The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rule 5 Sunday: Mrs. Verlander Goes To New York

Posted on | December 12, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the things that happened after the World Series was that a bunch of free agents moved to different teams, and one of them was 2022 Cy Young Winner Justin Verlander., who signed a two-year $86 million deal with the Mets. This will give his lovely wife Kate more opportunities to trash talk the Philadelphia Phillies fans, which she apparently enjoyed doing during the World Series. Here she is looking festive with a popsicle.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1925, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five War On Food Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon in a new format. 

EBL: MAGA – Trump Prosecutions?, Separated At Birth – Or Generations?, Judy Garland, From Here To Eternity, They Were Expendable, Rogue Heroes, World War II Pinups, Kirstie Alley RIP, Creepy Porn Lawyer & Democrat Darling Avenatti Gets 14 More Years In Jail, Tesla’s Electric Semi, Is Maple Syrup Appropriate For French Toast?, and The Ronettes

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: The Red Witch – Carice van Houten, Fish Pic Friday – Jessica Huffman, Tattoo Thursday, WaPoo Whines Shark Week Too White, Too “Mike”, The Wednesday Wetness, St. Marys Utility Sued over Sickening Oysters, Tuesday Tanlines, Oregon, My Oregon!, Flotsam and Jetsam: Musk Plans More, The Monday Morning Stimulus, More Random Celebrity News, Sunday Sunrise and Tests Reveal Body Armor “Skip Effect” Endangers Women

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Florida ‘Predator’ Charged With Murder After Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose

Posted on | December 11, 2022 | Comments Off on Florida ‘Predator’ Charged With Murder After Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose

Robert Gullo, 25, had a modus operandi. Last year, he was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior in Hernando County, Florida, after police say he had sex with an underage girl he met using the Tinder dating app. He was released on bond pending trial, and meanwhile continued doing the same thing, using the Internet to solicit minors for sex, using the offer of drugs as an incentive. In November 2021, Gullo was living in Clearwater and texting with two different girls, one 15 and another 16. On Nov. 18, 2021, Gullo sent both girls the same text message: “We should hang out tonight. Let’s do coke and get f***ed up.”

Smooth guy, eh? Real subtlety in his approach, you know?

Anyway, the 15-year-old turned down Gullo’s offer, but the 16-year-old, Meaghan Cooper, said yes. She snuck out of her house and went to Gullo’s house where, about 11:30 that night, she sent a text message to a friend: “I just did so much coke and it feels so good.”

Cooper didn’t feel good very long, however, because what she thought was cocaine was actually fentanyl. The next day, her body was found in a field near some power lines not far from Gullo’s house.

Toxicology reports showed Meaghan had four times a lethal amount of fentanyl in her system. Also, the autopsy — including DNA evidence — showed Gullo had sex with her. After an investigation that lasted more than a year, a Pinellas County grand jury last week indicted Gullo for first-degree murder and other charges. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the charges at a press conference where he called Gullo a “predator,” and the obvious question is, why was this predator on the streets after being charged in a similar (although not deadly) crime in Hernando County? What was the amount of Gullo’s bond in that case, and who bailed him out? As we all know, criminal suspects must be presumed innocent until convicted, and defendants have a constitutional right to bail that is not “excessive,” but shouldn’t public safety be weighed in the balance of justice? And, again: Who paid that bail?

Interestingly, the terms of Gullo’s pretrial release in Hernando County required him to wear a GPS ankle monitor, and the data from that device became evidence, showing that after Meaghan died from a fentanyl overdose, Gullo traveled to the spot where Meaghan’s body was dumped.

There are a lot of disturbing angles to this story. Like, how was it that a teenage girl in Hernando County was on Tinder? What kind of safeguards are there to prevent minors from accessing dating apps intended for adults? Couldn’t states impose criminal sanctions on these companies if they don’t prevent this? Don’t you think Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature should look into doing something to fix this dating app problem?

