As I reach now my 23rd monthly summary on the Trump-Russia Timeline where we figured we basically knew everything there was to know about the Trump Russia investigation that, except for what remains redacted, we now have the former CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne jumping out into the public to proclaim that the FBI basically told him to have an affair with Russia spy Marina Butina in order to somehow do some kind of “political espionage” against Hillary, Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Yeah, like I know, right?
It sounds nuts, but some of it does make some sense. For example Patrick Byrne says that he’s at one point he had a minor security clearance so he knew from that FBI briefing that the first thing to do when a “Russian bombshell” shows up on your doorstep wanting to hang out with you and offer you free trips to Russia — you call the FBI.
After that his story tends to turn into a rat’s nest — but also while that’s been going on Trump has started a plan to buy Greenland which was alledgedly suggested by Tom Cotton, even though he used to joke about trading Greenland for Puerto Rico years ago, and then after this unsolicited proposition the Primeminister of Denmark turned him down cold he got pissed and called her a “nasty bitch” who’se probably “gay anyway.”
Ok, I made some of that up, but he did call her “nasty” — then he said any Jews who vote for Democrats are “Disloyal” and that’s when shit got real.
Byrne has naturally already appeared on Fox News with his claims — appearing on CNN later — and his story is pretty hard to follow because this kind of thing is clearly not his primary gig.
Transcript Here.
The fact that he was targeted by Butina apparently because he was a major Clinton donor was surprising, but then again it makes sense that Torshin’s efforts in 2015 before Trump had even declared he was running probably would have cast a wide net.
As I said he went to the FBI and they advised him to continue contact and report back to them what occured. This seems normal. At some point things got romantic with Butina and that’s where he says the first weird thing, that the FBI encourage him to date her in order to keep an eye on things.
He later claims, in defense of Butina, that the government didn’t provide her attorneys with some exculpatory evidence in her case and then he goes on to claim that the “Deep State” manipulated things in their relationship as part of a political agenda and that he’s since provided documents to Bill Barr’s Deep State Witch-hunter John Durham which will apparently get somebody “prosecuted.”
And by somebody he apparently means is Peter Strozk, James Comey and — probably — Andrew McCabe, although Brennan and Clapper could also be who he means.
Byrne claimed in Carter’s July article that, between 2015 and 2018, he had a relationship with Maria Butina, who would later plead guilty to being an unregistered Russian agent. The relationship, Byrne told Carter, eventually turned romantic.
But at the same time, Byrne claimed in the article and later to the New York Times, he had been providing information about Butina to the government. Some of that information, he said, was exculpatory information that the government did not provide to Butina’s defense team.
The day before Carter’s article was published, Butina’s lawyer alleged in a letter to the DOJ inspector general that Byrne acted “at the direction of the government” by “kindling a manipulative romantic relationship” with Butina, and accused the government of withholding exculpatory information. His complaint was forwarded to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
In another article published Aug. 12, the same day Byrne went public, Carter wrote that Byrne claimed to have provided documents regarding the Russia probe and the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton to John Durham, the U.S. attorney for the district of Connecticut, who Attorney General Bill Barr has tasked with running his own investigation into the beginning of the Mueller report.
“I have all the answers,” Byrne told Fox Business after he went public
“There is a deep state like a submarine lurking just beneath the waves of the periscope depth watching our shipping lanes,” he added. “And a nuclear icebreaker called the USS Bill Barr has snuck up on them and is about to ram midship.”
The fact that both Strozk and McCabe have recently filed wrongful termination lawsuits against the DOJ seems mighty coincidental for this information accusing them of something or the other that doesn’t make much sense has now come forward.
First of all the accusation that the FBI was doing “political espionage” against Hillary Clinton is somewhat counter to the “Deep State” narrative that they were somehow protecting her. It seems that if Butina and Torshin were targeting and cultivating links to both campaigns, the FBI would try to investigate all of those links. This undecuts the accusation of “bias” on the part of the FBI. Still Trump and the Deep State Chorus will probably latch onto this “scandal” just to hurt the “X, Y & Z” characters that Byrne won’t name — even though the accusation completely ruins their already existing bias scenario.
The other interesting part of Byrne’s claims is the fact that it may cause some problems for Don Jr. who reportedly had decided to take a meeting with Torshin that Kushner had turned down, he also had more direct contact with Butina..
Byne: But I was trying to enter (ph) her in and maybe something peaceful could happen. But I had sort of a third -- maybe two-thirds I was positive, one-third this is quite a risk and especially over those -- from July of 2015 to March of 2016 as I -- she -- she clearly was swanking around more and more in big shot Republican circles, including -- including people like Don Jr.
I was telling her that the men in black had all of those meetings before she had them, they knew about her the day she landed. They knew about every one of these meetings. They knew that at one point, she was going off to have a meeting with Don Jr.
MACCALLUM: So, do you think she was set up by the men in black to approach people in the Trump administration? Is that possibility?
BYRNE: It was all a -- 100 percent. They knew she was trying to approach, and her instructions were, to approach -- she had to build a contact with anyone in the Hillary Clinton, Rubio, Cruz, or Trump.
Butina meeting Don Jr. is news to me, particularly if it’s as early as 2015. Probably not the much would have come from it, but it might explain why he went to the NRA event to meet with Alexander Torshin during the height of the campaign — who was offerring a potential meeting with Putin — even when Jared Kushner said “No.”
[As noted in the comments — Seth Abramson has a detailed thread on this which discussed the fact that Toshin himself tweeted about meeting Don Jr. at an NRA Conference with Butina in 2015 at least 30 days before Trump announced his run for the White House. And also there are pictures.]
I’m sure there will be more on this, right now it’s a hot mess.
