Russian to Judgement

A former Russian agent was poisoned in Britain recently and British PM Teresa May is in a high dudgeon over it. She thinks Russia poisoned him.  Her only evidence: He showed evidence of a particular advanced poison in his blood.  On that slim and unproven basis  she has called for more sanctions on Russia

The Western elites seem determined to have another cold war with Russia.  They must have a boogeyman to frighten people with, apparently.  Vladimir Vladimirovich has been remarkably restrained in response to such provocations so far but if it keeps up he might decide that he has nothing to lose by (for instance) taking control of Eastern Ukraine.

That would be welcomed by the Eastern Ukrainians but would pump Western leaders up to a frenzy of huffing and puffing.  Fortunately, Mr Trump is too practical to do anything foolish about it


The same people who assured you that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s now assure you Russian “novochok” nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil. As with the Iraqi WMD dossier, it is essential to comb the evidence very finely.

A vital missing word from Theresa May’s statement yesterday was “only”. She did not state that the nerve agent used was manufactured ONLY by Russia. She rather stated this group of nerve agents had been “developed by” Russia. Antibiotics were first developed by a Scotsman, but that is not evidence that all antibiotics are today administered by Scots.

The “novochok” group of nerve agents – a very loose term simply for a collection of new nerve agents the Soviet Union were developing fifty years ago – will almost certainly have been analysed and reproduced by Porton Down. That is entirely what Porton Down is there for. It used to make chemical and biological weapons as weapons, and today it still does make them in small quantities in order to research defences and antidotes. After the fall of the Soviet Union Russian chemists made a lot of information available on these nerve agents. And one country which has always manufactured very similar persistent nerve agents is Israel. This Foreign Policy magazine (a very establishment US publication) article on Israel‘s chemical and biological weapon capability is very interesting indeed. I will return to Israel later in this article.

Incidentally, novachok is not a specific substance but a class of new nerve agents. Sources agree they were designed to be persistent, and of an order of magnitude stronger than sarin or VX. That is rather hard to square with the fact that thankfully nobody has died and those possibly in contact just have to wash their clothes.

From Putin’s point of view, to assassinate Skripal now seems to have very little motivation. If the Russians have waited eight years to do this, they could have waited until after their World Cup. The Russians have never killed a swapped spy before. Just as diplomats, British and otherwise, are the most ardent upholders of the principle of diplomatic immunity, so security service personnel everywhere are the least likely to wish to destroy a system which can be a key aspect of their own personal security; quite literally spy swaps are their “Get Out of Jail Free” card. You don’t undermine that system – probably terminally – without very good reason.

It is worth noting that the “wicked” Russians gave Skripal a far lighter jail sentence than an American equivalent would have received. If a member of US Military Intelligence had sold, for cash to the Russians, the names of hundreds of US agents and officers operating abroad, the Americans would at the very least jail the person for life, and I strongly suspect would execute them. Skripal just received a jail sentence of 18 years, which is hard to square with the narrative of implacable vindictiveness against him. If the Russians had wanted to make an example, that was the time.

It is much more probable that the reason for this assassination attempt refers to something recent or current, than to spying twenty years ago. Were I the British police, I would inquire very closely into Orbis Intelligence.

There is no doubt that Skripal was feeding secrets to MI6 at the time that Christopher Steele was an MI6 officer in Moscow, and at the the time that Pablo Miller, another member of Orbis Intelligence, was also an MI6 officer in Russia and directly recruiting agents. It is widely reported on the web and in US media that it was Miller who first recruited Skripal. My own ex-MI6 sources tell me that is not quite true as Skripal was “walk-in”, but that Miller certainly was involved in running Skripal for a while. Sadly Pablo Miller’s LinkedIn profile has recently been deleted, but it is again widely alleged on the web that it showed him as a consultant for Orbis Intelligence and a consultant to the FCO and – wait for it – with an address in Salisbury. If anyone can recover that Linkedin entry do get in touch, though British Government agencies will have been active in the internet scrubbing.

It was of course Christopher Steele and Orbis Intelligence who produced for the Clinton camp the sensationalist dossier on Trump links with Russia – including the story of Trump paying to be urinated on by Russian prostitutes – that is a key part of the “Russiagate” affair gripping the US political classes. The extraordinary thing about this is that the Orbis dossier is obvious nonsense which anybody with a professional background can completely demolish, as I did here. Steele’s motive was, like Skripal’s in selling his secrets, cash pure and simple. Steele is a charlatan who knocked up a series of allegations that are either wildly improbable, or would need a high level source access he could not possibly get in today’s Russia, or both. He told the Democrats what they wish to hear and his audience – who had and still have no motivation to look at it critically – paid him highly for it.

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Armed With False Ideas, The Left 's Attack on Children, Useless Marches

John Hinderraker at Powerline had a good piece on “the  Despicable Misuse of Children.”

Today students were excused from classrooms all across America to participate in demonstrations in favor of firearms bans of one sort or another. These were anything but spontaneous actions organized by children. Rather, the anti-gun demonstrations were condoned, if not sponsored, by school administrations that are almost universally liberal. And the teachers’ unions played a part too. The National Education Association issued a statement that included this:

Since the horrific shootings in Parkland, Florida, students across the country have launched an inspired movement to demand long overdue action on school safety and gun control. NEA, its affiliates, and members throughout Florida and the nation, support these calls to prevent further school massacres.

