Fancy Bear in French Elections

The Wall Street Journal writing today claims to have seen a report by Trend Micro that says Fancy Bear has been in the French elections, specifically trying to get into the accounts of employees of the campaign of Emmanuel Macron.  Fancy Bear was said by the former President of Estonia, to be the GRU part of Russian military intelligence.  That is not to say that they have not been trying to get into the other campaigns too, but they were certainly in one.  

In February, one of Macron's aides reported the Russians had been spreading "fake news" about the candidate.  If we put this in the same light at the U.S. Election, the Russians have been favoring candidates that are further right than the other candidates, mostly favoring non-establishment ones.  They don't wait for the election to start, and they will not quit when the election is over.  They want to discredit the electoral systems of democratic countries, while claiming to be one themselves.  We don't have to reflect long on that.  The kind of democracy Russia has is not what the rest of the world calls democracy.  

None the less, their campaigns have been effective at undermining democratic principles and creating the belief that the people are not represented well by their leaders.  In the U.S the number of people approving of the Congressional leadership has dropped to 20% over the last few months since the election.  That is worse than the views towards the least popular President in many years.  I call that success.  

There are always the cause an effect arguments that nobody thinks the Congress or the President are doing a good job, so we can hardly lay the blame for decreasing approvals to the Russians.  Maybe we should start looking closer at this.  The Russians are not the only ones involved;  they just get caught.  The penalty for getting caught should be severe, but it does not seem to be.  Perhaps that means we should consider the words of the Director of National Intelligence when he said "We all live in glass houses."  He was talking about retaliation for the Chinese theft of 28 million personnel security clearance records for which there has been none.  

This type of Political Warfare is ugly, but it does serve one good purpose by exposing the behind-the- scenes maneuvers that get people into office and keep them there.  If we don't like what we see, it may be because politics as practiced today is not what the electorates really want it to be.  Instead of accepting it, we need to do something about it.  Thank the Russians for part of that.  Let's not be too grateful because the real glass houses are in Moscow and Beijing.  They need a big dose of their own medicine.  

China Hacks S Korea over THAAD

Economic Warfare is alive and well in China.

FireEye has a new statement on China's military hacking of South Korean targets related to the THAAD missile system.  While the Chinese have been trying to deny it, there are so many examples of harassment and  intimidation that it must be the carrying out of government policy that encourages this type of thing.  Slowing down tourism to the South, hacking government and commercial sites, helping the North Koreans with their cyber activities and trying to discourage any company doing business with Lotte Group are all part of China's strategy to use economic measures to discourage behavior they do not like.

This particular case is being called one of "patriotic hacking" a term that is supposed to provide cover to anyone saying this is a government program carried out by government employees.  If we give any credence to this, we are doing ourselves a disservice.  It is said only to give plausibility to those responsible for the direction and management of a program to stop the deployment of THAAD in the South.  The Chinese think they can play this game forever, and so far have tried to prove it.  We really can't believe such an absurd thing.  This group has been around a long time and FireEye has been tracking them for part it.  Based on their research it is probably not an independent group doing the hacked.  Besides, as I have often noted, nobody hacks in China unless the government knows they are going it.  They have the best monitoring and censorship system anywhere in the world.  It is oppressive, but they do what they have to do to stay ahead of technology on the Internet.  Most countries could never live with what they have to do to accomplish what the Chinese have done, but China doesn't really care what a burden it is to its citizens.

The Cost of Censorship

China has always been good at censorship.  It is almost impossible to censor everything on the Internet, but China has come the closest of any country in the world to doing just that.  It requires an array of monitoring devices, targeting external and internal platforms, and human resources to look for possible violations.  There was a good case in point in the Wall Street Journal today, describing just one company that is being forced to look at all the content of its apps.  This is like asking Facebook or YouTube to look at everything on it -every day, all the time.  The volume of traffic makes that impossible - not difficult or any variation of that - impossible.  Yet, China has censorship rules that affect every app the population uses.  It is, after all, for their own good.