Another one from column weird is a new non-peer reviewed report from a psychologist named Robert Epstein, no relation to Jeffrey apparently, who that he’s detected a pro-Hillary bias among Google search results and that based on another of his studies of searches in India and Australia that this could have impacted the 2020 Election by as little as 2.6 Million to 10 Million votes in support of Clinton. So of course, Trump just loves this idea.
In his tweet, Trump posted, “Google should be sued. My victory was even bigger than thought!” Bastone, however, reports that the study Trump appeared to be referring to on Twitter was a 2017 study by San Diego-based psychologist Robert Epstein — who, in July, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing with the theme “Google and Censorship Through Search Engines.”
During his testimony, Epstein (who described himself as a Democrat) asserted that at a “rock-bottom minimum,” Google swayed 2.6 million votes in Clinton’s favor.
[...]
“The study — which was based on 95 participants in 24 U.S. states — stated in part that when extrapolating from a 2015 study also authored by Epstein, at least 2.6 million votes might be ‘shifted’ in favor of Clinton because of bias in Google’s search results,” Bastone explains in his Business Insider piece. “But the 2015 study’s findings were based on asking U.S. residents to cast hypothetical votes for candidates in Australia’s 2010 prime ministerial election based on information they saw in Google search results.”
“The study — which was based on 95 participants in 24 U.S. states — stated in part that when extrapolating from a 2015 study also authored by Epstein, at least 2.6 million votes might be ‘shifted’ in favor of Clinton because of bias in Google’s search results,” Bastone explains in his Business Insider piece. “But the 2015 study’s findings were based on asking U.S. residents to cast hypothetical votes for candidates in Australia’s 2010 prime ministerial election based on information they saw in Google search results.”
Asking Americans to purely use Google — and only Google — to determine how they would vote for candidates in Austalia that they don’t know otherwise is a novel idea, because voting purely on Google search results is exactly like what Americans do. Or rather they don’t. Most people also watch TV, where they also get news as well as ads directly from the candidate themselves, quite a few people get their news from social media like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
It is pretty interesting that Trump now embraces the idea that an “unconscious” bias within the Google search algorythms is enough to shift a couple million votes, but thousands of trolls and bots from Russia who reached 127 Million Americans on Facebook, 187 Million on Instagram and 73 Million on Twitter who had a fully “conscious” intent of getting Black Voters to not bother to vote, Bernie Voters to either skip the election or else vote for Jill Stein and quite overtly and not at all by accident supported Trump in the election just made no difference at all.
I myself estimated just based on a influence/click through rate of only 0.5% that about 1.9 Million votes could have been impacted by the Russian trolls and bot, and that was more than enough to sway the final results for Trump,
Again, if Russian trolls were able to generate real-world public rallies that with attendance as high as 60,000 people, and had an online presence that could reach 120 million people on Facebook and over 180 million people on Instagram, and 73 Million on Twitter with the specific goal of energizing the GOP vote for Trump and discouraging the Democratic vote for Clinton, it’s not exactly beyond the realm of possibility that, with a fairly average click-through rate of just 0.5%—which would have produced 900,000 potential clicks for Instagram, 600,000 for Facebook and 365,000 on Twitter — that there were at least 1.9 Million Americans in active engagement and agreement with their posts who could have easily created the 77,000-vote shift across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that we ultimately saw. Assuming that impact was basically evenly distributed across most states — which it probably wasn’t, but we don’t have the social media metadata and click-thrus to determine the specific geographic impact — those three states represent about 8.7 percent of the nation’s population and 8.7 percent of the 1.9 Million who at minimum were actively engaged with and agreed with the Russian efforts is about 162,000 voters in those states.
And that according to the Mueller report there were indications based on the attendence some of the real-life rallys that some of the trolls generated on Facebook were as high as 60,000 when they were only seen by on 300,000 people which is a shift rate of more than 20% rather than just 0.5%.
Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017.
On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets.
In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.
This level of shift could have impacted far more than just 1.9 Million voters if the rest of their posts were anywhere near this efficent and impactful. 20% of the 127 Million Facebooks users who viewed Troll posts and ads is 25 Million, which is over twice the high end of the impact that Epstein imagines. For Instagram that would be an impact amount of another 37 Million votes, and 14 Million for Twitter creating for a grand maximum total — even though it’s also highly likely that there were duplicates between the three platforms — of 76 Million who either didn’t vote, supported Stein or Trump because of the Trolls which is higher than the number of votes for either Trump or Clinton but shows that you can come with some pretty high numbers depending on the base of your argument.
I think somebody — with peer review — should probably do an Epstein-like study on the impact of the Russian Troll farm on voters, don’t you? Because otherwise, we can make wild assumptions all day. Of course, the existence of Epstein’s “Google bias” is his alone and remains unconfirmed, while the existence of bias by the Russian Trolls has been confirmed by the Senate and the Mueller report — so there’s that to consider.
What’s interesting is that up until now the GOP defense against accusations that the Russians changed the election results has been that they “didn’t change any votes” after they were cast on electronic machines, but this idea that there may have been bias that influenced voters before the election is exactly the same theory behind how the trolls and bots may have had an effect. If Google searches could have influence on voters, so could Facebook, Instagram and Twitter bots which were specifically intended to influence voters.
But then again, some people actually just use Bing. Really, they do.
The remaining daily events for the next month will be posted below with along with weekly updates:
August 17th —
August 18th —
August 19th —
August 20th —
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Trump says he doesn't think NRA has much muscles, but he's still buckling to their will on background checks.
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Brett Beier pushes back on Trump despite his poor polls,“Fox has not changed.” [So they're still in the tank for Trump, then.]
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Scaramucci urges other GOPers to come out of the closet and dump Trump publically.
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The Russia IRA troll farm moves toward an April 2020 trial.
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Polls indicate that Trump's appeals to racism appear to be backfiring and are better motivating anti-racist voters.