Perhaps most disturbing, though, is the revelation that there seem to be a lot of teenage girls who have no concept of the dangers involved with meeting strangers via the Internet. If Robert Gullo had no problem finding so many underage victims — at least three, that we know of — in this part of Florida, how many girls are there nationwide playing this dangerous game online? Thousands? Tens of thousands? More?

There is a temptation, in discussing cases like the death of Meaghan Cooper, to use the adjective “tragic,” but that isn’t the right word. The proper adjective is stupid, as in: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

My youngest daughter turned 20 last week, so now I can say that all six of my kids have survived their teenage years. That may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but judging by contemporary standards? Yeah, nominate me for Parent of the Year, every year.

And speaking from authority as Best Dad Ever, here’s some helpful advice for you kids: “Don’t be stupid. You’ll end up dead.”



 

Category: Crime, Florida

FMJRA 2.0: Mental Door

Posted on | December 11, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Mental Door

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Well, with three games each left against California & Oakland, and after dropping all five games this week (three against Boston and two against Oakland), it doesn’t look like the Senators are going to avoid 100 losses this season. Better luck in ’71, I hope.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Everybody has problems, but we have more than most teams.

Headless Woman in Hopeless City
The DaleyGator
The First Street Journal
The Pirate’s Cove
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

#TWITTERGATE: Elon Musk Exposes Twitter’s 2020 Election Interference
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

Football: Learn the Rules!
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: I Scent The Morning Air
EBL
A View From The Beach

Rule 5 Monday: HMS Foxhound/HMCS Qu’Appelle
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.05.22
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.06.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.08.22 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.08.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Not Since ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ Has Anyone Made a Worse Trade Than This
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.09.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

The Other Podcast

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | Comments Off on The Other Podcast

Tonight on The Other Podcast, John Hoge, Dianna Deeley and myself will be talking a lot about Twitter and also there’ll be time to mention the sad fate of Rebekah Jones — guilty! guilty! guilty!



 

Category: The Other Podcast

#TwitterGate Update: Shadowbanning Is Real, and Vijaya Gadde Lied About It

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | 1 Comment

Vijaya Gadde became a multimillionaire working for Twitter, and apparently part of her job — why she got paid the big bucks — was to conceal the facts about how Twitter employees were manipulating their platform to suppress facts and opinions that Twitter employees didn’t like. Evita Duffy recounts at Twitter:

Remember all the times Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and top Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde assured us that Twitter neither shadowbans nor targets conservatives? Well, they lied.
In the second installment of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files,” independent journalist Bari Weiss exposed how the Big Tech company was secretly “blacklisting” conservative tweets and users by keeping “disfavored” tweets from trending and secretly hiding whole accounts or topics without users’ knowledge. . . .
On July 25, 2018, Vice News reported that several prominent Republican politicians, such as Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and Matt Gaetz, did not show up in a drop-down menu of automatically suggested searches, even when typing in the politicians’ names.
A day after the outcry over the apparent shadowbanning, Gadde and Twitter’s product head Kayvon Beykpour attempted to couch concerns by co-authoring a blog post titled “Setting the record straight on shadow banning.” “We do not shadow ban,” Gadde and Beykpour insisted. “You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
The day before publishing that blog post, Beykpour posted a Twitter thread blaming the discrimination against Republican members of Congress on the company’s use of “behavioral signals and machine learning,” which they were working to “improve.” However, Beykpour assured users that “our behavioral ranking doesn’t make judgments based on political views or the substance of tweets.”
Dorsey then shared Gadde and Beykpour’s blog post, writing, “We don’t shadow ban, and we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints.”
“We want a vibrant and healthy public conversation inclusive of all perspectives, and one that’s immediately relevant and valuable,” added Dorsey.

As Bari Weiss’s thread makes clear, these denials were the direct opposite of truth. It wasn’t some “machine learning” algorithm that was controlling content on Twitter. Internal documents show that top Twitter executives discussed specific decisions on “visibility limitation” tools. They played favorites, boosting some accounts and suppressing others.

