I suppose I ought to say something profound. Perhaps I should claim this- “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Yeah, yeah, P.T. Barnum, fellow Nutmegger. The attribution is merely apocryphal and the copyright has expired anyway.

Steve Bannon charged with defrauding donors in private effort to raise money for Trump’s border wall
By Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post
August 20, 2020

Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed criminal charges Thursday against Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, and three other men they alleged defrauded donors to a massive crowdfunding campaign that claimed to be raising money for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a news release, prosecutors said Bannon and another organizer, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, lied when they claimed they would not take any compensation as part of the campaign, called “We Build the Wall.” Bannon, prosecutors alleged, received more than $1 million through a nonprofit entity he controlled, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage while keeping a “substantial portion” for himself.

The campaign, publicly supported by several of the president’s allies, raised more than $25 million through hundreds of thousands of donors, the news release states.

Prosecutors alleged that Bannon and Kolfage along with two others — Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea — routed payments from the crowdfunding campaign through the nonprofit and another shell company, disguising them with fake invoices to help keep their personal pay secret.

All four were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. They were expected to make court appearances later in the day.

Bannon, a law enforcement official said, was taken into custody off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., while aboard a 150-foot yacht owned by a friend, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui — who is wanted by authorities in Beijing on charges of fraud, blackmail and bribery. This official, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.

Another law enforcement official said that Attorney General William P. Barr was briefed about the matter in advance.
…
Asked about the matter Thursday, Trump said he felt “very badly” but asserted of Bannon, “I haven’t been dealing with him for a very long period of time.” Trump said he felt the private fundraising effort was “something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing.”

“I don’t like that project,” the president said. “I thought it was being done for showboating reasons.”

Oh, did I mention it’s a piece of junk?

A Privately Funded Border Wall Was Already at Risk of Collapsing if Not Fixed. Hurricane Hanna Made It Worse.
by Jeremy Schwartz and Perla Trevizo, ProPublica
July 29, 2020

Intense rain over the weekend from Hurricane Hanna left gaping holes and waist-deep cracks on the banks of the Rio Grande that threaten the long-term stability of a privately funded border fence that is already the focus of lawsuits over its proximity to the river in South Texas.

The damage comes at the start of what is projected to be an active hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30.

Engineering experts who reviewed photos of the jagged cracks caused by the weekend’s storms said the damage reinforces what many have long said: Building and maintaining a border fence so close to the river poses serious challenges.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune previously reported that just months after completion, the private fence built by Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based company, was showing signs of erosion that threatened its stability and could cause it to topple into the river if not fixed.

“It’s going to be a never-ending battle. You are always going to be fighting erosion when you are that close to the river,” said Adriana E. Martinez, a professor and geomorphologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who has studied the impact of the border barriers in South Texas.

The 3-mile stretch of bollards along the river south of Mission, Texas, was a showcase project by Fisher Industries’ CEO Tommy Fisher, who put up more than $40 million of his own money to prove to the Trump administration that the private industry could do what the government hadn’t been able to: build the border wall right along the river.

Fisher, who subsequently secured $1.7 billion in federal contracts to build segments of the border fence, says that kind of erosion is to be expected given the amount of rainfall and the fact that the grass it added has not grown in that area by the fence.
…
But even before Hanna, photos revealed large gashes at various points along the structure where rainwater runoff had scoured the sandy loam beneath the foundation, which experts told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune shouldn’t be happening.

Those spots only worsened after Hanna pounded Mission with about 15 inches of rain. Photos taken after the hurricane show a series of gullies and rills along a section of the fence that extend like deep veins toward the river. In some areas, there are holes more than 10 feet wide that expose the footing.

“The damage to the soil underneath the fence after Hanna is far worse than what we saw from the photos from the big rain events from a month or so ago,” said Alex Mayer, a civil engineering professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has done research in the Rio Grande basin.

With two or three more storms like Hanna, he added, the holes could expand to the point where the soil underneath, without support, would collapse.

Flooding and erosion concerns are some of the main reasons why the government has not built a border fence directly on the banks of the river.

And Butterflies. Yes, really. Back to WaPo.

“I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesn’t even work.”