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The use of the “public charge” clause in immigration may have prevented as many as 550,000 Jews trying to escape the Nazis may have been prevented from immigrating to the U.S. during the 1930’s.
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Emerald Garner says that Daniel Panteleo should have been fired by the NYPD years ago for killing her dad Eric Garner.
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Politico does a walk through on Trump, Matt Gaetz and Joe Digenova’s hope that the DOJ IG and Barr’s new witch hunt led by John Durham for the Deep State will completely fail to prosecute Comey, Strzok or anyone else for creating a “Russia Hoax.”
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Is it possible or likely that Trump's “movement” will outlast his regime?
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The Google Voter study by psychologist Robert Epstein simply does not prove what Trump claims. “I’m not sure if this really applies to U.S. elections where we have partisan politics going on and lots of other information that people have,” McDonald told Business Insider. “You don’t need to look at the top of Google search results for your information about how you’re going to cast your vote for president.” [Most people don't get their news from Google, they get it directly from sites they like, notifications or Facebook which was infested with Russia bots pushing for Trump, not Clinton.]
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Trump still doesn’t have a health care plan and unleashes a stream of unconscious gobbildygook and liles about Mediare For All when asked about it.
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Nikole Hannah-Jones creator of the NYTimes 1619 Project isn't surprised that it's caused conservatives to going into total melt-down.
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USDA slashes the buyouts for scientists leaving the agency over the move to Kansas City.
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Trump signals he’s going to whiff on background checks, and echoes Fox News claims that the “media would love to see a recession.” [Ah, Fox forgot they were also “the media" again and basically revealed they are NOT News] Then he says that Jews who vote for Dems show “Great Disloyalty” to something and someone. [Hey does he mean his own daughter Ivanka and her husband, cuz they’re Jewish and also Democrats — allegedly.]
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US Census Official ensures an ALEC group “You’ll get your data for redistricting” against non-citizens. [This could turn out badly for the next round partisan gerrymandering.]
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FBI arrests a man for anti-Hispanic threats who claims he “Thanked God for Trump.”
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A tipster claims to the House that there have been “inappropriate efforts to Trump's automatic Presidential tax audit.”
August 21st —
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Trump cancels his trip to Denmark because they say that selling Greenland is “absurd”, then he calls the Primeminister a “nasty” woman, he also tells the head of the NRA that “background checks are off the table” then he retweets a Newsmax conspiracy wackjob’s claim that he's the “Second Coming of God” and the “King of the Jews.” This comes after he also argued that he’s “the Chosen one” on trade with China, he doubles-down on “Disloyal Jews” nonsense and whines that the Denmark PM hurt his feelings over Greenland, even though she says she was very nice. [It's not hard to melt a snowflake.] And he says that the economy is “so strong” that it would only go into recession because of the media talking about recession. [Wut?] Although meanwhile, he’s planning a middle-class payroll tax cut, just in case what he says is impossible — except for the media — happens anyway.
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Truckers are facing a bloodbath in their industry and it's turning them anti-Trump. [We would hope so.]
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Scaramucci starts a SuperPac to battle Trump during the primaries: “I can take five points off Trump.” [Yeah, that’s not really enough to win is it?]
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fTuckers is losing advertisers like he’s been doused in flea repellant.
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NYTimes Economics reporter Jim Tankersley says every element of Trump’s “good economy” has gone south.
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Facebook takes down another Trump ad that is completely against their rules.
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Former Congressman Joe Walsh — who used to be wild-eye Tea Party Birtherism nut bag and dead-beat dad is now a loud anti-Trumper — is considering running in the Republican 2020 primary.
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Mulvaney admits — in private — that there’s a chance for a “short or mild recession.” [Oh, do tell?]
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Playboy correspondant Brian Karem sues the White House to get his hard pass reinstated.
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Sean Spicer joins the new season of Dancing with the Stars. because I guess Geobbels is now unavailable.
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Cindy McCain quietly tries to pull Lindsay Graham back from the dark side. '[Forever will it control his fate.]
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Denmark’s ambassador to the US is kinda PO’d.
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Trump’s DHS moves to re-write the Flores settlement to allow themselves to hold migrant families indefinitely instead of just 20 days. [How exactly you unilaterally change a court settlement without re-negotiating it through a judge?] These new rules also deny lawyers able to review and allows no state licensing for the conditions so permanent, indefinate concentration camps.
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HIckenlooper gets into the Senate race against Cory Gardner while Jay Inslee drops of the 2020 fight.
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At least 8 DOJ Officials knew Epstein wasn't supposed to be left alone, but he was.
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George Conway responds to Trump’s latest bonkers presser :”Get him in the chopper to Walter Reed.”
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The ADL says that Trump's statements are full blown anti-Semitism.
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#25AmendmentNow starts Trending.
August 22nd —
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Once upon a time Trump joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland. [Could that be because PR is full of brown people and everyone in Greenland people are white?] Then Tom Cotton falls on the sword and takes credit for “Buying Greenland” brainstorm.
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Shuckabee joins Fux Snooze as a correspondant. [Liars gonna work at the Liar place.]
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Rudy is back to trying to investigate Biden and his son in the Ukraine again, and Trump's state dept is helping him, which doesn't at all seem legal under the Logan Act.
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Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne resigns in order to come forward and reveal that he had a relationship with convicted Russia spy Marina Butina in 2015. He says that he informed the FBI early on and that they encouraged their communications. He travelled to Russia to meet some of her backers, and he claims that in 2016 “X, Y & Z” at the FBI [who he indicate includes Agent Strzok and Comey] pushed him to do “political espionage” against Hillary, Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco because people close to those campaigns were targets for Butina. He says Butina’s prosecutors didn't provide exculpatory evidence on her behalf to the defense and he’s given documents to John Durham claiming it will lead to prosecutions of X, Y & Z.
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Trump claims that El Paso doctors left operating rooms to meet him, Hospital says “Nope.”