The revelations keep coming, and on Friday, Matt Taibbi began telling the story of the lead-up to Twitter’s fateful decision to ban Donald Trump from the platform. Why? Because of “election misinformation”? But as Taibbi clearly demonstrates, Twitter bosses were picking and choosing what (and who) to suppress on that subject:

Did I mention that Twitter executives were at times acting on orders from the FBI in deciding whose election-related content got flagged? Because that seems kind of important, doesn’t it?

To summarize the situation as succinctly as possible, everything that they labeled a “conspiracy theory” turns out to be 100% true, and all their denials and explanations turn out to be 100% false.

At some point, we’re going to need an in-depth inquiry to answer a couple of questions: First, how is it that Silicon Valley, once a stronghold of freedom-loving libertarianism, turned into a hive of “woke” SJW Thought Police? And second, when did the FBI become an apparatus of the Democratic Party? Things have gone badly wrong in the past few years, and there must be some coherent explanation for these developments.



 

Category: Crime, Election, Scandal

Crazy People Are Dangerous (and Keep Getting Shot by Cops in Detroit)

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | 2 Comments

Last month, infamous legal pest Geoffrey Fieger filed two separate $50 million lawsuits against Detroit police for the fatal shootings of two mentally ill residents, Ki’azia Miller, 27 and Porter Burks, 20.

There’s a word for this, and that word is shakedown. It is a near-certainty that neither of these lawsuits will ever see the inside of a courtroom; instead, the city will negotiate a settlement with the plaintiffs, perhaps somewhere in the range of $2 million to $5 million per victim, and Feiger will collect his 50% commission, adding millions more to his multimillionaire status. Being a legal pest is quite a lucrative racket, but while a lawyer can grow rich from the proceeds of suing police departments — a direct transfer of wealth from taxpayers — the question needs to be asked whether this kind of “justice” actually does anything to improve law enforcement or the treatment of the mentally ill.

Before we discuss these shootings, or the policy implications involved, let’s first note that Detroit is in Wayne County, named for Revolution War hero and frontier fighter Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne (who, of course, is nowadays denounced by liberals as a racist). With a population of around 1.8 million, Wayne County is the largest county in Michigan and “the 19th-most populous county in the United States.” However, Wayne County has been losing population for the last half-century, and at the 2020 census had nearly 900,000 fewer residents than it did in 1970, a decline of 32.7% in 50 years. The population of Wayne County is 48% white and 37% black. Of the county’s 669,277 black residents at the 2020 census, the majority of them (493,212) lived in Detroit, a city whose population is 82% black. So it makes very little sense to claim that the police in Detroit are racist, and if these lawsuits result in a settlement, that money will be subtracted from the budget of a majority-black city. Maybe the black taxpayers in Detroit should ask themselves what “justice” there is in making Geoffrey Fieger richer. But I digress . . .

Did I mention that Wayne County is a Democratic Party stronghold? In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won Michigan by a margin of less than 3%, with 2,804,040 votes (50.6%) to President Trump’s 2,649,852 (47.8%). In Wayne County, Biden got 597,170 votes (68% of the county total) to Trump’s 264,553 votes (30%). You see that Biden’s margin in Wayne County (332,617) was more twice the size of his statewide margin (154,188) — i.e., Biden won Detroit, and Trump won the rest of the state. Detroit is the urban Democratic tail that wags the statewide Republican dog. Keep this in mind, as we consider the state of affairs in Detroit, where cops are shooting crazy people.

Porter Burks “was believed to have been experiencing a schizophrenic episode Oct. 2 while wandering his neighborhood on the city’s west side with a 3.5-inch knife. Concerned for Burks’ safety, his older brother had called police asking for help and for Burks to be admitted to a hospital.” Five Detroit police officers fired 38 rounds, 19 of which hit Burks. No charges will be filed against the cops involved:

[Wayne County Prosecutor Kym] Worthy sided with police . . . echoing Detroit Police Chief James White’s claim that responding officers had minimal time to “eliminate the threat.”
“The police spent a significant amount of time trying to get him to drop his weapon,” Worthy wrote in a statement. “He suddenly ran at them with the knife and covered the distance between them in approximately three seconds. Eyewitnesses to the shooting were interviewed and indicated that the police did all that they could to de-escalate the situation before Mr. Burks charged at the police.”

