After the "triumphs" of the tax bill and Jerusalem, it's back to the business of investigating: Image

by Jack Brummet

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‘Of course we have it!‘: Russian lawmaker pushes Putin to reveal the pee tape (via Rawstory.com)

‘Of course we have it!‘: Russian lawmaker pushes Putin to reveal the pee tape (click to see original story)

I think it is sitting in the top left-hand drawer of Vlad's desk. /jack 

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Donald J. Trump and Vlad Putin, chained

[photographer/digital artist unknown]

"Chains, my baby's got me locked up in chains,
And they ain't the kind that you can see.
Whoa, it's chains of love got a hold on me. Yeah!
Chains, well I can't break away from these chains,
Can't run around 'cause I'm not free." 
[Lyrics by Jerry Goffin/Carole King]

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The shocking, if real, entertaining and ambitious if not, Donald Trump dossier allegedly compiled by The Company, a/k/a C.I.A.

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.

It's hard to know if this is real (they did a great job of making it *seem* real), but you can download, or read, a 35 page PDF of the "Trump Dossier" (purportedly compiled by The Company, a/k/a CIA).  If it is real, and not a red herring created by the Kremlin, wow.  It's hard to know if this is real because you keep shaking your head, saying "this can't possibly be true."

Warning: includes possibly offensive short passages detailing orgies and other sexual behavior. It's no coincidence that "golden showers" is trending today on Internet searches and hashtags. Just Google golden showers

You can read or download the PDF here. 

I responded to DJT's tweet on this being Fake News:

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By Pablo Fanque, Cold War Ed.

Change the context a bit, and substitute John Kerry for Hans Blix, and Vladimir Putin for Kim Jung Il. And there we are.

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President Reagan and Vladimir Putin. . .23 years ago?

By Jack Brummet
Presidential History Editor

click to enlarge

I missed this photo/controversy when it first appeared two years ago.  People seem absolutely convinced this is Vladimir Putin posing as a tourist.  The Russians vehemently deny this is him at all.  There are fairly tantalizing arguments on either side of the question.

According to Pete Souza, "President Barack Obama's official photographer, a picture he took in Red Square 21 years ago indicates that Mr Putin was part of a KGB plot to embarrass Reagan on his first ever visit to Moscow."

Kremlin officials are said to be angry about the emergence of Mr Souza's photograph, and believe it is an attempt to smear Mr Putin.  Russian experts (e.g., "experts in Russia") claim that the young man dressed in a tight t-shirt with a camera slung around his neck is not Mr Putin.

Souza told National Public Radio in the United States that the incident occurred when Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary, toured Red Square in the Summer of 1988.  Reagan was led to a group of Russian tourists who were allegedly positioned in Red Square to ask a series of pointed questions about America's human rights record.

Souza now says that a secret service officer told him the tourists were in fact "all KGB families."

"Now what is really interesting is a picture I have in my Reagan book," he said. "Off to the left is one of these tourists with a camera around his shoulder and it has been pointed out to me and verified that that was Putin. As soon as you see the picture you go: 'Oh my gosh, it really is him.'"

Experts in Moscow, however, call B.S.  During Reagan's visit, Putin was serving as a mid-ranking KGB spy in Dresden and would not have been called to Moscow to help with a dirty trick.  The Russians also note that the man in the photograph has a thicker head of hair than Mr Putin ever did.

Yeah, it does resemble the Prime Minister.  But I could really go either way. . .

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