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As many as 20 different correction officers have been suspended in the wake of the Epstein death Grand Jury investigation.
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DHS Secretary Aide Andrew Mehan resigns in protest due to conflicts with WH over how much press coverage their move to “indefinite detention” received. [This sounds like Stephen Miller-itis again.]
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The DOJ emails Immigrations judges and includes a link to a White Supremacist Website, alledgely “by accident” which included anti-Semitic attacks.
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Texas Gov. Abbot sent out a racist “call to arms” just one day before the El Paso attack.
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Facebook bans the Epoch Times, which is a newspaper which was run by a fringy Chinese religious group Falun Gong which has hired Republican Consultants and gone full Qanon, and happens to be the putting out the greatest number of pro-Trump ads besides his camaign.
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Rick Wilson; Donald Trump is not a well man and the pressure of the WH has driven him “batshit crazy.”
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Rep. Ted Deutsche; “Something is wrong with Trump's mental health.”
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Psychologist Dr. Lance Dodge says Trump is in a psychotic-like state.
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Former Rep. Joe Walsh admits he was wrong about Obama and that Trump is much worse.
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Tony Schwartz: Trump is increasingly meglomaniacal.
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Haberman says Trump's tweet are getting crazier because there’s no one left in the WH to stop him. [Bye bye John Kelly and Gen. Mattis — the “Steady State” is over.]
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Former Trump Org employee Barbara Res says that Trump has shifted and become a “joke” and a “cartoon.”
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Russia experts predict there will be a full on onslaught of interference during the 2020 Elecion: “Buckle Up.”
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Spicey will still be working for a pro-Trump Pac while on DWTS.
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Congress plans to grill members of the Trump admin over links to White Terrorism. [It's about time!]
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Wapo’s Jennifer Rubin goes completely off on Trump andhis insane “Chosen One" nonsense. [He just might have driven a stake through the heart of GOP Jews and Evangelicals with this one.]
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The Government lowers the job growth estimate for 2018 by 500,000, Trump’s GDP down to an average of 2.6% while the CBO says the deficit will hit $1 Trillion in 2020 and the WSJ slams him for his chaotic trade policies and the failure of his tax plans — and GOPers are silent. [Tell me about that “roaring” economy again? It’s more like “Meow.”]
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Former Trump officials are becoming increasingly concerned about his growing erratic behavior. [Yeah, you and us both.
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A DOJ contactor sends an email To all of their immigration court employees which contains a link to the White Supremacist anti-Semitic website VDARE which was objected too by the judges union who argue that they should be part of the Judicial Branch while the Trump admin has attempted to decertify the union.
August 23rd —
August 24th —
August 25th —
August 26th —
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Trump has reportedly asked multiple times why we can’t use Nuclear Fracking Weapons to stop Hurricanes?. [Because that would make Nuclear Irradiated Hurricanes?]
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World Leaders tip-toe around and massage a volatile Trump during the G7 who claims that “Russia should be here.” [Do we have Crimea back? No? Frack him.] He says again that Putin “outsmarted Obama” by “taking a certain part of Ukraine from him” [That would be Crimea shithead.] and also that the next G7 should be held at his own Doral Golf Club — and literally does a live infomercial promoting it. [Even though Doral is losing money badly and has just settled a suit over a biting bedbug infestation.] He also skips the G7 meeting on the climate crisis and his Press Sec claims it's because he had a separate meeting with leaders who were actually in the climate meeting. Then he talks shit about windmills again and his Press Sec says that “Melania knows Kim Jong Un well.” Also, he whines that he’s “losing money being WH Resident” estimating he’s down $3-5 Billion but Forbes says he doesn't have $3-5 Billion to lose.
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House Judiciary subpoenas former WH aide [and double domestic violence attacker[ Rob Porter because he had been involved in some of the back and forth with Don McGahn and potential obstruction.
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Arpaio is running for Sheriff again now that his pardon is final.
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Rep Sean Duffy resigns due to health concerns with his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy’s new baby. [Ironic since the newborn will have a pre-existing condition that he repeatedly voted to kill, good thing he failed ain't it?]
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Sen Tom Cotton still wants to buy Greenland which is still, not for sale.
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Brian Kilmead likes the “nuking Hurricanes” idea but a Fox News meteorologist tells him “Science says we can’t!”
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Florida man sentenced to 15 months for threatening to “behead Bernie Sanders.”
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Tomi Lahren’s gun holster yoga pants are made in China.
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NYTimes reports that the DOJ is close to deciding on whether they will indict McCabe. Since it’s taken this long — over a year — to come to a decision, I don't think it’s gonna be an easy “Yes.” and somebody — Barr — is having a hard time swallowing “No.”]
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Just about every ethics expert has a cranial volcano erupt at the idea of Trump hosting the next G7 at his own freaking Golf Club.
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Melania has never met Kim John Un. [Apparently Trump talks about him a lot during pillow talk, so she’s heard a lot about him. Yes, that’s creepy.]
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Fooliani tweets in support of the Russia Generated Seth Rich Conspiracy theory then claims reporters who call him out for it lack “seductive reasoning.”
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New research indicates that Facebook’s new algorithm changes have suppressed journalism and meddled with democracy.
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Common Dreams: Trump has a deranged nutbag worldview. [Yeah, pretty much.]
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Orange is the New Black featured a real hotline for detainees in one episode — so ICE shut it down.
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Trump denies that he ever suggested trying to blow up Hurricanes with Nukes — a goofy idea that happens to be the climactic plot point from Sharknado and simply won’t work under basic physics. [I did a twitter thread discussing that you’d need a bomb greater than 1000 times Hiroshima to knock out an average tornado — and it’s much fracking worse with a Hurricane — then the Writer Director of Sharknado actually pitched in with a comment. See, that’s how you handle criticism on twitter Stephen.]