Prosecutor Kym Worthy (let); Police Chief James White (right)

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Kym Worthy and James White are not racists who want to kill innocent black people.

Which brings us to the case of Ki’azia Miller:

The lawsuit alleges officers failed to execute the de-escalation tactics Detroit police are trained in — at least one officer was a member of Detroit Police’s Crisis Intervention Team.
Instead, three officers shot four rounds at Miller, and officers allegedly surrounded the home with assault rifles, according to the lawsuit. Miller’s family previously held a vigil for their loved one, demanding justice.
“It was obvious that the easily agitated 27-year-old Ms. Miller, who was dressed only in her underwear, was in the midst of a mental health crisis,” Fieger wrote in the lawsuit.
The officers ”were in no immediate danger while brutally taking down, assaulting, and fatally shooting four times the underwear-clad, mentally ill, and unarmed Ms. Miller who just assured the officers she did not, and was not going to, harm anyone,” Fieger continued. . . .
Miller’s mother, Lakisha Washington-Meeks, called police on Nov. 10 asking for help for her daughter, who she said was experiencing a mental crisis and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Washington-Meeks told police that Miller had hit her young child and was armed with knives, a bat and a gun. . . .
Detroit Police Chief James White said he had concerns regarding the killing and previously announced recommending the unpaid suspensions of three officers, including supervisor Sgt. Marvin Anthony. Another unidentified supervisor was taken off the streets and assigned desk work.
The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners denied White’s recommendation to have Anthony’s suspension be without pay.
No officers have been charged in Miller’s death.

We haven’t yet heard from the prosecutor’s office, but in the meantime, permit me to suggest that if you call 911 to report that your schizophrenic daughter is behaving violently and is “armed with knives, a bat and a gun,” and if she’s running around in her underwear ranting like a lunatic when the cops show up . . . Well, Crazy People Are Dangerous.

 



 

Category: Crime, Michigan

In The Mailbox: 12.09.22

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

From The Trading Desk

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Socialized Medicine & Euthanasia
EBL: Jim Jordan Masterfully Exposes A Shameless Democrat Liar
Twitchy: Don’t Look Now, But The GOP Is Pouncing On Admin Pervo Sam Brinton’s Alleged Crimes, also, ALL THE TWITTER DUMPSTERS ARE IN FLAMES AND IT’S AWESOME
Louder With Crowder: Elton John throws hissy fit announcing he’s leaving Twitter and Twitter users are bringing the jokes, also, Twitter Files Part Two dropped, and it names specific conservatives who were blacklisted
Vox Popoli: Goodbye Brazil, also, 10,000 Dead Canadians
According To Hoyt: Home Star, , Aim Small, Miss Small
and Quick, to the Typewriter!
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 E21 – Sequels
Stoic Observations: On Insecurity