The Journal has described what one company, Huajiao, a video streaming service must do to try to comply with the law.  Imagine sitting at a screen set up to watch 60 video streaming sessions at a time and trying to look for violations.  It would be easy if a woman took off her clothes (they do) but there are subtle variations of that, like showing some skin and promising more that make that a difficult task.  Huajiao has a staff of people working 24-hours a day, just to keep up.  This is just one company, so there are hundreds of companies doing similar types of censorship.

You have to ask yourself if this is a good thing for the country.  Everyone knows that someone is watching every video service and every chat session that is being conducted.  It may just be a keyword search, but it is looked at by someone if  keywords come up.  That kind of intrusive watching must play on a population.  This is not the NSA kind of collecting that can be used for analysis if something comes up- this is real-time, content monitoring on every person in the country.   Imagine how you would feel if you knew someone was watching all the time.

Businesses are spending a fortune on resources to do this kind of monitoring.  Just salaries of humans to try to examine every little human exchange is an enormous cost.  That cost has to be paid by consumers.  So, tomorrow Comcast says "New government regulations have prompted a policy change to our subscribers.  We are going to be raising prices by 5% to pay for censors to monitor all the live streaming and textual content that is going over the Internet."  If you think about it, that kind of policy and that kind of expense are not possible in most countries.  We would have a revolution if that kind of thing was proposed.

China might face the same kind of outcome if they didn't monitor every member of their population.  That must play on them too.

Russian Plan for U.S. Election

Reuters is claiming an exclusive with the story that says Russia used a think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin to develop a plan to disrupt the U.S. Election and to discredit the electoral system in the United States.  So, at least somebody had a plan, probably developed by the former members of the Russian intellgence services who make up the think tank.  The plan is supposed to be helping elect someone more friendly to the Russians than President Obama.  That part must be a mistake, since President Obama was not the problem in the cabinate and wasn't running for election in 2016.  Hillary Clinton was that person and she was not very friendly towards anyone in the Kremlin.

If there was such a plan, it certainly did not disrupt the election or discredit the electoral system.  That part is being accomplished with a campaign to discredit the winner and undermine the Presidency, willingly helped along by some not so unbiased people in political parties.  The main goal is to prevent the winner from governing.  As I have pointed out before, the Russians do not stop when the election is over.  Sometimes their candidates lose;  sometimes they don't turn out to be as friendly as they thought they might be, but they remain undeterred by setbacks.  They have a long history of meddling, but they are much better at it than they used to be.  The ultimate goal has a name - Political Warfare.  My next book is going to have more details on how this kind of war is being waged.  It was not part of the military doctrine that defined Information Warfare because the military did not have a role in it.

ZTE Pleads Guilty to Iran Violations, but

Well, the ZTE case has finally run its course and ZTE has plead guilty to violating the Iran sanctions - leaving the big question now of who the other company was besides ZTE.  

ZTE is pleading to one very expensive count on the indictement:

"Specifically, ZTE pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to unlawfully export in violation of the IEEPA, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making a material false statement. ZTE agreed to pay a fine in the amount of $286,992,532 and a criminal forfeiture in the amount of $143,496,266, and submit to a three-year period of corporate probation, during which time an independent corporate compliance monitor will review and report on ZTE’s export compliance program."

So, what we are missing is the other company that was working with ZTE to violate the sanctions.  The internal documents published at the time of the indictment said there was another company that was doing the same thing.  The Treasury Department asked for documents from Huawai, but nothing came of the review that anyone knows.  Maybe Huawai was not the company involved, but if not, we still need to know what company was.  

