign.”[Which means Trump.]
  • Pelosi response to the Stone arrest : “It’s interesting to see people he surrounds himself with.”
  • FAA reports that flights are being delayed by a sharp increase in sick leave.
  • Trump jumps onto a Greta Van Susteren generated conspiracy theory about why CNN cameras were there to capture Stone’s arrest assuming they were “Tipped Off” — but CNN explains that the Grand Jury usually meets on Friday, but this week they met on Thursday and one of the prosecutors left with a luggage for a trip so they had a hunch and it worked out.
  • Sen. Mark Warner: “I expect that we will learn more about Mr. Stone’s campaign role, his communications regarding Wikileaks, and who else knew about Stone’s efforts,” 
  • Stone claims the charges against him are “bogus” and there are “no circumstances he’ll plead guilty to bogus charges” although he admits he hasn’t even read the indictment yet to know that the charges are.
  • Trump agrees to halt the 35 day shutdown for three weeks in order to give Congress a chance to come up with financing for his border barriers. [Which is exactly what Nancy Pelosi offered 5 weeks ago and Lindsay Graham offered last week.] He gives a big Rose Garden speech to adoring applause from his own staff, then veers off script to complain about drugs, and MS-13 and “gagged women” in human trafficking and talk shit about people seeking asylum and threatens that if Congress doesn't fund more barriers he’ll shutdown government again or else he’ll declare a national emergency and commandeer $7 Billion from Texas and Puerto Rico Hurricane relief for it.
  • Schumer says he hopes Trump “learned a lesson”from his failed shutdown. [I doubt it.]
  • Ann Coulter and other hand right-wingers rage at Trump for caving into to Pelosi and not getting a single dollar for the wall. “Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.”
  • Senate passes 3 week funding bill to open government [which is the same bill that already passed the House.]
  • Nixon foundation disavows any association with Roger Stone.
  • DOJ asks SCOTUS for a rush decision on the citizenship question for the census.
  • Trump signs temporary 3 week funding bill.
• January 26th —
  • AP reports that unknown international operatives are targeting the inner circle of the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group whose software was used to spy on Jamal Khashoggi and now.
  • NYTimes reports that 17 members of Trump's campaign had over 100 contacts with Russians during the election.
  • Stone does a media blitz: He tells Tucker Carlson that his indictment is a “war on alternative media”,
  • Trump apparently railed to his staff about Democrats who didn’t fold “Why are they also so loyal?”  He expect some would jump to his side, but instead he lost 6 Senators in the last vote just before he caved on the shutdown.
  • S&P says the economy lost $6 Billion due the 35 day shutdown.
  • House Intel Committee is unable to do work because Republicans haven’t assigned any members yet.
  • While the shutdown was going on Trump's Westchester Golf Club fired a dozen undocumented workers after “suddenly” deciding to recheck their falsified green cards and work permits. [So they just now noticed this was going on?]
• January 27th —
  • Stone admits he “made some mistakes, but they’re inconsequential”, then he leaves open the possibility that he might cooperate with Mueller.
  • House Minority Leader McCarthy says the GOP will name members to the Intel committee “Next Week.”[Promises, promises...]
  • Trump spouts more bogus nonsense about immigrants repeating the dubious claim that 95,000 undocumented people illegally voted in Texas.
  • Acting CoS Mulvaney says “Um, Yeah” when asked if Trump will shutdown the government again in 3 weeks.
  • Kamala Harris launches her Presidential campaign in Oakland: “We are better than this.”
• January 28th —
  • Stone’s indictment indicates that after the RNC ended and the first dump of DNC emails from Wikileaks came out, a “Senior Trump Official” requested a subordinate to contact Roger Stone to find out what he knew about Wikileaks.  It was after this that Stone reached out to Jerome Corsi, who contacted Ted Malloch who apparently gained some inside info from an RT reporter who had recently interviewed Assange. Stone then shared what Corsi told him ultimately with Steve Bannon, then lied about all this to congress claiming that his sources was Randy Credico instead of Corsi.
  • Trump tells the WSJ that the chance that Congress will craft a deal he could accept as less than 50-50.He also lashes out at his right-wing pro wall criticslike Ann Coulter: “I hear she’s become very hostile,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.”  
  • Senate fails the reach cloture on the bill to keep sanctions on Deripaska’s companies — so Treasury drops them.
  • WaPo reports that Trump is leaning toward a emergency declaration for his wall funding if Ccongress doesn't meet his demands.
  • Lindsay Graham says that Trump “likes the idea of using military force in Venezuela.” [To do what exactly?]
  • Trump bashes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz potential run as an independent in 2020, even though it would probably split Democrats and help him.
  • WaPo asks the border patrol for any evidence of Trump’s “gagged women" being brought across the border, but they got nothing.
  • Jerome Corsi tells Jake Tapper he’ll be “happy to testify against Roger Stone.” [I don't think anyone is asking since they already have the paper-trail of emails, but thanks anyway.]
• January 23rd — Shutdown Day #33
  • After all of Giuliani’s litany of denials that Trump Tower Moscow was only a “nothing” project,Buzzfeed releases architectural and planning documents including a signed letter from Russian developer Andrey Rozov.
  • Trump ignores Pelosi’s objections to the SOTU and sends her a letter saying he’s coming to the House anyway on the 29th.
  • Kellyanne Conway says “Pelosi doesn’t always have control of her temper” [Which isn’t a sexist “emotional woman” meme at all… except for totally.]
  • Furloughed Government Worker swarm the Capitol to protest the shutdown.
  • ADL reports that right-wingers committed every extremist murder (aka terrorist attack) in 2018.
  • FBI Union head says it’s utterly disgusting that their agents have to rely on free food.
  • Judge in Stormy Daniels suit against Trump shows signs he’s inclined to toss it because he says “It’s seems, you've achieved what you set out to achieve” because she’s basically free of the NDA she signed.
  • SHuckabee claims they aren’t having WH Briefings because they “Don’t want to make stars out of Journos who want to be on CNN.” [Jim Acosta isn’t out to be a star, and he’s already on CNN without you.] Then she says about CovCath that she “never seen the people so happy to destroy a young man’s life.” [Nick wasn’t alone there, people were reacting to all of them.]
  • Lara Trump says “Workers may feel a little pain, but the shutdown is more than any one person.”[Actually 800,000 people who are furloughed, plus another 1 Million contractors are going through more than a “little pain.”]
  • CovCath lawyers vow to sue Maggie Haberman and others for libel.  Nick Sandmann claims he doesn’t own anyone an apology “I was not disrespectful”[What about you pals screaming “Build that wall”, making war whoops and tomahawk chops in the air?]
  • Trump has a new meme: “Build a Wall and Crime will Fall” [Which is inherently racist and also completely, totally, wrong!]  And he is apparently a big fan of his Deputy Press Secretary — “Hogan [T]idley” if he could only remember his name is Gidley.
  • San Diego's Republican Mayor says “We’re the safest big city in America.”
  • Rep. Hakeem Jeffries explains why he calls Trump the “Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”
  • Tami Lahren whines [on Fox of course] that Ocasio-Cortez “encouraged violence against me” with her Cardi B tweet.  [Really people??!]  Meanwhile Ocasio-Cortez and other House freshmen join the Oversight Committee which means they can investigate Trump and his admin. [Ruh Roh!]
  • Cohen postpones his testimony to Congress because of “threats from Trump.”  MSNBC security analyst Ken Dilanian says that this could be yet another felony of witness tampering for Trump.
  • CEOs are starting to turn on Trump policies saying they hurt business investment. [This sounds like that want even bigger tax cuts now...]
  • Former Clinton White House Counsel Jack Quinn: ‘Congress, if you’re listening — subpoena Rudy Giuliani’ [for witness tampering.]
  • House Dems begin investigation of WH Security clearances, starting with Kushner.
  • Trump tells activists on a conference call that he needs new walls because the existing barriers are ‘rusted’ and ‘disgusting’. [They’re 25 years old, and cosmetics is not going to make “crime fall.”]
  • Yet another Trump loving nutbag conspiracy theorist is caught threatening to bomb Muslim communitiesin up-state New York.
  • Pelosi officially blocks Trump from using the House for the SOTU address until the Government re-opens. “We must hold the line.” Then Kevin McCarthy submits a resolution to allow the SOTU to go on as normally scheduled for the 29th. [Good luck getting votes for that to pass.]
  • Trump fumbles when he finds out his SOTU is blocked from reporters and says “It’s really a shame, Democrats have become radicalized.” [Yeah,  but you and the GOP did it first.]  Later he rants that this is a “a great blotch” on the Nation and says Pelosi is “Afraid.” [She’s not acting afraid.]  And he claims in a WH rant that Pelosi is “dominating”  Schumer. [What’s he got to do with it — this is a House issue? But somehow she's both afraid and domineering and also a apparently a radicalized ISISer all at the same time?]