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Shep Smith: Putin didn’t outsmart Obama.
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Devin Nunes lawyer claims the parody twitter accounts making fun of him are “as dangerous as a gun.” [Yeah, well maybe we should have some laws controlling who can have guns then, oh wait we’re still talking about mean twitter accounts?]
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OK Judge determines that Johnson & Johnson must pay the state $592 Million in damages for their efforts to push prescription opiods onto doctors and patients while denying that they were addictive.
August 27th —
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DOJ considers moving forward on marijuana testing after losing a Lawsuit. Then they ask the SCOTUS to allow asylum to be denied to Central Americans who don't try to seek refuge in Mexico first.
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NYTimes columnist Bret Stephens suspends his own twitter account after he emails Dave Karpf a professor at George Washington U and his provost to complain about a snarky tweet that compared him to bedbugs which had 9 likes. [If he’s said nothing, no one would have even known about it — what a snowflake.] Then Stephens says on MSNBC that his email to the provost “wasn’t intended to hurt the tweeters employment.” [Yeah, that sentence makes no sense.]
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Fux and Fools love the dumbass idea of Trump hosting the G7 at Doral. [Because of course, they do, corruption is like catnip to them.]
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Reports are that accused child predator George Nader visited the Trump WH 13 times.
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George Conway: The Lies will grow more extreme. [Probably.]
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Eugene Robinson: Trump’s Obama envy is going from bad to worst. [No, it’s always been at 11!]
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19 States and DC sue Trump to prevent Trump’s Indefinite detention plan for migrants and their children. [Only 20 State AG’s have a problem with this shit?]
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Reports are that the Catholic Church paid black victims $235,000 less than White victims in their settlements. [What black child abuse and rape is not as painful and destructive?]
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Iran’s President says he won’t talk to Trump about nukes until the economic sanctions are lifted. [No US and Iranian President’s have spoken directly since 1979. So, that’s something — thanks Pres. Macron.]
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A Harvard Freshman from Pakistan has his Visa revoked and is deported because some of his friends on social media criticized US policy. [Gee, why can’t we react like that when somebody on social media threatens to bomb or shoot up a school? Oh yeah, “Free speech”].
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House Dems urge the Judge to rule on the McGahn subpoena lawsuit ASAP.
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Four months before Trump was talking shit about Baltimore being “rat-infested” his admin tried to cut funding for the Federal Rat control program.
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133 House Democrats now support Impeachment.
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University stands up for Prof who called NYTimes columnist Bret Stephens a “bedbug” on twitter after he tries to have the prof fired.
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Alabama GOP adopts a resolution calling for Rep. Omar to be expelled from Congress, and she claps back that they should stop nominating child molesters first.
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Trump yanks $155 Million from Fema Disaster Relief fund to put into paying for his ICE detentions centers— even though a Cat 1 Hurricane is bearing down on Puerto Rico and Florida, then he talks shit about Puerto Rico, again and demands that they show some gratitude.
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The FEC is crippled, thanks to #MoscowMitch.
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Bill Barr books a $30,000 staff party to be held at Trump’s DC Hotel, which is across the street for the DOJ offices. [Kick Back!]
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Russia blocks Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) from entering the country claiming that it is a “potentially perilous moment for our two nations’ fragile relationship.”
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Even though he has only a single unnamed source Lawrence O’Donnel reports that the Deutsche Bank copies of Trump’s tax returns may show that he has Russian oligarchs who cosigned his loans. Later that night he tweets an apology for reporting this without fully vetting it. #Russiancosigners starts trending anyway.
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David Cay Johnston argues that he probably has more even more exotic cosigners on his laws.
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Seth Abramson argues that former Justice Kennedy was the Deutsche bank loan officer on Trump’s loans and that somebody also paid off of Brett Kavanaugh debts just before he was selected as Kennedy’s replacement on the bend.
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Trump whines that Fox News gave an interview with a DNC spokesperson without beating them up and down. so he tells his cult “We have to find another News Outlet.” Then he offers up the largest portion of rainforest left in America to the logging companies. [While the Amazon remains on fire.] And it appears Top Trump Donors are being granted access to classified information. [Yeah, nothing about that could go horribly wrong.]
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WaPO reports that Russia used Maryland as a testing ground for their disinformation tactics to discourage African-American voters. “These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African American community was to boycott the election and focus on other issues instead,” the Computational Propaganda Research Project report stated.
August 28th —
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Trump agrees: Bret Stephens is a “bedbug.” [Wanna bet he doesn’t know shit about Bret Stephens and he’s just swinging at what he thinks is an easy target?] He also apparently wants to get his border wall built by Election day, and has been telling his staff if they have to skirt or break the law to get control of the land, he’ll give them a pardon. Also, his lawyers demand that MSNBC retract their claim that Trump’s loans with Deutsche Bank have Russian oligarch cosigners. [We’ll see.]
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Brit Hume claims Fox News isn't supported to “work for Trump” and Fox viewers Flip Out.
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Kellyanne responds to Taylor Swift's criticism at the VMA’s by singing her song on Fox. [Which is going to cost them a shitload of money for the royalties! Not. Smart.]
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Former Defense Sec. James Mattis writes a scathing op-ed ripping Trump for being a polemicist instead of a leader.
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San Juan’s Mayor says Trump needs to “Get out of the way.”
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Roy Moore jumps on the “Send Her Back” train for Omar.[Because of course, yeah.]
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USCIS abruptly changes the policy accepting migrants on emergency medical Visas and sends out notice that thousands of sick people, including children, have to leave the country in 33 days, even those with terminal Cystic Fibrosis and go back to countries where they don’t have any appropriate medical treatment. They also deporting some people who are at risk of being killed in Honduras — along with all of their US citizen children — and they have been killed.
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WH is starting to think twice about having the G7 at Doral next year just as a House Panel decides they’re going to look into the issue.