Second, while the Iran sanctions took center stage on the announcement, ZTE was trading with several other banned countries besides Iran, in fact almost all of the ones we have sanctions against.  Whatever price they paid in fines and criminal forfeiture were easily offset by the trade they did with these countries.  China had to know they were doing this trade, which means they vote for sanctions in the U.N. then allow their own companies to violate them.  How hypocritical is that?  See also post front-companies-doing-for-china.html

Making Videos to Make a Point

In the middle of negotiations with Iran over the development of nuclear weapons, a genius in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard posted a video that showed mushroom clouds following the firing of missiles at Israel.  While it may not be very smart, the world press basically ignored it to preserve the nuclear agreement.  Posting it on YouTube did not get it many views.

So, on the Great Leader's birthday yesterday in North Korea the video made for him shows missiles zeroing in on targets in the US.  I haven't seen it all, but we can assume the detonations were mushroom cloud covered and as graphic as possible.  It is just a video, a cartoon like threat to make the Leader feel better about himself at a time when that is harder than it was last year.

A reminder to viewers - videos are cheap and easy to make but they are not very effective at convincing anyone there is real substance behind those threats.  Maybe we could direct one of those cyber operations at the studio that produced that video and deny the government another opportunity to publicly threaten a major world power with nuclear annihilation.  Where do they get this kind of chutzpah?  One day, the U.S. is going to take this kind of bravado seriously and make sure they can't carry out that threat.    It can't go on forever.

Naming Names

It is slightly unusual for two major newspapers to quote a "U.S business group" without naming it, but when I looked, almost all of the stories about a recommendation to "use all the arrows in the quiver" to get China to grant more access to their internal markets say something similar.  I wondered who this business group might be.

It appears that the source of it is the American Chamber of Commerce in China, in a 2017 White Paper which has some recommendations for the Chinese government that are worth looking further into:

• Continue progress in providing 30-day notice and comment periods for all draft laws and regulations across the board, as specified in multiple commitments.
• End the use of “window guidance” and release public directives instead.
• Improve comprehensiveness in the online publishing of all court cases within seven working days of a ruling as required by 2016 regulations.
• Improve transparency by releasing formal findings and case histories of anti-monopoly related investigations.
• Clarify customs and tax regulations so that foreign companies can fully comply and make more informed investment decisions.
• Provide written explanations whenever administrative agencies deny or provide conditional approvals for license applications or other approval applications, and adhere to decision deadlines specified in laws and regulations.

I had to look up "window guidance" but found it interesting since it appears regulations are unpublished but appear, and are implemented immediately.  FT carries an interesting story about how this worked on currency controls.  Chinese regulators called in representatives of 20 banks last December and told them about new controls on currency export, even blocking some exports right away.  You can imagine what a "business disruption" this caused the banks involved.  It would not be seen as a good way to regulate anything, let alone the financial systems of large banks.  

Yes, we need to use every arrow in the quiver because China regulates on the spot by bureaucrats who have no idea what kind of penalties they impose on business operations by their arbitrary actions.  I have advocated reciprocity with China on almost every element of trade because we have no level playing field to play on.  This is the only exception to reciprocity I can think of at the moment, because nobody wants to use the whim of beureaucrats to govern institutions that have international standards across multiple countries.  We would fail as quickly as the Chinese have.  

Cyber Speculation on North Korea's Missile Test

I think some kinds of speculation are not very helpful.  Listening to Jake Tapper today, then turning on the television and seeing similar speculation of the North Korean missile test that blew up after liftoff, I think we are thinking too hard about cyber offensive operations.  These kinds of things are generally not talked about - as one of Tapper's sources said, then did not.  Anything written about on what types of offensive operations could have been done to disrupt that missile test is pure speculation, and probably not informed speculation at that.

It is obvious that current and former members of the intelligence community talk too much.  Keeping Secrets used to be part of our education, recently emphasized to employees at the CIA by the new Director, Mike Pompeo.  That may set the scene for those people, but there are a lot more who need the similar understanding that sensitive secrets like these are secret because the unauthorized disclosure causes damage to the United States.  When the White House runs contrary to that idea, the worker bees get the idea they can do the same thing.  Maybe this White House will be different.  At least they are taking a step in the right direction.

