#tempted to look into loans but I have no clue how they work or where to even start

[rosicheeks]

-

[shitthehousessay]

Ok. Since you all *insist*... (Also I saw this and was like ok cool I’m bored and didn’t realize till I read through some of them that some were references to a series I have yet to read, so excuse me, I just answered these as myself.)

1. Melody is my full name. I’m not giving my last name for privacy reasons and I don’t tell anyone my middle name, but I’ll tell you the first initial is C.

2. I’m a Taurus.

3. I’m a tiny 5′3″ and 100 lb person with curly shoulder length red hair and bangs, hazel eyes, and I’m honestly really pale.

4. I’m 17.

5. I don’t have any set style. It depends on my mood, the weather, and if I’m going anywhere. But my summer aesthetic has been shorts and crop-tops, rompers, and these big golden sun glasses.

6. I have these lined leggings I love and this olive green off the shoulder romper that’s so cute I’m honestly in love with it.

7. Just my ears so far.

8. I have a ring and I usually wear some sort of pendant but my last one’s chain broke and I have yet to get a new one so.

9. Not yet.

10. Same as number 4.

11. I always smell like oranges. I use orange essential oil as perfume. I have for the past like 2 years and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

12. I always have a notebook I carry everywhere and a favorite pen of the moment, so I guess that’s one (I’m just counting them as a pair). Right now I have a Polaroid I’m obsessed with and I guess the last two are the notebook I have our summer bucketlist and movie bucketlist in and my relationship scrapbook type notebook.

13. Ummmmm... literally no clue ?? I don’t even exactly have a favorite animal so like fersona ???

14. Dude. I’ve got all the psychic bullshit down. Seeing ghosts and telling the future and auras and shit? I got it; Looked into it and I guess that would be Divination primarily.

15. I don’t know if it counts as magic but I am like *sooo* unlucky. I would also suck at any sort of spell casting just cause luck/lack of coordination. 

16. Air? I love storms and rain and stuff.

17. Maybe I’m missing a reference here but I have like no clue what this is asking. (Feel free to enlighten me.)

18. Dude. A hedgehog. They’re super cute and I’m thinking about getting an emotional support hedgehog and it’s gonna be a little black one named Shadow so yeah.

19. No comment but if I had the power to do so... Well. There are some people I do not like.

20. Dude. Excedrin is great for migraines. 

21. I couldn’t pick one so Death, The Hermit, or The High Priestess. 

22. I was in Tennessee actually.

23. My favorite color is blue.

24. My least favorite color is yellow.

25. I’m right-handed.

26. I was a little princess who wanted to wear dresses and shit and had a ton of dolls. Hyperactive as hell- as far as I know- too.

27. Can I skip this one? My dad is mean and controlling and my mom is... immature? I don’t know the word for it. Next question.

28. I have a whole brother, two half brothers, a half sister, an adoptive sister, and 3 adoptive brothers.

29. I mean my aunt and uncle who basically adopted me. I wouldn’t use ‘close’ for anyone else.

30. I’m scared of spiders, deep water, clowns, heights (though I’m mostly over it now), and closed spaces.

31. I am bisexual and demisexual.

32. Nope, no allergies. 

33. I have my familial adenomatous polyposis thing I’ve talked about before.

34. Depression and anxiety man.

35. I literally shower everyday, showers are the best.

36. I just like pretty rocks tbh, but I like emeralds (mostly cause they’re my birthstone).

37. I like willows I guess. I’ve always wanted to have one in my yard so I could just sleep under it and just be like hidden by the leaves.

38. Sunny and warm or rainy and stormy. There is no in between and it all depends on my mood.

39. I don’t like the cold just because I am small and have body heat issues.

40. I love summer.

41. I speak English and really broken French.

42. I can sing and I can kinda play piano.

43. Man self-depreciating humor is *everything*.

44. Hot shower and a depression nap. Alternately when I’m staying with my love we cuddle and watch movies.

45. Dude I like what I like, nothing guilty about that.

46. I bite/tug my lip when I’m thinking and spin my ring when I’m nervous. There’s nothing else I can think of really off the top of my head, besides random things I say like double words (”fun fun” or “cool cool”) and so I mean. I also have a thing for pet names/nicknames. All of my close friends have a nickname and I just use pet names generally.

47. Dude I hate people but if you can succeed in making me laugh I’m sure to warm up to you which entails making bad jokes and pocking fun at you but also being there when you need me. It can take a while or like no time at all it all depends on the person and my mood when I meet them.

48. Love, money, knowledge, power, fame.

49. Write, take pictures, cuddle my boyfriend, watch movies.

50. School work, meeting new people, getting up in the morning, and dealing with high school drama.

51. “I’m like a marshmallow that tries to be a cactus and fails repeatedly.” “I’m small but that doesn’t mean I won’t find something to hit you with.” “I’ve never been wrong about anyone.” (Referring to my gaydar.) “I love you, I mean as a sibling. That’s the only time I’ll ever actually say that to you btw.” “I won’t say anything. Then if I’m right I can be like ‘called it bitch!” but if I’m wrong I won’t ever have to live it down.” (About two friends I ship.) “That baby is so cute, I’m actually crying! I just wanna hold that baby, I’m so upset!”

52. Verbal conflict makes me super uncomfortable and as much as I am willing to hit someone, I don’t usually react well to being touched.

53. I suck at  (I know, I know) remembering to brush my teeth.

54. Dude. I have bad self-esteem and I hate conflict so I’m bad at talking to people about things and I’m bad about admitting when I’m wrong because I have a crippling fear of people leaving me and that if I make mistakes or have flaws or whatever they’ll leave me. That’s a start.

55. I’m good at reading people/I can talk to (or make friends) with just about anyone.

56. I have good and bad days. Sometimes I think I’m pretty and others I can’t stand how I look, but it’s gotten/is getting better.

57. I won’t lie, I don’t do well with authority figures.

58. I actually don’t remember if I had any role models or who they were.

59. I love (most) kids. Babies love me- like I am The Baby Whisperer- for no real reason and (most) little kids do too.

60. I do want kids of my own some day. We want 3. We actually want twins and we want to adopt one. 

61. Nope. Not at all religious. 

62. I think as long as you can say you don’t have any regrets at the end of your life- or at least make your peace with them- and you learn to love yourself and hopefully someone else, you’re doing something right.

63. I don’t know. I’d hope it was either meaningful or made someone laugh. If things go how I want, my last words will probably be “I love you.”

64. I want to get married, have kids, and finish a novel before I die.

65. I’d just hope to be remembered fondly by those who knew and loved me.

66. Depends. I send most people memes and things that remind me of them. I occasionally give hugs or lay on people, but physical contact is a weird thing for me so very few people see physical affection as my way of showing I love them and it’s usually when they’re upset/need it. It’s even rarer to hear verbal affection- excluding compliments.

67.  I usually don’t eat breakfast but I have become fond of smoothies.

68. I like spicy occasionally.

69. My favorite fruit is pineapple and my favorite veggie (I count it as a veggie, fight me) is avacado.

70. I love sweets.

71. I’ve had it before, but no I don’t drink.

72. I like herbal tea with honey and coffee that doesn’t taste like coffee. (Ex. white chocolate mocha or frappuccino.) 

73. I refuse to eat seafood besides sushi (makes no sense, I know) and tomatoes. 

74. I like chicken nuggets and grape jelly (also cheIese sticks and jelly) but other than that I can’t think of anything that I eat that makes most people cringe.

75. I need Slim Jims and/or pepperoni and cookies for my plane rides.

76. I don’t know that any foods make me nostalgic, but mozzarella sticks and Chinese food are comfort foods for me.

77. I like to dance and sing and occasionally use hairbrushes as microphones.

78. If anyone stole something important of mine, I’d hunt them down and probably hurt them and get it back.

79. If I won the lottery I’d buy a house and probably a car so I wouldn’t have to get loans.

80. I want to invent a silencer for microwaves so they don’t wake people up- and don’t any of you dare steal that. I want my money.

81. I tend to cling to walls or people I know when in new places or situations. 

82. If someone threatens me I will- depending on the situation- I will either get out of there or threaten them back. But more than likely the latter.

83. Ok, look, I’m no saint. If some rich lady dropped her purse I can’t act like I wouldn't be tempted to give it back a wad or two lighter. At the very least I’d be hoping she’d give me a reward for returning it.

84. Ouch. I’ve had some pretty awful things said to me, but I think the worst was when someone told me it was my fault that they sexually assaulted me.

85. Strangest thing I’ve come across in general? I’ve come across some weird shit man. The internet is strange. There was a video where a guy shoved a glass jar up his ass. That was pretty strange.

86. If someone takes my food what I do depends on who it is. I either just glare or I forcibly take it back and/or smack them. (There are also a few people that I don’t care if they take my food, but they are rare.)

87. If some sketchy-ass person meets me a crossroads and tells me I can have everything I want, I’m not trusting that shit. I’m not selling my soul thanks, not today Satan.

88. When I was younger I wanted to be a singer or an actress when I grew up. 

89. I’m Chaotic Neutral.

90. What’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done? That’s a long list. Maybe this one time I tried to John Cena (aka running jump) onto a stage. It didn’t end well. 

91. I’ve never been arrested but when I “left” my dad’s it was *technically* “running away” so I was kind of in trouble with the law there for a while.

92. Yes I know how to win a fight. I’ve been in a fair few.

93. I can throw a punch so I’m gonna say yes, I’m good at hand-to-hand combat.

94. Yup, I’ve stolen stuff before. 

95. No, I’ve never killed anyone.

96. Man I find a fair few of things disgusting. Tomatoes are awful for one. 

97. I have a couple triggers, for lack of a better term. I hate conflict, it makes me really uncomfortable. I also hate being touched, that sets me off pretty bad. I don’t know if I have a “worst one” though. 

98. I have no clue what anime character I would be, but feel free to tell me what you think.

99. I have no clue what Disney character I would be either. (I don’t think it’s accurate if I pick myself.) Once again let me know what you think.

100. Dude. Same answer as 99.

101. Same as 99. Again.

102. The only song that comes to mind that I think describes me is Hot Mess by Cobra Starships.

Ok. There you monsters. I did it. Are you happy? That took me like 3+ fucking hours to answer and type out.

-Mel (the Slytherin)

[saywhatjessie]

arooftop

Written for Aspec Fest Prompt 2: “Trope Inversion/Subversion” 2.1k (Ao3)

It had taken a lot to get them to this point.

For once, the world wasn’t ending. No one had made a clone out of either of them, and there was no civil war or time travel involved.

For once, it could just be Peter and Wade.

Working together.

And it wasn’t an emergency.

Which was weird but Peter wasn’t complaining.

“Pass me the guac, Petey-Pie?”

And that was another new thing: Deadpool knew his name.

“You know I almost miss ‘Baby Boy,’” Peter said, lightly tossing the cup of guacamole to where Deadpool sat three feet away.

Wade grinned. His mask was pulled up past his nose and there was a mess of cheese and salsa covering his face from where he’d been messily eating his burrito. “Ask and ye shall receive, Baby Boy! You know I love sweet-talkin’ you.”

Peter grimaced. “I take it back. Call me something else.”

“Daddy?”

“Oh my God .”

Wade laughed and Peter cracked a grin along with him.

Wade was in New York more often than not these days. He stayed close for Ellie and for the Avengers and – though Peter was reluctant to admit it – for himself.

Having Deadpool in the area made a lot of people nervous, but not if Spider-Man was there to reign him in. He didn’t kill people anymore: he’d lost the taste for killing after Hydra Cap.

“That’s just shitty writing!” he’d said. “I can’t believe they’d do that to me.”

Peter didn’t know what that meant or who ‘they’ were but he could definitely believe someone would do that to Wade.

In any case – that’s how he’d started doing patrols with him. When Deadpool first came for keeps, Peter wanted to keep an eye on him. And then it was just nice having someone to watch his back. And then he actually started to like Wade.

And now they were eating dinner together on random rooftops in Manhattan at least three times a week. They’d been through so much (“We’ve got our own joint comic series, Spidey! You can’t tell me we’re not friends.”) and Peter had gotten so tired of living with this secret, he’d given in and told Wade his name. He told Wade his name, his face, and his whole tragic backstory. He spared a lot of details – MJ, where Aunt May lived; just the stuff he had to be careful about – but  Deadpool was now one of three people alive who knew his secret identity.

What a bizarre life Peter led.

“Do I have anything on my face?”

Peter glanced over. The addition of the guacamole had only made Wade’s food-on-face situation worse.

“Cancer,” Peter said instead.

Wade howled with laughter.

“I’m so pissed.” Wade gasped for breath. “That was the most stone-cold thing I’ve ever heard you say but, if I told someone, no one would ever believe me.”

Peter smirked. “I’m counting on it. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“You sick son of a very nice lady.” But he was still laughing. Peter had to bite his lip to keep from laughing with him.

They finished their dinner in bites between quips and had to pause to laugh more than a few times.

They were finishing up when Peter’s Spidey-sense alerted him to some activity further east. Without warning, he shot one web at Wade and another at a building across the street and then leapt off the roof.

Having Wade dangling like that threw off Peter’s center of gravity but he had fun yanking him along like a broken yoyo. It was only after he’d almost collided with the third streetlight that Peter yanked him in and let Wade clutch onto his back.

Wade was breathing hard as he scrambled for purchase on Peter’s ribs. “That was awesome. Can we do it again?”

Peter laughed. “Maybe later. Right now: bad guys.”

It was quick work – just some skinheads harassing a young lesbian couple outside of a gay bar – but it was harsh and dirty enough that Peter was still buzzing a little even after he’d got the ladies in a cab and left the webbed assholes to rot.

He said as much when he got Wade and himself to the nearest rooftop.

Wade shrugged. “Wanna make-out?”

Peter snorted, shaking his head. “You’re an idiot.”

Wade held his hands up. “I’m just sayin’! Endorphins running high. Lonely rooftop. We’ve both read enough fanfiction to know where this is going.”

“Enough what?”

“Okay, I’ve read enough fanfiction to know where this is going.”

Peter laughed again but there was a definite edge to it.

Wade picked up on it, like he picked up on so many things. He lifted up the bottom of the mask. “Is it this?”

Peter was tempted to make a joke about the mess of food that was still all over his face but he knew what Wade meant.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little texture,” he told Wade, half-joking, half-honest.

Wade grinned, yanking the mask off completely. Peter liked being able to see the humor in his eyes instead of just in his teeth. “So what’s the problem?”

Peter shrugged, bringing a hand up to cup his elbow, awkwardly. “I just like you, Wade.”

“I like you too!” Wade grinned more. “Kiss my face!”

Peter laughed, shaking his head again. “No, I mean I like you and I like working with you and being your friend, but I’m not going to have sex with you.”

Wade nodded one, quickly. “Got it: no sex. Can we still make out?”

Peter snorted.

“I might try and negotiate a butt-touch,” Wade continued, “but you had to know that was coming.”

Peter lifted his mask to run a hand over his face, trying to hide a smile. “You’re such an idiot. Why are you like this?”

“Look at him!” Wade bounced forward a little to grab Peter’s shoulders. “Look at my handsome boy! With his handsome mouth! That I still wanna make out with!”

Peter shoved him, but in a more playful way than he intended. Wade just bounced back.

Peter pushed him again.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything!” Wade insisted, ducking Peter’s arm again. “I just wanna kiss you a lot! No romo.”