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PressSec Stephanie Grisham is caught in a bald-faced lie that the recommendation to pulls Brian Karem’s hard pass came as a recommendation from Secret Service. It turns out that Secret Service Agent doesn't exist.
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Fake Journalist and Alt-Right propagandist Andy Ngo finally gets completely busted for his deceptively edit and completely biased pro-racist videos.
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On top of everything else, Dave Karpf is a better writer than Bret Stephens.
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USCIS announces that as of Oct 29, children born to US servicemen and diplomats overseas will no longer be automatically considered to US Citizens.
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand drops out of the 2020 race.
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Several Fox News analyst tell Trump they don’t work for him.
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Trump orders that the children of US service members and diplomats born overseas will no longer be automatically granted US citizenship. and cancels funding of $250 Million in assistance to Ukraine in their struggle with Russia, a move that goes against the direction of Congress.
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Hurricane Dorian passes by the edge of Puerto Rico as a Cat 1 and does little damage.
August 29th —
August 30th —
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Trump cancels his trip to Poland as Hurricane Dorian approaches Florida. then his personal assistant Madaline Westerhout is fired for sharing personal details about his family with reporters during an off-the-record dinner.
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Biden has been telling a War Story about a Navy Captain in Afghanistan who tried to rescue a soldier trapped in a revine who refused the Silver Star, but it was really an Army Specialist who had been given the Medal of Honor by Obama who did the rivine rescue, however, Biden did give the Medal of Valor to an Army Staff Sargent who had tried to save soldiers in a rolled over Humvee who had refused to take it because they had died.
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Former Defense Sec James Mattis will be publishing a book to help stymie some of Trump’s worst policies.
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Neil Cavuto slams Trump for criticizing Fox for not being his pet News channel. “First of all, Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you,” he continued. “My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you, just report on you. Call balls and strikes. My job, Mr. President, our job is to keep score, not settle scores. Fox viewers react to this with confusion and anger, that Cavato says he’s not a Trump stooge.
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Marc Lotter Trump’s director of strategic communications slams Biden for his inaccurate War Story. [That’s funny coming from a man who works for a guy who thinks the sound of windmills causes cancer.]
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Eric Trump blasts Canada’s former PM for hoping Hurricane Dorian hits Mar-a-Lago. Which is kinda funny because in 2007 Trump testified to receiving $17 Million in Insurance money for damage to Mar-a-Lago after Hurricane Wilma, only there’s no evidence that this damage actually occurred and also he married Melania at Mar-a-Lago just two weeks after that Hurricane.
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Former FBI Agent Asha Rangappa defends James Comey’s decision to release his memos to the press.
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Republicans demand a show trial for Comey based on the IG report, even though the DOJ already declined to prosecute.
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Veteran China analyst says that Trump is “delusional” to claim that his tariffs have hurt China and have them “back on their heels.”
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AOC blasts Laura Ingraham as a “neo-Nazi favorite” because of her defends of White Supremacist Viewpoints.
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Michael Flynn’s new lawyers and prosecutors clashed loudly over whether he is ready for his sentencing. Prosecutors want to schedule it for next week because his cooperation has ended but Flynn’s lawyers want another 3 months for a status hearing.
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Stuart Varney tries to claim Trump doesn’t lie to the American people and gets burned to a crispy cinder.
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Russian TV speculates that Trump is skipping his trip to Poland because Putin won't be there.
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Trump suggests again he should stay in office longer because James Comey “stole two years” from him by leaking the memos that started the Mueller investigation. [Should Obama get 8 years back for you falsely claiming he was from Kenya?]
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Jeanine Pirro goes full-bore “Replacement Theory” claiming democrats want to replace white people and their vote with illegal immigrants. “Well, they hate Donald Trump. He’s the one they want to get rid of, because people like you and me who put him into office — their plan and their plot to remake America is to bring in the illegals, change the way the voting occurs in this country, give them licenses,”
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Stephen Moore who Trump had previously tried to have placed on the Fed, says that the economy is tanking because of his tariffs and that lowering interest rates by the Fed won't help much also Trump deregulation push is backfiring as it’s not working to generate the profits he expected.
August 31st —
September 1st —
September 2nd —
September 3rd —
September 4th —
September 5th —
Septemer 6th—
September 7th —
September 8th —
September 9th —
September 10th —
September 11th —
- Sen Gary Peters (D-MI) writes to the Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine asking him to look into the Air Force doing layovers at Turnberry, instead of Rammstein air base.
- Senate Dems demand that the Commerce Inspector General Peggy Gusfuston look into Ross threatening Weather Service Employees into supporting Trump’s lie about Alabama.
- Moody’s estimates that Trump’s trade war has cost 300,000 jobs.
- SCOTUS temporarily reverses the 9th Circuit hold on requiring asylum seekers to request asylum status in the countries they pass through before they can apply here, until the legal case is resolved.
- Trump demands 0% or less interest rates from the Federal Reserve. [This is what you would do in a recession, but we’re not in a recession yet, right?] and whines about a “suppression poll” that shows him losing to Demcrats, then he demands Internment camps for the Homeless. [Ok, welcome to Star Trek circa 2024 with their Sanctuary Districts.]
- Also it turns out the Trump told CoS Mulvaney to tell Ross to make the Weather service fall in line with his crap, and then, of course, he denies this.
- Democrats want to question Felix Sater a bit more about his involvement in Trump Tower Moscow and other issues.
- New York DA interviews Michael Cohen behind bars as part of their investigation of the Trump organization.
- Nobody knows who paid the Giuliani linked America First Pac $325,000.
- CBP detains and seperates a Bahamian child from their family fleeing the wake of Dorian.
- Mar-A-Lago intruder Yujing Zheng is convicted of trespassing and lying to the Secret Service.