  • MSNBC panels says Pelosi ‘holds the cards’ as bumbling Trump ‘assumes he has powers he doesn’t have’: [Yep, he does that all the time.]
  • Cody Fenwick of Alternet argues that Trump’s behavior in plain sight is even worse than what Buzzfeed alleged.
  • CNN’s Karen Finney points out that polls show that Trump is taking the hit for the shutdown — 71% against shutdown for the wall and 57% blame Trump with his approval dropping 8 notches to 34%— because “Pelosi is a better negotiator than he is.”
  • Cohen’s friend Donny Deutsche says on Deadline: White House: “I’ll give it to you in real-time, because I had a front-row seat,” Deutsch replied. “I happened to speak to Michael after the interview. He said, ‘I’m not doing it, I’m not testifying. My wife is sitting here crying. They’re calling out my poor father-in-law, 80-something, a man who’s never done anything.’”
  • Rep Jackie Speier says “This is witness tampering, we now have another article that could be included in an impeachment trial.”
  • GOP Arizona lawmaker Gail Griffin wants to pay for the wall by taxing porn. [It would be more appropriate to tax drugs, sex trafficking and businesses who hire the undocumented — but then you’d have to legalize all that too.]
  • Trump dances on the grave of Cohen’s testimony:“He’s always been threatened by the truth.” [More projection I see.]
  • Manafort’s lawyers deliver their push back on Mueller’s claims he lied to them. They claim “Based upon the pleadings and record, Mr. Manafort does not believe the materials supplied by the OSC demonstrate any intentional falsehoods on this part” in relation to is continued contacts in 2018, while he was under indictment, with both the WH and Konstantin Kilimnick.
  • Lindsay Graham — who is still auditioning for become the next AG — calls Pelosi’s blocking the SOTU “absurd, petty and shameful.”
• January 24th —
  • Nathan Phillips says he forgives the Covington students and calls Sandmann’s interview “coached.”
  • Pelosi on postoning the SOTU: “Glad we could get that off the table.”
  • Lanny Davis calls for a criminal witness tampering investigation of Giuliania.
  • Senate Intel Committee subpoenas Cohen.
  • Former Trump economics Czar Gary Cohn crosses Trump; “The government needs to be open.”
  • Former RNC Fundraiser and playmate fracker Elliot Broidy files a lawsuit against GOP operative Nicolas Muzin, businessman Joey Allaham, and Mercury Public Affairs media strategist Gregory Howard, alleging that the trio – along with lobbying firm Stonington Strategies – took millions of dollars from the Qatari government to extort and defame him after hacking his emails.
  • Larry Kudlow says the GOP will “snap back” when the government reopens.  Then he says some Government workers are “volunteering” during the shutdown out of “Loyalty” to Trump.
  • Lara Trump tries to clean her “little bit of pain” comments by saying has lot of “empathy for workers who aren't being paid,” then mucks it up by whining the criticism of her comment was “misconstrued and misrepresented.” [No, it wasn’t.]
  • Trump’s CBP plans to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico between their hearings. [So they’ll be busing them back and forth to the border and kicking them out each time without the authorization of a court.]
  • House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliott Engel plans to investigate if our foreign policy has been impacted by Trump’s business concerns. [Also check Kushner’s business impacts on foreign policy such as the UAE and Qatar!]
  • Lindsay Graham suggest a measure to temporarily fund the government for a few weeks while they negotiate border security [which is technically the same thing Dems offered to do weeks ago] and Trumps shuts the idea down and demands a “large downpayment” on the wall first.
  • Trump says that Wilbur Ross meant that “local grocers will work along with furloughed workers.” [You mean let them take home food for free and pay for it later? Like Hell.]
  • WaPo reports that Stone arranged to get Jerome Corsi a job at Infowars.
  • Roger Stone does an interview on Sirius XM radio where he claims Mueller “has no evidence against him.”
• January 25th —
  • Roger Stone is indicted by Robert Mueller, hours later the FBI performs a pre-dawn raid to search Stone’s residence and arrest him in Ft. Lauderdale FL with CNN cameras in tow.
  • Fox and Friends shrugs off Stone’s arrest and indictment for lying to congress about using Jerome Corsi and Ted Malloch to gain access to what information stolen by Russian spies that Wikileaks was going to release next and providing that infoto Steven Bannon in the Trump campaign so they could coordinate with the messaging by saying “Where’s the Collusion?” [Maybe their idea of collusion is Trump having multiple private secret meetings face-to-face alone with Putin then destroying the translator’s notes?]
  • Both Democratic and Republican bills to reopen the government fail in the Senate with six Republicans jumping ship to join the Democrats, causing them to turn on each other.
  • NBC reports that Jared Kushner’s security clearance was denied because of his frequency of his foreign contacts and travel, but that his denial and 29 others were overridden by Carl Kline head of personnel security office in 2017.  This is now being investigated by House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings.
  • Senator Chris Coons (D): “Either Trump colluded with Russians or he surrounded himself with people who did.”
  • Politico reports that Cliff Simms book documents that Trump wanted to do a an anti-opiod add showing people “dying in a ditch”
  • SHuckabee claims that Roger Stone’s arrest has “nothing to do with [Trump]” except that he’s one of Trump’s oldest friends and supporters and he lied to Congress about ferrying info about emails stolen by Russian hackers to his campaign and the indictment indicates that a “Senior Trump Official” directed someone on his staff to “contact Stone about Wikileaks.” [So a senior Trump official on his campaign has nothing to do with Trump?]
  • Ghouliani says “Trump is safe here, Stone just made false statements” [About getting Wikileaks info for the campaign at the direction of the campaign — but the campaign has nothing to do with Trump only because it’s his campaign.]
  • Stone’s lawyer complains that the “SWAT team arrest wasn’t necessary.” [Yeah, that’s exactly how they raided both Cohen and Manafort because they didn't want them to run or destroy documents- Stop Whining!]
  • US Diplomats leave Venuzuela over security concerns.
  • Judge schedules hearing on Manafort lying for Feb 4th.
  • John Brennan says that the meddling may have come from the “very top of the Trump campaign.”[Which means Trump.]
  • Pelosi response to the Stone arrest : “It’s interesting to see people he surrounds himself with.”
  • FAA reports that flights are being delayed by a sharp increase in sick leave.
  • Trump jumps onto a Greta Van Susteren generated conspiracy theory about why CNN cameras were there to capture Stone’s arrest assuming they were “Tipped Off” — but CNN explains that the Grand Jury usually meets on Friday, but this week they met on Thursday and one of the prosecutors left with a luggage for a trip so they had a hunch and it worked out.
  • Sen. Mark Warner: “I expect that we will learn more about Mr. Stone’s campaign role, his communications regarding Wikileaks, and who else knew about Stone’s efforts,”
  • Stone claims the charges against him are “bogus” and there are “no circumstances he’ll plead guilty to bogus charges” although he admits he hasn’t even read the indictment yet to know that the charges are.
  • Trump agrees to halt the 35 day shutdown for three weeks in order to give Congress a chance to come up with financing for his border barriers. [Which is exactly what Nancy Pelosi offered 5 weeks ago and Lindsay Graham offered last week.] He gives a big Rose Garden speech to adoring applause from his own staff, then veers off script to complain about drugs, and MS-13 and “gagged women” in human trafficking and talk shit about people seeking asylum and threatens that if Congress doesn't fund more barriers he’ll shutdown government again or else he’ll declare a national emergency and commandeer $7 Billion from Texas and Puerto Rico relief for it.
  • Schumer says he hopes Trump “learned a lesson”from his failed shutdown. [I doubt it.]
  • Ann Coulter and other hand right-wingers rage at Trump for caving into to Pelosi and not getting a single dollar for the wall. “Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.”
  • Senate passes 3 week funding bill to open government [which is the same bill that already passed the House.]
  • Nixon foundation disavows any association with Roger Stone.
  • DOJ asks SCOTUS for a rush decision on the citizenship question for the census.
  • Trump signs temporary 3 week funding bill.
• January 26th —
  • AP reports that unknown international operatives are targeting the inner circle of the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group whose software was used to spy on Jamal Khashoggi and now.
  • NYTimes reports that 17 members of Trump's campaign had over 100 contacts with Russians during the election.
  • Stone does a media blitz: He tells Tucker Carlson that his indictment is a “war on alternative media”,
  • Trump apparently railed to his staff about Democrats who didn’t fold “Why are they also so loyal?”  He expect some would jump to his side, but instead he lost 6 Senators in the last vote just before he caved on the shutdown.
  • S&P says the economy lost $6 Billion due the 35 day shutdown.
  • House Intel Committee is unable to do work because Republicans haven’t assigned any members yet.
  • While the shutdown was going on Trump's Westchester Golf Club fired a dozen undocumented workers after “suddenly” deciding to recheck their falsified green cards and work permits. [So they just now noticed this was going on?]

