Cricket
Looking on from afar at the disintegration of the American Republic, as it circles the drain morally, spiritually, and economically, is profoundly depressing. The irrationality of the talking heads and politicians, the endless barrage of absurd propaganda, and more generally the absurd spectacle of Cultural Marxism and identity politics causing the country to devour itself - I can't help but watch with a sense of foreboding as the lights inevitably go dim in the world's most powerful nation. A tiny flicker of a sign of national repentance would be great. But there is none.

The last few days have seen the hysteria being ratcheted up way past that big red danger zone. To see how insane this all is, remember that back in April, the US and Russia came perilously close to a military confrontation, after America and two of its allies decided to bomb Syria on the basis of unproven and highly dubious claims of a chemical attack in East Ghouta (lo and behold, the OPCW has just released its interim report, stating that their results "show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties"). Did anybody welcome the two sides coming that close to a confrontation? Does anyone want them to go further next time?

Apparently some people do. Whereas a previous generation of journalists were mighty glad to see Ronald Regan sit down for talks with Mikhail Gorbachev, for obvious reasons, the current generation of Stenographers Masquerading as Journalists working for Global Pravda (aka Mainstream Media), who to a person appear incapable of rational thought, are in an apoplectic fit of gargantuan proportions because President Trump went and talked with President Putin, in an attempt to reduce tensions. Oh, and he apparently questioned the truthfulness of some with the US Intelligence Agencies? Wouldyabelieve it? Whodathunk it? He thinks they sometimes lie? No way!

In their silly warmongering minds, the only explanation for this must be that Trump is a traitor under the Kremlin thumb. Why else would the President of the Exceptional Nation humiliate the Exceptional Nation by saying that the Exceptional Nation had been the cause of much of the current problems? Why else would the President of the Indispensable Country humiliate the Indispensable Country by treating the President of a Dispensable Country as a sort of equal? Why else did he treat the meeting as a summit, rather than a chance to bawl, shout, and threaten the other guy? "In the interests of peace, perhaps", says someone. Nah, it's treason pure and simple, croaked the old Swamp Creature, former head of the CIA and one-time Communist, John Brennan - along with his fanboys and fangirls from the Deep State Bottomless Pit.

Apparently, the Stenographers have yet to realise that if the two nations do ever clash with one another, as very nearly happened in April this year, then they're just as likely to get zapped as the rest of us. Someone tell the poor dears.

It's all very sad, and yet at the same time there is something deeply amusing about the whole "Russia hacked our election" "Russia interfered in our democracy" circus. As I said before, the whole thing resembles a Convention of Village Idiots Involved in a Never-Ending Hunt for a Non-Existent Needle in an Ever-Expanding Haystack. Whenever they think they've found a needle - for instance, 12 Russian nationals indicted on charges of swinging an election by placing puppy adverts on Facebook (or something like that) - they excitedly cry out to each other that they've found it. Then when it turns out to be a shoe or a marble or a toy donkey, or anything other than a needle, far from it diminishing their enthusiasm, they take it as a sign that there must be a needle somewhere and carry on the hunt with even greater aplomb.

One of the sideshows of the Convention of V.I.s is that it is apparently on track to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the longest running spell of unadulterated hypocrisy witnessed since records began. "It's terrible," they cry. "So-and-so interfered in our election." Did they now? With their puppy adverts? Well, guess which country has interfered in more elections, and been behind more coups and coup plots than any other country in the world? And guess which country openly and brazenly interfered in the 1996 Russian election to ensure the re-election of the drunkard, Boris Yeltsin? Oh yes. Let me see. Wasn't it the country whose entire political and media class have spent the last two years hyperventilating about the apparent interference by Russia in the 2016 election? Yes, I rather think it was.

But the most absurd thing about the Convention is that recently a couple of actual needles were thrown in. This was undoubtedly done by the unseen hands of divine providence, who likes to make the proud and the arrogant look foolish from time to time. And do you know what the V.I.s did when they saw the needles? Why, they chucked them back into the haystack, pretending they hadn't seen them.

