Bear Slapped!

What are we to make of this? Vladimir Putin has just bear slapped his man ho, Donald Trump, and Putin did this in public where he knew everyone would see it. In a not so vailed threat to the United States, “Vladimir Putin ... announced that Russia has developed and is testing a new line of strategic, nuclear-capable weapons that would be able to outmanoeuvre US defences, suggesting a new arms race between Moscow and the west.” Mr. Putin said the development of these weapons was a result of the “...US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union.” The speech in which Mr. Putin made this threat “...came in the same month that the Pentagon released a new nuclear arms policy, which followed on from a promise by the US president, Donald Trump, to develop an arsenal 'so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression'.”

Is this Mr. Putin's way of reminding Mr. Trump of who is the boss? Or is it merely a reaction to the hawkish behavior that threatens to keep Russian military aggression in check? Whatever Mr. Putin's intent may be, he could not have made this threat of nuclear proliferation at a worst time for Donald Trump!

As Vox reported “... Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 19 people and three companies so far — with most of those being announced just in the past two weeks.

That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 13 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Five of these people have already pleaded guilty — the latest being former Trump campaign staffer Rick Gates, who signed a plea deal and committed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation Friday.”

In other words Mr. Mueller is gathering up the people close to Trump and is placing them like fallen leaves in a basket labeled “Cooperating/indicted” and/or a basket simply labeled “indicted!” Furthermore, NBC is reporting that:

”Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is asking witnesses pointed questions about whether Donald Trump was aware that Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their strategic release, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.

Mueller's investigators have asked witnesses whether Trump was aware of plans for WikiLeaks to publish the emails. They have also asked about the relationship between GOP operative Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and why Trump took policy positions favorable to Russia.

The line of questioning suggests the special counsel, who is tasked with examining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, is looking into possible coordination between WikiLeaks and Trump associates in disseminating the emails, which U.S. intelligence officials say were stolen by Russia.”

The new threats of an arms race by Putin make any conspiracy or collusion with Russia to interfere in our elections all the more egregious, and they make Trump's refusal to enforce the congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia all the more damning. During the cold war any conspiracy involving US citizens and the Soviet Union against this country and its allies was considered treasonous by a majority of the people even though such a conspiracy did not meet the legal definition of treason.  Even the legal distinction between espionage and treason was often meaningless to defendants convicted of either crime, e.g. although the Rosenbergs could not be charged with treason because we were not technically “at war” with the Soviet Union, their conviction for espionage carried with it the same penalty as a conviction for treason and they were executed! The threat from Russia then and now is real, and Putin has just reminded us of how grave that threat is. We desperately need an honest President who will defend this country from all threats foreign and domestic!