• January 27th — 

  • Stone admits he “made some mistakes, but they’re inconsequential”, then he leaves open the possibility that he might cooperate with Mueller.
  • House Minority Leader McCarthy says the GOP will name members to the Intel committee “Next Week.”[Promises, promises...]
  • Trump spouts more bogus nonsense about immigrants repeating the dubious claim that 95,000 undocumented people illegally voted in Texas.
  • Acting CoS Mulvaney says “Um, Yeah” when asked if Trump will shutdown the government again in 3 weeks.
  • Kamala Harris launches her Presidential campaign in Oakland: “We are better than this.”
  • Terrorism expert J.M. Berger says that if Trump feels cornered and calls for violence — his hordes will be willing to comply.
•  January 28th —
  • Stone’s indictment indicates that after the RNC ended and the first dump of DNC emails from Wikileaks came out, a “Senior Trump Official” requested a subordinate to contact Roger Stone to find out what he knew about Wikileaks.  It was after this that Stone reached out to Jerome Corsi, who contacted Ted Malloch who apparently gained some inside info from an RT reporter who had recently interviewed Assange. Stone then shared what Corsi told him ultimately with Steve Bannon, then lied about all this to congress claiming that his sources was Randy Credico instead of Corsi.
  • Federal Workers return to work although they could still be held hostage again in 3 weeks.
  • Trump tells the WSJ that the chance that Congress will craft a deal he could accept as less than 50-50. He also lashes out at his right-wing pro wall critics like Ann Coulter: “I hear she’s become very hostile,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.”  
  • Senate fails the reach cloture on the bill to keep sanctions on Deripaska’s companies — so Treasury drops them.
  • Shuckabee says Trump doesn’t “want” another shut down, but he won’t take it off the table.  She also — as usual — claims the arrest of Roger Stone has “nothing to do with [Trump]” which makes James Clapper laugh out loud. And she slams Ann Coulter’s criticism of Trump’s cave on the shutdown by saying“Conservatives who have influence, support [Trump].”
  • CNN’s Jim Acosta wonders if Shuckabee will “Come back to the real world.” [Nope, she’s never even had a brief visit.]
  • April Ryan reports that just before his arrest Roger Stone was in a meeting with various “prominent Republicans.”
  • AG nominee William Barr issues written answer to the Senate saying that he’s never discussed the Mueller probe with Trump.
  • NBC National Security Analyst John Helleman says Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, Jr. in ‘grave peril’ after being caught in their lies.
  • Michael Cohen changes his legal team, but continues to cooperate.  He is now scheduled to testify to House Intel next week.
  • WaPo reports that Trump is leaning toward a emergency declaration for his wall funding if Congress doesn't meet his demands.
  • Lindsay Graham says that Trump “likes the idea of using military force in Venezuela.” [To do what exactly?]
  • Pelosi says Trump will give his SOTU on Feb 5th.
  • DOJ Indicts Chinese tech giant Huawie just before trade talks resume.
  • Trump bashes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz potential run as an independent in 2020, even though it would probably split Democrats and help him.
  • Chris Christie writes in his new book that Trump thought tossing out Flynn would end the Russia investigation, because Jared said so. [This suggests that Flynn was more central to the Russia effort than we’ve seen so far.]
  • WaPo asks the border patrol for any evidence of Trump’s “gagged women" being brought across the border, but they got nothing.
  • Kamala Harris appears at an Iowa Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper.
  • Jerome Corsi tells Jake Tapper he’ll be “happy to testify against Roger Stone.” [I don't think anyone is asking since they already have the paper-trail of emails, but thanks anyway.]
  • Three right-wing terrorist militia members who had planned a terrorist attack on Somali Muslims in Kansas are sentenced to 25 years.
  • Acting AG Matt Whitaker says the Mueller's probe is “close to being completed” which is strange since they just issued new indictments for Roger Stone and they still have the issue of Manafort to resolve.
  • Rachel Maddow reports that Trump’s obsession with women with their mouths covered in duck tape as their stuffed in the trucks over “really really amazing Mexican cars” that the border patrol can't catch, and that “prayer rugs are being left in the desert” didn't come from CBP, it comes from the Josh Brolin, Benecio Del Toro sequel film Sicario: Day of the Soldado. [Next we can expect him to develop foreign policy based on outtakes from Fast and Furious, led by Secretary of State Thanos — fingers already in pre-snap-ocalypse position?]
  • Maxine Waters demands Cohen closed-door hearing be held open to the public.
•  January 29th —
  • Lawyers say Trump has been jailing migrant kids in unlicensed facilities.

  • Mika asks Team of Vipers author Cliff Simms if anyone told Trump his “bleeding from the face” tweet was dumb? [He indicates “yes” in a rambling answer, but not that it seems to matter much.]  Later he laughs in real time on-air at CNN as they read a mean tweet from Trump about him.

  • The White Nationalist Proud Boys are now offering protection online and off to Roger Stone.

  • Lavrov says that US Sanctions on Venuezela’s oil company are illegal.

  • Roger Stone is arraigned and pleads “Not Guilty.” Then he goes out and rants the CNN is part of a conspiracy to have him arrested and that Robert Mueller covered up 9/11. [Yes, he did.]

  • During a press conference about the turmoil in Venezuela John Bolton, literally, sends a message while holding a note pad that says “5000 Troops to Columbia" under his arm as he talks.

  • Trump campaign prepares to file NDA lawsuit against former staffer Cliff Simms for his book Team of Vipers. [One wonders why they haven’t sued Chris Christie too?]

  • William Barr’s confirmation vote is delayed.

  • Christie “Doesn’t Feel like” Mueller is done with Roger Stone. [Nope, just getting started.]

  • Buzzfeed reports that Trump Winery, run by Eric Trump, has asked the Labor Dept to allow them to hire another 23 Temporary Foreign Workers just as Mar-A-Lago has done.  All told Trump properties have hired an additional 600 H-2B foreign employees in the last 2 years, while they also been caught hiring undocumented workers at the Bedminster and other Golf Courses.

  • House Dems are beginning to chaffe already against Mueller investigative priorities.

  • “Empire” star Jusse Smolette is brutally attacked in Chicago by two anti-gay Trump supporters wearing masks who ran into him at a Subway sandwich shop and screamed ‘Aren't you that faggot nigger from Empire?” They fractured a rib, poured bleach on him and put noose around his neck. “This is MAGA Country.”

  • Kamala Harris blasts DNI Dan Coats for talking down to her about Russian disinformation attacks when he tries to dance around the fat they have no “formal written strategy” on how to combat the attack via social media.

  • FBI Director Wray says Russia’s attempts to “weaponize” social media are still going on, and other countries are learning from them.

  • Trump’s tariffs completely wiped out all of Harley-Davidson’s profits last quarter.