What were those needles? Moving away from the haystack comparison and back into the real world, they were what are known in the media world as Bombshells. Oh, and they both just happen to involve Mrs Clinton.

Here was the first:

At the Congressional hearing last week, FBI agent Peter Strzok was interviewed by a number of Committee members, including Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas (I recommend going to YouTube and watching the questioning of Mr Strzok by Mr Gohmert, as well as that by Jim Jordan and Trey Gowdy, as they are just amazing). Anyway, during the questioning Mr Gohmert mentioned an anomaly found by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, back in early 2016, regarding Hillary Clinton's emails, which were famously going through her private server. According to Mr Gohmert:
"When they had done the forensic analysis, they found that her emails, every single one except four, over 30,000, were going to an address that was not on the distribution list. It was going to an unauthorised source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia."
He then went on to say that when this information was given to Mr Strzok, who was at that time part of the investigation into Mrs Clinton, he ignored it completely. Mr Gohmert then repeated his claim on Fox News later that day.

If what Mr Gohmert is saying is correct, this is huge. Really HUGE. It means that:
  • a) A foreign state hacked into Mrs Clinton's server and has over 30,000 emails, including many that contained classified material.
  • b) That state was not Russia (I have seen in a couple of places that the identity of the nation in question is China, but await confirmation).
  • c) The FBI, who knew about this early in 2016, chose to ignore this intelligence and keep it from the American public, because to have acted upon it would have killed Mrs Clinton's chances of running for President.
  • d) Mrs Clinton should be in prison (but then, you probably knew that anyway).
  • e) Although the hacking of Mrs Clinton's emails is not central to the Russiagate conspiracy (unlike the DNC and Podesta emails), it is implied in regard to one of the people indicted by the Mueller Inquiry, George Papadopolous, who is alleged to have told the Australian ambassador to the UK, that the Russian government had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked emails. But according to Mr Gohmert, it wasn't the Russian state, but another state, and so this starts to call into question the whole wretched narrative that's been playing out for two years.
The second bombshell is related to something said by Vladimir Putin in the press conference after the Helsinki summit. He was responding to a question about Russia's alleged interference in the US election, and in his reply he offered for Robert Mueller and his team to come to Russia to question those named in their recent indictment. However, he also said that this would only happen if Russian investigators were able to travel to the US to question certain persons they deem to be of interest. He then named one of them:
"I mean the high-profile case, involving [Bill] Browder's Hermitage Capital company. According to our investigative officers, a group of people - Mr Browder's business partners - who illegally made over $1.5 billion in Russia did not pay taxes either in Russia or the United States but transferred this money to the United States. They contributed $400 million to Ms Clinton's election campaign. This is official information included in their reports - $400 million. Well, it was up to them, they might have done this legally, but the gains were ill-gotten.

We have grounds to suspect that US intelligence officers supported these illegal transactions. This is only one step forward. We can talk about expanding our cooperation. You're welcome, there might be options that are provided for in the appropriate intergovernmental treaty."
I won't say much about Mr Browder here, other than that I believe him to be a scoundrel of the highest order. I won't even say anything about whether Mr Putin's remarks are correct or not (how could I know?).

Yet the claim itself is extraordinary. A huge sum of money, gotten by ill-gotten gain in Russia, for which Mr Browder paid no taxes (he also dodged taxes in the US and is now a British Citizen), was allegedly funnelled to the Hillary Clinton campaign via US Intelligence officers. That's the charge. Whether it's true or not, I have no idea. But it's a pretty huge charge, is it not?

You'd think the media would be interested in pursuing these huge issues, wouldn't you? But no. This is Global Pravda, after all. No, all you can hear is the chirp, chirp, chirp of crickets on these issues; that is when they're not shrieking, yelling and hollering at the thought that peace might break out at some point.


Comment: Nope, instead the village idiots are all rounding around ex-ambassador McFaul as if he were Mother Teresa. How dare - how absolutely dare! - the Russians want to question McFaul! (In the V.I.s minds, the Russians actually want to arrest McFaul, not simply question him regarding Browder and Browder's assorted shady associates.)