Meddling in French Elections

Several press outlets today are talking about Facebook and French elections in the same breath.  They use the term "fake news" which is odd, but catching on since the President of the United States decided to use it regularly.  First, let me ask if the Chinese way of controlling the press - dictating what press outlets can say about world events, filtering out news stories, shooting the Great Cannon at information outlets of other countries so Chinese cannot see them, and harassing people who are independent writers - qualifies as "fake news"?  Is the controlled access to news and the limitations put on wording of news stories the same as the FSB or RT publishing fake stories on Facebook trying to influence the perceptions of various candidates?  I would say they are not, but part of the same attempts to influence perceptions of world events.  Manipulation of perception by any definition.

Since Facebook has taken up the task of trying to shut down some of the fakes on their medium, they are entering the realm of counterintelligence - separating the government sponsored efforts from the political candidates efforts - no easy task.  That is because fake news has become institutionalized by biased press outlets, social media, political ads that are slanted to show a potential candidate in a bad light.  The Russians and Chinese both use other methods of criminalizing the behavior of potential candidates but the United States is pretty close behind in both regards.  During the Obama Administration, the abuse of law was too evident, especially in the persecution of Scott Walker who would have made a pretty good candidate once upon a time.  The United States political parties seem to believe it is never too late to start on the potential candidates for public offices at all levels of government.  That is similar to both Russia and China in the way they behave.

Now it is France's turn and I have some advice for them.  Look for contributions to political parties by foreign nationals and French Nationals with foreign backing.  Look for people in government communicating with Wikileaks and French equivalents.  Keep a closer eye on embassy staffs and their recruitment.  Expose the writers of  stories who are picking up RT's political stories and passing them onto the public.  Unless you are unique in the world, there is no free press to speak of any more.  A few press outlets are being purchased by the Russians and will have their own people there writing stories and covering specific events that speak to their narrative.  Paid people will disrupt candidates' speeches, moving from sites to site.  They will photograph and video every event looking for a slip in wording or slant that may prove advantageous to another candidate (some Ukrainians photographed the ones doing this, which is not a bad idea) They will manufacture events like egging a candidate or protesting.  They will harass the family members of candidates they don't approve of.  They will suggest the legitimacy of any election not going their way was influenced by the candidate that wins.  And, oh by the way, they don't quit when the election is over.

Learning to Love China's Trade Imbalance

There is a good article by Bill Mauldin at the Wall Street Journal that attempt to look at the trade deficit with China in different ways, most of them indicating what a terrible time we will have if we try to correct it.  That part is a farce, since the imbalance is largely caused by China's policies and not those of the U.S.  But, I never got to the end of the piece because something was nagging at me in the first section on the types of major exports going to China.  It seems our computation of trade counts Chinese visitors to the United States at an export to China.  Try to get your brain around that for just a moment and you will find it makes no sense.

Chinese visitors come to the U.S and spend money in hotels and high-end malls, both of which we have in our area.  One of our neighbors was hired in a jewelry store because she spoke Mandarin fluently.  At the Rolex counter in our favorite store a man was buying a $16,000 watch for his son.  When we went over to Tumi, two Chinese women walked in in their Channel accessorized outfits, glanced around for a minute, and walked out.  It looked like the store was too busy to suit them.  I get that they are rich and can afford to be in these stores, but I don't get why that counts as an export.  Ridiculous.  All this says is the trade imbalance is a lot bigger than the numbers we see.

Yes, we are going to have a lot of trouble bringing that imbalance down.  The labor rates in China are still low, even though they are rising.  Rising is a relative term in this case and businesses find it advantageous to do their manufacturing there.  That isn't going to change until we get some reciprocity with policies.  That is going to hurt some businesses and they whine.  They are not considering the national security impact of this kind of imbalance.  It is leverage, and the Chinese have used it well.