  • NRA is distancing themselves from a 2015 Moscow Trip organized by Marina Butina where they apparently tried to gain private access to Putin. [What is this thing about getting Putin alone in private?]
  • FBI concludes the Las Vegas massacre investigation without determining a motive for the shooter.
  • DNI Dan Coats and FBI Director Wray testify to Congress and completely contradict Trump's claims about ISIS being defeated, North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the danger presented by Iran. They don't mention anything about a “crisis at the border.” CNN provides a supercut of Trump’s crazy claims vs their testimony.
  • Elizabeth Warren mocks Billioinare Howard Schultz. “We have a billionaire who says he wants to jump into the race and the first issue he’s raised is ‘no new taxes on billionaires.’ Let’s see where that goes,”
  • Chris Christie says that Jeff Sessions lied to congress out of stupidity. “Bad people and stupid people lie all the time for no reason at all,” 
• January 30th — 
  • The Financial Times reports that Trump had yet another 15-minute private conversation with Putin without note takers during the G20 summit.  Only a translator and Melania were present and even though he said it was ‘informal” they Russians report that they discussed the Syria conflict.
  • House Dems demands records on the lifting of sanctions on Deripaska’s companies.
  • Politico reports that Dems probably won't try to push a deal on DACA during their negotiations on border security.
  • Adam Schiff teases that Congress may use the intel chiefs testimony to knock down Trump’s claims of an “emergency at the border" because none of them brought that up.
  • TrumpCo is now using E-Verify to prevent hiring undocumented workers. [Why exactly this is a “new” idea for them seems to be about PR, than following the law.]
  • Schultz walks back his claim that Medicare-For-All is “Unamerican” and instead says it “Unaffordable.” [No, actually, it’s not.]
  • Texas warns counties that their fears of “noncitizen voters” are based on flawed reports.
  • Trump slams his own Intel chiefs for being “Passive and Naive” about the threat of Iran. [And also border caravans.]
  • FoxConn says their new Wisconsin plant won’t be for manufacturing but will instead be a “research hub.”
  • DailyBeast reports that Mueller interviewed Israeli-Australian entrepreneur Joel Zamel, owner of the company Wikistrat which apparently did “wargames” on how social media could be used to influence an election before 2016.  Zamel also owns PsyGroup, an intelligence company with former members of the Massad, who offered to do social media campaigns for Trump to Rick Gates, who declined. [Because Cambridge-Analytica and the Russian Troll farm was already doing that for them.]  Zamel also attented an August 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr., Erik Prince and UAE Rep. George Nader.
  • The lawsuit over Dodge City only having one polling place is dismissed after Country Clerk Debbie Cox agrees to open two more polling places in the city.
  • Mitch McConnell ridicules the idea of making election day a national holiday. [Because why would you want voters to knot have to struggle to get to the polls after work?] “Just what America needs, another paid holiday and a bunch of government workers being paid to go out and work for I assume our folks—our colleagues on the other side, on their campaigns,” 
  • Fox hires former GOP Rep Trey Gowdy.
  • Meuller announces that evidence shared with Concord Managements lawyers during the case against them has been shared with online trolls with the twitter account @HackingRedstone, in violation of the judges protective order, who posted the information and also falsified some of it as part of a social media disinformation attack on the investigation.
    • @HackingRedstone apparently attempted to shop their leaked and faked files to CNN, ThinkProgress and the Rachel Maddow show.
  • A Federal judge refuses to unseal details of potential charges already filed against Julian Assange.
  • Lindsay Graham demands information on how Roger Stone was arrested. [Although it wasn't just an arrest, they were also serving a search warrant following normal procedures.]
  • Phil Mudd slams Trump for being so absent “he doesn't know what his Intel Chiefs think” [Actually, I think he doesn't care what they think, he believes he's right no matter what the facts are.]  On that subject Senior Intel officials reported told MSNBC that “It’s impossible to convince Trump he’s wrong about anything.” [Yeah, we’ve noticed.]
• January 31st — 
  • Dems makes their opening bid on the border security talks with include $14 Billion in funding for CPB and ICE including barriers but doesn't authorize a “wall.” 
  • SHuckabee says God “Wanted Trump to be [in the White House]”. [Satan says “Yes. Don't blame me for it”]  Speaking of Satan: NRA’s DNA Loesch says “Liberals who murder infants can't mock Sanders for saying “God elected Trump.” [Yeah, actually, they can.]
  • GRU hackers are repeatedly attacking the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
  • Politico reports that Trump, Mulvaney and Kushner are working on a national emergency plan to take money from real emergencies to pay for his wall by leaking details to Breitbart and are worried that trying to use the Army Corp of engineers for this might cause legal problems. [Yeah, ya think?]
  • Chris Christie asks “What the Hell was somebody like Omarosa ever doing in the White House?” [Trying to blacksplain some shit to Trump and failing.]
  • ICE is force feeding detainees who on a hunger strike protesting abuse. [So that would be even more abuse, right?]
  • Trump takes a swipe at Christie and Simms “I’m in the WH, they're not.” and that “Time will prove me right" in his various disputes with the Intel Chiefs and that the time and date for the 2nd NK Summit is set.  He also says Homeland Security GOPers are “wasting their time [negotiating] with Dems” over border security and says that if the conference committee “doesn't have a wall [in the plan] he doesn't want to even read it” and that Pelosi will be ‘begging for a wall.” [No, she won’t]  Then he says he’s “Let the DOJ decide” what to do with Mueller's report and that Elizabeth Warren isn't as popular because she “fell into the Pochahants Trap” [Which is bullshit.] April Ryan asks him for a response on the xenophobic, racist, homophobic attack on actor Jusse Smollett from Empire and he says “that’s terrible, I heard that” then he seems to again stray off into an another attack on “violent" immigrants and the need for the wall when the suspects in that case were reportedly chanting “This is MAGA country.”
  • George Tomasack of Baltimore pleads guilty to phoning in bomb threats to CNN and the Pentagon.
  • Prosecutors state that the Stone search warrant produced multiple computers and devices containing “terabytes of data.”
  • Pelosi says Trump “doesn't have the attention span” to listen to the Intel Chiefs. [Ow. Smack!] and that there’s “not going to be any wall money”, although there may be “Normandy Barriers” — which would be vehicle barriers for deep in the desert.
  • Don Jr. apparently thinks “S&L” is an abbreviation for SNL: Saturday Night Live.
  • Mnuchin denies he sold his movie company Rat-Pac/Dune Entertainment to sanctioned Russian Oligarch Len Blavatnik who has ties to Rusal and Deripaska, but won’t admit who bought it.
  • MSNBC fires Steve Schmidt after he becomes and adviser for Howard Schultz.
  • Reports are that during the election the name of Civil Rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler was DM’d to Don Jr. by Assange as a person who could be used to contact Wikileaks.

  • Fox News is terrified that Americans agree with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Also Scientist say her assessment on Climate Change is spot on because the IPCC also says we only have 12 years before things become catastrophic.

  • Schumer to Intel Chiefs “Please teach Trump national security 101.” [I think they’ve tried, he’s learning proof.] 

  • Former Navy Seal GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw who previously well played the “Don't criticize or make fun of me, I’m a wounded vet” card with SNL gets utterly destroyed on Twitter when he tries to mansplain national security to former Homeland Security Official and Harvard Professor Julient Kayyem.

  • An Oklahoma Federal Judge gruffly slaps down Carter Page’s lawsuit against the DNC — where he alleges they committed “domestic terrorism” against him because of their links to the Steele Dossier — for lack of jurisdiction because the “DNC is a national organization and doesn’t have a ‘home’ in Oklahoma.”

  • CNN reports that Senate investigators have been told the Don Jr’s blocked calls after the Veselnitskaya meeting were not with Trump.

  • Trump admits that he criticized the National Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment report which contradicts his bogus claims about Iran, North Korea and the Southern Border before he read it, but during an Oval Office press discussion says that now that he’s read it he was right. “I didn’t see the report from the intelligence…” he began telling the White House press corps before trailing off. “When you read it, it’s a lot different than was covered in the news.”

• February 1st — 

  • Senator Cory Booker enters the 2020 Race.

  • Trump does an interview with NYTimes Maggie Haberman and claims that the conference committee on border security is a “waist of time”, and strongly hints that he might declare a national emergency to fund his wall, saying he not calling it a “politically correct” name anymore. “I’ve set the table. I’ve set the stage for doing what I’m going to do,” he told the Times. “I’ll continue to build the wall, and we’ll get the wall finished. Now whether or not I declare a national emergency — that you’ll see.”  He also criticizes Nancy Pelosi saying her opposition to the wall is entirely political, claiming “she knows” that a wall is the only way to security. “She’s doing a tremendous disservice to this nation. Nancy should be ashamed of herself”  [I guarantee you, she’s not.] because she’s responsible for people “dying all over the country.” [From drugs that are coming through the points of entry, while you've got border patrol busy tearing kids away from their parents in the desert?]