“President Trump has always felt the Wall must be a government project and that it is far too big and complex to be handled privately,” McEnany said in a statement. During the last presidential campaign, Trump vowed that Mexico — not U.S. taxpayers — would fund the border wall.

Those involved in the project had close ties to the administration, and campaign memorabilia was often pictured on the privately built section of the border wall.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. was a guest at a symposium hosted by the We Build the Wall group in New Mexico in 2019, praising the organization as “private enterprise at its finest.”

“Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else,” he added.

One of the group’s advisers, Kris Kobach, is the former Kansas secretary of state known for his hard-line views of immigration and close ties to the Trump administration. Earlier this month, Kobach was defeated in a Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Kansas.
…
“I talked with the president, and the We Build the Wall effort came up,” Kobach said. “The president said, ‘The project has my blessing, and you can tell the media that.’ ”

Other board members included Erik Prince, a conservative activist and defense contractor close to Bannon, as well as former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.).

In a statement, an attorney for Prince said he joined the group’s advisory board because he was a believer in its mission to build a wall on the southern border. “He had nothing to do with the conduct alleged in today’s indictment, was never contacted in connection with any investigation, and doesn’t know anything about it,” attorney Matthew L. Schwartz said.

Oh, you were expecting originality? Trump Foundation, Trump University (at least with the Vodka and Steaks you got Vodka and Steaks even if they weren’t very good). This is the Right Wing Noise Machine Scam.

At least Lefties are genuinely deluded and not grifting con artists. Well, not some of them.

“I did hope he would show some interest in taking the job seriously.”

Really? You misguided martyr.

The problem with PBS is they don’t put up their Live Feed Link until very late in the day.

Lady’s Night?

Who’s hip?

Good Times?

C’mon Joe.

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

Collusion? What is that?

Criminal Conspiracy by a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization? That’s against the Law.

“This is what collusion looks like”: GOP-led Senate report “far more devastating” than Mueller probe
by Igor Derysh, Salon
August 18, 2020

“The Senate report — even more extensive than the Mueller investigation — paints a far more devastating picture of Russian intelligence operatives’ access to the Trump campaign, describing far more insidious connections than even Mueller did in his report,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney wrote.

The report, like Mueller’s, did not conclude that Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia, but it found that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked with a “Russian intelligence officer” and handed him internal campaign data. The report also suggested that Manafort might also be linked to Russia’s hack of the Clinton campaign.

“The committee obtained some information suggesting that the Russian intelligence officer, with whom Manafort had a longstanding relationship, may have been connected to the G.R.U.’s hack-and-leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” the committee’s Democrats wrote. “This is what collusion looks like.”

The report found that Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of Manafort, was a “Russian intelligence officer” who might be connected to Russia’s “hack and leak operation.” (Manafort provided internal Trump campaign polling data to Kilimnik.)

Loads of other incriminating stuff, Republican Marco Rubio of Florida’s lame defense-

“We can say, without any hesitation, that the committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election,” he said in a statement.

“What the committee did find however is very troubling,” he added. “We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling.”

But Rubio’s statement brushed over actions by Trump’s advisers, as well as the president’s own statements to investigators.

One part of the report notes that Trump told Mueller in written responses that he did “not recall” discussing WikiLeaks with longtime adviser Roger Stone, who was later convicted in the former special counsel’s probe before being granted clemency by the president.

“Despite Trump’s recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions,” the report said.

The report also noted that WikiLeaks “likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort” by publishing stolen Democratic emails.

Stone “obtained information indicating” that Clinton campaign chief John Podesta would “be a target of an upcoming release, prior to WikiLeaks releasing Podesta’s emails . . . Stone then communicated his information to Trump,” the report said.

Stone directed an associate to tell WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to “drop the Podesta emails immediately” the day the Trump campaign learned about the looming Access Hollywood tape.

So, guilty as charged your Honor. No wonder he dropped the appeal.

The report also noted that the Senate investigation was met with “unprecedented potential executive privilege claims” from the White House.

“The committee was surprised by these assertions, because they were made inconsistently and because they have no basis in law,” the report said.

“The Trump campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort,” the report added.