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Obedience to Duty, also, The Three Problems Of Paul Whelan
American Greatness: The Fake, and Real, Domestic Terrorists, Twitter Files: Dorsey and Gadde Were in Top Secret Group That Blacklisted High Profile Conservative Users, and Biden DOE’s Nonbinary Nuclear Waste Guru Charged With Stealing Luggage From ANOTHER Airport
American Power: How Trump and MAGA Allies Are Defending Violent Jan. 6th Rioters
American Thinker: 21st Century Robber Barons: the WEF
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five War on Food Friday
Babalu Blog: Foreign tourists and communist party elite in Cuba get meat, Cubans get the bones, Susan Eckstein and ‘Cuban Privilege’: The privilege of being a gusano, and Cuba’s deadbeat dictatorship faces potentially devastating trial in London for some of its massive debt
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for December 8
Behind The Black: Red China completes two launches successfully, Last 747 rolls off assembly line, SOFIA to retire to Arizona museum, Ancient lava flows down the flanks of the solar system’s largest volcano, and Pushback: Students win $90K from University of Idaho for restricting their free speech
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Five Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: A military run by whiners, also, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown
First Street Journal: Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Gates Of Vienna: “Everybody Knows Our Election Was a Fraud”, also, Biowarfare Research in Ukraine
The Geller Report: Sinema LEAVES DEMOCRAT PARTY Switches To Independent In Senate Shake-Up
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Peekaboo, and Drip…Drip…Drip…
Hollywood In Toto: The Shocking Secret Behind Jihad Rehab’s Cancel Culture Comeback, Empire of Light Stumbles Over Racism, Relationship Woes, Angel Studios Spreads Its ‘Wings,’ Plots Content Revolution, and Elon Musk Calls Elton John’s Bluff
The Lid: Adam Schiff Picks A Fight With Elon Musk …OUCH! That Was A Mistake
Legal Insurrection: California Will Close More Prisons, Including Last Private Facility, Virginia Tech Athlete Who Alleged ‘She Lost Playing Time’ for Not Kneeling for BLM Can Proceed With Lawsuit, Wholesale Prices Up 0.3% in November and 7.4% From a Year Ago, and #Twitterfiles Part 3: Twitter Regularly Interacted With FBI/DHS To Restrict PRE-ELECTION Tweets
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot friday
Outkick: Russian TV Mocks Woke Culture, Says Biden Didn’t Choose Whelan Because He’s A Straight White Man, Ryan Fitzpatrick Rips Raiders DC Live On Air And Baker Mayfield Can’t Stop Laughing, Steph Curry Thanks Brittney Griner For Her ‘Sacrifice’ After Her Release From Russian Prison, Jackson State Players Defend Deion Sanders In Midst Of Backlash, and Baker Mayfield Unbelievably Orchestrates Game-Winning Drive Two Days After Joining Rams
Power Line: Thoughts from the ammo line, The best deal since…, and Twitter Busted Wide Open
Shark Tank: Bilirakis Votes Against Bipartisan NDAA To Preserve Gun Rights
Shot In The Dark: Diverse!, 
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Role of Liberals in the Republican Party
This Ain’t Hell: How can we miss him if he won’t leave?, Valor Friday, A ‘Preacher’ is accused of taking a Vietnam Veteran’s life savings, and Navy Veteran drives 300 yards despite Police flashing lights and sounding horn
Transterrestrial Musings: The January 6th Protest, True Misogyny, and ESG
Victory Girls: Drag Shows Are NOT A Republican Obsession
Volokh Conspiracy: Judge Dismisses Libel Claim by Mask Mandate Opponent Against The Daily Beast
Watts Up With That: Is the Renewable Energy Industry Nothing More Than a Jobs Program?
Weasel Zippers: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Leaves Democratic Party, WH Denies Biden Admin Was Involved In Twitter’s Effort To Censor Conservative Voices, and Russians Mock Biden For Leaving Behind a “Hero, a Decorated Marine” For “a Black Lesbian Hooked On Drugs”
The Federalist: Lindsay Lohan Is Trying To Make ‘Pilk’ Happen — And It’s Actually Good, Virginia Dems’ Ballot Harvesting Manual Instructs Going After Dead People, ‘Bad’ Addresses, Is The Abortion Escort Who Went After Pro-Lifer Mark Houck The Real FACE Act Violator? , Head Of Twitter’s Censorship Operation Was A Former FBI, CIA Operative, and Court Shuts Down Biden Attempt To Force Doctors To Sterilize Sex-Confused Patients
Mark Steyn: Shadowbans and Light

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Category: Linkagery

Not Since ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ Has Anyone Made a Worse Trade Than This

Posted on | December 9, 2022 | 1 Comment

Arms dealer Viktor Bout (left); basketball player Brittney Griner (right)

A textbook example of what bargaining from a position of weakness looks like: The U.S. released an infamous terrorist arms dealer known as “The Merchant of Death” for a lesbian dopehead basketball player.