Peter stopped, his arms suspended in where he’d been coming back at Wade with a mock shove. “No what? ”

“No romo!” Wade said, taking advantage of Peter’s distraction and launching himself at him. Peter was strong enough that it didn’t knock him over but he was smaller than Wade which complicated the situation some. “It’s like no-romance. Like I wanna make-out and do not-sex things (but also sex things if you want) but it’s not romantic. I lost romance in the war.”

Peter sighed, resigning himself to holding Wade, and shifted Wade around so they were face to face, Wade’s legs wrapped around his waist, Peter’s hands on his hips. “What do you mean you lost romance in the war? You’re not romantic?”

Wade kept his arms wrapped around Peter’s neck for balance. He looked pleased as punch to be there. “No, I’m hella romantic. I can wine and dine you fo’ days . I’m just a romantic. I don’t feel romantic love.”

Peter had no idea what his expression was doing, but based on Wade’s impatient huff it must not have been good.

“Come on, science-guy: ‘a’ as in the prefix loaned from the Greek, where it means ‘not,’ ‘without,’ or ‘lacking.’ The author lifted that straight from dictionary.com!”

Peter blinked. “Okay?”

“So along with being a moral and a social, I am also a romantic. I don’t have morals, a social life, or romantic attraction.”

Peter blinked again. “So it’s like asexual but the other way?”

Wade lifted his hands up in victory and Peter had to take a firmer grip on his back to keep him upright. “You got it! And you even know what asexual means! Oh good, the author did not want to deal with that.”

“Wait.” Peter shook his head. “ You know what asexual means?”

“Duh.” Wade put his hands back around Peter’s neck, his gloved fingers playing with the edge of Peter’s mask. “I am your most wokest friend, Petey. Even not counting all the meta-shit going on – ya boy’s got levels.”

Peter sighed, Wade wasn’t wrong. Well he may have been wrong about the meta thing (Peter had no idea what that even meant) but the one thing that could be said for Deadpool was that he had more levels than anyone had given him credit for. It had taken him by surprise the first time he’d worked with Deadpool and the depth of those levels took him by surprise every time they’ve worked together since.

He already knew. Peter wouldn’t have to explain it to him.

Peter reached up to take his mask off completely, letting it fall into Wade’s lap. His grin was radiant.

“There he is,” he said softly, bringing his hands up to cup Peter’s face.

Peter smiled softly back but his eyebrows were all confusion. “Did you know, then? About me?”

Wade wiggled, his hands going back around Peter’s neck. “Know what?”

“That I’m–” he swallowed. He’d never said it out loud before. He’d known for a while – it had just never come up before now. But still… “That I’m asexual.”

Wade’s eyes widened. “Oh, Baby Boy, no! I had no clue! Not saying I’m surprised but I didn’t assume or anything.”

Peter nodded, looking down. He didn’t really know how the other superheroes talked about him. He knew he was kind of suspicious, not getting close with anyone. Not really dating since he and MJ split. Not hooking up or talking about a significant other…

The secret identity helped. No one knew anything about him in the first place, let alone whether he was dating. And most people didn’t know what asexuality was, so they couldn’t very well assume it of him.

But Wade knew what it was. And Wade knew him. And Wade hadn’t guessed. So Peter was probably fine.

“Well I am,” Peter told him, awkwardly. “Asexual.”

“Okay,” Wade responded, easily. “So where were we on the making out front?”

Peter snorted shaking his head and looking up at Wade with exasperation. “What do you mean where are we?” He reached up with one hand to wipe the food from Wade’s face. “I don’t want to have sex and you don’t want to date. We’re nowhere.”

Wade rolled his eyes so dramatically he almost rolled right off of Peter’s hold. “Oh my god Peter, did you do any reading when you had this big ace awakening? You don’t need either of those things to make out. You’re totally allowed to make out with whoever you want as long as you have open and honest communication.”

At this, Wade unwound his legs and put them on the ground, stepping away from Peter. Peter, for his part, instinctively tried to hold onto Wade, but let him step away as soon as he realized what he was doing, grabbing instead for the mask that Deadpool had let fall.

Wade cleared his throat in a serious sort of way. Well, as serious as Wade ever got.

“I, Wade Wilson, am pansexual aromantic. I am very interested in making out with you at present, and very interested in feeling up on your fine ass, always, but will take what you can give me and we can remain the bestest of buddies with nothing weird later. How do you plead?”

Peter shook his head again but he was grinning. The more he thought about it, the more he liked this idea. And the fact that Wade wasn’t taking anything too seriously definitely helped.

Peter had been afraid of this conversation for a while . But if Wade could take it like this, maybe there was hope for Peter in the future. To find a real partner.

Meanwhile, though…

“I, Peter Parker, am asexual biromantic, and would be willing to make out with you also. Because it’s been a while and I like you.”

Wade grinned and stepped forward. Peter held up a hand.

“I am still going to be dating, probably, so we can make out sometimes but only if I’m single. Cool?”

“Fuck yeah,” Wade punched the air. “Can I touch your butt?”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, sure.”

“Hot damn! Come here, boy!”

Peter hopped up on Wade this time, wrapping his legs around Wade’s waist so Wade could take big handfuls of his ass. Wade practically screamed in triumph before Peter swallowed his scream in a kiss.

[junotrash-blog]

AU ; Chapter 3

Pairing(s) :  Main ; Kuroo/Reader, Slight Bokuto/Akaashi

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | 

You felt a pang on your chest at his words, eyes wide.

"How dare you-"

"There was not a single trace of the real killer. No trace of intrusion, no signs of someone suspiscious or any DNA. Just the weapon, a gun attached with a silencer in it." Kuroo cut you off, "It has been six damn years and there's still no clue who the real killer was. The only thing that came in mind is that the killer must be a Special."

You felt your eye twitched, "You can't just make assumptions like that! I thought you're a detective, the founder of Nekoma, renowned private police group yet you can't solve your own case! Relying on what you think!" 

"That's why I need your powers to help me!" Kuroo was seething in anger, glaring down at you, stepping on the break of the car causing the vehicle to stop right in the middle of the road. Your body flew forward, fortunately being held by the seatbelt or you would have crashed out of the car. The cars behind you honked angrily, tires screeching against the road.

Leaning back on your seat, you closed your eyes. What have you gotten yourself into.

"You want me to find the real killer of your parents?"

"I need someone who has the abilities to teleport to places and through time. And you fit the description." 

"Hell no."

"Hah?"

Crossing your arms, you sighed, "Look, if I use my abilities I might accidentally change the future or worse, distort reality. I'm also not that powerful. I might faint from using too much of my abilities. I can go into coma from overusing my abilities!"

"It won't be that far to the past. Just six years."

You almost chocked at the amount of time needed to travel in the past, "Six years is too far! I might affect some events that happened six years ago and change even a person's future completely!"

"That's what I want. Affect my past, change my future, find the killer before they kill my parents." 

"Well, aren't you selfish." You gave him a hard look, "As expected of a rich boy. What am I going to get in return?"

"A million dollars."

"And?"

He sighed, "I'll pay your student loan."

"Deal."

Why did you even agreed with this again?

A scream erupted from your throat as you accidentally teleported onto a sixty story skyscraper's roof top with Kuroo howling in laughter while holding your hand. The male had told - more like ordered - you to try teleporting one hour to the past but instead here you are on top of this building trying not to feel nauseous from the height. 

"Stop laughing!"

"Oh fuck this is hilarious!"

"Don't make me throw you down this damn building." You hissed, tempting to push him off and send him flying down to the busy streets below.

"C'mon, try it again, maybe you can do it this time."

Suddenly, a dull pain coming from your head made you wince, letting go of the male's hand to place it on your head. You closed your eyes hoping the pain will slowly go away but it didn't. It became worse.

"Shit, not again," You muttered under your breath, trying to find something to hold or lean onto and the only thing nearby is Kuroo in which you held onto his shoulder for support.

Kuroo had a worried look on his face at your sudden action, "Hey, are you okay?"

You blinked up at him, visions blurry, "You remember when I said if I overuse my abilities I might go into coma?"

"Yeah?"

"I feel like I'm going to have one of those."

"Wha- holy shit."

"Send...back, we don't...ourselves.."

"She...only hope..."

"Kur...stubbor-..."

The muscle between your brows twitched, your eyes slowly fluttered open and light greeted your irises, temporary blinding you. The light cause you to squint, blinking rapidly trying to adjust your vision.

"We need her, Yakkun. She has the abilities that we don't." You heard Kuroo's voice just beside you.

Another male voice spoke up in a warning tone, "Kuroo."  

"Ngh." You groaned, turning to your side to face the two arguing guys, "What's happening?"

Now that you have a clearer look on the other man's face, you noticed he has caramel colored hair and he's rather..short. Despite the shortness, he possess a mature aura around him with the serious expression on his face. This 'Yakkun' guy looked down at your form, sighing with a small shake of his head.

"Miss _____." He began, "I'd like to apologize for what this guy brought you into. Whatever deal you and him made-"

Kuroo interrupted him, "-is still ongoing."

"Kuroo!"

"I'm the boss here, Yaku. My orders are absolute whether you like it or not." Kuroo's voice dropped down slightly, glaring at the shorter male. Ah, so his name is actually Yaku. Yaku gritted his teeth but listened to the male anyway. What is he going to gain when he just keeps arguing with Kuroo? Nothing.

"I'm just warning you. If something happens to her, you will be the one who takes responsibility. Also,  if something bad happens to you, everyone in Nekoma will also be affected." With that, Yaku walked over to the door and twisted the doorknob open, walking out.

When it was sure that Yaku's faraway from earshot, Kuroo sighed, looking down at you on his bed with the covers covered up to your nose. Your gaze went to him and furrowed your brows, silently asking him 'what the hell is going on?'.

"It's normal. Kind of a routine already for the two of us to argue." Kuroo plopped onto his bed causing it to dip and bounce slightly from his weight. The ravenette sat up, turning to look at you still staring at him owlishly, "You fell unconscious the whole day if that's what you were wondering."

"Where am I?"

"My house."

"Oh," Now that you got to take a good look around your surroundings, you noticed that the interior is very..minimalistic yet luxurious looking. The walls are maroon color and the floors are carpeted in a dark grey-ish color. You bet it's gonna feel so soft on your feet. There's a large window that showed a view of the night sky and city below. Could it be that you are in some sort of condo? And the bed you're laying on. Oh, the bed is so soft and fluffy unlike your bed at the apartment. It felt like you're sleeping on a cotton candy- a gigantic cotton candy.

"Hey."

The male's voice made you break out of your thoughts to see him staring at you with a worried look on his face.

"You were spacing out. Are you feeling okay?"

You clicked your tongue, glaring at him. kuroo was a bit taken aback from your sudden change of mood. Ignoring the male's shock, you began to scold him, "I told you I can't use my abilities to time travel six years to the past. That is suicide for me." You grumbled, sitting up from the bed with arms crossed to your chest. Closing your eyes, you let out a sigh for the umpteenth time, "You saw what happened earlier. I went unconscious just from teleporting on top of some stupid sky scraper."

"Look, I'm sorry for making you do that. It's my fault alright? I just..." Kuroo's shoulders slumped.

"Just?" You opened one eye, tapping your foot against each other impatiently waiting for his answer.

"I need to know the truth. i want to know what's the reason the killer killed my parents and to do that, I need to catch him before he could kill my parents again. That's why," He looked at you in the eyes, grasping both your hands in his, "I need your help."

Opening your eyes, you look down to your hands that are still grasp in his larger ones, "To be honest, I feel like I'm treading dangerous waters here. I don't know what I'm going to get involve and my abilities aren't that powerful to even travel an hour to the future just thinking about traveling back six years to the past...I feel like I want to vomit all of a sudden."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why are you so weak?"

"Excuse me?!" You hissed.

Kuroo let go of your hand to raise it up defensively in front of him, "I mean- Aren't Specials suppose to be strong both physically and mentally? All the Specials I fought with all incredibly strong to the point that they can hurl a truck at me.."

"Because I don't want to use them. I don't even see the use in them at all." 'Unless I'm late for college..' You mentally added.

"Most Specials would use their abilities to show off.."

"I'm not like other Specials then."

"Of course. You're a strange one you know.." He trailed off, a sheepish smile slowly made its way to his lips, "Now that I realize. We haven't introduce ourselves properly at all."

A huff of what sounds like laughter escapes through your nose, extending your hand in front of his, "____(l/n), an ordinary college student working at Black Cat as a part time job."

Kuroo chuckled, taking ahold of your hand once more, "Tetsuro Kuroo, founder of Nekoma and your boss at Black Cat."

"Why the name 'Black Cat' though?"

"I was planning on naming it Black Dog but Yaku kept complaining about how the name sounds like a gun shop than a cafe."

"...I have to agree with him."

The ravenette rolled his eyes, standing up from the bed, "It's already late. You should get back to your apartment. I'll drive you home."

"It's fine. I can walk on my own. I bet you have something more important to do."  You said, standing up from the bed, your legs wobbling from the lack of movement for a long period of time. "If you'll excuse me," You were about to walk out of the door but he stopped you.

"What type of gentleman lets a lady walk alone at night?"

"I'm an independent lady thank you very much." You persisted, trying to shake his hands off of your shoulder.

"Let me."

"..."

"Just think of it as an apology for making you faint."

"Fine."

Stepping out of the expensive car, you quietly thank the man for bringing you home before closing the door shut. You were expecting him to drive off but he rolled down the window and you tilted your head in confusion.

"Hey ____, you have work tomorrow at the cafe, right?

"Yeah."

Kuroo gave you a wink, a smirk of his face, "See you tomorrow then."

He drove off, leaving you even more confuse. 'What does he mean by see you tomorrow?'

You walked into your apartment, taking the worn out and noisy lift up to the sixth floor. Upon reaching the floor, you walked out of the lift and went to your room, blinding searching for the keys in the pocket of your pants, cursing under your breath during the process. Pulling out the keys, you unlock the door and went in. 

The musky smell of old wooden floor tiles mix with cheap house freshener greeted your nostril causing you to wrinkle your nose in distaste. You noticed the light coming from the kitchen and called out your roommate's name.

Yahaba peeked out from the doorway of the kitchen, a cup of hot milk in his hand, "You're later than usual. Were you at the library again?"

You shook your head, walking into the kitchen to prepare dinner- cup noodles, "Nah, just got a bit of problem at work."

"Ok then." Yahaba said, not wanting to pry into whatever business you had.

"How 'bout you?" You placed the cup of water into the microwave, punching your fingers on the button and wait for it to heat up.

Yahaba took a gulp of milk from the cup, "The usual. Volleyball with the guys after class. Tired as hell." 

The microwave made a 'beep beep' sound and you took out the cup of now hot water and poured it into the cup noodle, covering the top with a plate, leaving it to cook.

"You can't sleep?"

"How'd you know?" Yahaba raised a brow.

"Hot milk." You pointed at the cup he is holding.

"Observant."

"Of course."

It became silent for a few minutes before Yahaba spoke up once again, leaning on the counter, his expression turned serious.

"Say, ____."

"Hmm?" You said, now slurping on the noodle.

"You heard the news? About a Special that can control the minds of others?  The ones that Nekoma captured last month? They said he managed to escape from custody and is now on the loose somewhere in the area."

You paused, giving the younger male a hard stare, "Yahaba if this is your way of trying to scare me-"

"I'm serious."

"Fuck then."

[iamanhonestmess]

When Darkness Falls, a Haylijah fanfiction

Link to the story on FF in case you missed the first few chapters or want to read ahead (reviews are always appreciated); https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12125374/1/When-Darkness-Falls

                                           Chapter 2 - Instant Trust

Hayley was left alone to her own devices for the rest of the night, and for that she was both relieved about and thankful for. Due to the feelings of anger and guilt she was experiencing because of Klaus and Elijah's actions (mainly Klaus' actions) and her own actions, being left alone had been a good thing. Hayley was never one to be able to handle herself under too much emotional pressure at once. Had anyone come to her throughout the night while her emotions were out of control, there was no doubt that she would've come clean about what she did.

