The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 01.08.18

Posted on | January 9, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.08.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: OPRAH 2020?
Twitchy: Yale Psych Professor Who Wanted @POTUS “Contained” Vanishes From Twitter
Louder With Crowder: Feel The Bern! This “Pay Your Fair Share” Cafe Proves Socialism Is The Worst
Business Insider: Author Of Explosive New Trump Book Says He Can’t Be Sure If All Parts Are True


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Australia’s Regulatory Nightmare In Two Pictures, also, Bachelor Cooking – Cooking With Bacon
American Power: Yvette Felarca Ordered To Pay $11,000 For Filing Fraudulent Restraining Order, also, John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan
American Thinker: The Clock Ticks For The Clinton Foundation
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
BattleSwarm: Pat Condell On Britain’s Hate Speech Police, also, Liberals And Trump’s Twitter Traps
Bring The HEAT: RIP Capt. John Young
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday, also, Maybe The Germans Are On To Something
Da Tech Guy: Democrat Candidates For IL Governor Resort To Scapegoating, also, Libyan Slave Markets And Jumping Into The Fire
Don Surber: Oprah’s Fake Cry Of Racism, also, The Left’s Gift To The Donald
Dustbury: Strange Search Engine Queries, also, The Sound Never Quite Dies
The Geller Report: Another Imam, This Time In NC, Calls For Slaughter Of The Jews, also, Polls Show 52% Want Merkel Off The Ballot In New Election
Hogewash: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also also Blogsmoke
Jammie Wearing Fools: We’re Still Better Off With Trump Than Clinton
Joe For America: Costco Manager Shows Just How Ridiculous New Seattle Sugar Tax Is
JustOneMinute: Resistance Madness, also, This Is NOT How Twitter Works
Legal Insurrection: Judge Drops Charges In Bundy Ranch Standoff Case, also, Democrats Holding Spending Bill Hostage Over DACA
Power Line: Blue States Search For Ways To Preserve Subsidies, also, German Energy Policy On The Rocks
Shark Tank: Miami Congressional Republicans Unhappy Over Trump’s Ending Salvadoran TPS
Shot In The Dark: The CIA’s Fiendish Plan To Kill Off Hipsters
STUMP: More Soda Tax Idiocy – This Time, It’s Seattle
The Jawa Report: John The Force Ghost McLaughlin
The Political Hat: The Socialist Dictatorship Of Venezuela Does What Socialist Dictatorships Do
This Ain’t Hell: SGT Kyle LaFlore Murdered On Leave, also, Jerry Van Dyke, RIP
Weasel Zippers: British SAS Soldier Beheads Jihadi With Shovel, Uses Terrorist’s Gun To Kill The Rest, also, Sabo Trolls Golden Globes With “We All Knew” Art
Mark Steyn: Darkest Hour, also, The Endless Night Of The Long Knives


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Category: Linkagery

The Destructive Regime of ‘Equality’

Posted on | January 8, 2018 | Comments Off on The Destructive Regime of ‘Equality’

For the past week, I’ve been reading Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror, a history of the darkest era in Stalin’s murderous dictatorship. We must never forget what bloody atrocities were committed in the name of “equality.” Darleen Click reports on Iceland’s feminist repetition of the history they have failed to learn:

Unless one has two people equally committed to performing their best, then the quality of the work done will devolve to the level of the worst worker. What is the incentive to be the best? Anyone who has worked in a union shop is familiar with this scenario. . . .
In the face of actual studies that show the wage gap is myth, this urgent push to ostensibly close it reveals a troubling desire to limit women’s choices and exert greater State control of all individuals. . . .

Thorgerdur Einarsdottir, a professor of gender studies at the University of Iceland, said the equal pay law was useful but was “no magic wand.”
“A law implementing a standardized job evaluation is not a solid fix to a problem this ambiguous,” she said. “The deeply rooted stereotypes that favor men and women for certain jobs and professions are the fundamental problem.”

Of course, the societal busybodies who wish to erase all sex differences are not above demanding either greater government interference in things like paid child care or even making the choice to be a stay-at-home mother illegal. . . .
As the Democratic National Committee put it in 2012, “We all belong to the Government.” And if the government decides the wage gap is more important than your bourgeoisie view of personal choice . . . well, stop being so deplorable.

