Notes for what is coming down the pipe

I haven't been paying much attention to issues of timing, regarding Trump's outbursts and hysterics. Which is a bad job by me, since I had drummed on that pretty hard in the Presidents class this spring.

Meaning - we know NOTHING of what Mueller is doing, what he has or what his team is able to demonstrate. But as we noticed in the spring, Trump's outbursts were sometimes precursors to big developments in news. Whether that was future indictments, search warrants, expansions of the investigation, etc., there could almost predictably be crazy or fantastic outbursts from Trump.

And things have been developing and unfolding so quickly since the Russian indictments and the Helsinki betrayal that I've been losing track of some of the outbursts.

So a couple things - earlier this week Rosenstein again visited the White House, and this was followed by Trump's moronic Cabinet meeting confessional. Last time he did that, he informed Trump of the Russian indictments.

Friday Trump jumped on the NFL and flag protests again. He's flogging this morning Mueller's team specifically. (Does he even know there are MORE than 13 people on Mueller's team? Like a lot more?)

Anyway, I just wanted to sort some of his outbursts this week in the context of shit going down: the disaster and fallout of the secret Helsinki meeting is really starting to trouble actual intelligence professionals and staffers. (AHEM: "Deep Throat" was an FBI agent.) The stupid-ass "double negative" explanation. Butina's arrest (outside of the Special Counsel's office). One of Manafort's trials starts soon (like 10 days), he's in custody awaiting it, and losing every supportive defense motion. Cohen has also shown signs that he's praying for a pardon OR flipping.

(I have to say, on Cohen, hard dude for me to read. Like he seems totally crooked, the type of dude that used to complain at the door of the bar about why we couldn't legally deny them admission, etc. because somebody told him they read a lawyer saying you couldn't be denied entry. And that makes me think he is utterly reliant on a pardon, which he expects to receive. He is publicly begging for one. OTOH, he makes references to patriotism and nation over party and personal loyalty, which is a great sentiment if it is genuine, which see above.)

Other gob-smacking things from the week, which ordinarily would have caused strokes, coronaries and resignations in ANY other administration:
Rudy Guliani may have voided attorney-client privilege on the Cohen recordings. Doofus.
Oh, on attorney-client privilege, let me here say this:
These ignoramuses think that it works in this way: as long as 1 lawyer is present, any conversation between any group of people is "protected" by privilege. And, uh, anybody with a brain knows that's not at all how that works. 
The payoffs are now becoming a larger issue because of Rudy's stupidity. I really want to believe the abortion rumor with the other bleach-blond porn star, but that one looks like legit it may be Broidy. [frowny face]

Everything is Fine!! Yayyyy Daddy!!  We're going to need bigger tumbrels.

Speculation is in order:

Cohen either has or is doing this week his "Queen for a Day" parley unless Trump pardons him. And then he flips. But a pardon wouldn't get him out of legal jeopardy in IL, NY and whatever other states he's been busy in. This seems like Keystone #1 - or -

Keystone #2: Manafort. He's lost most of his motions to exclude evidence. He's been moved to a jail closer (and perhaps less glamorous) to the trial. Maybe he begins to feel the immediacy more, and from everything that I understand, the USG has him dead to rights. Trump will probably still pardon him, but if Manafort goes to trial, that seems like an enormous risk to die in jail. Maybe he'll take it. Maybe Putin will poison him (which would really suck, because they've already attacked us electronically and digitally, and Trump would still do nothing). And I don't want Paul to go out that way. Too quick.

Trump moves to pardon Butina because Putin asks him to, and because the Maga Hari has the fucking goods on everyone. (That fucking story amuses me endlessly. I would almost pray that she be the one who flips and brings this whole damn thing down. I hope the IC is doing a god-damned number on her. If the torture-fetishists are going to demand it be done to non-white people in our name - and it's bullshit and I believe doesn't work - then Maga Hari can have it, too. But mostly because I just want to hear the story! I want the televised public Congressional hearings of her letting Wayne LaPierre do his little fetishes on her. Ohpleaseohplease.)

Any/all/worse than the above will elicit no more than tsk-tsk from Republicans. I think that's becoming the most (literally) incredible thing: the actions of an entire political party to subvert democracy, and their complete indifference to it as long as their (retrograde and unpopular) policies are enacted.
Unfuckingbelievable.

I recall being described as un-American by this fatuous little troll. Tick tock, motherfucker.

That is the look of a shaken, defeated and PWND dude. Trump is Putin's bitch.

"I'm getting the shit whaled out of me"

So said Tip O'Neil, May 1981, as Reagan and the Republican Revolutionaries crammed the first preposterous supply-side tax cuts through Congress.

In any event, some news of late that represent a nice change of pace from the ass-kicking the Good Guys have been taking lately. Interesting reading.

The more that unfolds, the deeper the conspiracy goes, the more clear becomes the treason, and the higher the likelihood of ongoing collaboration IN PLAIN SIGHT.

But in any event, this is not optimal. I would point out that in the Weimar Republic, it took one heavily propagandized attack on a government building to catapult the fascists to complete and unquestioned power.
Just sayin.

Just going to live blog this one

I am glad I left campus/office hours a tad bit early.

And that I cheated on dinner tonight - delicious Brockton-based Cape Cod Pizza which is pretty stellar.

It could be an eventful night. Things today have developed in the ongoing snuff-show Live-Action Treason – Michael Cohen got raided and Trump is losing it. He's so unbelievably incoherent. I can't believe that people actually accept that such a powerful person sounds like a complete fking dipshit. (Seriously - see transcript below.)

Ironically, while I was making cookies this weekend, I was watching All the Presidents' Men again. I don't know I will be able to sleep, and I sure won't be able to work tomorrow in my break. I'm on Twitter overdrive.

