Something's coming

For a brief period last night, my previous post -- the one identifying Boris Epshteyn as "Source E" in the Orbis dossier -- attracted a fair amount of attention. To my astonishment, the response was actually....nice. People thanked me and said pleasant things. As I wrote to several friends: "This is still the internet, isn't it?"

Why does Trump praise Putin? Slate asks: "If Trump isn't colluding with Russia, why does he act as if he is?" Damned good question. But let's go further: If Trump IS colluding with Russia, why does he act as if he is? From the standpoint of pure Machiavellian strategy, he should be badmouthing Putin, at least on occasion.

What's more, Putin -- an old spook who knows how the world works -- should have instructed Trump to say something anti-Putin. As things stand, the Russia factor plays no small role in Trump's plummeting popularity. So why can't Trump ameliorate the situation with a bit of insincere rhetoric?

The most frightening thing Trump has said recently was his promise to have a report out within 90 days on Russian hacking. You know damned well that he intends to transform the intelligence community into a kennel of trained dogs. Any report produced by a Trumpified intelligence community will blame all the world's ills on the Clintons or on another political opponent.

Mark my words: Trump is going to issue a report which accuses Clinton of dirty dealings with Russia. These half-truths and strained arguments will be expanded upon in very imaginative ways by the usual fake newsers.

In the Dubya years, intelligence was fixed around policy. In the Donald administration, intelligence will serve Trump's various vendettas and power-plays. The CIA will be about as reliable as InfoWars.

Hell, why not just go all the way and nominate Alex Jones as DNI?

Blowing up America. We forget how the little-known and little-liked Vladimir Putin achieved his stranglehold on power: There were a series of apartment bombings in Russia, which Putin's government blamed on Chechen terrorists, although nearly everyone outside of Russia suspects the FSB.

In one instance, FSB agents were seen actually planting the devices; when caught, the government came up with a ludicrous story about "a training exercise." In another case, a Putin ally made a speech decrying a specific bombing; unfortunately, the explosion went off two days later. Talk about jumping the gun!

I fully expect Donald Trump to resort to similar tactics. Of course, Alex Jones and his companions will not scream "False flag!" Right-wing conspiracy buffs spew those words as a matter of routine whenever tragedy ocurs -- but you can bet your last nickle that they won't offer such theories against Der Trumpenfuehrer.

In a sense, Donnie has no choice but to secure his hold on power with a series of Putin-esque false flags. Even before he takes the oath, Trump is on track to become the most despised president in history. His impeachable crimes are already blatant, and Paul Ryan would just as soon work with Mike Pence to achieve the dream of transforming America into Libertarian "paradise."

(On the other hand, I imagine that Putin and Trump are gathering all sorts of kompromat on every Republican in the House and Senate, just to keep 'em in line. Have they ever stayed in a Trump hotel? Smile! You're on Candid Camera!)

I may have already mentioned my primary suspicion about what will soon hit us: A "small" nuclear event in Chicago, in the area of Trump's tower on the river. This will be the American equivalent of the FSB apartment bombings.

There is also some indication that another false flag event has been planned for Russia itself. Check out this ultra-right fake news outlet:

This is a real quote from Mr. Putin himself.

“I Swear if they Bomb Russia, in Half an Hour Every Muslim Will Die”

Like him or hate him, he places the safety of his people above all else and is not ruled by political correctness.

"The safety of his people"? As when the FSB were caught planting bombs in apartments?

Something's coming, folks, and it's going to be both frenzied and grim. Trump and Putin know that they need to whip up a whirlwind of activity in order to silence opposition. We are poised to enter a time of madness.

John Lewis. I'm sure you already know the story: The revered John Lewis said that he considered Trump illegitimate. After a dramatic period of silence, our tweet-happy nitwit of a PEOTUS finally sent a nasty response, even though anyone with any political smarts would have advised him to keep his damned trap shut. Trump said that Lewis represents a crime-infested district, which is absolutely not true: Georgia's Fifth District is actually quite lovely. Just because Lewis is black doesn't mean that he hails from a hell-hole.

Worse, he accused Lewis of being "all talk" and no action. John Lewis? Seriously? When he was a Freedom Rider, he and his compatriots were subjected to nearly unbelievable violence. Meanwhile, Donald Trump evaded Vietnam by claiming that his foot hurt. (It got better.) Then he became a landlord who refused to rent to black people.

Bangin' away in Russia. Trump countered the watersportsgate allegations by claiming that he knows that hotels have hidden cameras, and thus he remains on his best behavior when abroad. The counterargument: Trump probably learned that lesson the hard way.

The shpritz-at-the-Ritz incident occurred (we are told) in 2013, but Putin had his eye on Trump long before. This GQ story is but one of many describing how Trump used to brag about his sexual escapades in Mother Russia...

But yesterday, in an unearthed interview from The Howard Stern Show in 2001, we were given a small reason to believe that the intelligence report was on to something. Trump and a gossip columnist named A. J. Benza got into an argument on the air in which Benza revealed something Trump had bragged to him about.

You may recognize Benza as the guy who hosted Hollywood Mysteries & Scandals, which was a terrific show. Benza is quoted as saying of Trump: "He used to call me when I was a columnist and say, “I was just in Russia, the girls have no morals, you gotta get out there.”

So there's an excellent chance that Putin "had something" on Der Donald way back then.

Most people know that Putin was this odd, nearly-unknown KGB guy who somehow rose to power under Yeltsin. But not enough people are asking: How did that happen? Evidence suggests that Putin scrambled into power by acquiring kompromat -- blackmail material. He was Mr. Videotape.

GQ gives the example of Yury Skuratov, who was investigating the crimes of Boris Yeltsin. Then a certain videotape appeared of Skuratov with a couple of hookers; he had to resign. The man who came up with that tape was none other than Vladimir Putin.

It's very likely that Putin had similar material on Yeltsin himself.

If Benza is right -- and I'm sure he is -- then Trump's escapades with those girls with "no morals" were captured for posterity. Vladimir probably still plays the tape from time to time. As LBJ used to say: "Never trust a man unless you got his pecker in your pocket." Donnie's pecker has been in Vladimir's pocket for a long, long time -- perhaps for the last twenty years.

If you want to know what Trump has planned, just watch these documentaries on Putin. Vlad provided the playbook.