Iceland is a democracy, not a dictatorship, but having your life controlled by the government — which is what happens when politicians impose laws that interfere with your ability to earn a living by destroying the efficiency of your workplace — is no more pleasant when it’s done by a legislature than when it’s done by a Soviet commissar. Really, what’s the point of having democracy, if the majority of voters are determined to pursue the same failed ideology that wrecked so many nations in the past century, from Russia on down to present-day Venezuela?

Socialism in the name of “gender equality” is no less wicked than socialism in the name of the “proletariat.” Both are incompatible with personal liberty, and harmful to the prosperity of society.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

 

Category: Sex Trouble

Rule 5 Sunday: Jenna Jameson

Posted on | January 8, 2018 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

You have to give credit where credit is due. When somebody turns their life around to the extent that the former Jenna Marie Massoli has (the whole horrible tale is described in her autobiography) and becomes a fiery online advocate for conservatism, that somebody deserves praise. And so it is that today’s appetizer is Ms. Jameson with her twin sons and her husband Lior Bitton, for whom she converted to Sephardic Judaism.
As usual, most of the following links are to pics generally considered NSFW, and the management is not responsible for any [NSFW] consequences you suffer for failing to exercise discretion in your clicking, especially not [NSFW], [NSFW], or [NSFW], and definitely not [NSFW].

Lior, Jenna, and her twin boys by Tito Ortiz Jesse & Journey

Ninety Miles From Tyranny returns with Hot Pick of the Late Night, 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #125, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism starts the New Year with Rule 5 2018 Inventions Friday and Saturday Asian Invasion.

EBL presents Rose Bowl Rule 5, Polar Bear Plunge, Pentatonix “White Winter Hymnal”, Mira Sorvino, Twelve Women of Twelfth Night, The Mediaeval Baebes, “We Three Kings”, Anjelica Huston, Patti Smith, Gorilla TV, Chipped Nipples, Jacqueline Kent Cooke, and Loraine Elliott.

A View From The Beach offers That Girl from Mpumalanga, Natasha Barnard, Trump Celebrated New Years with Playboy, Stuff to Read on A Snowy Morning, Is There Nothing SJW Scientists Can’t Wreck?, Oregon, My Oregon, Actress Corrects Mistake, The Woman Who Ate Her Own Sister, Happy New Year! and Joy Called the Cops on Corey for the Butt Slap.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe was Lori Loughlin, his Vintage Babe was Dolores Reed, and Sex in Advertising says “Looks Good On A Harley!” At Dustbury, it’s Disha Patani and Brie Larson.

Thanks to everyone for the delightful linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Ex-Professor Deborah Frisch Jailed Again

Posted on | January 7, 2018 | 1 Comment

Deborah Ellen Frisch, Ph.D., in custody in Deschutes County, Oregon.

When last we reported on notorious cyberstalker Deborah Frisch, the deranged former psychology professor had been arrested in Bend, Oregon, on fugitive warrants from Colorado. Frisch had failed to appear at a November court hearing on two felony charges related to her continued harassment of Jeff Goldstein. In 2006, Frisch made national headlines when she resigned from her position at the University of Arizona after using her school computer to post obscene threats to Goldstein and his family. Since then, she “has accumulated a fantastic record of legal troubles” including stalking charges in Oregon:

In April 2015, she was released from jail and then re-arrested on a new charge a few hours after her release when she made a false police report. By September 2016, she had moved to Southern California, where she was residing when she CC’d me (!!!) on an email making false accusations against various people, which caused me to predict “that if Dr. Frisch continues this lunatic behavior, pretty soon someone will report her to California authorities, and put them in touch with authorities in Oregon (where Dr. Frisch’s probation doesn’t expire for another six months), and it’s going to be handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit for the kooky professor, IYKWIMAITYD.”
That prophecy didn’t take too long to fulfill, although not in the exact way I’d predicted. In November 2016, authorities in Weld County, Colorado, issued a felony warrant against Dr. Frisch for stalking and threatening.

