BY PRIYANKA 'ARE WE SURE IT'S NOT FRIDAY YET' ARIBINDI,

& CROOKED MEDIA

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

—Hot tip from Donald Trump

NEW KIDS ON THE CELL BLOCK

Yesterday, the president’s former campaign chair and his former lawyer both became felons in the span of a few minutes with the latter implicating Trump in a federal crime. What A Day, indeed.

Trump himself has now responded to the events, but is not treating them equally. On one hand, there’s Paul Manafort—soon after his guilty verdict was handed down, Trump praised him as a brave man who “refused to break” and share information on him with prosecutors. On the other is Michael Cohen, whose guilty plea has directly implicated Trump in a violation of federal campaign finance law.

Trump and the White House are now attempting to run what can only be described as the most disastrous attempt at damage control since O.J. Simpson released “If I Did It: Confession of the Killer.” He told Fox News that the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, which he once claimed not to even know of, came from his personal account rather than campaign funds. This indicates that he has no fucking idea what is and is not a campaign finance law violation. Later, in the press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders managed to repeat the same three talking points in response to repeated questions about Trump’s lies and criminal liability: “The president has done nothing wrong,” “he faces no charges,” and “there is no collusion.” She is officially worse than Sean Spicer. Congrats, Sean.

Cohen’s role in all this is far from over.  Today, New York state investigators issued a subpoena to Cohen in the probe into the Trump Foundation after his attorney said he had information that would be of interest to them. Meanwhile, Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis is on television confirming that Cohen was present for a conversation between Don Jr. and President Trump about the Trump Tower meeting that Trump claimed to not know about. That’s a big deal! And that happened just now!

Beyond the legal implications (which are… huge), there is the political fallout.

Democrats pushed back on Republicans' decision to move forward with a confirmation hearing for Trump's SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, citing Trump’s alleged involvement in Cohen’s federal crimes. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) was the first to announce she had canceled her meeting with Kavanaugh in the wake of Cohen’s plea, saying she would not interview a judge for a lifetime appointment for a president who is an “unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter” with others quickly following suit.

However, some, like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), remain unchanged. Collins, who is viewed as a deciding vote on Kavanaugh, said today she sees “no basis” for delaying such hearings. And Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) agrees, saying the Senate “has a job to do” when it comes to Kavanaugh.

Senators' positions take on additional importance given the fact that Kavanaugh's commitment to holding a president responsible for his actions is not clear. In the past, he’s expressed hesitation to investigating or indicting a sitting president—circumstances that after yesterday, our current sitting president is only more likely to face.

Have thoughts on that? Let your senator hear them → (202) 224-3121

On Tuesday, the DNC contacted the FBI about an attempted hack into their voter database. On the same day, Microsoft reported that the same Russian military intelligence unit that targeted the 2016 elections was now targeting the Senate, as well as conservative think tanks pushing for tougher Russia policies, and comes less than three months ahead of the midterm elections. If only Republicans gave a shit about election security.

20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts went missing in Iowa in July, and after the right-wing inaccurately heard that she was murdered by an undocumented immigrant, they pounced on the story. The White House even tweeting that her family was now “permanently separated.” According to the accused killer’s lawyer, he is actually in Iowa legally.

Trump’s former lawyer-turned-felon Michael Cohen made a previously unreported $50,000 payment to an unidentified tech company in 2016, reportedly in connection with the Trump campaign. The company and the payment’s purpose are currently unknown, but the payment raises questions about what else Cohen was handling for Trump.

Hawaii is currently facing a major emergency with Category 4 storm Hurricane Lane—the strongest hurricane to ever threaten the islands. Hurricanes are a rare threat for the island, and the storm—newly downgraded from Category 5—comes soon after months of catastrophic eruptions and volcanic activity.

White supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-IA)’s race was just moved from solid Republican to likely Republican by Cook Political Report. Good news, but we think you can do better, Iowa. Vote him out → votesaveamerica.com

Verizon stifled the “unlimited” data services and internet speed for the Santa Clara County Fire Department while they were fighting California’s massive, deadly wildfires, resulting in a “significant impact on [its] ability to provide emergency services.” Evidence of this is now being submitted in a lawsuit seeking to reinstate federal net neutrality. Also, a fire department begging Verizon for bandwidth to fight a wildfire but getting stuck dealing with customer service is pretty dystopian, even for 2018.

On Crooked Conversations: In the last of his four-part series on the world under Obama, Crooked contributor/Head of the Deep State Ben Rhodes sits down with Tommy Vietor, former National Security Council spokesperson and Pod Save the World big-timer, to talk about what the media gets wrong about Benghazi and whether that is the moment that began America's march toward the Trump presidency.

Listen →

Two new polls out today have interesting implications for Democrats heading into the midterms.

The first shows Texas' Democratic candidate for Senate Beto O’Rourke trailing incumbent Senator/everyone’s least favorite human Ted Cruz by just four points, 45-49, meaning that it truly is possible Texas goes blue in November.

At the same time, new polling from New Jersey shows the Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez and his Republican challenger’s narrowing, 43-37. Menendez was previously indicted on 18 counts of corruption and Democrats are hammering an anti-corruption message nationwide.

Scott Lloyd, the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement under Donald Trump, has been on a personal mission to block teenage migrants (including a rape victim) from seeking abortions while in federal custody. However, he himself took a woman he got pregnant to get an abortion, because, like so many other Trump cronies, the rules simply don’t seem to apply when it comes to people like him.

Read →

On Tucker Carlson Tuesday night, Alan Dershowitz aptly summed up the GOP’s response to the revelation that two of the president’s top former aides are now felons: "Every candidate violates the election laws when they run for president...here they're trying to elevate this into an impeachable offense or a felony against the president."

Alan, the greater offense here is the fact that your stupid opinions are still allowed to exist in public discourse. You’re on Martha’s Vineyard. Go to the beach or something.

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Look, someone sane.

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