If the truth were to come out too quick, Hayley had an inkling she would not be getting out of this situation alive. That fact was the one thing that Hayley was afraid of the most. She needed to keep her emotions in check or else she would wind up signing her own death wish and she didn't want to do that. Hayley's main priority was to keep her mouth shut and not admit her guilt before her parents gave the Mikaelson's their sister back so she could go home.

Her parents would do the right thing. Right? They would surrender in this stupid vampire and werewolf war to ensure her getting out of this alive, wouldn't they? It was a good thing that Hayley was already lying down somewhere comfy. Hayley's uncertainty about what the correct answers to those questions were made her feel faint. Her not knowing what was more important to her parents, her safety or winning a stupid and pointless war, was completely screwed up. Although, considering that her parents still wanted her to marry Oliver, she wouldn't be surprised if winning was the more important thing to them. Hayley would be disappointed if that turned out to be the case, but she would not be surprised about it.

The sound of a light knock on the door broke Hayley from her thoughts.

"Come in," Hayley said in a dull tone of voice, hoping it conveyed that she was still not in a good mood from the day before.

She already knew that Elijah stood on the other side of the door. The fact that the person on the other side of the knocked instead of barging in was the clue that showed the person's identity. Moments later, the door opened and Elijah walked in carrying a tray of food, confirming that Hayley was right.

Hayley still felt the after effects of her guilt and anger consuming her after what had transpired the night before. She still wasn't in a mood for company. But something told her she had little choice in the matter in that moment.

"I hope you don't mind pancakes, eggs, and orange juice," Elijah said, walking over to the bed.

For a second, Hayley was curious where the food had come from and was going to ask about it. But then she remembered that one of the Mikaelson siblings was a witch and witches, since they were technically humans as well, needed to eat to survive. So she answered her own question and didn't need to ask it to Elijah after all.

"I'm not hungry," Hayley grumbled, rolling over and shoving her face into the pillow she was resting her head on.

The sheets moved slightly beside her as Elijah placed the tray down next to her.

She heard Elijah sigh.

"Don't be stubborn, Andrea..."

"It's Hayley," she said correcting him, her voice muffled by the fluffy pillow. "I prefer being called Hayley," she said as she turned back over to look up at him.

Elijah looked back at her with a quizzical expression gracing his face.

"Hayley is my middle name," Hayley told him, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "Ever since I can remember, I've liked my middle name better and insist everyone call me Hayley instead of Andrea," she explained, becoming immediately confused by her own words.

Confusion took her over due to the lack of reasoning for why she was telling him this. Simply saying she preferred being called Hayley would have been enough. That was all she did for anyone in the past who called her Andrea instead of Hayley. But for some unknown reason, she wanted to tell Elijah this random piece of information. Never had she felt the need to tell anyone this. So why did she now?

"Duly noted." Elijah smiled. "Regardless, I'm willing to assume that you haven't eaten since yesterday."

Hayley's silence confirmed his assumption to be correct.

He gestured towards the tray. "You need to eat something."

Hayley was about to argue just as her stomach growled, stopping her before she could get a word out.

Elijah chuckled, no doubt having heard her stomach's much too loud protests.

"Fine," Hayley said as she reluctantly sat up, picking up the tray and moving it into her lap. "For future reference, someone owes me Chinese food."

"Why is that?" Elijah questioned her curiously.

Hayley grabbed the syrup bottle and popped the cap open, pouring it all over her pancakes and eggs before huffing and answering his question. "I was waiting for the Chinese food delivery guy when your jackass of a brother showed up at my door."

Elijah nodded in understanding. "That would explain why you opened the door for him as quick as you did."

Hayley rolled her eyes. "I'm surprised that he didn't just barge in considering he didn't need an invitation to enter my apartment."

"The spell he had our sister cast only allowed him uninvited access as long as you opened the door," Elijah informed her. "Even witches and their spells have limits as to what is too much."

She put the syrup bottle down and closed it, glancing up at Elijah to find him leaning against the dresser across from the bed. "How do you know all of this when you said that you had nothing to do with what happened?"

"My brother may go behind my back at times, but he rarely lies to my face when I confront him," Elijah answered with slight hesitation, as if he wasn't sure if he should even believe his answer or not.

Hayley picked up on Elijah's hesitation almost immediately. "Rarely being the keyword," she replied before taking a bite of the eggs to help settle her grumbling stomach.

Elijah nodded his head, agreeing with her.

An awkward silence fell between them as Hayley ate. It was weird for Hayley to eat in front of Elijah. Unlike her who had to eat something, he was a vampire that didn't have to eat unless he wanted to eat. Him standing there watching her eat without eating something also, so weird and awkward. Hayley made sure not to make eye contact with him the entire time because that would've made their current predicament even worse than it already was.

"Um... so is there by chance a phone around here that I can borrow?" Hayley asked once she finished eating everything on the plate, placing the tray next to her on the bed. "I need to make an important call."

Elijah glanced at her with an expression on his face that more or less meant, "Are you serious?"

Hayley rolled her eyes, throwing the blanket off of her and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "Do not look at me like that. You said you didn't agree with kidnapping me so loaning me a phone would help prove that," she said, crossing her arms. "You know, despite the fact you are keeping me here," she added as an afterthought, standing up, hoping she could talk him into letting her use a phone.

"I do not think..." Elijah said before pausing, looking away from her for a moment.

Hayley sighed and spoke up before he talked again to finish his sentence. "I will only call my work and fake the flu so I don't lose my job."

She suddenly realized she was going to have to pull out the pity card to get her hands on a phone.

"If I don't call in sick to work, I will lose my job. If I lose my job, then I won't have any income. That means I won't be able to pay my rent, and I will end up being forced to move back to the bayou." Hayley sighed again, putting on the best pouty face she could muster. "I honestly don't want to move back to the bayou until I have absolutely no choice in the matter," she admitted. "Please, Elijah. You can listen in on the call if you don't trust me."

Surprise coursed through Hayley's entire being when she noticed the change of Elijah's demeanor. The realization that she was getting through to him by playing the pity card was a crazy one. Never in a million years would she have ever thought that she could do such a thing. A thousand year old vampire feeling sorry for her? Due to what her parents had always said, Hayley had been under the impression that most vampires only cared about themselves. But with how Elijah had been acting towards her in the past 12 hours, he was consistently proving her parents wrong.

"I pride myself in being able to read people well." Elijah spoke in a confident tone that suited him perfectly, pulling his cell phone from his front pocket and holding it out to her. "I trust you to do as you said you will."

Through her surprise, reaching for the phone and taking hold of it. Hayley managed a simple, "Thank you."

"I will leave you to make your call. I will return in a few minutes," Elijah said, picking up the food tray from the bed before turning and walking out of the room.

Her mouth gaping, Hayley watched him leave. Having only known her for 12 hours, give or take, he trusted her. Was this just a ploy to make sure that she continued to trust him? Or was he genuinely trusting her to make the call she said she was going to make? Why was Elijah so different than what she expected all vampires to be? Either Elijah was a good actor and vampires truly were as Hayley grew up thinking they were (evil, lying, manipulative, bloodsucking monsters), or her parents were the best liars on the planet.

Hayley was tempted to call for help due to her sudden access to a phone. She quickly decided against it due to the phone having a call log; at least that is what she told herself. The last thing Hayley wanted was to have the only person who was being civil towards her suddenly turn on her due to her blatant lie. Hayley would never admit it out loud, but Elijah giving her his phone and then leaving her alone to make her call because he trusted her played a bigger part in her not calling for help than the call log did.

After pressing the numbers on the phone's keypad, Hayley called her work and faked the flu just as she had assured Elijah she would.

                                               ~WhenDarknessFalls~

When Elijah returned not too long later just as he said he would, Hayley was in the midst of making the bed. If she were at her own apartment, the bed would've stayed a mess; but she wasn't and because of that this bed was getting made. Hayley wasn't sure why she even cared to make the bed, considering her current predicament, she had no reason for doing it. Then again, it gave her something to do other than sit around in the room she was being held captive in doing nothing.

"Thank you again for letting me borrow your phone," Hayley said, smiling briefly at him when she handed him his phone back. "My job is now safe for at least a week or so considering I have an inkling that this flu bug will be one of those week long ones."

Elijah smiled back at her. "You're welcome."

"Not to bother you with another request so soon after the first one, but is there any chance I can get a change of clothes?" Hayley questioned, looking down at the clothes she currently wore.

Well, she had showered the day before and she hadn't done anything between then and now that would make her dirty and/or sweaty. She'd probably be able to get away with wearing the same clothes again. They were still technically clean.

"Or at least a shower?" She said that as more of a suggestion than a question. "I can wear these clothes at least one more time."

Elijah nodded his head towards the ensuite bathroom. "You can shower in there," he told her.

That was, without a doubt, better than only being confined to one room.

"Thank..."

She was almost done thanking him when his next words had the rest of her sentence abruptly going back down her throat.

"There should be towels in the bathroom closet. And Rebekah should have shampoo and other things in there for you to use."

"This is Rebekah's room?" Hayley asked, wondering if her ears were playing tricks on her.

Elijah nodded his head, a sad expression gracing his facial features. "This is the only free room in the compound."

Hayley bit the side of her cheek, trying to keep her sudden panic at bay.

"Oh, god! This is Rebekah's room. I am in Rebekah's room," Hayley thought to herself, an internal panic happening.

How had she not realized it before now? Probably because she hadn't been looking around inspecting the room. But still, oh god. This was bad, so bad. The guilt of what Hayley had done, the part she had knowingly and stupidly played in all of this, consumed her once again.

Hayley suddenly felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out of it. She couldn't breathe, she was sure that she was suffocating, and she was definitely hyperventilating. But she couldn't let on about it because then Elijah would get suspicious. This was another one of those emotional pressure times for her. If Elijah got suspicious and asked the wrong question at the right time, he surely wouldn't be wanting to protect her anymore.

Managing to compose herself for a bit longer, Hayley flashed Elijah a quick smile.

Before leaving the room, Elijah turned back to give her the best news she had heard all morning. "Before I forget, there is one other thing. Due to the fact you are spelled to not be able to leave the compound on your own, you are free to roam wherever you please."

With that Elijah turned back and left, closing the door behind him.

A wave of sudden relief took over Hayley. Oh, yes, thank God. Hayley didn't have to think twice about it, she would take full advantage of the luxury that Elijah gave her every second she could. Not being confined to Rebekah's room where her guilt would now consume her every time she stayed in there would be a good for her.

Hayley smiled to herself on her way to the bathroom.

She might be able to survive this situation long enough that she can go home after all. That is as long as her guilt didn't get to her first and cause her to make this situation worse than it already was. She sure hoped that would not be the case.

"Please do the right thing mom and dad," she thought to herself as she closed the bathroom door behind her and wasted no time getting ready for her shower.

[gardnerffox]

sample chapter Two of Abandon Galaxy!

by Gardner Francis Fox

Written as Bart Somers

Originally printed in 1967

digitally transcribed by Kurt Brugel 2017

for the Gardner Francis Fox Library LLC

CHAPTER TWO

Craig stepped forward and put his arms about her. He drew her in against him and kissed her pouting red lips. Hungrily. Carefully. Thoroughly. Her fists pounded against his shoulders and she tried to twist free of his clasp.

Discovering that her movements only added to his pleasure, she lay limp against him, fighting the delight of his caress.

She did not want to give in to this big, bronzed man in such a shameless fashion. She knew well enough that he had little trouble with the women he set his eye on and she was determined not to be one of them. Ah, but his lips were so possessive, his arms about her back so powerful And the excitement of the night, her near brush with death, all fired her blood to the steaming point. He was the most attractive man she had ever known. Tomorrow he might be dead. It seemed ridiculous to waste such a glorious moment.

Slowly, her fists opened. Her lips widened, she accepted his kiss and gave it back to him with all her will.

After a moment he whispered into her lips, "Silly, I saved your life. Wasn't that worth a kiss?"

She burrowed closer to him, nodding her head. "If we were on Thrakkan Planet, where the natives have some odd customs, you would belong to me. Did you know that? You would be my slave girl until you bought back your freedom.”

"How would I buy it back?” she breathed, kissing him. He told her and she made a crooning sound low in her throat as she buried her head in his neck and bit his flesh gently. The air was cold on her wet flesh but she would not have stirred an inch from him except that he gripped her arms and lifted her away.

“Tempting as you are, Irla sweet —we've work to do.” She sighed and let his arm at her back guide her between tree and over fallen logs. Now the wind roaming the Orosian marshlands made her shake with cold and the flesh of her body rose up in little bumps.

"It isn't far,” he told her. She turned to look at the woods. “What isn't far?”

"The marsh-van, where we'll find a fire, clothes and, I hope, several buckets of liquor.”

"You are truly mad,” she accused, staring at him. His chuckle was lost in the sound of their footsteps squelching in the soggy ground. "I landed within fifty feet of where I aimed. The van shouldn't be too far away.”

Irla Grayson came to a dead stop. “Are you trying to tell me that you planned everything that took place tonight?”

“Why, yes. What else? You didn't think all this just happened? That would be trusting to luck. And I never do that.”

"B—but you c—couldn't have known when and where L.O.O.T. would start shooting.”

"Oh, within reasonable limits, I could. The attack would be made in the Lower City. No city constables, no witnesses. L.O.O.T. would have to be stupid to pass up such a setup. And L.O.O.T. isn't stupid.”

His hand caught her fingers, tugged her to walk beside him. She was shivering steadily now so he drew her into the crook of an arm and pressed her against him. The warmth of their bodies helped against the biting wind.

"No, I knew the L.O.O.T. agents would hit us pretty close to where they did. I had an air-car warmed and ready to take off, about a block and a half away.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "If L.O.O.T. had delayed—things mightn't have gone so well."

"So well?"

"Oh, come now. You're alive, you're going to be inside a marsh-van soon with a couple of goblets of liquor warming inside you. You've had an adventure you can brag about to your grandchildren.”

"If I live so long,” she chattered through chilled lips. "You'll live.” He grinned. “As a matter of fact, you're entering your apartment right about now, unless I miss my guess.”

He tightened his hand on her fingers when she would have pulled away in exasperation. She contented herself with snapping, "Must you always talk in riddles?”

"Sorry. I thought you understood. Why do you think L.O.O.T wants you dead?"

"I—I don't know.”

"Then guess.” When she was silent, he went on, "Obviously, I think, so somebody can take your place. Another Irla Grayson.”

She gaped at him. She never knew what she might have said for at that moment he stopped her and pointed. Following his rigid finger she saw a dark blob up ahead of them, between the trees.

"The marsh-van. Let's go,” he said, laughing. She could not see the door he opened, but his palm, slapping her rump, urged her into the darkness of the interior. His fingers fumbled at a light switch and then a soft radiance flooded the interior of the van. In normal use a marsh-van was filled with tools and machinery for work in these vast fenlands, but now it was fitted out as a combination bedroom and living suite.

A bed occupied one end of the interior; there was a bar with several bottles inside a metal railing; and behind a glass-paneled door a cling-suit and some female clothes hung on a long pole. The rug underfoot was thick and furry. Below a copper cone a fire glowed.

With a cry of delight, Irla leaped for the closet. Rummaging inside, she drew out a thick quilted robe and wrapped it about her. Then she went to stand in front of the glowing coals and under cover of the robe, stripped off her stockings, garters and panties.