- Several Media outlets sue to have the Deutsche Bank letter which potentially confirms that they have copies of Trump’s tax returns unredacted.
- Wall Street is panicked about Sen Warren’s candidacy, and she’s thrilled.
- CNN Polls: 71% of Americans don’t believe what Trump says.
- Trump decides to block flavored vapes to protect kids after 6 adults die from complications of vape products.
- Trump loving QAnon conspiracy nuts recommends drinking Turpentine to deal with intestinal parasites.
- Pentagon postpones their refueling deal with the Glasgow Prestwick Airport near Turnberry.
- Poll indicates that 59% of small business owners support Medicare For All.
- Secret files show how Republicans kept black people and students from voting.
September 12th —
September 13th —
September 14th —
September 15th —
September 16th —
September 17th —
September 18th —
September 19th —
September 20th —
September 21st —
September 22nd —
September 23rd —
September 24th —
- WaPo reports that Trump ordered a delay in aide to Ukraine one week before the call with Zelensky. [And Zelensky would have known that before the call.]
- House Dems mull a special committee to investigate Ukraine.
- Trump posts a video of Mitt Romney losing in 2012 after he criticizes his efforts from Ukraine.
- Doocy thinks the Ukraine scandal is "off the rails" in one respect: “If the President said I will give you the money but you have got to investigate Joe Biden, that is really off the rails wrong,” [Yeah, ya think?]
- Giuliania claims that the State Dept asked him to meet with Zelensky's aide.
- Trump defends delaying giving $400 Million to Ukraine, claiming that it was to get other European countries to give also. [But they've given $16 Billion, much more than we have.]
- Pence says the media is just assuming the worst about Trump's call to Ukraine.
- Dems to WH Counsel : Stop the stonewalling or face "Escalating Measures."
- Senate Dems push for an Impeachment Probe.
- Biden call for Trump's Impeachment if he doesn't comply with info request. and that they have "no choice" but to Impeach.
- Josh Marshall writes that Pence was apparently complicit and supportive of Trump attempt to bribe Ukraine in exchange for political election help.
- Trump gives a UN Speech which champions "nationalism" over "globalism", he also walks by Greta Thunberg who gives him the stink-eye while at the UN. Then he twitter trolls her Climate Change speech at the UN.
- Trump releases "ünredacted" Zelensky call summary and starts fundraising off "Impeachment"
- McConnell wasn't given an explanation of Trump delay in providing aide to Ukraine.
- Pelosi is expected to launch a formal impeachment inquiry today.
- Senate Intel pushes to interview the Whistle-blower, then it passes a unanimous consent resolution demanding Whistle-Blower complaint.
- Through their lawyer, the Whistle-Blower requests a chance to speak to the House Intel Committee.
- Pelosi announces a formal Impeachment Investigation of Trump. [And the number of Dems supporting an Impeachment Inquiry almost immediately shoots up to 200.] She had also slapped down a call from Trump to "work on this Whistle-blower thing."
- Trump tweets "Presidential Harassment" in response to Pelosi's announcement and whines "she had to ruin my perfect day.", Houses GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy also slams Pelosi's announcement.
- BIll Barr's DOJ threatens legal motions to stop New York state from Investigating Trump.
- Pamela Brown reports that if they're going to release the Zelensky call details, they should also release the Putin call details.
- Jake Tapper: Trump doctored a Hurricane Map, "who knows if the phone call transcript will be accurate?"
September 25th —
- Trump prepares redacted version of Whistle-blower complaint for Congress. [The law requires they receive an unredacted version in the Intel committees.]
- WH Aides worry that Trump will be too distracted to get anything else done this year.
- Schiff: This is Trump's most serious misconduct so far" and he's left Congress "no choice."
- Giuliani says that the Zelensky call memo was "read to him." the details of which are pretty "explosive." [How did he get that access exactly?]
- Trump meets with Zelensky, and gives a press conference where he denies any "pressure“, then blames Obama and Biden for everything. He also claims that Pelosi is "no longer Speaker." [Which is just plain nuts..]
- Bill Barr's DOJ declined to act on a criminal referral for Trump trying to get election help from Zelensky. Also his OLC argues that the DNI doesn't have to give the Whistle-blower complaint to Congress. [Even though that's the law.]
- Pelosi hasn't read the WH Zelensky memo, yet.
- Giuliani explodes at fellow Fox panelist when he brought up the involvement of the State Dept in the Ukraine scandal. "Shut up, Moron. Shut up!"
- Schiff request docs related to the stifling of the Whistle-blower complaint.
- WH emails their talking points on the Zelensky Memo to the Dems by mistake. [Whoops.]
- Trump — following the talking points — claims that his call was "perfectly nice."
- Napolitano states that "there is probable cause" on the Whistle-blower case.
- AG Barr denies any involvement in the call to get election info from Ukraine. [Even though the Zelensky call memo brings him up several times, and he had been asked by Kamala Harris if he had been "asked by the WH to investigate anyone."]
- The Zelensky Call memo — which is not a "word for word transcription" — also points out that when the question of military aide came up, Trump cut him off and said "we need you to do us a favor" then he asked for help proving that Ukraine hacked the DNC server, not Russia and also help proving that "Biden stopped a prosecution" in Ukraine [when that's not what happened. This would be two counts of campaign finance violations from a foreign nation.] Zelensky was also clearly buttering up Trump by bragging about staying in Trump Tower.
- Lindsay Graham says he has "no issues" with the Zelensky call and that Impeaching a President over a "phone call is insane." [Yeah, not like Impeaching one over a blow job.]
- Matt Gaetz reveals that the WH invited him and several others to look at the Zelensky call memo before it was released, then he clams up.
- Trump campaign announces — per the Talking Points — that this is entirely another baseless "partisan attack on Trump" even though back in April of 2018 Don McGahn warned Trump not to try an use law enforcement for his political gain.
