Former DNC Chairman, Howard Dean, pretty confident that Jared Kushner will soon also be indicted.

Howard Dean: ‘Jared Kushner will be indicted for money laundering’ and ‘the next step will be Trump family’#TrumpRussia pic.twitter.com/qGIc7SO61r

— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) November 5, 2017

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean said he thinks there's a good chance President Trump's son-in-law, White House adviser Jared Kushner, will be indicted. 

“I expect there’s a good likelihood Jared Kushner will be indicted for money laundering,” Dean said Sunday on MSNBC. 

“And then we’re going to have to see how far the Russian involvement goes. This is serious business. These people are undermining our democracy.” 

Dean said it appears special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether President Trump "engaged with a foreign power in order to get where he got." 

"That's a very serious matter for this country," Dean said. 

Dean also said he thinks Mueller is working his way up from the bottom. The former DNC chairman expects that eventually "either the Flynns are going to plead guilty or they're going to ... cooperate for some leniency." 

"And the next step is going to be the Trump family itself," he said.

Now you might consider simply dismissing Dean's statement as wishful thinking, after all he is not an investigative journalist or prosecutor, but then there is this recent revelation courtesy of The Daily Beast:  

The so-called Paradise Papers were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the same publication that obtained the “Panama Papers.” Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the new documents with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which led a global effort of 96 media organizations from 67 countries to pore through the records. The findings were published on Sunday. The documents show that many of the wealthy individuals Trump brought into his administration have worked to legally store their money in offshore havens where they would be free from taxation in the United States. Trump has promised repeatedly to “drain the swamp,” in condemning the idea that well-connected individuals in Washington, D.C., preserve their own interests at the expense of the rest of the country.

Top White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is also implicated. The documents reveal that Russian tech leader Yuri Milner invested $850,000 in a startup called Cadre that Kushner co-founded in 2014. 

Milner has long had a reputation in Silicon Valley as a big-league investor; his firm at one point owned major chunks of both Facebook and Twitter. But Milner was never considered particularly Kremlin-connected. These new documents call that reputation into question. The investing arm of Gazprom, the state-backed energy company, financed a share of Facebook worth up to $1 billion; a Kremlin-owned bank invested $191 million into a Milner firm, and some of that money was then injected into Twitter. 

Despite Milner’s investment in his startup, Kushner said in July that he told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door meeting that he never “relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.”

Well gee, apparently that's not true.

Also keep in mind that Kushner was in attendance at that Trump Tower meeting where Junior offered to change policies in exchange for dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

So would it be any surprise if Robert Mueller indicted Jared Kushner sometime soon?

Nope, but it would be a surprise if he didn't.

Howard Dean would like to be the new head of the DNC. I'm down with that.

Howard Dean, back when just one yell could end you candidacy.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said he is running for his old job atop the Democratic Party. 

"The dems need organization and focus on the young," Dean tweeted Thursday. "Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again."

Dean served as Democratic National Committee chairman from 2005 to 2009. Donna Brazile is currently serving as interim chairwoman after Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down shortly before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Bernie Sanders has endorsed Rep. Keith Ellison for the job, and while I have nothing against that choice I think Dean is a better way to go. 

For one thing he had the job once before and by all accounts did a very good job.

He is also pragmatic and thinks carefully before making a move.

And when it comes to the Millennials he has a plan for bringing them to the table.

Which I think he can do since in many ways he WAS Bernie Sanders before Bernie Sanders.

During his 2004 presidential run Howard Dean was also packing venues with young people who were excited by his message, so in many ways he understands what they are thinking, even this newer group twelve years later.

That plus his experience makes him the best fit.

In my humble opinion.

Donald Trump's debate performance edited down to its most profound moments.

I love it!

Kind of reminds me of this classic.

Notice Trump sniffing all the time. Coke user?

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) September 27, 2016

By the way Howard Dean is doubling down on his accusation that Trump was using cocaine: 

In an interview with MSNBC's Kate Snow Tuesday, Dean acknowledged it's unlikely that 70-year-old Trump has a cocaine habit, but he didn't rule it out. 

"It's something I think it'd be interesting to ask him and see if he ever had a problem with that," Dean said. 

He added he wouldn't delete the tweet.

Come on a real estate developer in New York during the late eighties and early nineties, how could he not have once had a problem with cocaine? 

Guess whose campaign manager may have taken secret payments from a pro-Russian group in Ukraine. Did I make that too easy? Update!

Courtesy of the BBC:

The New York Times article says Mr Manafort and his business played a key role in advising Ukraine's former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled after an uprising in November 2013. 

It said Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau had discovered the listed payments in the ledgers of Mr Yanukovych's then governing Party of the Regions - allegedly part of "an illegal off-the-books system". 

The bureau is also investigating business deals worth millions of dollars put together with the help of Mr Manafort's business.

However, the bureau is yet to determine if Mr Manafort actually received any of the $12.7m. 