    • Then he reportedly cancels his daily intel brief as part of his anger at the Intel Chiefs for contradicting him before Congress. [Obviously he doesn't know they were under oath.]

    • And he gloats over the report that Don Jr. didn't call his blocked number after the TTower meeting with Russians. “Really Sad!”

    • He also claims that Rosenstein told his lawyers that he’s “Not the target" of the Meuller probe [Which is an artful dodge becuase he can’t be the subject since he can't be indicted, however he is a “subject” of the probe.]

    • Fox’s John Roberts points out that on the Rio Grande you can’t put a wall in the river, it has to be on US side of the shore, which won't stop regugees from reaching U.S. soil and being able to petition for Asylum legally — and Trump agrees meaning his wall is useless there and basically argues that’s a “loophole” and stupid law without realizing it’s part of a UN Treaty which we ratified 50 years ago. [Congress would have to unratify the Treaty and that shit is Not. Gonna. Happen. ]

  • ISIS — that “defeated: group of fighters — are likely to regain their lost territory in Syria after US Troops withdraw  in mere months.

  • MSNBC’s Ali Velshi completely demolishes Trump’s ridiculous obsession with a “big beautiful wall” which won't really do jack to help with border security.

  • Politico reports that Trump intends to give his base some fan services by talking about abortion since he caved on the wall during the SOTU.

  • Kellyanne claims on Fox and Fools that if Cory Booker were a Republican he’d be called “sexist” since he's running against Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gilibrand.

  • GOP megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson contributed $250,000 each to the Trump legal defense fund against the Russia probe. [And yet nobody thinks this has anything to do with he medal of freedom that Trump presented Miriam last year?]

  • Jerome Corsi’s book indicates that Roger Stone had advanced info about the release of the Access Hollywood “grab ‘em by the pussy” tape — most likely from someone in the Trump campaign who had been contacted by the WaPo for a comment — and that he spent that day making frantic calls to get Corsi to tell Wikileaks to release their Podesta emails, which he passed on to Ted Malloch and they did 20 minutes after the tape hit the airwaves. Later a Bannon staffer sent Stone a message. “Well done.”

  • Elizabeth Warren apologizes to the Cherokee nation for the confusion that was caused by her DNA test which indicated she did have a Cherokee ancestor six generations ago, but wasn’t claiming to be part of the nation.

  • Belarusian “sex guru/model” Anatashia Vashukevich who has been released in Moscow says that she gave all her videos featuring Deripaska talking to Russia government officials about the 2016 election to him and promised not to talk about it because she was afraid of being killed. [So she’s talking about it?]

  • Judge in the Roger Stone case is considering a gag order [Because God Know Stone needs a gag.]

  • CNN panel goes off the track when Trump excuser Stephen Moore starts to bring up abortion during a discussion of the Gov. Ralph Northams black-face yearbook picture.

  • Former CIA Director Michael Morell blasts Trump for his attacks on the Intel Chief’s testimony.

  • Foxconn renews their plans for a plant in Wisconsin after they get an earful from Trump. [What's he got against a research park, he think WI workers can't think?]

• February 2nd — 

  • Russia cancels their participation in the INF Treaty since Trump has pulled us out of it.

  • Former Nunes staffer Kashyap Patel who was one of the author’s of the bogus memo that falsely claimed the FISA court wasn’t properly informed before they approved the Carter Page warrant joins the National Security Council.

  • Trump's delayed SOTU will supposed focus on “Choosing Greatness” [Yeah, right sure it will.]

  • SE Cupp blasts Kellyanne's repeated false “sexism” claims in order to distract people.

  • VA Gov Ralph Northam says that he’s not either the man in blackface or wearing a KKK hood on his Med School yearbook from 1984, but he did have the nickname “Coonman” and once put grease under his eyes to pretend to be Michael Jackson during a dance contest, which he won by doing the moonwalk. [And yet he still doesn't see the problem here?] Calls from him to resign mount while the GOP does a victory lap that after Trump, Steve King and Sherrif Arpaio Dems have finally found they have a racist in their midst too.

  • A TSA worker in Orlando leaps off a bridge to his death. [But what’s worse is that most of the reporting is about how many flights were delayed or cancelled by the apparent suicide, and how that impacted travelers.  I guarantee it was a much more serious issue for the now deceased worker and his family.]

  • Trump’s Senior Intelligence briefers come out to publicly to reveal that Trump flies into rages when they give him intelligence reports that he doesn't agree with or chooses not to believe and it's causing a national security crisis. [Because he’s basing US policy on deluded racist bullshit?  Here’s a real reason to impeach the frackhole, he’s an threat to the nation.]

  • Kayleigh McEnany both accuses a Jewish person of condoning anti-Semitism and tries to lecture a black Republican on how the GOP Ended Slavery and Jim Crow. [The GOP deserves credit on Slavery, but Nixon wouldn’t help Dr. King get out of jail in 1960, and their 1964 Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater was against the Civil Rights Act even though other Northern Liberal Republicans voted against Southern Conservative Democrats to pass it — now those kinds of Republicans are Democrats and those Southern Conservatives are Republicans who really haven’t done jack shit for black people since the 50’s.]

  • Trump's Golf Courses continue to purge all the undocumented workers they were using to save a few bucks.

  • NBC reports that former Pentagon Official Carl Kline may have jeopardized national security by wrongly approving security clearances for Jared Kushner and others who didn’t qualify for them while working in the WH Security.

• February 3rd —

  • Trump admin claims that reuniting migrant children with the parents that they were forcibly separated from could “emotionally harm them.” [Yeah, uh, right — Too LATE!]

  • Trump does an interview with CBS for the Superbowl.

    • He says it’s totally “up to the Attorney General” whether the Mueller report is released. [If he refuses to release it to Congress, they get copies automatically by law.]

    • Claims he’s “not telegraphing anything" by announcing withdrawing our Troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

    • And that it’s “easier to make moves” with Acting Cabinet Secretaries who have limited authority to resist him.

    • He says if the Intel Community thinks Iran is “wonderful kindergarten, I disagree.” [Based on what, the voicings in your head? Take your meds, Dotard.]

    • He’s also considering sending in Troops to Veneuzela. [To do what exactly? We can’t fight ISIS or the Taliban anymore, but we can go after starving Venuzuelans?]

  • 2020 Candidate Sherrod Brown says “We have a [White House Resident] whose a racist.” [Yep.]

  • Senator Rick Scott [R-FL] says “If I were Trump, I'd use whatever power I have” to build a wall. [Isn't your state nearly surrounded by an ocean?]

  • Howard Dean Rips the GOP for having “No morals at all” for ignoring and supporting Trump’s racism.

  • Karen Finney bolls over Scott Jennings when he attempts to divert the discussion of Northam’s racism into a self-righteous rant about abortion. [Which is the same diversion that Stephen Moore attempted 2 days ago.]

  • Trump aides are gearing up for a “subpoena blizzard” from House Dems. [So you mean they’re planning to obstruct and ignore them?  Good, how many get to go to jail?]

  • Rep. Tulsi Gabbard [D-HI] official enters the 2020 Race. [And her biggest fan appears to be Putin.]

  • Leaked documents show that 60% of Trump's schedule is filled with “Executive Time” where he's watching Fox TV and calling up his “Friends” like Sean Hannity and Fox and Fools. His “work” day starts at 11am and ends at 4pm.

  • Supposedly there's a Superbowl and a half-time show, but most of the country slept through it including the players and the bands.

• February 4th —

  • Grammy nominated rapper 21 Savage who has claimed to have grown up on the mean streets of Atlanta is arrested by ICE when they were looking for somebody he was driving with because his records indicate he’s really an immigrant from England who overstayed his VISA.

  • Northam meets with minority members of is administration who say he should resign, but he still won’t.  However in a private meeting he says he’ll “leave if he's no longer effective.” [No one believes or trusts you anymore, so no — you’re no longer effective.]

  • Trump says Pompeo is “absolutely not” leaving the State Dept to run for the Senate.

  • It turns out that the first publication to release Northam's yearbook page was a pro-Trump site Big League Politics.

  • Palestinians refuse to meet with Jason Greenblat Trump’s special rep for international negotiations — so he’s tweeting to them instead and claiming “transparency is better for all.” [This is not how you negotiate difficult issues.]