More than a year later, it seems, Frisch’s modus operandi is unchanged, but some people still haven’t figured this out. On Dec. 29, a judge in Deschutes County, Oregon, signed Frisch’s release from jail, despite the fact that Frisch was a fugitive being held on a no-bond warrant pending extradition to Colorado. Almost immediately, Frisch was back on Twitter, posting messages that Goldstein considered threatening to himself and his family. She posted messages aimed at Goldstein, his wife and the school their children attend. Goldstein was understandably shocked by the Oregon judge’s decision to release Frisch.

The judge’s incomprehensible ruling to free Frisch had interesting consequences. Frisch turned up at a Wednesday meeting of the Bend City Council, where she made a rambling tirade against local officials.

Finally, however, it seems Colorado officials convinced authorities in Oregon that they had been wrong to release Frisch, but when police showed up to arrest her Friday, she evidently caused such a scene that she was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. She will reportedly be arraigned at a court hearing Monday.

The question is, what can be done with Frisch, who clearly has a psychotic fixation on Goldstein and has been harassing him for 12 years? Frisch seems unable to restrain herself from this type of behavior. In November 2008, she was drunk when she assaulted an acquaintance in Eugene, Oregon, and in March 2009 was sentenced to probation, which Frisch repeatedly violated, resulting in further legal difficulties. In 2015, when the Eugene Register-Guard reported on Frisch’s conviction for making a false accusation against a police officer, they noted:

Court records show that Eugene police have been collecting potential evidence against Frisch for months. Various city officials received a total of 889 emails from Frisch between Sept. 26 and Feb. 5, officer Jed McGuire wrote in a search warrant affidavit.
The city diverted all of Frisch’s emails to a special folder and maintained them on a computer disk, McGuire wrote.

(That total of 889 emails means that, on average, Frisch deluged officials with 47 emails every week for 19 consecutive weeks.)

McGuire and several other officers — including the one Frisch had accused of sexually assaulting her — seized a computer, other electronic devices, a number of writings and marijuana from Frisch’s home while serving a warrant there on Feb. 17, according to an evidence sheet filed in court with the affidavit.
Frisch frequently sends group emails to government officials and others in the Eugene area. The messages often contain obscene language and vulgar allegations.

Frisch’s obsessive habit of harassing her chosen “enemies” via email and other online communications is not just a crime, but symptomatic of her personality disorder. At least twice, judges have ordered Frisch to undergo mental health evaluations, but her psychopathic criminal tendencies are evidently incurable. (Take a look at the Deb Frisch Timeline, if you don’t believe me.) What can be done to stop Frisch except putting her behind bars? As Jeff Goldstein said in his victim impact statement at her sentencing last April, Frisch’s justifies her persistent criminal behavior by claiming that she is a victim of injustice:

Such fantasies of persecution, coupled with the kind of malignant narcissism that, in her mind, justifies her behavior towards her victims, to me seems indicative of an unrepentant mind. More so, her latest incarnation as a self-proclaimed “justice advocate” — whose role it is to unmask what she believes to be some endemic iniquity in the legal system, using herself as the crowning example of such serial inequities — reinforces my belief that she’ll use her own warped sense of persecution to justify continued assaults on those she believes have aggrieved her. . . .
In closing, please allow me to say this: My wife and I do not believe for a moment that Ms Frisch will EVER stop what to her has become both a way of life and now, apparently, a supposedly righteous cause, in which we play the perpetual nemeses to her crusading heroine of “justice advocacy.” Ms Frisch’s unwarranted sense of her own superiority and rectitude, which she’s displayed more times than one to the Court in this case, practically compels her to harass, to terrorize, the threaten, to intimidate, to libel, and to extort. . . .
In 11 years, the only time we’ve experienced any relief is when Ms Frisch has been either incarcerated or subjected to harsh and enforceable sanctions that prevent her, always temporarily, from targeting us.

The Goldstein family can only be protected from this relentless criminal harassment if Frisch is sent to prison for a long, long time.