- Nadler states that Barr must "recuse" since Trump dragged him into the Zelensky mess.
- Romney on Zelensky Call: "This remains troubling."
- Experts argue that the Zelensky Memo shows clearly Impeachable Acts.
- Judiciary Ranking Member Doug Collins admits to Fox that the GOP will try to smother the Impeachment inquiry.
- Trump grasps at Fox News dismissal of the Zelensky memo. [Yeah, that's not surprising at all.]
- Schiff calls the Zelensky memo a "classic mob shakedown" then blasts Barr for interfering with the Whistle-blower complaint.
- Pelosi: The Zelensky Memo confirms the need for an Impeachment Inquiry. [207 Dems support this now.]
- Acting DNI Maguire threatens to quit if the he can't speak freely before Congress tomorrow.
- WaPo writes that Giuliani's involvement in the Ukraine scandal makes Impeachment more likely.
- Other Republicans, besides Graham, are stunned by the Zelensky transcript. One Republican Senator says the 30 other Republicans would vote to remove Trump ïf the vote was Secret."
- Trump was reportedly "in disbelief" that releasing the Zelensky memo didn't stop the call for Impeachment. [Yeah, it wasn't nearly exculpatory pal.]
- Salon argues that Impeachment may die in the Senate, but it just might be worth it.
- Morning Joe argues that "Republicans Loathe Trump"and his support just might evaporate if a real Impeachment votes comes about.
- WH leaked to Fox News that the "Whistle-blower has a partisan bias."
- Since Pence and Barr are also implicated in the Ukraine scandal, a full impeachment of all of them could make Pelosi the President.
- The Whistle-Blower complaint is supposed to be delivered to Congress "this afternoon."
- DNI denies that he threatened to resign.
- Trump gives a Press Conference and after whining that he doesn't get credit for all the "great things" he's done, complains about the "Witch Hunt" how it's all a hoax, that it was "Dems who threatened Ukraine" and his call was "very nice." Then he throws Pence under the bus too "Look at his calls." Jeffrey Toobin says this was a "torrent of lies."
- Pelosi reportedly wants Impeachment Inquiry to focus on Ukraine only.
- Schiff says the Whistle-blower complaint exposes "serious wrongdoing."
- The number of Dems supporting Impeachment hits 218, enough to pass a resolution in the House.
- A Pentagon letter sent to Congress in May certified that Ukraine had dealt with corruption concerns debunk Trump's excuse that this was why the $250 Million was withheld.
- Rick Santorum tries to excuse the "favor" portion of the memo by claiming that it was Zelensky who brought up Giuliani, after which point Trump started talking about Biden. Particularly since talking about Biden was a "precursor" to the call according to a Zelensky advisor.
- Eric Swalwell says "Thank God"" the Whistle-blower came forward and argues that his complaint names other witnesses to Trump's problematic conduct.
- Rachel Maddow points out that in 2017 Ukraine refused to help with the Mueller investigation of Paul Manafort in exchange for Javelin Missiles. [So this isn’t a one-off phone call, it's part of a pattern.]
September 26th —
- Reports indicate that Trump started pumping Zelensky for Biden dirt within hours of his being elected.
- The Whistle-Blower agrees to meet with Congress.
- The effort to find information about Crowdstrike from Ukraine seems to have been part of an effort to justify a pardon for Paul Manafort.
- The redacted Whistle-Blower Statement is released which indicate that multiple US officials stated that Trump dismissed the Ukrainian ambassador and blocked the Ukrainian funding until he received an indication that Zelenky would "play ball", and that after the phone call the records were stored on a private NSC server which was normally reserved for code-word classified information because it was "politically sensitive."
- Acting DNI Maguire testifies before House Intelligence.
- Maquire argues that the OLC opinion that the information was protected by executive privilege prevented him from sharing the Whistle-Blower complaint to Congress. He doesn't really explain why he bothered to ask the OLC for their opinion when the law clearly states that he "shall" turn over such complaints within 7 days.
- He apparently didn't think the complaint was an election security issue.
- He refuses to say whether he discussed the complaint with Trump.
- Pelosi: This is a coverup.
- Trump repeats his "Witch Hunt" refrain and calls Dems "Pirates." Then he calls the Whistle-Blower a "Spy"and implies he should be executed.
- NYTimes reports that the Whistle-Blower was a CIA Officer who had been detailed to the WH.
- Giuliani claims he kept texts from the State Dept. to "protect himself" and he throws Pompeo under the bus.
- Former DNI James Clapper is "impressed" with the quality of the complaint.
- Senator Burr says the Senate Intel with "get to the bottom" of the Whistle-Blower allegations as they also have a closed-door hearing with Acting DNI Maguire.
- Fox News flails to come up with a coherent response.
- WaPo columnist Josh Rogan argues that Zelensky memo shows that Giuliani's narrative about the State Dept sending him to Ukraine is false. "Giuliani met with Yermak not because of the State Department, but because Giuliani and Yermak were “simply following up on Trump’s request…. Yermak was following up on Trump’s suggestion, not responding to actions of the State Department.” Rogin notes that a State Department spokesperson, in an August 22 statement, said, “At Presidential Advisor Andriy Yermak’s request, (Ambassador Paul) Volker put Yermak in direct contact with Mr. Giuliani.” [It seems that Yermak made the request of Volker to facilitate the talk with Giuliani after Trump made the request of Zelensky.]
- Paul Ryan is now embarrassed by Trump and is pushing Fox News to drop him.
- Lanny Davis says that Michael Cohen wants to testify to the House about the Whistle-Blower issue.
- Republicans think there's nothing wrong with the Zelensky call, but the behavior of those in the WH shows that they knew it was bad.
- Two Russian businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who helped Giuliani contact Ukraine put $300k in a pro-Trump superPac.
Semtember 27th —
September 28th —