"There,” she said with a happy sigh. "I'm human again."

He smiled at her from the bar where he was mixing Earth gin with Loranthian vermouth, stirring the almost transparent liquids together, then pouring them into glass goblets. He carried a goblet to the woman.

"This’ll make you even more human.” She took a long sip and giggled. "I'm not at all sure I want to be more human than I am at the moment. So entertain me, Commander. Tell me more about what L.O.O.T. is planning.”

She went to sit on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. Craig sipped his own drink, commenting, "The primitives back on Earth in the pre-space age really knew how to make drinks. This is called a Martini."

"I like it,” she nodded. “Ever had one before?"

"Nn—nn. I've always stuck to sorinth.”

"Then be careful. It warms you but it can get pretty tricky if you have about three of them.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Don't evade the issue, Commander. L.O.O.T. has plans for Irla Grayson. Clue me in about them.”

"L.O.O.T. doesn't go around killing people just for the fun of it. You told me earlier that L.O.O.T. always makes a profit out of whatever it does. So then, its motive is profit. Theft. But what profit can L.O.O.T. make in the Upper City museum where Irla Grayson works?”

She bit her lip, frowning. After a moment she shook her head. "There are valuable pieces in the museum, yes. Statues. Rare weapons and armor. Art pieces. All those things, even some unusual jewels. But—but nothing that would make it worth L.O.O.T.'s going to all the trouble they have.”

He took her empty goblet and refilled it. "Are you sure? Think!”

She sipped and looked up at him. "I am thinking.”

"Any special exhibits?” he hinted. She stared at the far wall. Suddenly, her eyes widened. "Oh! The Kharkhan Scepter”

"What's the Kharkhan Scepter?”

"The most valuable single thing in the Rim planets. It was carved from a koralth tusk about a hundred centuries ago. It was carried by every ruler of the Rim worlds since the days of Kharkhan himself.”

Craig whistled softly. "And it's on loan to the museum. If L.O.O.T. steals it, the Rim planets won't blame L.O.O.T. so much as they will the Empire.”

He stood up suddenly and began pacing about the small room. His face was serious. "The Rim worlds and Empire are at loggerheads now over a dozen different things—the fact that Empire won't admit them into its United Space Worlds sessions, the strict economic barriers Empire merchants have set up against their manufacturers, the fact that the Rim worlds suffer crop failures every few years so that their teeming billions starve, the fact that—oh, I could go on for an hour about the things that stick in the Rim worlds' craw. I'd only bore you.

"Suffice it to say that since the Rim worlds are poor relations, their pride and sensitivity to fancied insult is that much greater than it should be.”

"So when L.O.O.T. steals the Kharkhan Scepter, the Rim worlds will blame Empire and—and may even go to War?"

"The Rim rulers are hotheads. Theirs is a history of warfare from the days of Oomphad, the conqueror who first united their planets.”

"This is serious stuff.” Irla frowned a moment, then asked, “But how does my double play a part?"

Craig shrugged. "This we have to learn.”

“We?"

Craig spread his hands. “Well, if you don't want to know what your alter ego is doing, just say the word.” Seeing her perplexity, he grinned. "The girl who's taking your place is probably in or on her way to your apartment right now.” Irla Grayson came off the bed so suddenly that she spilled a few drops of her drink on the rug. "She isn't!" Her eyes widened as realization came to her, and horror touched her face. "You mean she's going to wear my new Marlowe original? The one I haven't even worn myself? Oh, Commander—you've got to stop her. She can't do this to me."

I shall never understand women, Craig thought as she came into his arms to bury her face against his chest and tremble. Danger left her fairly well oriented, but the idea of a strange female in her suite. . . .

"My lovely things, my new Sharzale perfume, my mingcat coat! Everything—all hers!” she wailed.

"The black pa—unmentionables—and the matching—ohhh! I was ke—keeping the black underwear for my wedding night—if I ever got m—married!”

“Why don't we go and watch what she does?" She drew her face away from his chest to look up at him. She was flushed, there were tears on her cheeks, her eyes were abnormally large and moist. Her red lips were quivering. She tried to speak but she could only nod her head.

"You'll have to be quiet,” he reminded her. She nodded so vigorously her red hair danced about her shoulders. “Just tell me what to do.”

He bent his head toward the clothes closet. First of all, get into some clothes. You'll find a dark skin-suit with matching boots. The skin-suit will have a veil. Make sure it's clipped in place.”

She was turning, slipping out of the quilted robe, letting it slide slowly down her back, exposing her buttocks and the rose birthmark on her right thigh. Impishly she turned her head and, seeing him staring at her nudity, thrust out her tongue. Then she reached an arm into the closet, pushed clothes along the rack and brought out a black sylkon skin-suit. Lifting a leg, she thrust it into the suit and worked it up over her calves and thighs. It was a close fit.

Flushing faintly, she decided that Commander Craig had judged well when he ordered this size.

When she turned, all black sylkon and female curves, she saw him clad as she was clad. Quite frankly, she ran her eyes over his body. It was thick muscled, deep chested and wide shouldered. There was an animal appeal to Commander John Craig, she admitted honestly. "You make a very sexy shadow,” he said. Irla glanced down at herself. If Craig had been revealed to her eyes in the clinging sylkon that showed every bulge of muscle, she was equally exposed. Her breasts held no secrets, nor did her curving hips and long legs. It was as if someone had painted them in ebony oil.

"If you're wondering whether this is necessary, be assured it is. Here in bright lights, the answer is not so obvious, but when we're in a dark room, staring in at your apartment, the value of total blackness will be evident.” He went out the door. A moment later she heard the van motor roar to life. There was a little delay while the motor warmed, then the van began to move. Irla Grayson sighed, crossed to the bar and refilled her goblet. She sipped it thoughtfully.

Craig drove between the tree-boles and across the soggy stretches of marshland with ease. The eyes and the hands that had taken him into the mist world of Tryphon, through the radiation curtains of Alphax and half a dozen other places on the Empire planets and off them, were his allies. A branch or two scraped the roof and side of the van, but did no damage.

For two miles he drove, until the shimmering ribbon of the causeway came into sight. He turned the wheel, the van pitched and rolled and splashed between puddles and smoking fumeroles until he saw the gyro-car hidden under the reeds and bits of torn fen grass.

He braked the marsh-van, leaped out and opened the door. Irla Grayson was standing there, smiling down at him. He did not need the sight of an empty goblet in her hand to know she had been drinking the martinis. There was a glassy stare in her eyes.

He caught her as she toppled forward, holding her sylkon-clad body soft and warm in his arms a moment before he set her on the ground. At any other time he would have carried her back inside the van to enjoy the limp surrender of her flesh, but—what was the motto of the Star Marines? Yes. "Duty calls.”

With a sigh for lost pleasure, he turned her and brought her walking unsteadily at his side to the gyro-car. He dropped her in the seat, strapped her in, and eased himself behind the wheel.

Moments later they were on the causeway, heading city-side.

Irla was asleep before they had gone a mile. She was still sleeping when he moved the gyro-car to the curb a block from her dwelling house, a huge structure that held close to a thousand apartments. It was a luxury habitation, one of the many which had been constructed by the Upper City in the past dozen years. He reached into the seat compartment, drew out a black leather belt with zip-pockets, and strapped it about his lean middle.

Then he unbuckled the girl and shook her to wakefulness. She turned towards him, threw her arms about his neck, kissing him hungrily. Her lips were moist, partly open. Very pleasant, he thought; then more sternly he remembered his mission. Gently he pushed her away and helped her out of the gyro-car.

They entered a deserted lobby and hurried to the elevator. For these ten minutes, during which he had calculated he would arrive at the apartment, Investigation Corps personnel of the United Worlds Space Fleets had sworn to keep corridors and lobby, and even sidewalks, free of visitors. He and Irla, unseen and unsuspected, were like ghosts now as they stepped into an elevator and were whisked upwards to the tenth floor.

Her room was 10M. Craig opened the door of 10M and pushed her in.

Earlier this day, before his visit to Alert Command for a last minute consultation with Commander Dan Ingalls, he had come here to memorize the furniture pattern. No light must be shown. In the darkness he pushed Irla into a leather chair and went to the west wall of the room.

This wall bordered the bedroom wall where Irla Grayson slept. Craig ran his hands over its texture. Then he fumbled in the zip-pockets of his leather belt, bringing out metal bars and units which he screwed together swiftly. When he was done, the object he had created resembled a metallic spider. He set the spider on the table which, his fingers told him in the darkness, was where it had been hours earlier.

More pockets were opened, and after assembling other parts, he now held what appeared to be a small Vue-tape projector. Tiny but incredibly powerful batteries fueled the projector and they hummed as Craig touched them into action by pressing his forefinger to the studs.

The wall between the bedroom and the room where he stood seemed to disappear. Craig found himself staring at a pink room, a pink bed and pink rug, with tinted walls upon which pictures and mirrors were hung in a tasteful arrangement.

Irla Grayson was leaning against him, giggling. “You’re a naughty boy, Commander. Anybody know you go peekin' into li'l girls' beddy rooms like this?"

"Only Dan Ingalls,” he whispered. "Oh, yes—and the brain behind all the gadgets I get to use, Chief of Ordnance Ray Edmunds. He calls this his "Peeping Tom."

She kissed his throat. "Peepin’ Tom?”

"It works on the cosmic ray principle. Cosmic rays go anywhere, through roofs, walls, bodies. The peeper gadget is attuned to the cosmic rays. A planted electronic device inside your bedroom activates those cosmic rays at such a frequency that the innards of the peeper can pick them up and translate them into visual responses through the projector.”

He grinned, “I didn't have to focus it on the wall. A screen would have done well enough. But this gives us the illusion that the wall is nonexistent. It appears that we're looking right into your—hold it.”

Irla Grayson walked into the bedroom. The Irla Grayson leaning against him stiffened and gasped. "It's me!" she cried. "But I'm here. I mean . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she stared. The woman in the next room glanced around her at the bedroom, nodding. Then she put her hands to the black night-hours gown, a duplicate of the one the girl in the darkened room had worn earlier this night, and began to release the magnetic clasps. The gown fell away and the woman in the bedroom pushed it down past her hips. She was wearing a black minim under it, no more.

Irla giggled. "At least they didn't know what scanties I'd be wearing. I feel a li'l safer. L.O.O.T. doesn't know everything about me."

"Pretty near,” he chuckled. “Look now.” The woman in the bedroom had turned. They could see her white body from her up-swept red hair to the heels of her tiny feet. On the back of her right thigh, they saw the rose birthmark.

Irla snarled, “Why, those dirty so—and—such L.O.O.T. agents!"

"Score one for them, honey. They are thorough.”

"I'll thorough them! If I ever get my hands on that female impersonator I'll fracture her features.”

"Save your righteous wrath. She wouldn't feel a thing.” Irla turned to stare up at him. "She isn't real,” explained Craig. “She's an android—you know, one of those robots who seem perfectly human but are only synthesized flesh and skin. Their computerized brains can be electronically taped to act just as you would act."

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, I'm not positive, but nobody has a double with a matching birthmark. That thing had to be created. Wait. We'll prove it a little later."

The android woman walked naked to the closet, slid back a door, brought out a hanger with a frilly chiffon nightgown. She looked at it, shook her head, and put it back. Then she brought out a filmy gown that was like a red gossamer mist.

Irla breathed, "Ooooh, I was saving that one!” The red nightgown went up and shimmered down about the white body of the android woman. It was almost perfectly transparent.

"Lucky him," smiled Craig. "The man you were saving that red temptation for, I mean.”

Irla sniffed.

They waited silently while the woman went to the wall switch and pressed it. The screen-on-wall went dark. Then slowly it began to lighten as moonlight filtered into the bedroom. They could make out the android at the bed, kneeling on it, fluffing pillows. She slipped under the covers and stared up at the canopy of the four poster bed.

"Her eyes,” Craig whispered. “They're wide open.”

"Meaning what?”

"Do you sleep with your eyes open?”

“Oh,"

"An android doesn't need sleep. It's been geared to stay in the bed until the alarm wakes it. Then it will get up and dress. Keep watching. I'll bet it never makes a move all night long.”

They watched the motionless android for over an hour. Her eyes did not close, nor did she move a muscle. Finally Craig sighed.

"If your alter ego doesn't want to sleep, I do. Come on, you can have the couch. I'll take the easy chair.”

Within moments he was asleep. Irla remained staring at the wall, as if hypnotized by seeing herself in bed in her own room. But this palled after a while and she lay down on the couch, curling herself up into a ball. Her eyelids closed. She slept.

The chronometer on his wrist woke Commander Craig, its supersonic impulse geared to the motor portion of his brain. He came off the leather chair, saw Irla still asleep, and moved to a clothes closet in the bedroom to don the somber street garments placed there for his needs. A gray jacket and skirt hung limply, waiting for Irla Grayson to fill them out.

He walked back into the living room. The wall scene showed the android woman already dressed, wearing a white and blue synthesuit. Craig glanced down at the still sleeping Irla. He could not have two Irla Grayson's walking around in the Afrikaal Museum. The real one was sleeping soundly. Good. Then let her sleep.

He waited until the android had left her apartment, then he went out into the corridor and locked the heavy metal door behind him. He would leave word with the Intelligence Corps agents not to answer the phone from 10M when Irla woke up, and to ignore her pounding on the door. If she made too much noise, a female agent would go in and talk cold sense into her pretty red head.

He took a moviwalk toward the museum. All about him were the sights and sounds of a great megalopolis waking to the workday. Men in suits as inconspicuous as his own, pretty girl talk-typers in rainbow garments, sheer above the waist and short enough to show their handsome legs, trotted along beside the moving walks, turning into buildings or waiting at the stations to step aboard. Overhead the swift gyro-cars dipped and darted where messengers carried stocks or cash valued into the million credits.

For the most part, Commander John Craig saw little of this urban life. His position in the Intelligence Corps normally took him to the outer planets, the worlds not yet touched by civilization—the rough and tumble places where a man could die with frightening ease in a variety of ways. His character was geared to excitement, to danger. It explained why he so rarely took vacations. They bored the hell out of him.

Craig sighed. He supposed that this might also explain why he and Elva Marlowe had broken up. The fashion designer had been his constant companion for a long time, but their natures were too dissimilar. She knew it, Commander Craig knew it, and at last they had confessed the fact to one another.

All the pretty girls of Empire were his to court now. His eyes sighted a girl with a transparent, flower-painted vinyl blouse tucked inside a tight sylkon skirt; the big red flowers covered her in front modestly enough, but her back was visible through the translucent stuff. Ultraviolet rays could penetrate the vinyl and most girls used this method to achieve stunning suntans. The flowers on their fronts were opaque, and as a result, some of the sun-stenciling done on their torsos was oddly attractive. It was the latest craze of the Empire worlds.

There were so many pretty women bouncing about, stepping from moviwalk to moviwalk that he just could not see them all. After a time he gave up and concentrated on the android three sectors ahead of him. L.O.O.T. had done a master job on Irla Grayson. If he did not know what she was, he would have assumed her to be the real woman. The museum was bulking large in the distance. Time to step off the fastest walk to the slower ones. The outer walks would be stopping soon at the station. Up ahead of him he saw the android woman on the slow walk.

He followed her onto the station, down the dropper and onto the street. She walked straight ahead, without even a sideways glance, Irla Grayson was too filled with curiosity and adventure to move in such a robotic manner. She would have turned her head this way and that, studying the hang of a dress, observing the best-looking men who passed her, perhaps even smiling and flirting a little.