What is shocking is that Oregon media are ignoring Frisch’s latest arrest. The local newspaper in Bend, Oregon (541-383-0367, email [email protected]) has refused to report the story of how this notorious fugitive, a former university professor, came to be incarcerated in Deschutes County. Therefore, if you know anyone in the vicinity who can attend her scheduled Monday hearing, please help.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: Oregon Judge Releases Deborah Frisch. This is clearly becoming a farce of judicial liberalism.

 

Category: Crime, Oregon

FMJRA 2.0: Stop The Rock

Posted on | January 7, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Monday: Linda Ronstadt
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
Proof Positive
EBL

‘Heinous Atrocity’: N.Y. Lesbian Couple, Two Children Brutally Murdered
EBL

TWO MEN CHARGED IN MURDER OF LESBIAN COUPLE, TWO CHILDREN
EBL

Death by SWATting: A Former Target’s Thoughts About a Deadly ‘Prank’
EBL

Cynthia Yockey Is a Real Woman Battling the Trans Cult, and She Needs Your Help
A Conservative Lesbian
EBL

Sheppard’s Long Night’s Journey
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: I Can’t Let Go
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.02.18
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.03.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.04.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Guy McPherson’s Climate-Change Doomsday Cult: ‘Near Term Extinction’
Pushing Rubber Downhill
RBL

In The Mailbox: 01.05.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers this week:

  1. EBL (12)
  2. Proof Positive (5)

Thanks to everyone for the linkagery!


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Category: FMJRA Award

‘The War on Whiteness’?

Posted on | January 6, 2018 | 1 Comment

While it’s a bad idea to encourage ethnic paranoia, a commenter at Steve Sailer’s site offers this interesting analysis:

The general position of liberal ideology is that as whites decrease as a proportion of the American populace — and presumably decrease in political heft — they will leave “whiteness” behind and essentially all become good postmodern cosmopolitans, embracing their new lack of power — all at a time where socioeconomic standards are declining for the majority of Americans who haven’t bridged the gap to the upper-middle class. In the particular example of 21st Century America, they seem to expect that they will scramble obeying the exhortations of the people who enthusiastically champion their decline while offering non-subtly veiled sympathy trolling at best, or more often mocking them as historical relics. All while our elite increasingly seem to embrace some new form of neo-feudalism replacing the nation-state and traditional yeoman freedom in America.

This may be an accurate description of elite liberal belief, insofar as liberals believe in anything more complicated than “Vote Democrat!”

In other words, it seems to me, the typical liberal is not so much an ideologue as he is a partisan Democrat. Looking at exit-poll data, he can see that a majority of white voters are Republican and therefore, in terms of policy, he supports anything that will reduce the white population.

Occam’s Razor dictates that we ought not seek an obscure or complex explanation when an obvious and simple one is at hand. At some point during the past half-century, Democrats became the anti-white party, not necessarily because of their beliefs, but because of their interests.

You may dispute this interpretation, but what is the alternative theory? Liberals will tell you that Republicans are “racist,” and that the only way to combat racism is — wait for it — “Vote Democrat!” You don’t have to be a hard-boiled cynic like me to suspect that this is just propaganda, no matter how sincerely the Democrat rank-and-file believe it. Members of the Communist Party might have been sincere in accepting every shift in the party line from Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev to Gorbachev, but that didn’t mean that these shifts were justified by anything other than the whims of the Soviet dictatorship. For most of the 1930s, the CPUSA advocated a “Popular Front” alliance against fascism. This ended abruptly with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 and, for the next 21 months, Communists denounced as “warmongers” anyone (including President Roosevelt) who favored aid to Hitler’s enemies. The party line shifted again in June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, at which point Communists began denouncing as “fascists” anyone who opposed aid to Hitler’s enemies. Are the Democrats of today less cynical than Communists of old, in terms of their slavish devotion to the party line? It is entirely possible that liberal rhetoric against “racism” is mere partisanship, like CPUSA members saying whatever their Soviet masters told them to say, and the best way to defeat such people is to tell the truth about them: Democrats are liars, and never to be trusted.

Don’t succumb to ethnic paranoia. Don’t allow fear to control you. Don’t heed the voices of despair and hatred. Keep calm and focus on facts.