One need not be biased against lesbians or marijuana users — “Why, some of my best friends . . .” — to see what’s wrong with this deal. Nor is it necessary, in criticizing the Biden administration’s fecklessness, to forget that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy, and that the prosecution and imprisonment of Brittney Griner was essentially about hostage-taking.

Even if you are deeply sympathetic to cannabis consumers and lesbians, and deeply hostile to Putin’s regime, still one must recognize this: In negotiating with authoritarians, a democracy is always at a disadvantage, because the antagonist is essentially immune to public opinion.

Sure, Putin is a tyrant and, sure, nine years in prison is a conspicuously harsh sentence for cannabis possession, but there are other Americans serving prison sentences in foreign countries for crimes that might have gotten them only probation in U.S. cities with slap-on-the-wrist prosecutors like George Gascón and Larry Krasner.

Russia’s prosecution of Griner was obviously part of a propaganda strategy, at a time when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made him an international pariah, and the bottom line is, it worked.

Because Brittney Griner “checked all the boxes” — gay, female, minority — and is something of a celebrity in the world of sports (never mind that almost nobody watches women’s basketball) the Russians knew very well that her prosecution would make her a valuable symbol and thereby expose Biden to enormous interest-group pressure.

The Russians had long wanted to get Viktor Bout released:

On 2 November 2011, Bout was convicted by a jury in a Manhattan federal court of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization, and was sentenced to the minimum 25 years’ imprisonment because the crime was due to [a U.S.] operation. . . .
On 18 November 2010, shortly after Bout’s extradition to the United States, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s aide Sergei Prikhodko said that Russia had “nothing to hide” in Bout’s criminal case stating, “it is in our interest that the investigation … be brought to completion, and [Bout] should answer all the questions the American justice system has.
On 18 January 2013, Russian government officials announced that “judges, investigators, justice ministry officials and special services agents who were involved in Russian citizens Viktor Bout’s and Konstantin Yaroshenko’s legal prosecution and sentencing to long terms of imprisonment” would be added to a list of U.S. officials who will be denied Russian entry visas in response to the U.S. Magnitsky Act, under which certain Russian officials are ineligible to enter the U.S.
It is thought that Bout was of help to Russia’s intelligence agencies, and he is alleged to have connections to ranking Russian officials, including former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin.

So, Bout wasn’t just an arms dealer, he was a GRU “asset,” and in order to spring him from U.S. prison, the Russians needed something to offer in exchange — this was a motive for hostage-taking, which may explain why, in 2018, tourist Paul Whelan found himself arrested, charged with being a spy in what was obviously a set-up arranged by the FBS (successor agency to the KGB) and sentenced to 16 years. The blunt-force crudeness of the “spying” case against Whelan might have been justified in Russian minds by the fact that Viktor Bout’s arrest was the result of a U.S. “sting” operation: “You set up our guy, we set up your guy.” Except, of course, there is zero reason to believe Whelan was “our guy” at all, whereas Bout’s connections to the GRU were plainly apparent.

As a pawn to exchange for Viktor Bout, Paul Whelan may have been useful with Donald Trump in the White House, but when the Biden administration took over, the Russians seem to have calculated that a Democrat wouldn’t trade a terrorist arms dealer for a mere middle-aged white guy, and thus the arrest of Brittney Griner.

The Biden administration bought it, hook, line and sinker.

“[Brittney Griner] represents the best America — the best about America — just across the board, everything about her.”
— Joe Biden

She is a symbol, you see? And because Democrats are controlled by this kind of symbolism, they played right into Putin’s hands, trading the family cow for some magic beans, as it were.



 

Category: Joe Biden, Russia
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