News 7/17/2018

US News

Another beautiful Russian spy arrested Maria Butina, 29, was arrested in Washington, DC yesterday. Her public persona shows strong pro-gun activism; perhaps a little too strong. I checked out her facebook, and it’s more like a PR page then a personal page. nothing personal on it at all that I could find. Her activities in the US seem pretty well documented. She was using the “make lots of friends” strategy to make contacts, which for a beautiful, friendly Russian redhead is probably pretty easy. Basically, her strategy seemed to be get to know lots of influential people and become established in their social circle, so when her bosses in Russia needed her to, she could bring up Russia’s POV or attempt to steer the conversation.

I’ve read the indictment and looked in to this a bit. I’m hardly an expert on espionage, but it seems like we’re getting only half the story. Her activites weren’t necessarily illegal; it was that she didn’t register as an agent that was the problem. There are many people from many countries who operate in very similar ways — by that I mean, move to the US, make friends with influential people, become known in certain social circles, and when something important pops up, either take note of it or push your point of view. Our people do it in other nations too. As I said, the trouble seems to be that she didn’t register with the US; if she had she’d be fine.

So why arrest her, and why now? She was taken into custody literally hours after Trump’s meeting with Putin. The timing certainly wasn’t coincidence, especially considering Mueller released a major indictment Friday. Both Mueller’s indictment and Maria’s arrest recieved massive amounts of front-page coverage.

My guess is it’s all about the PR. Or “optics” as they say these days. The timing is not an accident. Mueller’s indictment, Maria’s arrest, and the massive press coverage of the Helsinki meeting is all an attack on Trump. Which he, unfortunately, helped by sticking his foot in his mouth. In addition, all this fuss overrides the fuss about Strzok’s awful testimony earlier in the week, which wasn’t looking good in the press.

So, was this woman a spy, or not? No, I think she was an “influencer”, as I mentioned above. There’s no indication she attempted to steal any secrets. She concentrated completely on political activism. The fact that she was aiming for the NRA and Republicans is just icing on the cake for the PR angle — we’ll be hearing about that again. “OMG NRA controlled by Russians!” The shouting has already started.

Mueller’s indictments I discussed this already, but here’s a reminder. I think the indictments are meaningless and will amount to nothing. All those named are Russian citizens who certainly aren’t going to voluntarily show up so they can be arrested. It’s pure theater, meant to make Trump look bad and Mueller look good, and to support the “Russian collusion” narrative. And it’s not even good theater. Even if I’m wrong and these indictments are 100% legit and Mueller is a noble paragon of virtue, there’s no collusion. I say that because AG Rosenstein said “there is no evidence of collusion or of vote counts being altered.” No US citizens indicted, no vote counts affected, not even an attempt to alter votes, no evidence of collusion with Trump campaign officials, not even hints or implications of collusion. They think Russia hacked Hillary and the DNC, then released the emails. That’s it.

Lisa Page very cooperative Meanwhile, Strzok’s ex-lover Lisa Page gave a private interview to congress on Friday and again on Monday. She spoke for several hours and congressmen praised her as “very forthcoming”. Well now, isn’t that interesting. We don’t know what she said, but we’re probably going to find out soon. And she definitely said something besides “no comment”, because you don’t come back for a second day of testimony — eight hours of testimony! — unless you have a story to tell. As usual, the major story (Strzok, Helsinki, Maria Butina) is pure theater; the real developments are buried.

Democrats sprinting to the left The most enthusiastic part of the Democratic party is the radical Left, and they’re acting to take control of the party. It’s going to take a while for this to play out, probably years. In my opinion it’s a very serious mistake. Far left views might play well in hard-blue locations like California, but are losers everywhere else. Furthermore, the vigorous far-left activists driving the change cannot take a moderate position. They’ll turn on anyone not ideologically “pure” enough, just like they’re doing to the Democrat party leadership. I don’t think anything is going to stop the radicals from taking over the party completely. They’re young, excited, and motivated. All this means is that moderates will flee the party, which is already happening.

The most prominent young Leftist needs practice Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who we’ve all heard so much about, parroted the usual anti-Israel line in an interview, and then revealed she had no idea what she was talking about. Points for honesty, I guess.

Plutonium stolen from back seat of car in Mariott parking lot What the fuck? Two security specialists retrieve weapons-grade plutonium from a nonproft in order to secure it, then leave it in the backseat of their car when they stopped for a rest…along with some very expensive equipment….which all got stolen by some random criminal. No guards, no secure vehicle, didn’t keep it in the room with them while they slept, just left it in the backseat. Unbelievable.

World News

Trump-Putin meeting! It’s dominating the news and there’s really not much to say. They met privately about [redacted], then gave a photo op and made some vague statements about peace and being friends. Reporters tried to give Putin a hard time and he literally laughed in their faces. Some more links: Putin denies meddling (of course he does) Chris Wallace tried to hand Putin a copy of the Mueller indictment and he refused to take it (of course he didn’t). Daily Fail has a roundup of various events. A lot of people though Trump acted foolishly. Other people thought reporters acted foolishly. Interestingly, no one thinks Putin acted foolishly.

Here’s Politico’s “analysis” of the meeting It’s a terrible attempt at analysis. “The summit in Helsinki signaled the manifestation of a new world order.” What a load of shit. The only important event at Helsinki was Trump and Putin’s private conversation followed by a working lunch with aides. Everything else was theater. We don’t know what was discussed in private (my guess: Syria). The only thing Trump’s guilty of is sticking his foot in his mouth, which he does all the time. Trump stumbled on the theater part, and all the theater specialists (reporters) jumped on it.

Here’s Politico whining about Trump’s EU tour “rampage of political destruction”. what did he actually destroy? Nothing. He just said some rude things and upset some people. The rude things were also true, so they’re extra upset. My only issue is, I wish he’d be a little more diplomatic. You can still speak the truth and have tact.

Theresa May just barely avoids goverment collapse She’s hanging on by her fingernails.

Mattis visits Norway while all eyes were on the Trump/Putin passion play, SecDef Mattis went to Norway to do some actual work. There was the usual blather about how strong our nation’s ties are, blah blah blah. then there’s this: “Mattis thanked Norway for hosting up to 700 U.S. Marines on a rotational basis for rigorous cold-weather training.” Hmm. And we recently did a major joint exercise with the Finns and Swedes in the Baltic. Interesting.

Against the odds, Afghanistan continues to exist StrategyPage gives another excellent discussion about how the Taliban have lost Islamic support and degenerated into a violent drug gang.