  • Trump will reportedly announce that he intends to prevent all HIV transmission by 2030. [How by burning everyone infected at the stake?]

  • Former SecDef James Mattis replacement Patrick Shanahan, the ex-Boeing lobbyist whose used his position to sell more of their outdated F-15X's that the Air Force didn't want, is doing an extended audition to keep the job.

  • AOC's SOTU guest is the sexual assault survivor that confront Jeff Flake in the elevator during the Kavanaugh hearings.  Trump is inviting a kid named “Trump” who was bullied in school [but nobody who was bullied with “Build the Wall” or beaten for being gay like Jusse Smollet] and a bunch of “Angel Parents" who kids were killed by undocumented immigrants [but nobody who’s kids were killed by police.]

  • Virginia's Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax — who would become Governor if Northam steps down — threatens to sue the pro-Trump site, Big League Politics who also posted the Northam yearbook picture, for publishing sexual assault allegations against him which had been previously investigated and dropped by the WaPo for lack of corroboration.

  • Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon Jr. was too busy on a snipe hunt for immigrants for voting illegally to notice the election fraud scandal of stolen and faked ballots support GOP candidate Mark Harris occurring right under his nose in North Carolina’s 9th District.

  • Former Senator Joe Lieberman — whose apparently still a dickhead — says Northam shouldn’t resign because “there's a rush to judgement.” [The man has had 35 years to straighten this shit out and he’s still figuring out if he has room to demonstrate his moonwalk.]

  • Deustche bank refused in 2016 during the election to extend an existing loan to the Trump org for one of his Florida Golf Courses that was intended to finance work on his Scottish Property, Turnberry, because the fact he was running for president made them think it was too shady even for them -- and they've already been fined for money-laundered $10 Billion for the Russians.

  • Florida’s Former Secretary of State Michael Ertel, who was only on the job for 3 weeks, claims the pictures of him in blackface as a Katrina victim in 2006 were leaked against him “for revenge.” [Which blackface politician are we talking about now?]

  • Texas bogus list of alleged “noncitizen voters" includes naturalized citizens who are part of the elections staff.

  • Senator Chuck Schumer says “It's past time” for Northam to resign. [Yep!]

  • Oh and apparently Northam's med school, Eastern Virginia Medical School, banned their own yearbook because they had such a big problem with racist photos of students dressed as Confederate Soldiers showing up in them.

  • Heavy construction equipment has arrived in Hidalgo county in Texas as CBP prepares to build barriers that Congress approved last March for more than $600 million for 33 miles (53 kilometers) of new barriers in the Rio Grande Valley. Maps released by CBP show construction would cut through the butterfly center, a nearby state park, and a century-old Catholic chapel next to the river - which is property that would have to be seized before construction.

  • Trump nominates Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to take over for Ryan Zinke.

  • Congressional GOP Reps — including Mark Meadows [R-NC] and Sam Graves [R-NO] — send a letter to the GAO Inspector Generals demanding and explanation for their report which said that the approval for the lease of Trump’s DC hotel shouldn't have been granted due to the emoluments clause claiming they didn't show any “undue influence" in their report [Which ignores the fact that TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, and that’s the definition of “undue influence” he’s the leaser and the lessee at the same time.]

