got my Walrus on...

 we had our lecture and i think it all went quite well.  we were a bit disorganized in the speaker area but we all pulled it together and i think the chill lectures were appreciated overall. folks seemed comfortable asking questions.  hoping we planted a seed in a few to make the trek out there.  at least to remember we have the refuge and speak out for it from time to time.  JM actually took this shot of our cookie..thanks Speedy...and JM for the photo.  i have one that looks almost the same, but i was just too lazy to get it on the computer. 

 part of our goals is just to educate folks that this place exists and needs our attention. 

 late one night in the RCU my co-workers began expressing how much they hate all these non-profit groups that claim they "raise awareness".  they felt this was ridiculous.  so i chimed in....wanted to let them know that i run a small non-profit before they went off on non-profits.  this of course brought on several questions.  a discussion about Walrus and the Walrus Islands Sanctuary and what it was ensued.  after some time and an informative conversation i mentioned that it did appear that i had raised their awareness on the subject of walrus in Alaska and the Sanctuary.  we all got a good laugh. indeed i had.

 these are shots from the fall.  walked today, with LS out at Campbell Airstrip.  break up is not the greatest time for photography overall.  i know i could make some road trips.  i could test out some other trails. but in the end.  often i end up back to the ones i know won't cause me to post hole. 

 these are Lake Hood. Tusker has been a bed hog mood of late. that dog is long and he can really stretch out.  i wake up contorted in a corner.  we all tend to be fairly accommodating when we sleep. 

 yes, i have been reading more of the Mueller report.  many connections between Rus and folks in the iitoo's team. seems many attempts made to connect the iitoo and put.  they did get their 1:1 after he was elected in Helsinki obviously.  it is funny that he is so angry over all of this and seems to fear it all leads to him being an illegitimate POTUS...all the deceit around it is what makes him appear illegitimate though.  if they had been more transparent from the get go, folks wouldn't be doing all the digging.  when you act so so guilty...well, you dig your own hole.

 he's going ape at this time it seems.  more twitter madness than usual, if that is possible.  the Dems seem to be going the Nixon route.  attempt to get these folks before congress and let the public see the truth...especially since so many refuse to read what Mueller wrote.  the right seems to be counting on blind obedience to their messaging to keep his base on the path of the straight and narrow.  hold on to the iron rod....the more you read the more you see that all those things that the mainstream media was uncovering were more true than not and all the stuff the right media was hiding behind with one conspiracy theory after another were lies. 

 Mueller couldn't gather enough to seal the deal, but that in no way means that the iitoo and his crew were squeaky clean. 2 Corinthians 11:14  'and no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light'.  i think of think of these passages as those raving lunatics who are the radical evangelicals spout their crap about the iitoo being sent by God.  the great deceiver....

 Revelation 19:20 'and the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped it's image'.  gotta love Revelations. 

 many followers of religious leaders do not feel the need to read the books fully that they claim to believe...they leave that to others.  that had proven to be foolish for many.  suspect that is the case with many of those who have radicalized in any religion. they allow others to do the interpretation for them.  easy to be led astray when you allow others to do your thinking for you. 

 Trump Tower Moscow was being worked on in the years before he won the primary and then for some time after this.  it seems to have been more nefarious than this though there is no direct links as i said.  in Nov 2015 an exchange between Sater and Cohen is a bit chilling..."Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. i will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, i will manage this process...Micheal, Putin gets on stage with Donald for a ribbon cutting for Trump Moscow, and Donald owns the republican nomination.  And possibly beats Hillary and our boy is in...We will manage this process better than anyone. You and I will get Donald and Vladimir on stage together very shortly.  that  the game changer".

 this is not fake news, this is researched information with data to back it.  of course, many will refuse to buy in, preferring the right wing media version...spin that is.  they have been proven to be the spin masters through this report thus far. 