It seemed even L.O.O.T. was unable to duplicate all the characteristics of a human being. At least this made his task easier. The android had no suspicion that anyone might be following her.

Inside the museum there was the familiar hush of silence. The figures in the vast diorama displays were so lifelike it seemed as if he walked between windows opening onto other worlds. As he listened to the androidal foot falls, he stared in upon a fur-clad hunter on the snow world of Ifthisane, stalking an antlered caribou. Far down on the horizon were the triple suns of Rull making a glaced splendor of the icecap where the hunter walked. The huge beast was struggling in the deep snows, having broken through the surface crust. The hunter was about to bring it down. The next window showed a splintery thorkon moving through a Beldonian jungle, while large-clawed striporiots, its hereditary enemy, crouched for the attack. A manlike creature, with a club in its hand, stared between the tree-boles at the striped felines, as if too terrified even to flee. In the glassite front of the diorama window, Craig saw the reflection of the android Irla Grayson as she moved to a desk and sat down. He wandered on into the next room, but he positioned himself so that he might watch her at all times.

She worked hard for two hours, sorting papers, making notations, checking display units. Trained to patience though he was, the commander found his task irksome. How long could he go on staring into these same windows? He dared not move out of sight of the android girl.

If he were sure it was the Kharkhan Scepter she was after, he could go there and wait—but he was not sure. The ways of L.O.O.T. were devious. They might look one way and hit another. Ah, but now���

The girl rose taking a large knitting bag from a drawer of her desk. Craig tensed. She betrayed no emotion, and Commander Craig felt admiration for her composure until he remembered that she was a creation and probably had been specifically tape-responsed against any act which might betray her.

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Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

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Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

[magicwebsitesnet]

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

[blogwonderwebsites]

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

[internetbasic9]

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice https://ift.tt/2LbcY9P

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

[computacionalblog]

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice http://www.nature-business.com/business-manafort-and-cohen-have-left-trump-at-a-precipice/

Business

(CNN)CNN Opinion asked expert legal analysts and commentators to weigh in with their takeaways from the Paul Manafort verdict and the Michael Cohen saga: what it all means and what comes next. The views expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.

What does it say about the President? After all, aren’t we judged by the company we keep?

Up until now, Republicans in Congress have had little appetite to seriously investigate Trump, much less utter the dreaded “I” word: impeachment. But Congress’ blind support of the President could change drastically if proof is leaked, or otherwise surfaced by way of documentary evidence, that proves that Trump “coordinated and directed” Cohen to violate the law. Congress will then be seen as supporting an alleged criminal. And that can’t be good politically — especially in a midterm election year.

Meanwhile, Manafort’s close association with Trump does not bode well for the President. The former head of the Trump campaign is now a convicted felon. Manafort’s lies, misrepresentation, deceit and hubris landed him in this position. One can only wonder whether another bird with the same feathers will suffer a similar fate.

This leads to even more potentially bad news for the President. The upcoming midterm elections could very well change the dynamics of Congress by placing control in the hands of Democrats. Should this occur, the House will most assuredly go after the President and institute impeachment proceedings for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” All it takes is a majority vote in the House to impeach. And if the Democrats have control, it would mean they have such a majority.

That would then kick the case over to the Senate for an Impeachment trial, in which 67 senators (or two-thirds), would be needed to convict Trump, thereby removing him from office. That’s a heavy and unlikely lift indeed. But perhaps it will get much lighter if there is cold proof the President is an alleged criminal.

In that case, Republicans will have a hard time looking the other way.

Tuesday could mark the beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency. A day that will go down in history indeed.

Joey Jackson is a criminal defense attorney and a legal analyst for CNN and HLN.

Caroline Polisi: Manafort’s trial sheds light on Mueller’s potential collusion case

The refrain from the White House over the course of Paul Manafort’s bank- and tax-fraud trial — the first in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — is that the charges “have nothing to do” with the President or the Trump campaign. In fact, noting that some of the conduct charged stems back 12 years, the President

tweeted

, “These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!,” an assertion meant to buttress his argument that the entire Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” (a phrase he has used so often, it’s become something of a tagline).

And while it may be true that the charges faced by Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had relatively little to do with his time on the campaign, they allowed us to learn at least two important pieces of information that shed light into the opaque abyss that is Robert Mueller’s potential case of “collusion.”

1) Manafort was heavily in debt heading into his time working for the Trump campaign for free, the obvious implication of which is that he was hoping to leverage his position for his own economic benefit; and

2) He did take at least one definitive step toward using his position as a bargaining chip for his own personal benefit. As was revealed over the course of his trial, Manafort sought to offer a banker, from whom he’d been accused of fraudulently seeking loans, a role in the Trump administration. In the days after Trump’s election, the bank began issuing loans to Manafort that would eventually

total $16 million

.

Manafort will likely be serving prison time for these crimes, and he faces yet another trial in September. We may learn even more clues about the larger Russia investigation in that trial, no matter how much the President cries “witch hunt.”

Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York, a frequent CNN contributor and is of counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi

.

Julian Zelizer: Trump’s alleged Teflon isn’t quite so durable

The legal and the political stories about the Trump presidency are converging. The Cohen and Manafort developments on Tuesday highlight the kind of people who the President has surrounded himself with and — in Cohen’s case — are willing to implicate Trump directly. While the outcome for President Donald Trump remains uncertain, the probable political costs to the GOP just went up significantly. Guilty pleas and guilty verdicts are not the stuff that great presidencies are made of. The “witch hunt” argument looks even less plausible than before, and an air of corruption surrounds the head of the GOP.

Most important, Republican candidates are campaigning in an environment with immense uncertainty about what comes next and with a President who is losing control of the narrative and his temper. At least on Tuesday, it appeared the President’s alleged Teflon is not quite as durable as some believe.

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University, editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment” and co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer

.

Laura Coates: The prosecution would be wise not to get greedy

The people have spoken. And while it was not a total victory for the prosecution, it was a comprehensive defeat of the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.

Tempting though it may be to retry a defendant on those charges on which the jury has hung, the prosecution would be wise to not get as greedy as they proved Manafort to be in a court of law. For the eight counts on which Manafort was convicted, he faces

upwards of 80 years

in prison, although the actual sentence is expected to be far less. Any additional convictions on the 10 unresolved counts could yield a sentence akin to a de facto life sentence.

If the prosecution is confident about these convictions surviving on appeal, retrying Manafort on the 10 remaining counts at the taxpayers’ expense — particularly with the upcoming trial on related charges in Washington — might inadvertently bolster the President’s claims the trial is about persecution rather than objective prosecution. Justice is, at times, a cost-benefit analysis.

One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the President will honor the tempered verdict or thump the proverbial chest of his pardoning power and undermine his own executive branch’s prosecutorial power. After all, we can’t have a “good man” being

treated worse

than say, Al Capone.

Laura Coates is a CNN legal analyst. She is a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia and trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. She is the host of the daily “Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM. Follow her @thelauracoates

.

Paul Callan: Manafort’s only hope is a presidential pardon

Paul Manafort had a great team of lawyers who despite long odds and their client’s ostrich coat held the Mueller team to only eight conviction counts in an 18 count indictment. The defense lawyers can rightfully claim a partial victory. As they presumably raise toasts to themselves, though, their 69-year-old client will put his prison jumpsuit back on and consume jailhouse food. He will then await his fate, and likely some entertaining and snappy remarks, from Judge T.S. Ellis when Ellis imposes a probable sentence of at least 10 years or more in prison.

While defense lawyers swap war stories about the trial, Manafort will also probably be thinking about his next trial, in Washington, where he may add another 10-20 years to his prison tally. Unless Manafort has some valuable anti-Trump information to trade for a get out of jail free card, his only hope is a presidential pardon.

He will, I imagine, be watching the President’s Twitter feed carefully from now on. And fortunately, Manafort may soon also be able to discuss the nuanced subject of presidential pardons with a man who is unlikely to ever get one, Michael Cohen, Esq — who will soon share Manafort’s fate in a federal correctional facility.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, former New York homicide prosecutor, and media law professor.

Alice Stewart: I have stopped believing

It is not unlawful to lie to the media, but it is unscrupulous to lie to your supporters. Honorable people have given this President more than his fair share of mulligans with the assurance that unethical and unlawful behavior is a part of his past. Now, the “rigged witch hunt” and related corruption has appeared at the front door of the White House.

In the span of an afternoon, our family-values party has a President whose former, longtime personal attorney pleaded guilty to paying off a porn star and former Playboy playmate “at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and a former campaign chairman convicted of multiple fraud counts.

Rudy “truth isn’t truth” Giuliani

spins

that there is “no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President.” The truth is — campaign finance violations are wrong. Paying off a porn star and a Playmate is wrong. Not being truthful about these payments is wrong.

In addition, Robert Mueller is not finished, and the truth of Russian collusion remains to be seen.

Amid the fraud fog, a crowd of enthusiastic supporters awaited their fearless leader in West Virginia on Tuesday night. The sound system may have sent the subliminal message: “Don’t Stop Believing.” But I have stopped believing.

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

Page Pate: Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain

The verdict was no surprise. The sentence may be.

One “guilty” verdict on bank fraud is enough to send Paul Manafort to prison for

up to 30 years

. And, in this case, the judge has the authority to sentence a defendant up to the maximum allowed by law.

But he doesn’t have to. The crimes Manafort was convicted of Tuesday — including tax fraud, bank fraud and hiding foreign bank accounts — do not require a mandatory minimum amount of time in prison.

There are

sentencing guidelines

in the federal court that will recommend a lot of time in custody based on the amount of money involved in this case, but the judge doesn’t have to follow those guidelines. Given the

judge’s sharp rebukes

of the prosecution during the trial, it’s certainly possible he will give Manafort a sentence much lighter than the guidelines suggest. He could conceivably even give him probation, although the government would likely appeal the sentence if he went that far.

The other possible outcome is that President Donald Trump issues a pardon for Manafort, even before the second trial starts. The promise of a pardon would virtually eliminate the chance Manafort tries to cut a deal now and cooperate against Trump, and it would be consistent with Trump’s

earlier comments

about what a “good man” Manafort is and how “unfairly” he has been treated.

Manafort’s guilty, but his fate is far from certain.

Page Pate, a CNN legal analyst, is a criminal defense and constitutional lawyer based in Atlanta. He is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a former board member of the Federal Defender Program

in Atlanta and the former chairman of the criminal law section of the Atlanta Bar Association. Follow him on Twitter

@pagepate.

Shan Wu: Winners and losers in Manafort trial

Winners

Mueller Prosecution Team: The Paul Manafort case was a must-win case for them, and they did manage to pull it off. Even though they failed to win a slam-dunk conviction on all 18 counts, they did enough to claim victory and performed well under enormous pressure without any leaks in their confidentiality and before a difficult judge.

Manafort Defense Team: From a defense lawyer’s perspective this was a victory for a legal team that took on a case largely presumed at the outset to be an easy win for the prosecution. Instead, the defense gained credibility with the jury from day one and fought the Mueller team to a virtual tie, eight counts to 10. They kept on the good side of the judge and wisely rested their case without exposing their client to cross-examination.

The Jury: The jury worked through a complex and document-heavy case with remarkably sharp focus and smarts. They are a credit to the criminal justice system.

Losers

President Trump: Tuesday was a historically bad day for the President, as his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were convicted and pleaded guilty on the same afternoon. His claims of a so-called witch hunt will be undercut by the jury’s reasoned and obviously impartial verdict against Manafort — and Cohen’s conviction exponentially increased his legal liabilities.

Judge T.S. Ellis: The judge repeatedly made the trial about himself rather than the case at hand — and his rushed use of the so-called “dynamite charge” opens up potential issues that could put aspects of this verdict at risk on appeal.

Paul Manafort: Despite a strong showing from his defense team, at the end of the day Manafort is now a convicted felon on multiple counts. For him, jail time is very likely. It’s a remarkably long fall from grace for a man who helped elect the President of the United States.

Rick Gates:

Forced to admit in front of the world that he had an extramarital affair, stole from his mentor, and committed criminal fraud — Gates’ experience in this trial was a

brutal

one, especially for a once-successful political operative with a young family and now two felony convictions of his own. It remains to be seen whether the Mueller prosecutors will deem his cooperation worthy of a truly easy sentence, but whatever the sentence may be it cannot be substantively worse than the punishment he already has sustained.

Shan Wu is a former federal prosecutor who briefly represented Rick Gates. None of his opinions are based upon confidential or privileged information.

Read More | ,

Business Manafort and Cohen have left Trump at a precipice, in 2018-08-22 04:40:04

[anthonykrierion]

Playing detective: how to identify bad backlinks

I completed a backlink audit recently, and this is the post I wish I’d had when starting the tedious task of identifying the nasty links. Not all dodgy links are obvious, heck some are even near-impossible to find, especially when you have a spreadsheet containing thousands of them.

This is not a post about how to do a backlink audit from A-Z - that’s already been written about loads of times. Instead, I’m going to take you through how to identify patterns in your backlink data to quickly and accurately uncover spammy links.

I’ve written this post for the greater good of all SEOs, and yes, you’re welcome.

Wait - do I even need to do a backlink audit?

There has been some confusion since the last Penguin update as to whether or not SEOs even need to carry out backlink audits anymore. After all, Google has said that now they only devalue spam links as opposed to penalising the site receiving them, right?

Well, the short answer is: yes, you probably should continue to carry out backlink audits and update your disavow file. You can read more about this here and here.

Why can’t I just use an automated tool to find the bad links?

I know it’s tempting to get automated backlink tools such as Kerboo to do all the hard-lifting for you. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t a great idea.

In the backlink audit, I did recently, 93% of porn links were assigned a link risk of ‘neutral’ with a score of 500/1,000 (0 being the safest link and 1,000 being the riskiest). Links from the BBC also received a ‘neutral’ rating, with some getting a higher risk score than the porn links! Go figure.

Automated backlink tools can be super valuable; however, this is because of all the data they draw together into a single spreadsheet, as opposed to them being particularly accurate at rating the risk of links. To rely solely on their link risk metrics for your backlink audit is a quick ticket to trouble.

Is this guide relevant to my site?

This post is not a ‘one-size fits all’ strategy to a backlink audit, so please use your common sense. For example, below I recommend that root domains containing the word ‘loan’ are generally indicative of unscrupulous sites. However, if you’re doing a backlink audit for a financial services firm, then this generalisation is less likely to apply to you.

It’s up to you to think about the guidelines below in the context of the site you’re auditing and to adjust accordingly.

You will need

Before you start, you will need to have all your backlinks neatly assembled in a spreadsheet along with the following information:

URL (one example per linking root domain)

root domain

anchor text

citation flow (Majestic) or domain authority (Ahrefs or Moz)

trust flow (Majestic) or domain trust (Ahrefs or Moz)

backlinks

IP address

title

page language

link location

and anything else you can think of that could be useful

This article can bring you up to speed if you’re not sure how to assemble this data. Make sure to combine data from as many sources as possible, as different SEO tools will contain different information and you don’t want to miss anything! As I said earlier, I would also recommend Kerboo as one of your data sources, as it pulls a lot of the information you could want into one place.

How to spot the patterns

Fortunately for us, the bad guys almost always do their dirty work in bulk, which makes life easier for us good guys who inevitably have to clean up after them. It’s rare to find one dodgy directory submission or a single piece of spun content containing a paid link. This is a massive help – use it to your advantage!

Pivot Tables

I highly recommend creating a pivot table of your data so that you can see how many times an issue has occurred in your data set. This can help you to quickly spot patterns.