The report further concluded that Donald Trump Jr. might have obstructed the investigation, but the panel declined to pursue the issue due to “time and resource considerations.”

Hmm…

A new bipartisan report raises the question: If this isn’t ‘collusion,’ what is?
by Paul Waldman, Washington Post
August 18, 2020

On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee — which, we must stress, is controlled by Republicans — released its fifth and final report on Russian interference, which they describe as “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.” Combined with what we already knew, what the report describes is, indeed, collusion between Trump, his campaign and the Kremlin.

Let’s begin with what the committee found:

• Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was a primary point of contact between the campaign and Russia. During his time working for a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine, he “formed a close and lasting relationship that would endure to the 2016 U.S. elections and beyond” with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who is usually described as someone with “connections to Russian intelligence.” But the committee’s report goes further: “Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer.”
• While in charge of the campaign, Manafort shared confidential polling and strategy information with Kilimnik. The committee found that Manafort’s “proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign,” and that this helped contribute to “a grave counterintelligence threat.”
• While in charge of the campaign, Manafort shared confidential polling and strategy information with Kilimnik. The committee found that Manafort’s “proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign,” and that this helped contribute to “a grave counterintelligence threat.”
• The committee obtained “information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation.” The GRU is Russian military intelligence; the “hack and leak operation” refers to the Russian hacking into Democratic systems and passing of documents to WikiLeaks so they could be released to damage Hillary Clinton.
• The committee found: “While the GRU and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects.” This included seeking “advance notice about WikiLeaks releases,” building “messaging strategies” around them, promoting and sharing materials from them, and encouraging “further leaks.”
• Trump and senior campaign officials “sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks’s planned releases through Roger Stone. At their direction, Stone took action to gain inside knowledge for the Campaign and shared his purported knowledge directly with Trump and senior Campaign officials on multiple occasions.”
• The Trump campaign “publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort.”
• Trump has denied he ever spoke to Stone about WikiLeaks. But the committee — which, again, is controlled by Republicans — essentially calls Trump a liar: “Despite Trump’s recollection, the Committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.”
• The infamous Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner was “part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part with elements of the Russian government.”

Well, there you go.

Republicans will reject this verdict. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the acting chair of the committee, insisted that “the Committee found absolutely no evidence” that Trump or his campaign “colluded with the Russian government.”

But he was using a torturously narrow definition of “collusion” to exonerate Trump.

That definition says that only a carefully planned, coordinated and executed criminal conspiracy counts as “collusion,” and anything short of that does not. But as we now know — through copious evidence collected by the special counsel’s team, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and journalists — the Trump campaign eagerly accepted the help provided by Moscow.

Look! “Collusion”, whatever it is, is not a Crime! Try Criminal Conspiracy (to commit Treason by the way) by a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization, the Republican Party- Root and Branch!

I hope my outrage is clear.

The incompetance defense-

The campaign’s efforts were slapdash and chaotic. But to whatever degree this didn’t rise to an even more serious level, it doesn’t appear to have been for lack of trying.

Yet to this day, the position of Trump, his attorney general, the conservative media and most of the GOP is that the entire Russia investigation was a hoax, a scam, a ruse. When the FBI learned that the Kremlin was trying to sabotage our election, they want us to believe, the bureau should not have bothered to investigate.

And they continue to do everything they can to discredit that investigation, not just in its particulars — where there may have been corner-cutting or worse — but in its basic premise, that when a hostile foreign power tries to manipulate our election to help its favored candidate, that’s something we might want to look into.

This latest report proves something important about this president: The further you dig, the worse it gets. There’s a lot else going on right now, but this was one of the worst attacks on American democracy one could imagine, and the president appears to have helped it happen. We can’t ever forget it.

Nor forgive it.

Truth and Reconciliation is not enough. It just encourages them. Heads on Pikes!

In a figurative sense and I actually know what figurative means.

There is no ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ really. As a matter of fact it’s all dark.

Eh, not rabid like Faux or Cheerleaders like MSNBC (not particularly liberal by the way), nor deliberately dull like CSPAN or a personality platform like CNN (MSNBC hosts already have a personality), it put me into a deep, deep slumber which is alarming to my associates who wonder if I am dead or not.