 more of Sater to Cohen during that exchange, "i think i can get Putin to say that at the Trump Moscow Press conference.  if he says it we own this election.  Americas most difficult adversary agreeing that Donald is a good guy to negotiate....We can own this election.  Micheal  my next steps are very sensitive with Putins very very close people, we can pull this off.  Michael lets go.  2 boys from Brooklyn getting a USA president elected.  this is good really good" Cohen denies that he was thinking of the politics of the deal, but no doubt Put and his crew were.  often it just appears that the Rus were totally hoodwinking the fools in the trump circles. 

 they reached out to Ivanka as well. the footnotes are interesting as well, you can't skip those when you read.  an email to Ivanka from a Russian who gave a false name from what i can tell. "if you ask anyone who nkows Russian to google my husband Dmitry Klokov, you'll see who he is close to and that he has done Putins political campaigns".  following all of these contacts did not bring Muellers team to direct evidence, but there sure is a hell of a lot of smoke.  Russia was really making a play for these folks and really don't see that any of them so far have put the brakes to it.  they for sure did not report it to anyone in the US. 

 it was over the moscow trump project that Cohen got caught lying..well i doubt it was only one lie, but he gave the impression the talks had stalled, but in the end they went on through at least June 2016. Mueller did not delve into finances as that was not on his list.  he did pass much along to others in other states. who did trump owe, what financial deals leave him vulnerable to being manipulated. 

 still cracks me up that those on the left freak out over sex in the oval office and even lost emails but could care less if our potus has financial ties to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or others.  if he has business interests there or owes vast sums of money these things could be used to manipulate him or to use him to obtain things that are of their interest and his but not in the interest of our nation.  not sure why this is so difficult to grasp. that one does not want a potus with such ties...of course, they did care about potential ties with HRC and they wrapped themselves in conspiracy theories about this...but they seem to have let those fears disappear when it comes to the iitoo. 

 so it really comes down to hate and agenda.  nobody gave a crap that bill got his blow job, nobody cared about those emails. they just hated the Clintons and wanted their own agenda to be the one that succeeded. 

 these are at Conners Bog.

 as the project plans progressed plans were being made for a visit to Russia for trump and cohen.  sater was sending emails.  asking for copies of their passports, "please call me i have Evgeney (Dvoskin) on the other line.  he needs a copy of your and Donalds passports they need a scan of every page of the passports. invitations &Visas will be issued this week byVTB Bank to discuss financing for Trump Tower Moscow.  Politically neither Putins office nor  Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot issue invite, so they are inviting commercially/ business. VTB is Russia's 2 biggest bank and VTB Bank CEO Andrey Kostin, will be at all meetings with Putin so that it is a business meeting not political.  We will be invited to Russian consulate this week to recieve invite & have visa issued. "  Cohen did sent image of his passport and later acquired trumps passport.  there is confirmation of numbers and emails.  no confirmation that trumps passport was delivered as requested.  that seems a bit chilling to me as well.

 the meeting in Russia was looking to take place after the RNC convention.  things go busy and the meeting never took place.

 dogs were romping in the water out there that day. 

 love to watch them play in the water.  total joy. dogs are easy to keep happy really. was chatting with my brother today.  they just adopted a year old cocker spaniel.  they have had it for just under a week but say it seems like the dog has been there forever.  they are super happy already. 

 dogs are just great i think.  i am happy to share my life with them.

 I'm obviously a fan of walrus too. 

 last night i wore my walrus earrings, walrus necklace and walrus leggings.  2/3 of those were gifts.  once you start running a walrus advocacy group you start to collect walrus related gifts.  I'm cool with that.  being a crazy walrus lady is a bit more interesting that being a crazy cat lady I'd guess. 

 embrace the crazy. 

 this is Baxter Bog by my place.