It isn't going to happen in a day.  Clarifying how much of our trade with China is being manipulated is a good start.  That is what Mauldin's article is really getting at, without saying it.  If you watch what China did to South Korean industries because of THAAD being brought in by the U.S you see what leverage of this type really is - Economic Warfare.  The strategy is to make businesses squeal and influence policy of governments.  Make veiled threats to other businesses and focus on businesses that are providing support to THAAD in South Korea and you have the essence of that program of influence.  It works, if we let it.

I'm glad our President likes the Chinese Chairman because the world will be safer because of it, but this aspect is not something we can negotiate away without some thought.  China has manipulated every aspect of trade, stolen our technology, built their own industries using our technology and business strategies, and dumped steel and aluminum on world markets - working around sanctions of international groups and the U.S in the process.  They are not like us, especially in business, so don't confuse the trade deficit with a diplomatic tool that can be negotiated like any other treaty.  It isn't.

Xi Tells Trump About N Korea

It seems, by President Trump's account that North Korea can't be controlled by China.  This is a long discussion by the two of them, where Xi was said to recount the history of the countries and why it is more difficult to do than the President thought.  There must have been more to it than that, but the explanation seems reasonable enough on simple terms.  Yes, it is difficult, but China can and should be controlling North Korea because it is a creature of its own making.  As I said yesterday, China needs more time to solidify its control on the South China Sea and will stall by persuading North Korea to behave itself for a time.  That is the price with the New Administration in Washington.

I see this like the family who lived next door when I was first married and we were poor.  They had an unruly teenager who had been in trouble with the police and used to walk though my yard, peering into the house on the lower floor.  It scared my wife to death.  We got a fence but his problems with the police did not stop.  He ended up in a juvenile facility after we moved.  His father said the same thing Xi said about North Korea.  "I work two jobs to make ends meet.  My wife can't handle him."  I was sympathetic but wanted some accountability for stopping his actions and never got it.  The kid should have been in school.

History or not, North Korea can be controlled by China.  Syria can be controlled by Russia.  There are penalties for the kinds of actions they both create.  Ignoring their behavior has not worked, and it never will.  The U.S. Does not want to be the policeman of the world and shouldn't have to be.  But, the rest of the world ignores the activities that make these two countries places where barbarism and violation of international standards of behavior grow every day.  The people who created them need to take responsibility for training them.

Creative Award Goes to Moscow

You have to give it to Moscow for creative news.  They are now saying that the chemical weapons used in Syria were not dropped by the SU-23 the locals saw flying to the target.  It was local terrorists, probably the same ones siding with the United States, who got hold of chemical weapons and used them on their enemies.  By that story line, the Syrians and Russians who manned the base (which by all accounts had chemical weapons stored there which were ignored in the Tomahawk strike by the US) were victims the same as those poor people who were suffocated with what was probably Sarin gas.  This is a great story.

Although it probably is not true, it has all the elements of the Russian propaganda machine that supplies narratives that fit the Russian stories for world events.  The Ukraines shot down that commercial airliner thinking it was Vladimir Putin's airplane.  That was most eleaborate because it was communicated from a "Command Center" that looked like it had been opened the day before and had the world's worst graphics.  That was such an incredible story that nobody - not even the Russian public - believed it.  This story or chemical weapons is a little more credible and will certainly have "video proof" to follow.

The Russians seem to believe that the public will believe anything they see in print or on TV.  That isn't even true in Russia, let alone in other parts of the world where people speak Russian.  But, the strategy is to tell the same story over and over, funneled through their own television and print outlets, and hope for the best one to get some traction.  Yes, if this story doesn't work, they will just make up some more until they get a good one.  Truth has nothing to do with this process.  It treats all citizens of the world as idiots.  I certainly hope their are wrong.

North Korea's Threats

So, North Korea says it will wipe the United States from the map if our military forces strike.  I am reminded of the threats to Israel over the years which threaten the same fate. Israel is still around and probably not going anywhere soon.  It was nice to see Xi step in and try to calm the water before this gets any worse.  He is probably telling the North to calm down and stop issuing announcements about things that are incredible i.e not credible -to the rest of the world.

