The two best pieces I have seen this week on the Trump adminstration and Russia are Walter Russell Meade's "Trump Isn't Sounding Like a Russian Mole," which opens with a salient point that I wholeheartedly agree with: Donald Trump plans to revamp and expand the US' nuclear arsenal. "Someone someone who was safely in Vladimir Putin’s pocket wouldn’t run around saying things like this."

It goes on from there, and Meade offers Trump-watchers the signal tip-off to watch for that will tell us Trump has gone Russian: If "his foreign policy [starts] looking much more like Barack Obama's." 

The second piece by Jeff Nyquist is a mind-expanding excursion called: "Golitsyn's Methodology and the Trump Administration."

Here is an excerpt:

What is decisive to understand about Marxism is its ever-shifting role as a rationale for a new kind of power. What is important here is not the particulars of the rationale itself, but the spirit which calls forth the rationale in the first place. If we want to understand how the great totalitarian machine is able to morph and shift and change with the times, we must go to its soul. At bottom Marxism is a strategy behind which stands a pathological desire for absolute power and global destruction. The outward phenomenon of Marxism is merely the intellectual camouflage of the politically self-actualized psychopath. Here is the outward expression of his rationalization for murder, for seizing power. This outward expression has changed time and time again, but its spiritual essence is always the same. And we always seem to miss the point of it. We always seem to address the inner thoughts and intentions of people who are assumed to believe or not believe in a set of “principles.” But this is an error. We do not understand these people at all! The communist does not take ideas seriously. He is serious only about power and strategy.

A mask is not an idea. A strategy is not a principle. These are tools, weapons, methods. Marx did not believe in his tools. He used them, and his followers used them, until the tools of the hour no longer served their purpose. Then the old tools, the old weapons, were discarded for a new set of weapons – “new lies for old.” Those who talk about belief or disbelief are only talking about the superficial shell of the thing, which can be replaced with a new shell – a new outward appearance. If Marx did not believe in Marxism, then the true Marxist should not believe in it either. It is a sorry swindler who believes in his own swindle. Behind the shell of the communist's outward pretenses we find the same core phenomenon: the malevolent soul of the destroyer, the envious lusting for power and revenge, the hatred of the good for being the good. And in this soul’s self-affirmation we find, curiously, a reformulation of the same old totalitarian themes; the same old bag of tricks for debasing and leveling humanity. All that being said, the outward shell of the supposedly debunked Marxism is by no means out of the game. Out-and-out communism could return to power at any time. The various outer shells – the rationales and swindles – may change and shift as circumstances require; yet the driving force from within remains ever constant, ever alert to new opportunities. Marxism is strategy, not belief. That is why Mao Zedong said, “Marxism is better than a machine gun.” One does not believe in a machine gun. One uses it, merely, to neutralize an enemy. One must keep in mind the usefulness, in this regard, of ideological mortars and howitzers and atomic bombs – the whole arsenal of political correctness.

But you cannot get over this idea; namely, that communism is dead. You saw it die on TV. How can we talk once again about Marxism-Leninism? Or as an Estonian presidential candidate once asked in response to my discourse: “What’s Marxism-Leninism?” His pained expression relayed the idea that Marxism-Leninism was something that didn’t really exist. Nobody believed in it, so why did it matter? Even the communists don’t believe in communism anymore. It’s as simple as that! Any idiot who tells you that there are true-believing communists should wear a dunce cap. Russia a democracy. China is capitalist. Cuba is an open society with superb health care. And that nice little North Korean man is a champion of world peace!

It is merely one more ridiculous proposition out of many. In fact, it is the final ridiculous proposition. It is the proposition that crushes man's soul. To say that communism doesn’t exist is to surrender. It means giving up your country to the communists who don't exist. Remember the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s 1984? It was a ministry that dispensed nothing but lies. Now imagine if the Ministry of Truth disbanded itself and admitted to lying. “We are turning over a new leaf,” says the Ministry of Truth. “We are now the Ministry of the Real Truth.” Oh, it’s such a relief! Finally, we can believe in them! Marxism-Leninism is gone and the Marxist-Leninists are now honest! If they say we won the Cold war, we won the Cold War. In a world where nonsense is often believed, why would this nonsense not be accepted as the New Gospel (according to Saint Gorbachev)? The hammer and sickle comes down, the tricolor goes up. How could you question that? It’s like being against chocolate!

So where did all the communists go? Did they simply revert to Christianity? Did they become Scientologists? Stop and think for a moment. You control half the planet and you’ve been fooling people in every country for decades. And what do you do for an encore? You fall off the edge of the flat earth! Well, I guess they topped themselves after all. And then, twenty-five years later, suddenly, you discover they have taken over your child’s mind and sent him into the street to beat up an old displaced factory worker wearing a hat which says, “Make America Great Again.” You have the CIA and FBI spying on the President of the United States to the advantage of change agents. And Congress is dragging its feet on Trump’s cabinet nominees because they’ve been honey-trapped by the Satanic Pedophile communist zombie apocalypse. It is real Satanism, real pedophilia, real undead communists, and a real apocalypse. ...