 Papadopoulos, Lewandowski....the report goes through all their connections with Rus.  just seems like the big goal for Rus was to get Put and Trump together.  like i said, after he was elected that did happen. with nobody else in the room.  it should have never happened that way. it was foolish on the part of the GOP.  they have no control over the trump.  their little dictator wanna be is their responsibility though.  all of them.  they have allowed him to bring chaos and madness to the position.  they have allowed him to bring foolishness and idiocy to the position...all to get their agenda through.  be careful what you ask for...often when we get our way, it comes at a price.  i love that line in a country song, i think it's Garth Brooks.  "sometimes i thank God, for unanswered prayers"  "some of Gods greatest gifts, are unanswered prayers"

 beautiful pink clouds out there right now

 i head back to work again tomorrow.  the run begins.  the education is done for a bit though, bills paid. lecture over. 

 a kingfisher was spotted.

 they are cool looking birds. generally super fast though, so hard to get photos of for me anyway.

 not sure but this may now be University Lake...these are from October.

 considering how trump is involved in every aspect of his business it seems far fetched that he was in the dark about these rus contacts.  however, no direct links were found that i have noted so far. many refused to talk, forgot things conveniently, took the 5th...Mueller could only work with what they could obtain. not always easy on a multifaceted international investigation such as this i would think.  so many contacts with Rus.

 page 95, on to Carter Page....

 page had many rus contacts over the years so he was already on Rus radar.  so it sounds like when he joined the campaign, he was contacted by the rus.  no coordination noted in  any attempt to interfere in the election with him. 

 sounds like page had been used by Rus as a potential source.  Podobnyy and two other rus officers were charged with conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of a foreign government" stated he"let page on by feeding him empty promises" "his method of recruiting foreign sources was to promise them favors and then discard them once he obtained relevant information from them". so page seems more like a foolish patsy...trying to get some place but too foolish to be of use to anyone really. 

 sadly, this administration and before that the campaign never bothered to vet anyone appropriately.  they still just throw folks in positions with little thought to their ability to do the job or their past that may make them inappropriate for the job.  with page on the campaign, there was a renewed interest in him by rus.  of course, the goal again seemed to be to get trump with put.  page was invited to speak in rus, he tried to switch it up so that trump would go speak instead.  Lewandowski responded to page that if he spoke in rus it would be solo and not with the blessing of the campaign and that trump would not be speaking.

 U-lake i remember all these leaves piling up on the rock by the bridge.

 saw some beaver activity yesterday.  small beavers

 page attempted to get a job in the administration transition team... will give them credit for staying away from him after they screwed up hiring him to begin with.  they at least knew to distance from him, especially since he was already being looked at for previous dubious contacts. 

 page 103...well look at that Nixon's name appears in the report.  that does seem a bit ironic.  CNI, Washington based non-profit that grew out of a center founded by Nixon.  haha. Sessions honorary board member and of course, the CEO is a Russian.  emigrated to US in the 1970's.  so this is about the meeting at the mayflower.  Jared and Kislyak attended, as did sessions and trump as well. 

 the report does not find any clear meetings that occurred between sessions or trump or Jared at this event with Kislyak.

 the next section goes into the trump tower meeting. i will save that for another day.  this is pretty interesting stuff though.  far more interesting than a report on Clinton's sex life would be...seems pretty funny that a bunch of supposed moral religious right guys wrote a report on Clinton based on his sex life...pretty pathetic all around.  the GOP were determined to find some way to bring him down...all they could find in the end was sex and ego.  the fool should have just said, yes i had sex with that woman.  Hillary would have clobbered him but politically, he would have been free.  ego's get people though.  always amazing that these folks who live such public lives believe they can get away with crap...and no doubt they get away with more than they get caught for.

 i think further investigation following the Nixon impeachment path seems merited.  open testimony and more damming information that will no doubt continue to come forth will help turn those who have decency and common sense from their trump induced haze. 

 summer is ahead of me.  need to arrange a few pet sitters for at least one paddle, maybe two.  need the dates for the other one.  also possibly a trek to Sitka.  a long weekend. would be great to get down to Southeast AK again.  always love it down there and miss it. 

 i better go claim the bed before Tusker does.  Ivy is much more generous with bed sharing. that is Tusker though.  he always takes the most comfortable spots for himself.  takes the best toys...Ivy relents. 

thankful for:  A  silly TV shows to take your mind off things  B. melting snow  C.  farting..we'd sure be miserable without them.  haha.