  • Gavin McInnes sues the SPLC for labeling the Proud Boys — which he quit a couple months ago and who like to go around beating up unarmed Antifa protestors— as a “Hate Group.” The FBI appears to be on the fence on this issue saying "individual members have been violent” but haven’t fully committed to that view for the entire group. [So this means he’s “Proud" again?]
  • SDNY subpoenas the Trump inaugural committee for all their documentation apparently to determine if their were illegal straw donors for Russian oligarchs. [Yes, there were and his name was Victor Vekselberg whose cousin donated $250,000 to the inauguration so he could attend and met to setup a deal with Michael Cohen, then bragged that Trump would eliminate sanctions him and his business partner Deripaska — which they just did.]
• February 5th —
  • Northam reportedly doesn’t want to resign because then he’ll be labelled a “racist for life” [As opposed to just a racist “Coonman” in 1985, who changed — excepts he still thinks using black face to do a Michael Jackson dance is just fine...] Also former Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) parrots Lieberman saying this is a “rush to judgement" and we shouldn’t used the “political death penalty” against Northam. [Former SC Governor Mark Sanford found a zombie life in Congress after his “political death” on the Appalachian trail, why can't this guy apologize and step down for now then prove he means it and work his way back?]
  • NYTimes reports that part of the reason Trump allowed the government to re-open is so that he could do a “reverent” SOTU. [So the starving Government workers who are looking at having their credit ratings ruined — or the TSA worker who committed suicide — mean nothing to him compared to giving a big speech?]
  • Eric Trump responds to the “60% Executive Time” report by being outraged that his dad “hasn’t left the WH in 5 weeks.” [Um, he said during the campaign that he would never leave the WH at all while he was talking shit about Obama golfing.] Then he gets back to purging undocumented workers from Trump properties since several of them said Trump Management had falsified documents for them in order to keep saving cash on the payroll.
  • SHuckabee shrugs at the SDNY inaugural subpoena saying “It has nothing to do with the WH.” [They're gonna be frog-marching people out of the West Wing pretty soon and she’ll be saying the "West Wing has nothing to do with the White House.”]
  • Treasury Sec Mnuchin has a two-pronged plan to block Congress from getting Trump's taxes arguing that Dems can't be trusted not to leak the returns, which would be a felony. [Oh, but Devin Nunes could be trusted not to leak shit?]
  • Napolitano claims that Dems only want Northam out so that they can “paint Trump as a Racist.” [Sure, but Trump is a racist just based on all his “national emergency of crime and drugs, human trafficking and terrorism requires a wall" bullshit, when he’s grossly exaggerating all of those problems in a bigoted way, ignoring the valid human rights issue of asylum when a wall won't help with any of those issues but has nothing to say about thousands of pounds of meth found in a truck at points of entry, or people who fly here on planes overstaying their VISAS —  no matter what happens to Northam.]
  • A leaked memo indicates that Trump inauguration Chair Tom Barret intended to use the event to exploit connections to the new administration and foreign connections.
  • Senate GOP leaders say they want a border deal even if Trump opposes it.
  • WH “Immigrant crime” hotline is still causing confusion after 2 years.
  • Trump says if he can’t have a physical wall he’ll build a “human wall.”
  • NM Gov pulls National Guard troops from the border.
  • Trump delivers his second State of the Union.
    • He rails about “Ridiculous Partisan Investigations” saying we can have “peace and legislation or war and investigations” [Then it's War!} claiming it's “Presidential Harassment” that’s never happened before [Yeah, right. Watergate, Cointelpro, Iran-Contra, Keating 5, Whitewater, Monica-Gate, 9-11 Commission, US attorney scandal, Fast and Furious, IRS-gate, Benghazi-gate.]  He calls for and “end to the resistance” then he tries to pretend to be magnanimous but it’s only a thinly veiled threat.
    • He warns that “America will never be socialist.”
    • The crowd sings “Happy Birthday" to a holocaust survivor who had also survived the Synagogue shooting.
    • Most Dems stare at him blankly or roll their eyes as he self-fluffs through most of the speech.
    • But when he talks about how more women are working and finding jobs the 89 women in the Dem caucus stand up in triumph and chant “USA USA USA!”
    • Nancy gives him a sarcastic applause.
  • Stacy Abrams delivers the Democratic response.
• February 6th— 
  • Sen Schumer says the speeh was like “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.”
  • Former Sen. Santorum says it was his “worst delivered speech.”
  • Ann Coulter: “Lamest, Sappiest" ever.
  • Reports are that despite his false claims of wanting a positive relationship with the new Congress Trump had grumbled that Schumer is a “Son of a bitch” and Biden is “Dumb” at a pre-SOTU lunch.
  • House Intel votes to send all their Russia investigation transcripts to Mueller.
  • Pence defends the shutdown saying it's “never a mistake to stand up for what you believe." [Actually it is a mistake to make a million other people dangle on the hook for what you believe when it's deluded, bigoted bullshit.]
  • Michael Cohen’s testimony to congress is delayed due to the “interests of the investigation.” [This indicates they might be using his statements or documents in another ongoing case.]
  • Peggy Noonan says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had “bad night at the SOTU” [And no one knows what the hell she's talking about.] Other Repubs continue to freakout over AOC’s “lack of joy" at SOTU. [Trust me as a Democrat, most of what I saw from Congress people was amazing patience and restraint at holding in their disgust at Drumph's endless lies, gaslighting and bullshit — but still nobody yelled “YOU LIE" at him.]
  • Rep. Debbie Dingle asks for prayers for her husband former Rep. John Dingle who has been placed under hospice care.
  • Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring says that he went to a college party in the 80's in blackface pretending to be Curtis Blow. [He apologizes sincerely and doesn’t consider doing a moonwalk.]
  • VA Lt. Gov Fairfax continues to maintain the sexual assault allegation against him his “false and hurtful.”  Then his accuser publicly goes on the record with a detailed account of the assault during the 2004 DNC, she has also apparently told her story to Rep. Bobby Scott whom she had dated, but this was the first time she revealed all the details. 
  • Pelosi says that Trump should “not bring threats to the floor of the House.”
  • House Intel Chairman announces that Dems will reboot Nunes flawed incomplete Russia probe.
  • Acting AG Matt Whitaker doesn’t invoke executive privilege prior to his testimony.
  • Trump claims he’s never heard of Adam Schiff [He’s previously called him “Little Adam Schitt” in a tweet] and again whines about “Presidential Harassment.”
  • Schiff responds: “I can understand why Trump is terrified of investigations.”
  • Russian Oligarch Pavel Fuchs offered Trump $20 Million for a Moscow Tower branding deal in 2006, but he turned it down as not being enough money. Fuchs, who like Deripaska is banned from entering the US, says he was introduced to Trump by late Soviet-born developer Tamir Sapir who had worked on the Trump SoHo project, and that he had attended the Inauguration and threatened to get violent over having bad seats which brought the attention of Mueller. 
  • Rep. Matt Gaetz decides to rail about illegal immigration during a hearing on mass gun violence [even though not one mass shooter has been an illegal immigrant, yet] and when two Parkland parents [including one who had tried to shake Kavanaugh’s hand only to be ignored] shout at him to shut up and stop changing the subject he tries to have them thrown out of the hearing.   Other Dem reps question whether something can be done when people openly lie in the committee. [Sadly, no.]
  • DOJ announces investigation of the 2006 plea deal for Trump friend and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein by Trump’s Labor secretary Alexander Acosta who was then a US Attorney in Florida.
  • GOP operative Paul Erickson who dated Russia spy Maria Butina is indicted on money laundering and wire-fraud.
• February 7th — 
  • LT Gov. Fairfax hires Kavanaugh’s lawfirm, his accuser hires the firm that represented Blasey-Ford.
  • Reports are that 3 potential campaign leaders have pulled out from 2020 bid by Sen. Amy Klobachar because of her history of berating and publicly humiliating her staff.
  • Senate Judiciary is ready to approve AG nominee Bill Barr on a party-line vote.
  • Pelosi is confident “there will not be another shutdown" as border negotiations continue.
  • Mulvaney tells Hannity “If congress won't cooperate, Trump will use executive authority.”
  • WaPo publishes an editorial calling for Northam to step down: “He must go!”
  • Trump is reportedly beefing up his Comms staff before Dem investigations.
  • Mnuchin is in talks with Chairman Maxine Waters to testify over his lifting of sanctions on Russia.
  • Parkland Father Manuel Oliver, whom Rep. Matt Gaetz had tried to have thrown out of a gun violence hearing vows to make sure Gaetz gets thrown out of Congress by campaigning against him next cycle.
  • Gucci stops selling a sweater that resembles black face and big lips. [They just now noticed that's a problem?]
  • Trump says “Dems are Killing VA, it will come back home to GOP in 2020.”
  • House Judiciary votes to authorize a subpoena for Matt Whitaker if he refuses to answer questions.
  • Attorney Generals for Maryland and DC argue that “Trump is not above the law" during their appellate brief on the emoluments suit.
  • Pelosi says Trump “Is a projector" [Yep, he accuses other people of what he’s guilty of.]
  • CNN polls says 80% of Americans want Mueller to release his report.
  • Whitaker says he'll blow off the Judiciary Testimony unless Dems drop their subpoena. [Which is weird because if they have a subpoena, he doesn't have a choice.]
  • Bill Barr nomination advances to the full Senate.
  • DOJ says that Whitaker never made any promises to the WH over Mueller.
  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) are investigating possible illegal coordination between the NRA and Trump campaign, after reports claimed that the NRA allegedly broke campaign finance laws by creating shell companies to give excessive funds to Trump as well as congressional Republicans.
  • House Judiciary Chairman Nadler drops his subpoena threat — for now — clearing the way for Whitaker to testify.
  • House Dems begin moves to obtain Trump’s tax returns.
  • Manafort’s defense team claims that Rick Gates isn’t credible enough to prove Manafort lied. [So one liar — who’s kept his plea deal in place —  can't tell us about another liar who blew his plea deal up?]
  • Former Rep. John Dingle, the architect of Medicare and the longest serving congress member ever, dies at age 92.
• February 8th —  
  • Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces that he’s being blackmailed by David Pecker’s AMI/National Enquirer over some intimate pictures he texted his mistress Lauren Sanchez who blew up his 25 year marriage with his wife Mackenzie.  AMI wanted Bezos to tell the WaPo — which he owns —  to report that the National Enquirers support for Trump. capturing and killing the Karen McDougal story and promotion of Saudi Arabia “wasn’t politically motivated” [even though it is — and also financially motivated.]  Details are sketchy on whether the pictures were hacked from his phone [possibly the same way that Saudi Arabia hacked Khashoggi's phone using malware developed by the Israeli NSO Group] or if Sanchez’ brother Michael, who is pals with Carter Page, Roger Stone and Scottie Nell Hughes, gave the pics to AMI.