Ironically, the demonstrations in favor of school safety featured, in some instances, attacks on non-conforming students. At one Minneapolis high school, two students stood apart from the throng calling for more gun control. One of them carried a sign that said “Blame the Culture, Not Guns.” The other carried a Donald Trump banner. He was cursed, pursued, knocked down and beaten up by “pro-school safety” demonstrators. School officials, who purport to be so concerned with the safety of their students, did nothing to intervene.

Kids are in school because they don’t know very much yet. I’m sure they feel badly about the horrific attack on Parkland, Florida. They may even be alarmed about their own safety. Their chances of an actual school shooting are something like one in 641,000,000. Unfamiliar with history, they are probably unaware that we have tried gun control before, both locally and nationally, and it accomplished nothing at all. In spite of the screeches of the Left,  gun control has not worked anywhere it has been tried, including in Australia, where they confiscated all the guns. Most of the deaths from guns nationally, are suicides. Fully automatic weapons have been banned for years. Violent crime has been declining steadily since the early 1990s. The 2011 rate was almost half of the rate in 1991, and the 2013 rate was half of the rate in 1993.

The well-meaning kids had signs to carry that they had proudly made themselves. This one,from Twitchy shows how clueless the kids are.



Other notable ones were “The Second Amendment isn’t meant to protect our citizens” and “De-Militarize the Police,” along with “Give us Our Reparations.” Well, I’m sure it was an exciting time for the kids and they got to miss time in school. Wiser parents kept their kids at home.

The Left’s hijacking our children for their own political purposes is disgusting.

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Under Heavily-Armed Police Guard, Bernie Sanders Addresses Anti-Gun Rally



A national school walk-out was held today by students protesting gun violence across the country, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders joined students in DC marching on the U.S. capitol.

So did his armed guards.

In multiple locations, students hit the streets and parking lots in their respective school districts to “walk out'” in solidarity with the Parkland students who are calling for more gun control after their school attacked by a deranged gunman. 17 students died in the attack. The former presidential candidate was part of a group of progressive congressmen addressing the Washington, DC march.

Sanders began a live stream of his speech on his Facebook page, which featured him wading through the crowd of cheering students and shaking hands. As Sanders traveled through the gun-control crowd, at least three heavily armed Capitol police officers could be seen protecting him and clearing a way for the Senator through the students. Multiple times in the live feed, the police can be heard asking the students to step back and move away from Sanders.

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Stormy Daniels’ Mother Is A Huge Trump Supporter

The mother of adult film star Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with President Donald Trump, declared her continued support for the president, saying she hopes the scandal involving her daughter doesn’t harm Trump.

Sheila Gregory would vote for Trump “every time” and hopes he runs for president “four more times,” Daniels’s mother said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. Gregory’s comments come after her daughter offered to return the $130,000 payment she received October 2016 for her continued silence about an alleged affair with President Trump Monday.

“If Mr. Trump runs four more times, I would vote for him every time,” Gregory said. “I like him. I like the way he handles things. It’s time this country is put back where it belongs, taking care of the people here instead of the people who don’t belong here.”

Daniels would be allowed to speak publicly of her and Trump’s alleged affair, which occurred during the summer of 2006 to early 2007, if she were to return the $130,000 Trump paid her for a “hush agreement” Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen and Stormy worked out

Gregory is not happy her daughter is a porn star and mentioned the two have not been very close throughout the past 12 years, said Gregory still tries to call Stormy every few weeks, she added.

“I loved her dearly,” her mother said. “I still love her dearly.”

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Texas Law Prohibiting Sanctuary Cities Is Upheld

A federal appeals court ruled that the majority of Texas law banning sanctuary cities can be implemented for now.

Today a federal appeals judge ruled most of the Texas law outlawing sanctuary cities within the state can be implemented while the legal challenge continues in a lower court. Governor Abbott decided to share the good news:

This means individual cities and municipalities will no longer be able to refuse ICE detainer requests. The three judge panel wrote:

The 'comply with, honor, and fulfill' requirement does not require detention pursuant to every ICE detainer request,” the panel wrote. “Rather, the 'comply with, honor, and fulfill' provision mandates that local agencies cooperate according to existing ICE detainer practice and law.

The court essentially upheld federal supremacy in immigration law and enforcement and state supremacy over local law or policy.

The only portion of the bill that the court did not uphold was the section that involved penalties for city officials who endorsed sanctuary policies. The ruling said the language “adopting, enforcing or endorsing' policies that specifically prohibit or limit enforcement of immigration laws was too broad. The injunction was upheld only on the "endorse" part of the statute on the concern it may infringe on free speech rights if the concept of endorsing those policies were expanded to expressing support for them.

The court affirmed that local and campus police officers cannot be prevented from assisting immigration officials. They referenced the Supreme Court ruling in Arizona v United States as precedent that the state would win these arguments in the course of the proceedings.

In response to the ruling Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton expressed confidence the state would prevail in the lower court legal challenge and stated:

We are pleased today’s 5th Circuit ruling will allow Texas to strengthen public safety by implementing the key components of Senate Bill 4. Enforcing immigration law helps prevent dangerous criminals from being released into Texas communities.

The precedent set in this case could encourage other states who have hesitated to develop similar prohibitions on sanctuary cities to do so if Texas is successful. There may also be implications for the Department of Justice's pursuit of California for their sanctuary state law.

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