The world does not know very much about the North's military strength.  I tried the CIA Factbook and got next to nothing about their military but Global Firepower does the projection a different way. They estimate the population (where else would you have to do that?) look at the distribution by age to see who might be able to serve, then guess at how many are actually serving.  That comes out to be around 700,000 under arms, a large part of which is dedicated to protecting the country from its own people - trying to keep people in, not out.

The trouble in the government of the South is problematic with the President out and new elections to come.  I wouldn't worry too much about the stability of the country though.  The South has a very capable, well-trained military.  If there is any trouble, they will be ready.  Many of them can still remember the Korean War, unlike the rest of the world which stops teaching its children anything that might smack of war.  They know what will happen if the North comes.  The Chinese will make sure the North doesn't lose by much and the borders don't change, though they would gladly let them run all the way to Basun if they could.  Japan would not like that, but the Chinese would like Japanese interference even less.

China benefits most from being a peacemaker.  They have slowly and quietly gained control of the South China Sea, but they are a long way from making it secure against outside threats.  They need more time.  Unlike the North, the Chinese are patient.

Chinese Ramp Up

Reuters has reported the first pictures of the J-11 fighter on Woody Island at the end of March.  They have been in and out but this one appears to be staying.  Second, several British papers are reporting that 150,000 Chinese troops have been moved to the North Korea border to "support" the North in the event of an attack by U.S. military forces.  There are conflicting stories on the accuracy of that statement so we may have to wait a bit for confirmation.  Apparently, both DoD and China have denied any such movement.  That would be enough people to get a satellite's attention unless they were spread out over the whole border.  If they are there, they are keeping the North Koreans from coming into China in the event there is an attack of some sort.  If they aren't, it just goes to show the ability of some press outlets to copy a story without checking on the facts of the case.

Amazon Third Party Sellers Hacked

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that some third party sellers on Amazon have been hacked, though when and how that happened has not yet been reported.  Amazon promises to make them whole again, but that will do little for consumers who worry that the hacking has gotten to brands they buy.  These hackers have been setting up phony products and reduced prices and not delivering.  That would be a nightmare for Amazon.  As the story unfolds we certainly need to know more about where the data came from to make these vendors victims.  

Missiles in Dollars and Cents

The UK paper The Sun has this today on the Tomahawk cruise missile:
Each Tomahawk missile cost about $832,000 (£667,000).

US officials say 59 missiles were fired from the USS Porter and USS Ross warships which were positioned in the Mediterranean Sea.

This would have cost the American taxpayer at least $49,088,000 ... Money well spent, if you ask me.  

Be Careful What You Wish For

We should remind a few groups in Washington of the old saying, Be Careful What You Wish For.  The predilections of some of these groups for legal action, on almost any pretext, is going to shine a light on people who don't want to have that kind of attention.  Case in point....

Today's WS Journal there is a good explanation of the background on how it came to be that the House Ethics Committee took up the case of fellow Member Devin Nunez.  You remember that on March 22nd, Mr. Nunez gave a press conference where he told the public that there was "incidental collection" on U.S citizens during surveillance of others.  As the Journal points out, it is a violation of FISA procedures to disclose a FISA action, though it is not clear if that was the essence of the complaint.

The Journal mentions two groups, Democracy 21 and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [one almost has to chuckle at that name] who asked Congress to investigate the statement Nunez made.  You don't have to look very far to find out who finances these groups.  It is supposed to appear that these two civic-minded watchdogs wrote a nice letter to the Members and asked them to look into the actions.  If that were true, civic bodies elsewhere in the United States could get together and write to the Ethics Committee Members and they might take up a complaint.  Perhaps the same groups that think they can recommend impeachment of the US President can joint this effort, if they haven't already.  I have a few things I want to have investigated on the financing of the Clinton Foundation and some Congressional representatives during the election.  Of course, the Committee would be busy if every complaint like this were to be taken seriously.  They aren't.