Above: spotting suspicious anchor text using a pivot table

For example, let’s say you’re doing a backlink audit for a clothing site. By pivoting for anchor text, you might be able to quickly spot that ‘buy cheap dresses’ appears several times. Given the commercial nature of this anchor text, it’s likely it could be spam. You could spot check some of these URLs to make sure, and if they’re consistently dodgy, you can reasonably assume the rest of the links with this anchor text are too.

Above: putting together a pivot table to spot anchor text frequencies (view large version of gif)

Word Clouds

Another thing I like to do is to dump my data into a word cloud generator. This is useful because it visualises the data (the bigger the word, the more times it appears in your dataset). It can help me to quickly catch something that looks like it shouldn’t be there.

Keeping on top of your data

Make sure you make a note as you work that explains why you’ve decided to disavow a set of links. It helps not just at the end when you’re reviewing your links, but will also be a big help when you come to spot patterns. It will also stop you from revisiting the same links multiple times and asking yourself ‘why did I decide these were bad links?’

Above: screenshot from my recent backlink audit with ‘action’ and ‘reason’ columns

Examples of common patterns to find bad backlinks

I’m now going to give you specific examples of bad links which you can use to find patterns in your data.

It’s not always a clear-cut answer as to whether a link is spam or not, however, the guidelines below should help guide you in the right direction.

When you’re unsure about a link, ask yourself: ‘if it wasn’t for SEO, would this link even exist?’

Words to look for in the root domain or URL

X-rated words in the URL

You’ll immediately want to disavow (unless of course, these are relevant to your site) any x-rated links. These usually contain one of the following terms in their URL:

porn

xxx

sex (also sexy can result in some shady sites)

escort

dirty

adult

and any more dodgy words you can think of that relate to orgies, orgasms and other obscenities

Be careful not to accidentally disavow URLs where ‘sex’ is in the middle of a word - such as sussexhotels.com or essex.ac.uk. This will require some manual spot checking.

Root domain contains references to directories & listings

Next, you want to look for any URLs that indicate manipulative SEO link-building tactics. Directories are an obvious example of this, and while not all directories are bad (here is a good article on how to tell the difference), generally those created purely for link-building purposes contain the following words in the root domain:

‘directory’ – especially ‘dir’ and ‘webdir’

‘links’ – especially ‘weblinks’, ‘hotlinks’ or ‘toplinks’

‘listings’

You might notice I’ve specifically said ‘root domain’ as opposed to ‘URL’ here. There is a reason for this: you might find lots of URLs in your dataset where ‘links’ is in the URL path. As a general rule, these are a lot less likely to be manipulative links. Compare http://www.lutterworthyouththeatreacademy.co.uk/links.html with www.speedylinks.uk. One of these is spam, and the other isn’t - can you spot the difference?

Root domain contains references to SEO

You’ll also find that if the root domain contains SEO or web-related terms, it’s likely it exists simply to serve the purpose of building links. Look out for the following words in the root domain:

‘domain’

‘search’

‘seo’

‘web’

Bear in mind that lots of sites have ‘search’ pages, so your best bet is to focus on the root domain for this to be an indication of anything suspect.

Content farms are another common feature of a poor backlink profile. Look for any domains that contain ‘article’.

Other dodgy root domains

The following keywords in the domain are usually indicative of dodgy link-building practices:

‘cash’

‘loan’

‘com’ (such as com-com-com.com – yes, really)

‘world’

‘ads’

Root domain contains consonant or number clusters

Another obvious sign is any root domains which simply do not make sense. You’ll likely have lots of domains linking to your site consisting of bundles of consonants and letters, such as ‘1073wkcr.com’ or ‘a0924111232.freebbs.tw’. Watch out for domains like these, as more often than not they are low quality.

You can easily find URLs like this by sorting your root domain column from A-Z. You will find that:

any domain starting with a number will appear at the top of your list.

scrolling to the bottom to letters x, y and z usually throws up lots of domains with consonant clusters that do not make sense.

The ccTLD is uncommon

Uncommon ccTLDs are usually indicative of dodgy sites. Any site worth its salt will try and obtain the .com, .net, .org, .edu or relevant country ccTLD for its domain name. The less common ccTLDs are an indication of a lower quality site and those examples I found in my most recent backlink audit which indicated spammy sites were:

.biz

.casino

.clothing

.ooo

.properties, etc

Looking at titles for further clues

When the domain name or URL isn’t particularly insightful, the page title is the next place to look. Look out for the same keywords listed above, as well as the following phrases:

‘most visited web pages’

‘reciprocal links’

‘link partner’

‘link exchange’

‘seo friendly’

Another clue is to find any site titles that are completed unrelated to the niche of your site. Titles that contain commercial terms are particularly suspect, such as 

‘louis vuitton belts’

‘nike shoes’

As I mentioned before, bad backlinks often operate in bulk, and there’s nothing like a load of duplicate titles to lead you hot on the heels of a group of spammy URLs.

What can anchor text tell us?

Is it keyword-heavy?

A popular SEO tactic in the pre-Penguin days was to link to your site with keyword-heavy or commercial anchor text, such as ‘cheap red dresses’.  Make sure to put together a pivot table of your anchor text so you can quickly scan for any recurring anchor text that looks suspiciously well-optimised and check out these links to see if they’re legit – they probably aren’t.

Does it make sense?

In addition, any anchor text that simply doesn’t make any sense or is completely unrelated to the site you’re auditing is highly likely to be low quality.

Is the language consistent with the rest of the page?

Finally, any anchor text that is in a different language to the rest of the content on the page is likely to be a paid link. You can use the ‘language’ column (provided by Ahrefs and Kerboo) to see what language the page is in, and you can compare this to the language of the anchor text of your links. Anywhere where there is a mismatch is likely to be suspicious.

Duplicate root IP address

Pivot your data to see if there are several with the same IP address. If there is a block of URLs that share the same IP address and one of these is spammy, it could be likely that the rest are too.

Make sure to do a manual spot check of the sites to make sure you’re not disavowing anything harmless. For example, sites hosted at blogspot.com and wordpress.com are commonly hosted at the same IP address, and many of these will be harmless.

Where on the page is the link located?

In many backlink reports, there’s a column which tells you where on the page the link is located. In Kerboo, this column is called ‘link section’, and it’s another nifty tool for us to use in our hunt for dodgy links. Filter this column for keywords contained in the footer and sidebar to see if there are any which look suspicious on opening the page.

Footer and sidebar links are prime locations for dodgy backlinks. Why? Because these are site-wide, they are often targeted for paid link placements as the recipient of the link can often benefit from the most link equity in this way.

In addition, if the link is providing no value to users on the site (for example, if it’s completely unrelated to the site content, which is likely if it’s a paid link) then the footer is a useful place to essentially ‘hide’ the link from users while still providing link equity to the recipient.

Where is the link pointing to?

In the ‘link to’ column, look out for links pointing to the ‘money pages’ on your site – these are any pages which are revenue-drivers or particularly important for other reasons, such as product pages or sign-up pages.

It’s natural in a backlink profile to have the majority of links pointing to your homepage; this is where most people will link to by default. It’s much harder to build links to pages deeper in a site, especially product pages, as it’s not particularly natural for people to link here.

By glancing an eye over links which point to money pages, it’s likely you could spot a few suspicious links which have been previously built to help boost the rankings of important pages on your site.

Taking things to the next level

All the tips I’ve shared with you so far have involved mining data that is easily accessible to you in your backlink spreadsheet – things such as root domain, URL, page title and anchor text.

To take your backlink audit up a level, it’s time to get savvy. This is where Screaming Frog comes in.

Using Custom Search to spot link directories

You know how earlier we mentioned that not all directories are bad? Well, an easy way to spot if a directory exists solely for link-building purposes is to see if the page contains phrases such as ‘submit link’, ‘link exchange’ or ‘add your site’.

These telltale phrases will not necessarily be in the URL or page title of your link, so this is why it’s necessary to take things up a step.

To find pages which contain these terms, you can run a crawl of your backlink URLs using the Screaming Frog Custom Search feature.

Above: using Screaming Frog ‘Custom Search’ to find web pages containing suspicious text

Once the crawl is finished, you can then download the URLs that contain the phrases above. These will most likely be some obvious link directories that you’ll want to disavow pretty sharpish.

Using Custom Search to spot spun content

The Screaming Frog custom search feature isn’t just useful for finding directory links. This is where you really need to put on your detective hat and to have a good think of any patterns you’ve noticed so far in your backlink audit.

When I did my audit recently, I noticed a recurring theme with some of the paid links. There were links to other sites with commercial anchor text that kept appearing alongside the link to the site I was auditing. This was a piece of spun content that had been copied and pasted across multiple sites and forums, and whoever had done the work was clearly being lazy, lumping a load of unrelated links together in one paragraph.

Apart from the fact the text made no sense whatsoever, the anchor text of these other links was extremely commercial: ‘cheap nike free run 2 for men’ and ‘chanel outlet UK’ where a recurring theme.

Above: example of spun content that appeared in my recent backlink audit

I’d tried to find a pattern in the URLs or titles of these pages, but it was a bit hit and miss. It was then that I realised I could do what I had done to find the directory links – Screaming Frog custom search.

I, therefore, carried out a Screaming Frog crawl that looked for recurring anchor text such as ‘cheap nike’ and ‘chanel outlet’ to identify any URLs that I hadn’t yet uncovered. It was extremely useful and allowed me to identify some URLs that up to that point I had been unable to identify from the data in my spreadsheet alone.

To wrap up

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I appreciate this post was a lot of writing, but I hope it’s really helped you to dig out any dodgy links that were lurking under the surface.

If there’s one thing to take away, it’s to look for any patterns or consistencies in the dodgy links that you find, and to then use these to dig out the less obvious links.

Do you have certain criteria that you find helpful when identifying bad backlinks? Comment below!

Playing detective: how to identify bad backlinks was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[ronijashworth]

Playing detective: how to identify bad backlinks

I completed a backlink audit recently, and this is the post I wish I’d had when starting the tedious task of identifying the nasty links. Not all dodgy links are obvious, heck some are even near-impossible to find, especially when you have a spreadsheet containing thousands of them.

This is not a post about how to do a backlink audit from A-Z - that’s already been written about loads of times. Instead, I’m going to take you through how to identify patterns in your backlink data to quickly and accurately uncover spammy links.

I’ve written this post for the greater good of all SEOs, and yes, you’re welcome.

Wait - do I even need to do a backlink audit?

There has been some confusion since the last Penguin update as to whether or not SEOs even need to carry out backlink audits anymore. After all, Google has said that now they only devalue spam links as opposed to penalising the site receiving them, right?

Well, the short answer is: yes, you probably should continue to carry out backlink audits and update your disavow file. You can read more about this here and here.

Why can’t I just use an automated tool to find the bad links?

I know it’s tempting to get automated backlink tools such as Kerboo to do all the hard-lifting for you. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t a great idea.

In the backlink audit, I did recently, 93% of porn links were assigned a link risk of ‘neutral’ with a score of 500/1,000 (0 being the safest link and 1,000 being the riskiest). Links from the BBC also received a ‘neutral’ rating, with some getting a higher risk score than the porn links! Go figure.

Automated backlink tools can be super valuable; however, this is because of all the data they draw together into a single spreadsheet, as opposed to them being particularly accurate at rating the risk of links. To rely solely on their link risk metrics for your backlink audit is a quick ticket to trouble.

Is this guide relevant to my site?

This post is not a ‘one-size fits all’ strategy to a backlink audit, so please use your common sense. For example, below I recommend that root domains containing the word ‘loan’ are generally indicative of unscrupulous sites. However, if you’re doing a backlink audit for a financial services firm, then this generalisation is less likely to apply to you.

It’s up to you to think about the guidelines below in the context of the site you’re auditing and to adjust accordingly.

You will need

Before you start, you will need to have all your backlinks neatly assembled in a spreadsheet along with the following information:

URL (one example per linking root domain)

root domain

anchor text

citation flow (Majestic) or domain authority (Ahrefs or Moz)

trust flow (Majestic) or domain trust (Ahrefs or Moz)

backlinks

IP address

title

page language

link location

and anything else you can think of that could be useful

This article can bring you up to speed if you’re not sure how to assemble this data. Make sure to combine data from as many sources as possible, as different SEO tools will contain different information and you don’t want to miss anything! As I said earlier, I would also recommend Kerboo as one of your data sources, as it pulls a lot of the information you could want into one place.

How to spot the patterns

Fortunately for us, the bad guys almost always do their dirty work in bulk, which makes life easier for us good guys who inevitably have to clean up after them. It’s rare to find one dodgy directory submission or a single piece of spun content containing a paid link. This is a massive help – use it to your advantage!

Pivot Tables

I highly recommend creating a pivot table of your data so that you can see how many times an issue has occurred in your data set. This can help you to quickly spot patterns.

Above: spotting suspicious anchor text using a pivot table

For example, let’s say you’re doing a backlink audit for a clothing site. By pivoting for anchor text, you might be able to quickly spot that ‘buy cheap dresses’ appears several times. Given the commercial nature of this anchor text, it’s likely it could be spam. You could spot check some of these URLs to make sure, and if they’re consistently dodgy, you can reasonably assume the rest of the links with this anchor text are too.

Above: putting together a pivot table to spot anchor text frequencies (view large version of gif)

Word Clouds

Another thing I like to do is to dump my data into a word cloud generator. This is useful because it visualises the data (the bigger the word, the more times it appears in your dataset). It can help me to quickly catch something that looks like it shouldn’t be there.

Keeping on top of your data

Make sure you make a note as you work that explains why you’ve decided to disavow a set of links. It helps not just at the end when you’re reviewing your links, but will also be a big help when you come to spot patterns. It will also stop you from revisiting the same links multiple times and asking yourself ‘why did I decide these were bad links?’

Above: screenshot from my recent backlink audit with ‘action’ and ‘reason’ columns

Examples of common patterns to find bad backlinks

I’m now going to give you specific examples of bad links which you can use to find patterns in your data.

It’s not always a clear-cut answer as to whether a link is spam or not, however, the guidelines below should help guide you in the right direction.

When you’re unsure about a link, ask yourself: ‘if it wasn’t for SEO, would this link even exist?’

Words to look for in the root domain or URL

X-rated words in the URL

You’ll immediately want to disavow (unless of course, these are relevant to your site) any x-rated links. These usually contain one of the following terms in their URL:

porn

xxx

sex (also sexy can result in some shady sites)

escort

dirty

adult

and any more dodgy words you can think of that relate to orgies, orgasms and other obscenities

Be careful not to accidentally disavow URLs where ‘sex’ is in the middle of a word - such as sussexhotels.com or essex.ac.uk. This will require some manual spot checking.

Root domain contains references to directories & listings

Next, you want to look for any URLs that indicate manipulative SEO link-building tactics. Directories are an obvious example of this, and while not all directories are bad (here is a good article on how to tell the difference), generally those created purely for link-building purposes contain the following words in the root domain:

‘directory’ – especially ‘dir’ and ‘webdir’

‘links’ – especially ‘weblinks’, ‘hotlinks’ or ‘toplinks’

‘listings’

You might notice I’ve specifically said ‘root domain’ as opposed to ‘URL’ here. There is a reason for this: you might find lots of URLs in your dataset where ‘links’ is in the URL path. As a general rule, these are a lot less likely to be manipulative links. Compare http://www.lutterworthyouththeatreacademy.co.uk/links.html with www.speedylinks.uk. One of these is spam, and the other isn’t - can you spot the difference?

