4968

No, the 90s versions of blogs were .plan files.

4969

Oh God, don’t remind me.

4970

finger Woolen_Horde

4971

Hate them too. It’s like a bulleted list outline of an actual essay in college.

Or in gaming terms, proof of concept builds.

4972


4973

finally, some clarity

4974

The friction escalated in recent days after Mr. Cobb was overheard by a reporter for The New York Times discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular Washington steakhouse. Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed “a McGahn spy” and saying Mr. McGahn had “a couple documents locked in a safe” that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. He also mentioned a colleague whom he blamed for “some of these earlier leaks,” and who he said “tried to push Jared out,” meaning Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been a previous source of dispute for the legal team.
[…]
Tension between the two comes as life in the White House is shadowed by the investigation. Not only do Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner and Mr. McGahn all have lawyers, but so do other senior officials. The uncertainty has grown to the point that White House officials privately express fear that colleagues may be wearing a wire to surreptitiously record conversations for Mr. Mueller.

4975

So Marc “I will fight you IRL” Kasowitz is off the case but the drama continues.

4976

“Says who?”

4977

https://twitter.com/MattZeitlin/status/909585580694097920

4978

Donald Trump is publicly considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible illegal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, and the efforts to conceal those activities.

This would be a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.

Our response in the minutes and hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next, and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.

That’s why we’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed.

Use the map or search below by ZIP code to find an event near you, or create one if none exists.

Rallies will begin hours after news breaks of a Mueller firing:

  • If Mueller is fired BEFORE 2 P.M. local time —> events will begin @ 5 P.M. local time
  • If Mueller is fired AFTER 2 P.M. local time —> events will begin @ noon local time the following day
  • This is the general plan—please confirm details on your event page, as individual hosts may tailor their events to their local plan.
  • This is our moment to stand up to protect our democracy. Let’s mobilize to show that we won’t let Donald Trump become the authoritarian that he aspires to be. The law applies to all of us, and it’s essential that it also applies to the most powerful people in our country.

Use the search tool to find an event near you, or create one if none exists.

4979

That’s amazing.

4980

Are they being proactive or is there some new news I haven’t seen yet?

4981

No news yet, just more and more signs and indications that a firing is growing more likely. A lot of folks seem to think Mueller recently obtaining a search warrant for Facebook accounts has really gotten under Trump’s skin. This is moving fast.

From a couple of days ago:

Legal experts say the revelation has enormous implications for the trajectory of the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference and into whether Moscow had any help from President Donald Trump’s campaign team.

“This is big news — and potentially bad news for the Russian election interference ‘deniers,’” said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI counterintelligence agent.

Rangappa, now an associate dean at Yale Law School, explained that to obtain a search warrant a prosecutor needs to prove to a judge that there is reason to believe a crime has been committed. The prosecutor then has to show that the information sought will provide evidence of that crime.

Mueller would not have sought a warrant targeting Facebook as a company, Rangappa said. Rather, he would have been interested in learning more about specific accounts.

“The key here, though, is that Mueller clearly already has enough information on these accounts — and their link to a potential crime to justify forcing [Facebook] to give up the info,” she said. “That means that he has uncovered a great deal of evidence through other avenues of Russian election interference.”

It also means Mueller is no longer looking at Russia’s election interference from a strict counterintelligence standpoint — he now thinks he may be able to obtain enough evidence to charge specific foreign entities with a crime.

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor who’s now a partner at Thompson Coburn LLP, said that the revelation that Mueller obtained a search warrant for Facebook content “may be the biggest news in the case since the Manafort raid.”

4982

This book by Peter Pomerantsev doesn’t explain hacking or “political technologists” meddling in the 2016 election. But the author, a British son of Russian émigrés who returned to Russia in the early 2000s to work in Russian television as a producer for ten years, has some very first hand understanding of the kind cultural technologist propaganda the Krelmin employs and how this apathy toward reality permeates an entire society. It ends on (to me) an unexpected but enlightening twist which connects this stuff in Russia to what is happening now. Well written with that Oxford British command of language and clarity of ideas mixed with narrative creativity.

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal-ebook/dp/B00L4FSVZ6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1505754105&sr=1-1&keywords=nothing+is+true+and+everything+is+possible

4983

Just want to highlight this patio is on the I Street sidewalk - not some tucked away, private area

4984

I wanted to believe that NYT story involved directional microphones and high-tech spy tradecraft. But apparently it really was just two loud guys sitting in a restaurant. Once again, real life in 2017 turns out to be like a TV show where the budget has been slashed to almost nothing.

4985

What is Robert Mueller up to?

Although the scope of the special counsel’s investigation is vast, public reporting of his activities indicate the direction his investigation is taking and gives us a good sense of the types of charges that could result. But most of the breathless speculation about what he will ultimately do is likely wrong—the result of a misunderstanding of how the law works, a misreading of the public evidence we’ve seen so far or wishful thinking by those who would either like to see the president driven from office or see everyone on his team exonerated.

4986
4987

Washington (CNN)US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe.

The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump.

Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive.
[…]
It is unclear when the new warrant started. The FBI interest deepened last fall because of intercepted communications between Manafort and suspected Russian operatives, and among the Russians themselves, that reignited their interest in Manafort, the sources told CNN. As part of the FISA warrant, CNN has learned that earlier this year, the FBI conducted a search of a storage facility belonging to Manafort. It’s not known what they found.

The conversations between Manafort and Trump continued after the President took office, long after the FBI investigation into Manafort was publicly known, the sources told CNN. They went on until lawyers for the President and Manafort insisted that they stop, according to the sources.

It’s unclear whether Trump himself was picked up on the surveillance.