 

 

Category: Racism

Of Course: Islamic Terrorist’s Wife Knew About His Orlando Massacre Plans

Posted on | January 6, 2018 | Comments Off on Of Course: Islamic Terrorist’s Wife Knew About His Orlando Massacre Plans

Noor Salman (left) and her terrorist husband Omar Mateen (right).

This isn’t actually news — the blogger True Pundit broke the story in 2016 — but the detailed confirmation is nevertheless welcome:

The wife of Omar Mateen, who committed a massacre in the Pulse nightclub in 2016, reportedly told the FBI that she knew about his plot beforehand — and did nothing to stop it.
Noor Salman — whose husband gunned down 49 people in the club — told investigators that she “knew that her husband was going to attack the Pulse nightclub” when he left the house on the night of June 11 [2016], according to documents obtained by USA Today.
“My fears had come true and he did what he said he was going to do,” Salman said, according to the newspaper. “I was in denial and I could not believe that the father of my child was going to hurt other people.”
The wife also said she was warned repeatedly about the specific location and timing of the attack.
“How upset are people going to be when it gets attacked?” Mateen asked his wife at one point while they were driving by the club, according to her statement.
Salman also witnessed her husband browsing the Pulse website and declaring “this is my target.”
On the night before one of the most devastating mass shootings in US history, Salman said her husband loaded up on firearms and ammunition.
“This was the time that he was going to do something bad,” she said.
Before leaving the house Mateen told his wife, “This is the one day.”
Mateen opened fire at around 2 a.m. on June 12 in the Orlando night spot, killing 48 and wounding 58 others.

Mateen was inspired by ISIS. The Orlando Massacre was an act of Islamic terrorism. Omar Mateen — the child of Afghan immigrants — hated Americans and wanted to kill them all, and his wife — the child of Palestinian immigrants — did nothing to hinder his terrorist plot. Gosh, I wonder what possible policy changes we could make that might help prevent future terrorist attacks by Muslims who want to kill us all?



 

 

Category: Immigration, Islam, Terrorism

This Might Be News: Another Plot Twist in the Mystery of ‘The Maltese Professor’?

Posted on | January 6, 2018 | Comments Off on This Might Be News: Another Plot Twist in the Mystery of ‘The Maltese Professor’?

Given the proliferation of “fake news,” it’s hard to know what to believe, but this story certainly seems interesting:

It was a chance romantic encounter by George Papadopoulos that set in train the events that led to the Australian government tipping off Washington about what it knew of Russian hacking efforts to swing the US presidential election.
Fairfax Media can reveal a woman in London with whom Papadopoulos became involved happened to know Alexander Downer and told the Australian High Commissioner about Papadopoulos, a newly signed staffer for Donald Trump. Downer, being a canny diplomat, followed it up and arranged a meeting with the young American, who was mostly living in London at the time.
What followed was the now infamous May 2016 conversation over many glasses of wine at the swanky Kensington Wine Rooms, during which the 28-year-old Papadopoulos spilled to Downer that he knew of a Russian dirt file on the rival Clinton campaign consisting of thousands of hacked emails.

Let’s ask questions: Did this actually happen Papadopoulos described it? That is to say, were “thousands of hacked emails” from the Clinton campaign (a) obtained by hackers who were (b) working in the service of the Russian government and (c) making these emails available to the Trump campaign in the form of a “dirt file” of which (d) Papadopoulos had obtained “inside” knowledge through his connections to the Trump campaign? We know that DNC emails were released by WikiLeaks in July 2016, but I have yet to see proof that this was a Russian government operation, nor am I aware that this alleged “Russian dirt file,” of which Papadopoulos reportedly boasted to Downer, actually existed as described. What the hell are we to make of this?

Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. In his January interview, he didn’t deny knowing Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious Maltese professor with links to the Russian government, nor having met with Russian officials to whom Mifsud introduced him. Nor did he deny that Mifsud had told him the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”.