Root domain contains references to SEO

You’ll also find that if the root domain contains SEO or web-related terms, it’s likely it exists simply to serve the purpose of building links. Look out for the following words in the root domain:

‘domain’

‘search’

‘seo’

‘web’

Bear in mind that lots of sites have ‘search’ pages, so your best bet is to focus on the root domain for this to be an indication of anything suspect.

Content farms are another common feature of a poor backlink profile. Look for any domains that contain ‘article’.

Other dodgy root domains

The following keywords in the domain are usually indicative of dodgy link-building practices:

‘cash’

‘loan’

‘com’ (such as com-com-com.com – yes, really)

‘world’

‘ads’

Root domain contains consonant or number clusters

Another obvious sign is any root domains which simply do not make sense. You’ll likely have lots of domains linking to your site consisting of bundles of consonants and letters, such as ‘1073wkcr.com’ or ‘a0924111232.freebbs.tw’. Watch out for domains like these, as more often than not they are low quality.

You can easily find URLs like this by sorting your root domain column from A-Z. You will find that:

any domain starting with a number will appear at the top of your list.

scrolling to the bottom to letters x, y and z usually throws up lots of domains with consonant clusters that do not make sense.

The ccTLD is uncommon

Uncommon ccTLDs are usually indicative of dodgy sites. Any site worth its salt will try and obtain the .com, .net, .org, .edu or relevant country ccTLD for its domain name. The less common ccTLDs are an indication of a lower quality site and those examples I found in my most recent backlink audit which indicated spammy sites were:

.biz

.casino

.clothing

.ooo

.properties, etc

Looking at titles for further clues

When the domain name or URL isn’t particularly insightful, the page title is the next place to look. Look out for the same keywords listed above, as well as the following phrases:

‘most visited web pages’

‘reciprocal links’

‘link partner’

‘link exchange’

‘seo friendly’

Another clue is to find any site titles that are completed unrelated to the niche of your site. Titles that contain commercial terms are particularly suspect, such as 

‘louis vuitton belts’

‘nike shoes’

As I mentioned before, bad backlinks often operate in bulk, and there’s nothing like a load of duplicate titles to lead you hot on the heels of a group of spammy URLs.

What can anchor text tell us?

Is it keyword-heavy?

A popular SEO tactic in the pre-Penguin days was to link to your site with keyword-heavy or commercial anchor text, such as ‘cheap red dresses’.  Make sure to put together a pivot table of your anchor text so you can quickly scan for any recurring anchor text that looks suspiciously well-optimised and check out these links to see if they’re legit – they probably aren’t.

Does it make sense?

In addition, any anchor text that simply doesn’t make any sense or is completely unrelated to the site you’re auditing is highly likely to be low quality.

Is the language consistent with the rest of the page?

Finally, any anchor text that is in a different language to the rest of the content on the page is likely to be a paid link. You can use the ‘language’ column (provided by Ahrefs and Kerboo) to see what language the page is in, and you can compare this to the language of the anchor text of your links. Anywhere where there is a mismatch is likely to be suspicious.

Duplicate root IP address

Pivot your data to see if there are several with the same IP address. If there is a block of URLs that share the same IP address and one of these is spammy, it could be likely that the rest are too.

Make sure to do a manual spot check of the sites to make sure you’re not disavowing anything harmless. For example, sites hosted at blogspot.com and wordpress.com are commonly hosted at the same IP address, and many of these will be harmless.

Where on the page is the link located?

In many backlink reports, there’s a column which tells you where on the page the link is located. In Kerboo, this column is called ‘link section’, and it’s another nifty tool for us to use in our hunt for dodgy links. Filter this column for keywords contained in the footer and sidebar to see if there are any which look suspicious on opening the page.

Footer and sidebar links are prime locations for dodgy backlinks. Why? Because these are site-wide, they are often targeted for paid link placements as the recipient of the link can often benefit from the most link equity in this way.

In addition, if the link is providing no value to users on the site (for example, if it’s completely unrelated to the site content, which is likely if it’s a paid link) then the footer is a useful place to essentially ‘hide’ the link from users while still providing link equity to the recipient.

Where is the link pointing to?

In the ‘link to’ column, look out for links pointing to the ‘money pages’ on your site – these are any pages which are revenue-drivers or particularly important for other reasons, such as product pages or sign-up pages.

It’s natural in a backlink profile to have the majority of links pointing to your homepage; this is where most people will link to by default. It’s much harder to build links to pages deeper in a site, especially product pages, as it’s not particularly natural for people to link here.

By glancing an eye over links which point to money pages, it’s likely you could spot a few suspicious links which have been previously built to help boost the rankings of important pages on your site.

Taking things to the next level

All the tips I’ve shared with you so far have involved mining data that is easily accessible to you in your backlink spreadsheet – things such as root domain, URL, page title and anchor text.

To take your backlink audit up a level, it’s time to get savvy. This is where Screaming Frog comes in.

Using Custom Search to spot link directories

You know how earlier we mentioned that not all directories are bad? Well, an easy way to spot if a directory exists solely for link-building purposes is to see if the page contains phrases such as ‘submit link’, ‘link exchange’ or ‘add your site’.

These telltale phrases will not necessarily be in the URL or page title of your link, so this is why it’s necessary to take things up a step.

To find pages which contain these terms, you can run a crawl of your backlink URLs using the Screaming Frog Custom Search feature.

Above: using Screaming Frog ‘Custom Search’ to find web pages containing suspicious text

Once the crawl is finished, you can then download the URLs that contain the phrases above. These will most likely be some obvious link directories that you’ll want to disavow pretty sharpish.

Using Custom Search to spot spun content

The Screaming Frog custom search feature isn’t just useful for finding directory links. This is where you really need to put on your detective hat and to have a good think of any patterns you’ve noticed so far in your backlink audit.

When I did my audit recently, I noticed a recurring theme with some of the paid links. There were links to other sites with commercial anchor text that kept appearing alongside the link to the site I was auditing. This was a piece of spun content that had been copied and pasted across multiple sites and forums, and whoever had done the work was clearly being lazy, lumping a load of unrelated links together in one paragraph.

Apart from the fact the text made no sense whatsoever, the anchor text of these other links was extremely commercial: ‘cheap nike free run 2 for men’ and ‘chanel outlet UK’ where a recurring theme.

Above: example of spun content that appeared in my recent backlink audit

I’d tried to find a pattern in the URLs or titles of these pages, but it was a bit hit and miss. It was then that I realised I could do what I had done to find the directory links – Screaming Frog custom search.

I, therefore, carried out a Screaming Frog crawl that looked for recurring anchor text such as ‘cheap nike’ and ‘chanel outlet’ to identify any URLs that I hadn’t yet uncovered. It was extremely useful and allowed me to identify some URLs that up to that point I had been unable to identify from the data in my spreadsheet alone.

To wrap up

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I appreciate this post was a lot of writing, but I hope it’s really helped you to dig out any dodgy links that were lurking under the surface.

If there’s one thing to take away, it’s to look for any patterns or consistencies in the dodgy links that you find, and to then use these to dig out the less obvious links.

Do you have certain criteria that you find helpful when identifying bad backlinks? Comment below!

from Digital Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/playing-detective-how-to-identify-bad-backlinks/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[dillenwaeraa]

Playing detective: how to identify bad backlinks

I completed a backlink audit recently, and this is the post I wish I’d had when starting the tedious task of identifying the nasty links. Not all dodgy links are obvious, heck some are even near-impossible to find, especially when you have a spreadsheet containing thousands of them.

This is not a post about how to do a backlink audit from A-Z - that’s already been written about loads of times. Instead, I’m going to take you through how to identify patterns in your backlink data to quickly and accurately uncover spammy links.

I’ve written this post for the greater good of all SEOs, and yes, you’re welcome.

Wait - do I even need to do a backlink audit?

There has been some confusion since the last Penguin update as to whether or not SEOs even need to carry out backlink audits anymore. After all, Google has said that now they only devalue spam links as opposed to penalising the site receiving them, right?

Well, the short answer is: yes, you probably should continue to carry out backlink audits and update your disavow file. You can read more about this here and here.

Why can’t I just use an automated tool to find the bad links?

I know it’s tempting to get automated backlink tools such as Kerboo to do all the hard-lifting for you. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t a great idea.

In the backlink audit, I did recently, 93% of porn links were assigned a link risk of ‘neutral’ with a score of 500/1,000 (0 being the safest link and 1,000 being the riskiest). Links from the BBC also received a ‘neutral’ rating, with some getting a higher risk score than the porn links! Go figure.

Automated backlink tools can be super valuable; however, this is because of all the data they draw together into a single spreadsheet, as opposed to them being particularly accurate at rating the risk of links. To rely solely on their link risk metrics for your backlink audit is a quick ticket to trouble.

Is this guide relevant to my site?

This post is not a ‘one-size fits all’ strategy to a backlink audit, so please use your common sense. For example, below I recommend that root domains containing the word ‘loan’ are generally indicative of unscrupulous sites. However, if you’re doing a backlink audit for a financial services firm, then this generalisation is less likely to apply to you.

It’s up to you to think about the guidelines below in the context of the site you’re auditing and to adjust accordingly.

You will need

Before you start, you will need to have all your backlinks neatly assembled in a spreadsheet along with the following information:

URL (one example per linking root domain)

root domain

anchor text

citation flow (Majestic) or domain authority (Ahrefs or Moz)

trust flow (Majestic) or domain trust (Ahrefs or Moz)

backlinks

IP address

title

page language

link location

and anything else you can think of that could be useful

This article can bring you up to speed if you’re not sure how to assemble this data. Make sure to combine data from as many sources as possible, as different SEO tools will contain different information and you don’t want to miss anything! As I said earlier, I would also recommend Kerboo as one of your data sources, as it pulls a lot of the information you could want into one place.

How to spot the patterns

Fortunately for us, the bad guys almost always do their dirty work in bulk, which makes life easier for us good guys who inevitably have to clean up after them. It’s rare to find one dodgy directory submission or a single piece of spun content containing a paid link. This is a massive help – use it to your advantage!

Pivot Tables

I highly recommend creating a pivot table of your data so that you can see how many times an issue has occurred in your data set. This can help you to quickly spot patterns.

Above: spotting suspicious anchor text using a pivot table

For example, let’s say you’re doing a backlink audit for a clothing site. By pivoting for anchor text, you might be able to quickly spot that ‘buy cheap dresses’ appears several times. Given the commercial nature of this anchor text, it’s likely it could be spam. You could spot check some of these URLs to make sure, and if they’re consistently dodgy, you can reasonably assume the rest of the links with this anchor text are too.

Above: putting together a pivot table to spot anchor text frequencies (view large version of gif)

Word Clouds

Another thing I like to do is to dump my data into a word cloud generator. This is useful because it visualises the data (the bigger the word, the more times it appears in your dataset). It can help me to quickly catch something that looks like it shouldn’t be there.

Keeping on top of your data

Make sure you make a note as you work that explains why you’ve decided to disavow a set of links. It helps not just at the end when you’re reviewing your links, but will also be a big help when you come to spot patterns. It will also stop you from revisiting the same links multiple times and asking yourself ‘why did I decide these were bad links?’

Above: screenshot from my recent backlink audit with ‘action’ and ‘reason’ columns

Examples of common patterns to find bad backlinks

I’m now going to give you specific examples of bad links which you can use to find patterns in your data.

It’s not always a clear-cut answer as to whether a link is spam or not, however, the guidelines below should help guide you in the right direction.

When you’re unsure about a link, ask yourself: ‘if it wasn’t for SEO, would this link even exist?’

Words to look for in the root domain or URL

X-rated words in the URL

You’ll immediately want to disavow (unless of course, these are relevant to your site) any x-rated links. These usually contain one of the following terms in their URL:

porn

xxx

sex (also sexy can result in some shady sites)

escort

dirty

adult

and any more dodgy words you can think of that relate to orgies, orgasms and other obscenities

Be careful not to accidentally disavow URLs where ‘sex’ is in the middle of a word - such as sussexhotels.com or essex.ac.uk. This will require some manual spot checking.

Root domain contains references to directories & listings

Next, you want to look for any URLs that indicate manipulative SEO link-building tactics. Directories are an obvious example of this, and while not all directories are bad (here is a good article on how to tell the difference), generally those created purely for link-building purposes contain the following words in the root domain:

‘directory’ – especially ‘dir’ and ‘webdir’

‘links’ – especially ‘weblinks’, ‘hotlinks’ or ‘toplinks’

‘listings’

You might notice I’ve specifically said ‘root domain’ as opposed to ‘URL’ here. There is a reason for this: you might find lots of URLs in your dataset where ‘links’ is in the URL path. As a general rule, these are a lot less likely to be manipulative links. Compare http://www.lutterworthyouththeatreacademy.co.uk/links.html with www.speedylinks.uk. One of these is spam, and the other isn’t - can you spot the difference?

Root domain contains references to SEO

You’ll also find that if the root domain contains SEO or web-related terms, it’s likely it exists simply to serve the purpose of building links. Look out for the following words in the root domain:

‘domain’

‘search’

‘seo’

‘web’

Bear in mind that lots of sites have ‘search’ pages, so your best bet is to focus on the root domain for this to be an indication of anything suspect.

Content farms are another common feature of a poor backlink profile. Look for any domains that contain ‘article’.

Other dodgy root domains

The following keywords in the domain are usually indicative of dodgy link-building practices:

‘cash’

‘loan’

‘com’ (such as com-com-com.com – yes, really)

‘world’

‘ads’

Root domain contains consonant or number clusters

Another obvious sign is any root domains which simply do not make sense. You’ll likely have lots of domains linking to your site consisting of bundles of consonants and letters, such as ‘1073wkcr.com’ or ‘a0924111232.freebbs.tw’. Watch out for domains like these, as more often than not they are low quality.

You can easily find URLs like this by sorting your root domain column from A-Z. You will find that:

any domain starting with a number will appear at the top of your list.

scrolling to the bottom to letters x, y and z usually throws up lots of domains with consonant clusters that do not make sense.

The ccTLD is uncommon

Uncommon ccTLDs are usually indicative of dodgy sites. Any site worth its salt will try and obtain the .com, .net, .org, .edu or relevant country ccTLD for its domain name. The less common ccTLDs are an indication of a lower quality site and those examples I found in my most recent backlink audit which indicated spammy sites were:

.biz

.casino

.clothing

.ooo

.properties, etc

Looking at titles for further clues

When the domain name or URL isn’t particularly insightful, the page title is the next place to look. Look out for the same keywords listed above, as well as the following phrases:

‘most visited web pages’

‘reciprocal links’

‘link partner’

‘link exchange’

‘seo friendly’

Another clue is to find any site titles that are completed unrelated to the niche of your site. Titles that contain commercial terms are particularly suspect, such as 

‘louis vuitton belts’

‘nike shoes’

As I mentioned before, bad backlinks often operate in bulk, and there’s nothing like a load of duplicate titles to lead you hot on the heels of a group of spammy URLs.

What can anchor text tell us?

Is it keyword-heavy?

A popular SEO tactic in the pre-Penguin days was to link to your site with keyword-heavy or commercial anchor text, such as ‘cheap red dresses’.  Make sure to put together a pivot table of your anchor text so you can quickly scan for any recurring anchor text that looks suspiciously well-optimised and check out these links to see if they’re legit – they probably aren’t.

Does it make sense?

In addition, any anchor text that simply doesn’t make any sense or is completely unrelated to the site you’re auditing is highly likely to be low quality.

Is the language consistent with the rest of the page?

Finally, any anchor text that is in a different language to the rest of the content on the page is likely to be a paid link. You can use the ‘language’ column (provided by Ahrefs and Kerboo) to see what language the page is in, and you can compare this to the language of the anchor text of your links. Anywhere where there is a mismatch is likely to be suspicious.