Believe me, I am all for tightening up the disclosure rules for classified information which seem to have lost their way in the last 10 years.  Many will say it was longer ago than that, but the degree and sensitivity of the information has increased over the past 10.  There is probably more information disclosed in the questions of Congressional Members and the responses in Committee Hearings than in any other institutional setting in the U.S.  The Chinese press covers them extensively.  The Committee seem to have forgotten why closed sessions are supposed to be done, but they don't get any video they can use in their campaigns and local news shows.   Behind those closed doors they will not be seen doing anything.

There are plenty of investigations going on right now that point to the obvious.  Foreign governments want to influence our leaders.  They buy some with campaign contributions that are washed through local groups.  They influence with gifts that would make great material for the House Ethics Committee.  They help facilitate travel to their countries for these "fact finding" trips.  That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course this case is different - as both sides will tell you - because this did involve a FISA warrant, didn't it?  I hope they find out why that warrant was issued and who signed off on the chop channel for putting it together.  I hope they find out if Susan Rice really did disclose the US Person in that case.  Be careful what you wish for.

The Two Levels of Information War

We have to look at what the Russians did during the U.S elections on two levels.  First, there is the obvious one of stealing information from a major party running for the office of President, then publishing selected parts of that information on Wikileaks.  That was disruptive.

But on the second level there is something more - the Russians are feeding the ideas on both sides that (1) President Trump is not a legitimate President, and (2) the Democrats may have done more than normal politics in their attempts to get elected.  There is no reason for either of the lines of discussion to continue in the open, but they seem to have a life of their own.  They are paralyzing the government's ability to govern, which is probably the intent.  The major political parties are trying to help by making every issue one of legitimacy of one thing or another.  One Representative went so far as to say that the President cannot legitimately propose a candidate for the Supreme Court because he himself was not legitimate until the Russia Investigation by the Intelligence Committees was complete.  This is the height of arrogance.  This is a far left view that has no place in a democracy, but does have a place in Russia.

At every opportunity one party tries to criminalize the behavior of the other party's members.  Government institutions like the IRS and the Intelligence Community were used to make the case for the prosecutors.  There were malicious prosecutions in Wisconsin that tried to criminalize the behavior of a potential Presidential candidate.  Judges are chosen for their political views, then installed and sought out by bringers of cases.  This is a subversion of law, but one they have been allowed to get away with.

Some day, if we run a really good investigation, we might find out how much of some of these ludicrous positions are taken because there is influence by a foreign government involved, probably more than one foreign country since we have forgotten about China while Russia takes front stage.  Fortunately, neither the press nor Congress has more than a few percentage points of their audience that think they are credible.

The sad part of all of this is the Russians don't really have to do very much to be successful at undermining the functions of government.  All they have to do is feed those who are willing to do it for them.

When China Buys Financials

So, we have the interesting purchase of a company, Moneygram, which is the kind of place you go to to transfer money.  Ant Financial, already partially owned by China is doing the purchase.  For those considering the CFIUS case on this, don't forget about Alipay.  Yahoo bought Alipay as a part of its interests in Alibaba.  Alibaba sold it ar the behest if the Central government but did not tell Yahoo for 6 months.  Alibaba later claimed the government made them do it to avoid having financial information  in the hands of another country.  Reciprocity.  We don't need having financial information not already in their hands through theft,  being provided to them.  The Alipay situation is perfect justification for not doing the deal.

North Korea and WSJ

Well, in what must be one of the most bizarre letters to the editor, North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) replied to the Wall Street Journal reporting on the North with an intriguing look at how they pretend to view the world, ending in these words:

"The Wall Street Journal would be well advised to halt its foolish propaganda to hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and think about when or how the U.S. may disappear from the surface of the earth." 

Nobody can make this stuff up.