The Times quoted Mr Manafort's lawyer, Richard Hibey, as saying his client had not done so. 

"It is difficult to respect any kind of allegation of the sort being made here to smear someone when there is no proof and we deny there ever could be such proof."

You know I'm no lawyer but it would seem to me that listed payments in a ledger, constitutes at least some kind of proof.

As you might imagine the Clinton team is demanding that the Trump campaign come clean with all of their ties to Russia.

Here is how Howard Dean responded to the news.

The Smoking gun. Ukranian files show Trump-Manafort-Yanukovich-Putin connection. Trump is a national security risk. https://t.co/XHicRbnLa4

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) August 15, 2016

I am not sure that this can be categorized as a "smoking gun" until there is proof that Manafort took those payments.

But I think we're all pretty sure that he did.

Gee I wonder what's next?

My money's on a Vladimir Putin/Donald Trump sex tape.

Though I am really, really hoping that's not it. 

Update: Sorry I was wrong about the sex tape, the next thing is that Trump's daughter Ivanka is vacationing with Putin's girlfriend.

Courtesy of Gawker:

This weekend, Ivanka Trump and Wendi Deng Murdoch went “sight seeing” in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Deng Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife, is reportedly dating Vladimir Putin.

Does WTF even cover this anymore?

Bernie Sanders honoring the fallen on Memorial Day in his own unique fashion.

Now when this picture started making the rounds yesterday it received quite a bit of mocking on the internet, but the Bernie supporters were quick with an explanation.

He was praying.

However as we know Sanders is not a very religious fellow, and he appears to be the only one whose head is bowed in prayer in this photo, so that sort of failed the smell test.

Well he is 74 years old after all.

In other news Howard Dean wants Sanders to stop giving his supporters false hope: 

HOWARD DEAN: I think this a problem, I wish he would stop doing this. We have a streak of him -- he never quits, he is a tough guy, obivously we admire that in a politician. But this attempt to undo the rules, this business in CA of trying to get a federal judge to extend the registration. 

First of all, they are changing the rules after the fact, second of all, they are not going to happen. So he is giving his supporters false hope that somehow this is going to change, this is all going to work out [for Bernie]. This is not what he needs to be doing at this particular time.

I can only imagine the profound disappointment that the Sanders supporters are going to experience when it finally dawns on them that Bernie is not Santa Claus and cannot magically give them everything that he promised during his campaign.

That is of course if he can stay awake long enough to disappoint them.

Howard Dean responds to Rick Santorum's attack on President Obama's competence, "I lose my patience with this nonsense."

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

“This really feeds into the president’s competence,” Santorum said of the ACA’s malfunctioning website. “Obamacare is certainly front and center, what’s going on in the Middle East is another area. There’s a whole group of issues now that people are questioning.” 

“That’s right-wing talking points against this president,” Dean replied. “From day one, they’ve tried to undermine him as a human being.” 

“I fail to see how this has anything to do with the president’s competence, other than the procurement process, which has been screwed up for many years, long before this president came into office,” Dean continued. “I lose my patience with this nonsense. I do believe that the fact are going to be determined by what happens on the ground. Three months from now, a lot more people are going to have health insurance, and a lot more people are going to be happy with all this.”

Dean, who has not always been the biggest fan of the Affordable Care Act, did an excellent job in pushing back against the GOP talking points. 

By the way personally I think that Rick "Frothy" Santorum is a preexisting condition and I  hope that Obamacare does something about him as well. Such as making him no longer a political viable candidate for ANYTHING.

After being completely off base about Syria, Sarah Palin decides to release a video which doubles down on her "Lie of the Year" from 2009.

Courtesy of Miss "Never Admit a Mistake's" Facebook page: 

Enough of this foreign fiasco distraction. Get back to work. It is time to bomb Obamacare.

Yeah enough of this stuff that I simply don't understand, let's go revisit another time that I was horribly wrong and try to gloss it over. 

For those of you who are confused by the quickly edited imagery and seizure inducing flashing lights, here is a good explanation as to why Palin was wrong in the first place, and why nothing has changed.

Personally I think it is funny that she is going back to this while labeling the biggest news story going right now as a "foreign fiasco distraction." Methinks somebody wants to get noticed, but NOT bitchslapped for being an idiot when it comes to Middle Eastern affairs.

Somehow I don't think this is any safer for her.

Sarah Palin does victory dance over death panel vindication on Fox Show.

Click blood libel red blouse to play video. (Warning takes you Right Wing site.)

First Eric Bolling suggested that Palin take a victory lap now that Howard Dean and a few other Democrats were talking about their concerns about the Independent Payment Advisory Board in the Affordable Care Act which Republicans have said vindicates Palin concerning her "death panels" charge back in 2009.