Duplicate root IP address

Pivot your data to see if there are several with the same IP address. If there is a block of URLs that share the same IP address and one of these is spammy, it could be likely that the rest are too.

Make sure to do a manual spot check of the sites to make sure you’re not disavowing anything harmless. For example, sites hosted at blogspot.com and wordpress.com are commonly hosted at the same IP address, and many of these will be harmless.

Where on the page is the link located?

In many backlink reports, there’s a column which tells you where on the page the link is located. In Kerboo, this column is called ‘link section’, and it’s another nifty tool for us to use in our hunt for dodgy links. Filter this column for keywords contained in the footer and sidebar to see if there are any which look suspicious on opening the page.

Footer and sidebar links are prime locations for dodgy backlinks. Why? Because these are site-wide, they are often targeted for paid link placements as the recipient of the link can often benefit from the most link equity in this way.

In addition, if the link is providing no value to users on the site (for example, if it’s completely unrelated to the site content, which is likely if it’s a paid link) then the footer is a useful place to essentially ‘hide’ the link from users while still providing link equity to the recipient.

Where is the link pointing to?

In the ‘link to’ column, look out for links pointing to the ‘money pages’ on your site – these are any pages which are revenue-drivers or particularly important for other reasons, such as product pages or sign-up pages.

It’s natural in a backlink profile to have the majority of links pointing to your homepage; this is where most people will link to by default. It’s much harder to build links to pages deeper in a site, especially product pages, as it’s not particularly natural for people to link here.

By glancing an eye over links which point to money pages, it’s likely you could spot a few suspicious links which have been previously built to help boost the rankings of important pages on your site.

Taking things to the next level

All the tips I’ve shared with you so far have involved mining data that is easily accessible to you in your backlink spreadsheet – things such as root domain, URL, page title and anchor text.

To take your backlink audit up a level, it’s time to get savvy. This is where Screaming Frog comes in.

Using Custom Search to spot link directories

You know how earlier we mentioned that not all directories are bad? Well, an easy way to spot if a directory exists solely for link-building purposes is to see if the page contains phrases such as ‘submit link’, ‘link exchange’ or ‘add your site’.

These telltale phrases will not necessarily be in the URL or page title of your link, so this is why it’s necessary to take things up a step.

To find pages which contain these terms, you can run a crawl of your backlink URLs using the Screaming Frog Custom Search feature.

Above: using Screaming Frog ‘Custom Search’ to find web pages containing suspicious text

Once the crawl is finished, you can then download the URLs that contain the phrases above. These will most likely be some obvious link directories that you’ll want to disavow pretty sharpish.

Using Custom Search to spot spun content

The Screaming Frog custom search feature isn’t just useful for finding directory links. This is where you really need to put on your detective hat and to have a good think of any patterns you’ve noticed so far in your backlink audit.

When I did my audit recently, I noticed a recurring theme with some of the paid links. There were links to other sites with commercial anchor text that kept appearing alongside the link to the site I was auditing. This was a piece of spun content that had been copied and pasted across multiple sites and forums, and whoever had done the work was clearly being lazy, lumping a load of unrelated links together in one paragraph.

Apart from the fact the text made no sense whatsoever, the anchor text of these other links was extremely commercial: ‘cheap nike free run 2 for men’ and ‘chanel outlet UK’ where a recurring theme.

Above: example of spun content that appeared in my recent backlink audit

I’d tried to find a pattern in the URLs or titles of these pages, but it was a bit hit and miss. It was then that I realised I could do what I had done to find the directory links – Screaming Frog custom search.

I, therefore, carried out a Screaming Frog crawl that looked for recurring anchor text such as ‘cheap nike’ and ‘chanel outlet’ to identify any URLs that I hadn’t yet uncovered. It was extremely useful and allowed me to identify some URLs that up to that point I had been unable to identify from the data in my spreadsheet alone.

To wrap up

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I appreciate this post was a lot of writing, but I hope it’s really helped you to dig out any dodgy links that were lurking under the surface.

If there’s one thing to take away, it’s to look for any patterns or consistencies in the dodgy links that you find, and to then use these to dig out the less obvious links.

Do you have certain criteria that you find helpful when identifying bad backlinks? Comment below!

from Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/playing-detective-how-to-identify-bad-backlinks/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[captain-spookycandycollecti-blog]

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I am about to take a blood test for a term life insurance policy. I smoked a cigar about 10 days ago, and about 4 dips of snuff per week (for the past several months). Do they test for nicotine or some other chemical in tobacco to verify if I am a smoker or not? A friend of mine tested positive for smoking and he had smoked a cigar about two months previous...can they test that far back on a blood test??? Thanks""

Car Insurance 19 years old question?

I am planning on buying a car soon. I am 19 years old and I live with my parents. If the car is in my name, can the insurance be put in my parents name to make it cheaper? If not, what other options do I have? I've did some researching on quotes and I will have to pay like over $2000 every 6 months if its in my name but WAY less if its in theirs. All answers are appreciated.""

Cheap full coverage car insurance for an 18 year old?

Ok i got my license on 10/29/2012 and I am just now getting a car. I bought a 2000 Honda Accord EX Coupe for 4800 and I am getting it financed over a 36 month loan period time. So with that being said the credit union requires me to have full coverage auto insurance so I want to know where is the cheapest place for a teenager to get insurance. I turned 18 back in August. The lowest i have seen so far is 193/6mos and that is with StateFarm

My car insurance company wants to use recycled parts for a repair to my car. Is this legal?

My car insurance company wants to use recycled parts for a repair to my car. Is this legal?

Insurance for first time male driver (16 years old almost 17)?

I'm two months away from being 17 and I'm looking at getting a 2001 E46 BMW 325i. Does anyone have a guesstimate or actual cost to insure myself? Would there be anyway I could insure myself under my parents name to lessen the price?

""Car Insurance, should I go as a named driver?""

I am 25, just passed, I got a quote from the post office for a 2001 MITSUBISHI Colt 1.3 Equippe at 2500 for the year... I live in a posh area (my nan n grandads) and the car will be parked on the drive. If I go as a named driver on my Grandad's insurance, who has plus 10yrs no claims how much cheaper do you think it will be? Does my Grandad have to buy the car in his name? What's the best way I can do this? Or should I just drive his punto 1.2l as a named driver, as a guess how much do you think i will have to pay extra so my grandad is still paying the same he usually does?""

Car Insurance Help! (PLEASE HELP)?

Ok So im 17 soon, This is the car i wont.......... 2000 Reg, Augi tt 1.8L Quattro 2door [225] Coupe It costs about 3000, But the insurance qoutes on the internet are about 13000-22000 a month!!!! Its a 3000 pound car, What shall i do? how can i make it cheaper For this car or is there anything i can do so that if i get in an accident i get no money or my cars not paid for, id do that aslong as i saved money.... Also, If you know any other cheap cars, that are sporty looking the this one and look nice.... Link them, Any good help i will donate 5 Over paypal...... Thank you x""

Temporary car insurance for one day for 17 year old?

it's for a holiday, I believe it would be good driving experience, obviously I would have a qualified driver with me......""

Is my Car Insurance Valid?

If i use my Aunty name (dose not live with me and lives one mile away from my home) as the Main Driver and my name as the second driver on our car insurance policy (as it saves me some money and even i will be the main driver) will my insurance is valid? Please help me. If it is not, please tell me how can i save money by using her name as she is an experienced driver. Many thanks.""

Gap insurance on new auto?

what is the cost for gap insurance for honda acord 4 door sedan 06 year

How much for car insurance?

Ill be getting my permit in a year and drivers license in 2. Im from Minnesota and i was wondering how much car insurance would be? I already have a car, its a 2006 Sebring Chrysler. Sooo any ideas?""

""Cheaper car insurance, please help!?

I am paying about 250$ on my car insurance and i cant afford it anymore. Mine is a 2000 model car and i need a cheaper insurance. Please help. I am in the Northern Nevada.

Help need car insurance I am 21 and dont want the black box :( help please?

anyone knows where i can get cheap car insurance from like 150 to 200 a month let me know am desperate please.......

texas insurance total loss vehicle

texas insurance total loss vehicle

Teen car insurance questions?

ok i am 17 and i am looking for car insurance and confused can i get a policy of my own or do i have to be added to my parents policy ? and i went to progressive and they said it be lik 2500 is that pretty cheap or hella expensive ?

What is the average life insurance commission?

I know the amount can very significantly but I am just want to know what the average commission is. I've heard anywhere from $600 to $1000. But not if one is Term or whole life.

Name of insurance company department?

I'm looking for a department that response to check the credit, background, health and others of customers making sure customers are able to get this insurance. What is the name of this department? May be the description is not very clear, any related department is ok. Thx""

Car Insurance?

I know people will tell me to ring myu insurance company but i dont have my policy number with me or their number im at work today...... How much difference cost wise do you think it would be to change my policy so i can drive any car. I need to be able to drive my boyfriend, my dads and his dads cars? In the UK by the way""

Does my financed car absolutely require full coverage?

Hi, i just put a down payment on a new car, and I've had it for about a month now; they told me that I have to keep full coverage insurance on it but I really can't afford it. But I read through the papers, and it says just to keep basic insurance on it. Is the car realty trying to make more money by making me think that I have no choice but to do premium insurance, or are they right? My boyfriend told me that if it's not stated officially in writing, they're probably lying. Im 21 and imI've never been in an accident or had a driving offense of any kind, and im in college so need to save as much money as possible. Please give me serious answers only!! Thanks!""

How much would auto insurance be with State Farm for an 18 year old male with a 2006 Mazda 3 hatchback?

No tickets, no accidents, 3.0+ gpa.""

What is the cheapest car insurance company for Northern Ireland. I want to insure a ford focus ST-3.?

I have 1 years driving experience and 1 years NCB.

""Why did 4,000,000 people lose their current insurance, when only 27,000 signed up for insurance under ACA?""

The facts are that only just under 27,000 people signed up for insurance under Obama's new law aka Obamacare. This is so darn ridiculous. Have ya heard about this?""

Is an automatic car cheaper to tax and insure?

This may sound stupid, but i was looking into driving lessons when i came across an advert for an automatic driving school. I was wondering if, at the end of it, would it make an difference to my insurance if i had a stick or automatic? Thanks""

Non owners insurance?

what is the best non-owners insurance business (or agency) in Houston?

Temporary test-drive car insurance for under 21s?

I am 19 years old and have just passed my driving test. I would like to buy my own little car now, but it's my understanding that I have to have insurance to test drive a car. Obviously there is little point in buying a year's worth of insurance for a car that i might not buy, but I'm struggling to find a company that offers 24 hour cover for young drivers, under the age of about 23. Any suggestions?? Do you know any companies that do provide cover for young divers?? I really don't want to have to buy a car without test-driving it, but I also don't want to wait 4 years. :(""

What can I expect for getting caught without auto insurance?

I recently got caught driving without insurance (stupid I know). The cop was nice enough not to impound my car, so he just gave me a ticket with a court date. I'm assuming I can expect a large fine, but what else? Anything?""

How much does auto insurance cost?

How much does auto insurance cost?

Where should gain on life insurance be located on the income statement?

The item reads as follows: When one officer died, the company realized $110,000 from an insurance policy. The book value was $50,000. My gut feeling tells me it should be placed under other comprehensive income, but the solution to my homework problem says it should be under non-operating expense. Why is that? Shouldn't it be under other comprehensive income because the company doesn't really have control over it? I think it is under non-operating because it's REALIZED. Is that enough of a reason? Thanks.""

What is a good car insurance for someone that is 17?

im 17my car is insured by my moms insurance but she wants to take me off. What are some good options??

Can I move to nevada and keep California auto insurance for 6 months?

I am considering moving to las vegas area and would like to know how long I can live there and keep my CA drivers license, CA registration, and CA auto insurance.""

Can someone help me? I got a citation for no insurance?

My brother has a cheap cash car and I just moved in with him. Well apparently since its so cheap, he decided not to get insurance on it, but I have to drive it to work. A cop hiding out saw me do a illegal u-turn, and i quote that because I didn't see any sign saying no u-turn. Anyways, he pulled me over and asked for proof of insurance and I had none, so he gave me this citation and i have some mandatory meeting to go to court? I never been pulled over or issues a citation, and i'm so pissed at my brother for not having insurance! Now i'm going to go personally buy me some when I get home, but I never done this before, is there a way I can get out of this? I would be considered a first time offender, and he told me I had a good driving record, and said something about making a deal with me, by going to the court but I don't remember because i'm so stressed out right now. Then I read something online about a conviction if and something about a surcharge annual for 3 years? WTF is that all about?""

How much should life insurance cost per thousand?

for a middle aged person with no health issues.

Anyone know what insurance company will approve homeowners insurance for Mastiffs in New York State?

I rent on a 380 some acre farm in New York State. I am told that the landlord could not get home owners insurance because of my dog and I have to get rid of him because of the liability. I don't want to. He is a mastiff and a VERY protective one at that if someone comes on the property and he is tied up on the chain (he barks a lot and can look viscious. But once someone is inside he is okay friendly and ready to play. Except one wouldnt know it by viewing him from outside. An insurance agent came onto the property (he was chained) and of course he was very vocal. Scared the crap out of him. But we ALWAYS keep him on a chain. Does anyone know of homeowners insurance available in New York State for this breed of dog, or of another option available. We do not want to have to move because we have a boy in school and we love it here. Any no kill pet shelters or anyone who wants a lovable funny (somewhat quirky) Cane Corso Mastiff>""

What is the cheapest car insurance and that is good for a teenager?

Im starting to almost drive already but i need to knowwhat insurance company has the most economical car insurance for teens?? please let me know and tell me how much you pay for ur kids or even for yourself btw my car is a 2004 volvo s40 2.4i if that matters.

Can I get car insurance at 15 years old?

I am 15 & bought a classic car with my dad. Can I insure it in my name and build up two years no claims bonus while we restore it?

Insurance comparison websites. Why can't I ask about a theoretical car?

They need the registration number. Why also do they need to know my phone number? All I want to know is- can I afford the insurance? A lot of people tell new drivers to go on comparison sites to get prices, but in reality you can't use them.""

Temporary Car Insurance?

Ive been talking to brokers, and car insurance agents. Im moving from NY to NC, i have no car insurance, and i dont want to pay for Ny insurance fully, because when i move to NC i plan on getting NC insurance. I want temporary insurance, and one agent told me about in transit insurance? ive been looking up things all day and no success. can someone give me advice on what i should do if i only need ny car insurance to just drive down to NC???? thank you!""

Financing a car & insurance?

I'm 21 and I'm located in NYC the insurance over here is sky rocket high. I paid 1600+ for liability insurance for a old lexus from GEICO. I am asking my uncle to help me finance a 2006 bmw 530i which is about 32k and I already check if I finance under my name how much it would be. It is 10k for insurance a year lol... So I want to know if my uncle finance the car for me and I make the payments does he have to add my name under the insurance ? I don't need my name to be the co signer. I just want to know incase I do get into an accident what will happen ? Most people use their parent's insurance so I just want to make sure and get some facts before I ask my uncle. Thanks

About how much is car insurance in Japan?

Wondering for future reference when I work there as an ALT in 2 years. I already have a drivers license here in the US and I know its good for 1 year in Japan then must be switched before the year is up (not sure if it'll cost anything to switch)... So about how much is insurance and is it necessary to have by law? I'll be 22, drove for 4 years. Thanks!!!""

texas insurance total loss vehicle

texas insurance total loss vehicle

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