  • Ivanka states she has “Zero concern over the Mueller probe” and that she knew “almost nothing about the Moscow Tower” [Which is funny since she had tried to hook Michael Cohen up with a Russian wrestler to help coordinate things, picked the architect for it and also had a planned an “Ivanka Trump” branded spa for the project.]
  • Trump freaks out because Adam Schiff has hired former members of the National Security Council for House Intel staff. [Which is perfectly normal and also they probably come from prior administrations, not his.]
  • Jerome Corsi and his crazy gonzo attorney sues Roger Stone for defamation and trying to give him “heart attacks and strokes.”
  • WaPo reports the Bezos’ investigator thinks that a “government entity" may have leaked the illicit text messages to AMI for political reasons. [If that’s true it suggests a gross misuse of a FISA warrant for political payback which is far worse than anything suggested by the Carter Page warrant. Or worse, illegally bypassing a FISA or criminal warrant.]
  • In an upcoming new book by “The Threat: How the FBI protected America in the age of Terror and Trump” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says that Rod Rosenstein didn't want to write the memo that excused the firing of James Comey, he only did it because he was ordered to do so and was emotionally frustrated, and unable to sleep, over it.
  • Acting AG Whitaker testifies to the House Judiciary Committee: 
    • He repeatedly invokes executive privilege for any of his conversations with Trump, but then says he didn't talk to Trump about the Mueller probe. [Which is amazing since before he went to work at Session’s chief of staff, he had interviewed to defend Trump from Mueller in the slot that eventually went to Ty Cobb.  So how does he interview for the job of defending against Mueller, without discussing Mueller?]
    • He arrogantly tries to enforce the 5-min rule on Chairman Nadler’s questions himself, when the Chairman doesn't really have a 5 minute rule.
    • He tries to filibuster every question with “I thank you for the question” even when it’s a simply “Yes” or “No” answer and the matter is already part of the public record.
    • He says to the GOP members that he’s concerned about how CNN was able to be present for Roger Stone’s arrest suggesting their was a leak from Mueller. [Even though CNN has repeatedly explained they figured it out because the Grand Jury met on Thursday instead of Friday, plus one of the prosecutors had luggage with him — for the trip to Florida.]
    • He has recently said that “Mueller is wrapping up” his investigation and claims he has “nothing to add" to that, although he later admits “Mueller will finish, when he decides to finish.”
    • He says that if he were in Don Jr’s. position and a foreign operative offered him “dirt" on his opponent he would “most likely contact the FBI.” [Wow, decisive ain't he?]
    • He says Mueller is an honest man, but he won’t walk back his previous “Witch Hunt” accusations. 
    • He says he hasn't denied funds to Mueller the way that he specifically suggested could be done when he was on Don Lemon’s show.
    • He does a fast riverdance over who in the DOJ asked him to recuse himself and why he ignored that advice, then he then does his best Nuremberg Lieutenant impression when he's grilled over the failure to notify appropriate agencies and get their input over the Family Separation/”Zero Humanity” policy — which like Cruella De Nielsen, he denies they have — when he was Sessions’ chief of staff.
    • He also denies that Trump “lashed out at him" over the guilty plea by Michael Cohen, even though that was also publicly reported.
    • He reveals that a US Attorney Gregg Scott from California sat in on the Mueller probe briefing. [Uh, why?]
  • Reports are that Trump has made 8 members of his Golf Clubs into U.S. Ambassadors.
  • Fox and Fools disgustingly uses a fatal shooting on a subway platform by a supposed MS-13 member to blast Ocasio-Cortez for her “abolish ICE” stance. She responds: “Unlike these people, I actually care about my community,” she said in a tweet. “We’ve been monitoring this heartbreaking situation and have been working with the community to heal.”
  • Roger Stone asks for a new Judge and vows to fight any gag order. [You really can’t fight that, if the judge orders it — then that's it.]
  • Ronan Farrow and at least one other reporter say that they've been blackmailed by AMI/National Enquirer to change their reporting about their links to Trump also. “Stop digging or we’ll ruin you.”  Daily Beast Editor in Chief Noah Shactman says several of their reporters were threatened by AMI attorneys while they reported on AMI helping Trump during the 2016 campaign.
  • NYTimes reports that in 2017 Saudi Crown Prince MbS was recorded by US Intelligence telling one of his top aides that he would “use a bullet" on WaPo reporter Jamal Khashoggi if he didn't stop criticizing the Kingdom. [This brings into question whether US intel followed the “duty to warn” Khashoggi of the threat and also why Trump and Pompeo have claimed MbS had nothing to do with his eventual murder in 2018?]
  • The AMI Board says they will investigate Bezos claims.
  • Former Enquirer Editor says the threats against Bezos where a way to “kiss and makeup with Trump” after they agreed to cooperate with SDNY. [Uh, committing crimes when you have a plea deal tends to fuck up the plea deal, just ask Manafort.] CNN source expert says AMI’s blackmail will “all come out now.”
  • Polls of Dems say Northam should resign by 2-1.  He tells his staff he definitely won't resign.
  •  A second woman accuses Lt. Gov Fairfax of sexual assault and rape when they were in college together.
  • Nadler says he needs more answers from Whitaker and that he may put the subpoena he withdrew back on the table.
  • Butina’s sentencing is delayed as she continues to cooperate with prosecutors.
• February 9th— 
  • Trump says “Dems were vicious and totally showed their cards” during the Whitaker hearing. [No more than GOPers were vicious with the Peter Strzok and Rod Rosenstein hearings.  How soon they forget.]
  • The Atlantic reports that Whitaker’s testimony was an audition for him to become Trump's Chief of Staff. [He probably passed because he repeated Trump's delusional BS perfectly.]
  • AP reports that the likely border deal will fall far short of $5.7 Billion for the wall.
  • Calls for Lt. Gov Fairfax to resign grow louder after the 2nd sexual assault allegation.
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren joins the 2020 field with a rousing populist anti-Oligarch speech which focuses on the middle-class and racial discrimination and violence.
  • Trump’s 2020 campaign chair and former IT guy Brad Pascale slams Warren as a “Liar" for her claims of Native American Heritage — even though the DNA test exactly confirmed her claims that she has an American Indian ancestor from the 1850s. [Tell me is Donald Trump still Swedish or has he admitted his grandfather was from Germany yet?]
  • Booker says that what's separates him from Warren is that “I’ve run something.” [Oh, Lordy here we go!]
• February 10th — 
  • Pecker denies Bezos’ blackmail claims. “All AMI Wanted was the Truth.” [You shouldn't have to use people’s dick pick selfies to get that just give them a statement f’r chrissakes.]
  • Mulvaney says that Trump may still declare an emergency even if Congress gives him funding for border barriers. [Then why the fuck did we have a 35 day shutdown?]
  • Warren suggests Trump might be in jail by 2020: “He may not be a free person.”
  • Trump claims he’s “Generally working, not relaxing” during executive time. [If by “working” you mean watching Fox and Friends, Hannity and tweeting.]
  • Sen Amy Klobachar enters the 2020 race during a Snow storm.  [The media fawns over her “not too liberal” stance against Medicare-For-All and the New Green Deal claiming that makes her “electable.”  This bullshit is going go on for a while I think.]
  • Jack Tapper asks Rep Liz Chaney about Trump’s reference to seeing Elizabeth Warren on the campaign “TRAIL.” [Which is a reference to the murderous Trail of tears] and she refuses to respond to that but instead also attacks Warren for her “false” claims of being a Cherokee and Native American and claims she did it to “Get Benefits” [She never said she was Cherokee or part of the a tribe, she has correctly said she has some Native American ancestry and she never received any benefits for saying that, ever.]
  • Northam says “I’m not going anywhere” then says that this year is the 400th anniversary of African Indentured Servants first arriving 90 miles away in Virginia. [Which is true, but feels like he’s trying to hard to be “sensitive” to African-American concerns.] He’s asked “Did you not know you were born to white privilege” and he’s says “I knew, but I didn't know how much impact it had.”
  • Tax Refunds have shrank by about 8% due to withholding changes in Trump’s tax bill.
• February 11th — 
  • P.S. No one wants to work for the Border Patrol.
  • Daily Beast confirms that Michael Sanchez, the brother of Jeff Bezos Girlfriend Laura Sanchez, was the sources of the text messages provided to AMI.
  • Axios publishes more of Trump's scheduled which shows he spent half of his time this week on “Executive Time” so the WH goes on a crusade to find the leaker and Trump tweets that it should be reported “positively” saying that he’s “generally working” during Exec Time.[Working by watching Hannity!]
  • Dems slam freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamins” in reference to AIPAC because it's a anti-Jewish stereotype, although it’s also true about most lobbyist groups.
  • Steve Schmidt throws two tantrums on a podcast he helped found when he’s asked about advising Howard Schultz and then again when he’s asked about Elizebeth Warren’s tax plan. [Although the 70% top marginal rate is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez idea.]
  • Mueller Team’s discussion with the Judge during a pre-sentening hearing shows they believe that Manafort violated his plea deal because he was expecting a pardon.
  • Sen. Klobachar admits that she’s “tough on her staff, because she has high expectations.” [Are male Senators pussy cats with their staff?]
  • Judiciary Chair Nadler joins other Dems bash the “anti-semetic tropes” of Omar’s tweet. [Would he have done that if she wasn’t Muslim and she wasn't talking about AIPAC?  Maybe if she hadn't quoted the title of a Puff Daddy song and an Ice-Cube movie?]
  • Some Historians are “baffled” by Northam’s reference to “Indentured Servants”. [But he's right, Racial Slavery didn’t start in Virginia until the 1662 when Virginia decided all children born in the colony to a slave mother would be enslaved. Slavery was not only a life-long condition; now it could be passed, like skin color, from generation to generation.]
  • Trump claims the NYAG’s “anti-Trump bias” taints the lawsuit against his charity Foundation. [That's like saying the Cop is only giving you a speeding ticket because he’s too “anti-speeding.”]
  • Dem leadership calls for Omar to apologize.
  • WSJ reports that AMI asked the DOJ if they needed to register as an agent of Saudi Arabia because of their glossy “The New Kingdom” special magazine about MbS.  [If you have to ask, it’s probably too late — but no, the DOJ said they were fine since it was only one issue.]
  • Rep. Omar apologizes fully for her tweet, but stands by her criticism of AIPAC.
  • Four Fairfax staffers resign after the second assault allegation.
  • DC Federal prosecutor files papers regarding FARA convict Sam Patten which may mean the investigation into more straw donations to Trump’s Inauguration may be heating up.
  • MIchael Cohen postpones his interview with the Senate due to meds he's taking following shoulder surgery.
  • “Team of Vipers" author Cliff Sims sues Trump for trying to enforce the campaign NDA against him. [Government employees have freedom of speech and whistle-blower protections which override a corporate styled NDA.]
  • The Border Security negotiations reach a tentative deal to avoid another shutdown.