Her response was rather muddled:

"It was a pleasant surprise and I don't think we should condone them for finally trying to jump off the Obama train wreck that is coming down the pike here. I appreciate that they acknowledge it, and of course there are death panels in there. But the important thing to remember is that's just one aspect of this atrocious, unaffordable, cumbersome, burdensome, evil policy of Obama's, and that is Obamacare." (I think she meant to say "condemn instead of "condone."  But seriously who can tell WHAT she means?)

Bolling then asks the Wasilla Wendigo what the Dems motive might be for coming out on her side now?

"Well it's in black and white, in the law that there will be rationing of health care. They..they couldn't go forever and not acknowledging that or they would look like complete buffoons, And they would be..uh..deemed incompetent, having not read the law to understand that death panels are a part of this atrocity. So I think it was just a matter of time, and the twenty two Democrats who have now acknowledged part of the problem with Obamacare again, as I say, they should be thanked and not condo..uh..condemned. And..um..I think that..that as more and more of our Congressmen and women actually read the law, and as more of us bring to light more things in the 20,000 pages of rules and regulations accompanying Obamacare, more of them will try to jump off the train wreck that's coming."

Bolling then asks about the fake scandals.

"Yeah I'm still disgusted with the mainstream media having the opportunity to do some followup questions and really pinning down our President and asking him, because as you point out, this is the third week running now where he still pooh-poohs the Benghazi scandal, and the..um...'government snooping on us' scandals, and nobody's asking him which scandals are you characterizing as being phony? And I wish that the press would do a better job at really pinning him down, making him answer to the people whom he is serving. (Ahh another lesson on journalism from the "can't name what newspapers she reads" lunatic herself. I am sure the press really appreciate her helpful critiques.)What does he mean when he says that these things that we are SO  concerned about. He pooh-poohs them and acts like its no big darn dill." (They put up a Fox News poll here which unsurprisingly shows that Fox News viewers take all of the scandals VERY seriously. In other news most children think their parents are mean for not letting them stay up past their bedtime.)

Then Bolling shifts gears and asks Palin about security versus transparency as it pertains to the NSA/Snowden debacle.

"There is no balance at all in this struggle for security and liberty when we have an illustration going on today with our government having lied about it. Our government actually spying on innocent Americans and gathering data on us based on our communications. which really is a violation of our fourth amendment. There's no balance there at all. That is stomping, trampling, a boot on the neck of our liberty, that's not balance." (Of course when it was discovered that Bush secretly started this program, with NO judicial oversight, there was not one word spoken against it by Palin or her Right Wing hypocrites.)

Then Palin decides to directly defend Snowden.

"Well not only that but messenger then, he who told us what was going on in that department, that is resulting in our finally awareness of our government spying on us, and that's Edward Snowden. He's the BAD guy in all of this? You know they really want to 'shoot the messenger' instead of dealing with the problem, the problem is trampling on our liberty, trampling on our fourth amendment rights." (You know there is a great, and informative article from Dana Priest of the Washington Post, that really refutes quite a few of the assertions made by Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. Not that Palin will read or understand it.)

Finally Bolling asks Palin who she favors in the dust up between Chris Christie and Rand Paul?

"Team Rand Paul."

Well that is certainly good news for Chris Christie.

I cannot tell you how unhappy I am that Palin feels vindicated on that whole Death Panel thing, but I guess every dog has their day.

The rest of the interview was textbook Palin-speak, with plenty of stumbles and misused words to keep English majors bashing heir heads against their desk for hours.

Howard Dean on Fox News: "It is not a news organization. It is a very expensive, incredibly well funded right wing propaganda organization."

This, by the way, did not sit well with Greta Van "Sucks to be Palin's BFF."

It is sort of weird….but it seems that Howard Dean can’t get Fox News Channel out of his mind. Every time I see him quoted (or maybe not every time), he is taking a swipe at Fox. First, he needs to understand Fox is not why he lost Iowa in 2004. Even the “Dean scream” is not why ( the scream occurred AFTER he lost… and came in 3rd.) Second, his constant swipes makes him look like he is afraid of Fox – he makes his cracks but has turned down all our (ON THE RECORD AT 10pm) requests that he be a guest. Third, while he is highly critical of Fox he has not explained his recent remark that a government shutdown would be good for the Democrats (seemingly wanting a shutdown for political reasons at the expense of what is good for the country.)

I am actually curious what ideas he has for the country. We need ideas….he might want to focus on ideas instead of old grudges.

Yeah well Greta can spin and obfuscate all she wants, Dean is right, and on some level I think she KNOWS he is right, and hates herself for having to defend the Fox propaganda machine.

Of course that is undoubtedly just one of the reasons that Greta hates what her life has become.

Show this clip to any of your relatives who are afraid that the Obama health care plan is going to involve "death panels".

Just look at the rampant paranoia and fear mongering that issues forth from the Newt's mouth and then pay attention the cool calm rebuttal by Dr. Dean. A man, by the way, who has actually worked in health care and knows what the hell he is talking about.

(Hat tip to DZ.)