It’s like a 1940s film noir — The Maltese Professor — with these weird characters involved in a Byzantine plot full of double-crosses and intrigue, including a romantic liaison between Papadopoulos and a woman who “happened to know” this Australian diplomat who ratted him out. The officially reported facts of the Papadopoulos-Mifsud connection don’t really answer the fundamental questions:

The court filings say that on April 25, 2016, after “multiple conversations” with a Russian national connected to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Papadopoulos told Miller that “the Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The advantage of being in London is that these governments tend to speak a bit more openly in ‘neutral’ cities,” he said.
On April 26, Papadopoulos met with Joseph Mifsud — identified in the court filings as an “overseas professor” — for breakfast at a London hotel. There, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had learned from high-level Kremlin officials during his recent trip to Moscow that the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” the filings say.
Papadopoulos emailed [Trump aide Stephen] Miller the next day.
“Have some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right,” he wrote, the court filings say.

(Papadopoulos wanted to arrange a Trump-Putin meeting, for some unknown reason thinking this would be good P.R. for the campaign.)

Papadopoulos also emailed Paul Manafort on April 27 asking “to discuss Russia’s interest in hosting Mr. Trump.” . . .
“Have been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host him and the team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos told Manafort. . . .
[T]he young adviser continued to pitch a Trump-Putin meeting to high-level campaign officials, including Sam Clovis, the national cochairman . . . and Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager.
On April 30, Papadopoulos thanked Mifsud for his “critical help” in facilitating a meeting that would be “history making if it happens,” the filings say.
About four days later, Papadopoulos’ contact at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told him that the ministry was “open for cooperation.” Papadopoulos forwarded that email to Manafort, asking, “Is this something we want to move forward with?”
On May 5, Papadopoulos called Clovis. After their phone call, he forwarded Clovis the ministry contact’s email with a new subject line: “Russia updates.”
Papadopoulos’ efforts to arrange the Trump-Putin meeting continued through June.
“Russia has been eager to meet Mr. Trump for quite sometime and have been reaching out to me to discuss,” Papadopoulos wrote to Manafort on May 21.
Manafort forwarded that email to his longtime business associate Rick Gates and said, “Let’s discuss.”
“We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips,” Manafort wrote. “It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

What is revealed by the Papadopoulos case is not “collusion,” because what Papadopoulos was trying to do was to set up a Putin-Trump meeting that never happened. It is evident that this “newly signed staffer” was acting on his own initiative, an enthusiastic amateur trying to impress his bosses with his London-based connections. For nearly a month, it seems, the top campaign officials were reluctant to tell Papadopoulos to stop his activity until Manafort firmly declared that Trump “is not doing these trips.” This would seem to indicate that Papadopoulos’s efforts were never authorized by the candidate or his top staff, and there is nothing — absolutely nothing — we have seen so far to indicate that the alleged “Russian dirt files” actually existed, or that the Trump campaign ever obtained them if they did exist. The Maltese Professor had claimed to Papadopoulos that “high-level Kremlin officials” told him they had these emails, but where is the smoking-gun evidence that this unverified claim led to “collusion”?

Here’s a question: Was this discussion of “dirt files” actually a reference to the DNC emails later released by WikiLeaks? Or to put it another way: What did The Maltese Professor actually know?

If indeed what Mifsud was telling Papadopoulos was that Russia had obtained those DNC emails, this is smoke, but the question is, was the Trump campaign in any way responsible for the fire? We don’t even know — however much it may seem a common-sense deduction — that the DNC emails were what Mifsud was talking about, but as a matter of fact, it was WikiLeaks that released those emails, and we have no evidence that the Trump campaign had anything to do with that.

You picture Bogart as detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Professor, a cigarette dangling from his lip, trying to make sense of it all. As obvious as it may seem that (a) Putin didn’t want Hillary Clinton to win the election, and (b) this Mifsud-Papadopoulos connection was part of an official Russian effort to influence the election, what actually happened as a result? You may surmise there was intent to “collude” on the part of some Trump aides — i.e., they were willing to accept Russian assistance — but beyond that, what do we have?

“Nothing,” says the detective, opening his desk drawer to pull out a pint of whiskey and pouring himself a stiff drink. “A whole lot of nothing.”

Mueller and his team will keep investigating, of course, but unless and until they actually find something, it’s still just a bunch of nothing.



 

Category: Donald Trump
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