Russia, France and fascism

I admit it: Years ago, the earwig of paranoia burrowed a few tunnels through my brain. Although I've tried very hard to evict the earwig, the tunnels remain, causing me to overthink the should-be-obvious. Thus, when I first heard about the hacking of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, the first theory to run through my mind was that pro-Macron forces arranged the hack in order to make Le Pen look like a Putin puppet.

After further study, I've found no evidence to support that theory, and much that points against it. There's no twelve-dimensional chess here: Putin and the international Alt Right really did engineer this hack in order to put a fascist in charge of France.

The stolen email trove appeared a mere hour before France's traditional news embargo fell into place, allowing ample room for social media manipulation while impeding the efforts of objective journalists to counter the propaganda. Imagine a news environment in which the Alex Jonesians are given total freedom to discuss Pizzagate while the major media wears duct tape over its collective mouth. That's kinda, sorta like what France is going through right now.

Wikileaks immediately sent out tweets scoffing at the claim that all of the hacked emails were faked -- a claim which no-one had made. Whenever you hear an outraged denial of a non-existent charge, you know that you've entered PropagandaLand.

We then learned that the hack was part of a larger Alt Right effort...

While there is no evidence that the breach against Mr. Macron’s campaign was organized by this loosely connected group of far-right campaigners, the American activists have been gathering on sites like 4chan and Discord, which were previously used to coordinate support for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.

One popular tactic, experts say, has been so-called Twitter raids, or efforts to hijack trending hashtags and topics on the social media site and inject far-right and anti-Macron propaganda.

A week before the second round of the French election, for instance, online activists, many from the United States and other English-speaking countries, flooded Twitter with coordinated anti-Macron memes — online satirical photos with often biting captions — carrying hashtags like #elysee2017 that were linked to the campaign. That included portraying him as a 21st-century equivalent of Marie Antoinette, the out-of-touch last queen of France, and other memes made allegations of an extramarital affair.

This propaganda barrage tells us all we need to know -- about Wikileaks, about the hack, about Russia, about the whole damned thing.

(By the way, Marie was not the last.)

Incidentally, the first to report on on the hacked emails was one Jack Posobiec, who wants to make one thing very clear...

These media reports that I am alt-right are fake news as everyone who's anyone knows I am a banner member of #SlavRight

Duly noted!

Remember: Everyone who is anyone should feel compelled to pay nonstop attention to the antics of Jack freakin' Posobiec, because Jack freakin' Posobiec is that freakin' important. In fact, he's so freakin' important that the "Globalist" conspirators have threatened to kill his parents. Or so he claims. At any rate, one glance at his latest tweets left me with no question that the Alt Right/Duginist conspirators are behind this scurrilous attempt to turn France fascist.

An attempt which I predict will succeed.

Yes, I think that Le Pen will win, even if the polls do have her 20 points behind. The earwig of paranoia may have dug a few tunnels through my brain, but the earwig of despair dug trenches. And the earwig of cynicism has carved out a whole damned canyon.

Trump and Russiagate. I have come to dislike writing about Russiagate. Remember all of that talk about an early impeachment? I get depressed whenever I see the doomed seed of hope germinating so widely.

And yet. And yet.

Something does seem to be happening, or on the verge of a cusp of happening. We have certain...indications.

Indicator 1: Sally Yates will testify on Monday, and we know that she will speak, in part, of efforts to warn Team Trump about Flynn.

Indicator 2: Claude Taylor (former Clinton staffer) reports that two -- no: three -- grand juries, related to Trumpgate, have already convened. This claim is repeated on the Palmer Report (which admittedly does not have the highest of reputations).

The grand jury story was first posted by Democratic political insider Claude Taylor, who got it from an inside source. The story was then confirmed by Republican political insider Rick Wilson, who had gotten it from his own sources on the opposite side of the aisle. Now Taylor says two sources are confirming to him that “there are at least two sealed indictments.” (link). He goes on to state that his source hasn’t told him whom the indictments are aimed at, but that his own guesses are Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. So where does this leave things?

Sealed indictments mean that the individuals named in those indictments can be arrested at any time once the indictments are unsealed. In other words, the FBI has gotten what it wanted and needed from the judicial branch; FBI Director James Comey recently confirmed in public testimony that his agency is working with the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia. But this does not mean that arrests are imminent. The indictments were sealed for a legal or strategic reason, and they’ll remain that way until that reason changes.

Indicator 3: In her latest Patriobotics column -- which she still won't sign! -- Louise Mensch reports that there are now no less than six FISA warrants concerning Trump/Russia cases, and that at least one of those warrants concerns a RICO case.

I can add to the story that sources have pointed me at PACER records in both the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of New York, which I have verified independently. In his testimony to the Judiciary Committee this past week, Mr. Comey specified that the FBI was working with ‘two main sets of prosecutors’ – one being the Eastern District of Virginia, popularly known as the ‘rocket docket’.

I have independently verified that these cases do exist. In the Eastern District of Virginia, “Case Name Not on File” was filed on April 17th, with the Movant listed as the U.S. Government.

In the Southern District of New York, also on April 17th a RICO case was filed, with the plaintiff not listed. In the Eastern District of Virginia, the Movant is publicly listed as the US Government – there is less information in the New York Southern District Court.

Both of these cases are, at the time of writing, available on search records without access to the PACER system.

Here they are:

And here's the RICO case...

Let us duly note the should-be-obvious: These are three very recent cases, and nothing proves that they have anything to do with Trump, his associates, or Russians. The hard truth is that we have nothing but Mensch's word that we're in Trump territory.

Ponder that fact and ponder it well before you allow the earwig of hope to dig very far in your heart.

Succubus. The viciousness of the Alt Right attacks on Mensch only gives her greater credibility in my eyes. She seems downright proud of the fact that Russia Insider called her an "unhinged British witch" and "a textbook succubus."

This phrase haunts me. Just what is a "textbook succubus"? Are we talking about a female demon who seduces textbooks? Or are we talking about a female demon who matches the definition of the word "succubus" as provided in textbooks? If the latter, just which textbooks are we talking about? What kind of college professor assigns those textbooks? I mean, it sounds like a pretty cool class: Succubi 101. If UCLA had offered a course with that name during my student days, I would have signed up like a shot.

(Actually, I chose a course on Norse mythology and the writings of Snorri Sturluson, on the theory that I had already learned the basics from Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Richard Wagner. I suspect that many of Trump's most fervent supporters would have loved that one.)

Rybolovlev. Here's another Palmer Report claim which deserves at least some attention:

Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev insists it’s a coincidence that his private plane has just happened to land in the same cities Donald Trump has been visiting, before and after election day. And Donald Trump wants us to believe that he doesn’t know who Rybolovlev is, even though he once sold him a house at twice market value. But if it is all a coincidence, then that coincidence is happening yet again – this time in New Jersey.

Rybolovlev’s private plane can be tracked by its call sign M-KATE, through a site like FlightRadar24. Back on April 26th his plane was en route from France to England, but was listed as having been “diverted” to Newark, New Jersey (link). As we pointed out at the time, Newark is just a few hours away from an event Donald Trump was holding in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Trump then traveled to New York City this week. But guess where he’s at now?

Right now Donald Trump is at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey according to the Los Angeles Times (link). According to Google Maps, Bedminster is just thirty-four miles away from Newark (link), where Dmitry Rybolovlev’s private plan is still parked.

Uh oh. Looks like Donnie has a stalker. Maybe he should get a restraining order.