As my son said when I cooked dinner the other night...

Something stinks!

*(Just a reader's note: if you're looking for the New Deal response, see post below)*

This recent black eye for the Secret Service. This, as a news consumer, is what I am being told: 11 members of the Secret Service advance team, an elite unit, were staying at a 5 star hotel in South America, prepping for the PoTUS's "Summit of the Americas" visit. And they traveled down to a local Colombian stripper club, brought some hookers back to the hotel, kept them there over night - presumably using their services - and the next morning these same 11 agents refused to pay the girls their agreed upon $47 each. The refusal caused a flap, a "broohaha" as it were ensued in which hotel security (in Columbia) were called to settle the dispute, and the story leaked.

That sound right to you?

Second story ... last month a US soldier in Afghanistan walks off a secure base, in the middle of the night, past a series (I think three) checkpoints, with live ammo and weaponry, travels through Taliban held territory, burst into the home of Afghani civilians and massacred them. He then travels back through Talibam held territory, sneaks back onto base, waits 20 minutes (approximately), decides he wants to kill some more, sneaks back through the checkpoints, back through Taliban land, and does the same to two more households, murdering 16 civilians in total, and then ends up safely back on base. Reports say he poured chemicals over the bodies and burned them. A surviving 15 year old boy said "soldiers burst into his home and started killing everyone.


Soldiers? Plural? And he happen to be carrying gallons of chemicals?

Why do these two incidents, in their make up, the premise, their execution, why do they smell like KGB to me? Yes, I know, its the FSB now, but half dozen of one, right? This just doesn't smell right. And SoD Penetta's visit to the Afghan base recently (but before the murders), remember they wouldn't allow any soldiers to carry their firearms with them as they greeted and escorted him around base, only his personal detail carried weapons. Perhaps Intel on Russian agents trying to flip one of our boys? Or at the very least, their old pals the Afghans?

Do you remember a few years ago the big bust up of 11 Soviet (oops, sorry), 11 Russian spies? Remember? The hot girl, was doing Maxim and Playboy, she was one of them? She and the others were eventually traded back for 4 of our guys. 11 huh?

I know this sounds black helicopter conspiratorial, but one thing is clear: Putin intends that the Russian Bear eclipses The US Eagle. He's playing the long game, he's playing for keeps, and in his so-called "democracy", he's not going anywhere. In that effort,the news agency "Russia Today" , a wholly owned subsidy of the Kremlin, is piped into the US et al, explicitly for Western consumption. Guess who starts his new one hour show on that network, today? Julian Assange (wikileaks). A curious place to make home considering that in the 2011 list of countries with the highest journalist murders, Russia was number 1 at 53 unexplained reporters murdered, beating out Columbia at 43, & Pakistan at 35. Curious too given before his UK arrest he warned he was going after Russia next. But why murder a guy bent on releasing state secrets when you can hire him? Why do I get the feeling Assange knows what the line "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" sounds like in a Russian accent?

Did I mention that Putin cut his teeth as a KGB Colonel?