So: last seen, Trump was having a "War Cabinet" meeting (chickenshit: see Fussell, Paul) and had a WATB-Meltdown. (God, this guy is such a putz it hurts.)

• Going to prognosticate: a few big things will happen this week, maybe involving DOJ firings; it will escalate significantly. Republicans will do nothing. Trump will also do some major damage to Syria, which will also escalate profoundly shit with Russia, which (hypothesis) is actively blackmailing Trump through this crazy Back Channel that was actually set up. So Trump is pinned in. 
• And this – Dobbs is setting the agenda and counsel. This is exactly what happens, 72 hours. +/- 

Also, that idiot said these things, surrounded by an august group of men and women in uniform. Conservatives/gun-h**pers and Trump supporters your support of "the troops" is an insulting joke. Anyway, that idiot said amidst his war council:

The Beginning of the Next Phase...

I believe we've seen the end of the Beginning. Time that back to the indictment of the 13 Russians, or the Gates plea deal – something from late February. It seemed like it at the time, and the dribbles of information suggest that as well. More subpoenas to more orgs (including Trump's, which duh...)

I don't know what stage this will be that comes next, but it's unfolding. Still circulating that Mueller seeks an interview, and the OSC is negotiating that with the White House Staff. Trump has lost his shit this weekend. And the big shoe to drop next is that Trump moves to fire Mueller.

A lot of the "history will show ... " shit is coming out, so as a historian, let me set out a few of the questions that I will be interested in learning the answers to, and how I will be teaching them, FSM willing, that is still an option.

Both taken c. 3:50p

• RYAN and MCCONNELL: These guys will have to be two of the more odious shits (Odious Taints - h/t Rep. Schiff!) when all this unfolds. They sat and did nothing. How this came about is going to be really interesting. 

To wit: McConnell seemed awfully comfortable standing firm against Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. He has seemed awfully smug. (And heavens I cannot wait for him to receive his. He's like #4 on the list.) When did he know about The Conspiracy?

Ditto Ryan: I expect for him it was more of a fait accompli. Someone said: "the Russians are going to help us win, the NRA is the conduit for laundering the cash, we'll build up a large enough majority in the victory to seal off investigations, and nobody will ever find out. Unless you open your big mouth, betray your party, your beliefs and ideological fantasies of sharing a warm post-coital moment with Ayn Rand. Now, Paulie, you wouldn't do that, would you, when you are [squeezes fingers down to a Strontium atom size] this close to getting everything you ever politically dreamed of, WOULD YOU?"

And Paul Ryan, that feckless tool, caved. 

• CHEETO Mussolini: Support for him now is confined to only these potential justifications; I refuse to accept anything else: 

1.  Authoritarianism
2. Racism
3. Misogyny
4. Avarice and cupidity
5. Stupidity

But there was something else I intended to speculate on, but now it escapes me. I know it dealt with Mueller, etc. but between the shower and here it slipped my mind.

Finally, not quite a Victory Lap, because I'm about to go on it and do some stupid shit, but ~~~VICTORY LAP~~~ \\ ~~~ `o– ~~~

The reason I quit posting on there with any frequency (aside from the several obvious ones) was because it harvesting user information to sell. That is ALL it ever did. It's kind of offensive that people are now Shocked – SHOCKED I tell you!! that Zuckerberg was in with Cambridge Anal*. Yeah, no shit, and anybody else willing to pay them.

 

He's on the list too, but way way down. Like #10. I need to post that soon. 


Now Go Get 'Em...

More for the record for the Prosecution...

Random things to write down on St. Patrick's Day, 2018.
My wife's nephews are arriving today for a few days, and that should be ... interesting.

Anyway.
Likelihood the "Back Channel" communications are operable:
40% - Like those idiots just stopped trying to set one up because they were told it's "Illegal." Like they care about illegal activity. 

Likelihood the Cheeto Mussolini is being actively blackmailed as we speak:
15%. It's hard because so many of his decisions are moronic and stupid, but that may just be who he is. But - if he is NOT being blackmailed, what specifically would be different? 

Likelihood the McCabe firing becomes an enormous deal:
Has nobody ever heard of Mark Felt?!?! The process of trial discovery is going to be tremendous. This is like 90%. 

 Likelihood some of these are for Cheeto Mussolini and his minions:
Too superstitious to speculate! 
  
There is also this: 

Also: Fuck you Zuckerberg and Facebook.
As a UM Man would say:  keep cashin' dem checks!!!
History – provided we survive – is going to be merciless with these people. 

 Now go get 'em....

I suspect they didn't see that coming...

A couple of things, again just for the record.

Maybe I should upload them here - the various Indictments - so that I can use them in future Presidents' classes.

So that is an idea.

Hicks is resigning - that was announced today. I told my Presidents students today that I think the end of the beginning stage is coming. I've taken Garrett Graff's idea from Wired that there are five major elements of the investigation underway by American Hero Bobby Three Sticks, the Blog's new, official and permanent Object of Veneration.

 

The five things: 

• the Pre-existing business deals and money laundering; 
• the Russian bots and trolls; 
• the Hacking and the Bears; 
• Russian-campaign contacts; 
• obstruction of justice. 

The last I think even *I* could demonstrate. Anyway. I meant to actually write/post an actual thing here, but that was like an hour ago, and I got distracted.

Oh yeah, one thing: HAHAHAHAHA. God That Man is so motherfucking stupid, but it's so enjoyable to watch him pwn his own supporters, who were too stupid to see this coming. Forty-Five COMING FOR YOUR GUNZZZ!!! PEW PEW PEW!! Hahahahahaha.