Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. — Sherlock Holmes

Think about this for a moment:

Trump’s new intel chief makes immediate changes, ousts top official
Brooke Seipel / The Hill

—  President Trump’s new acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, has already made major changes at the agency, including ousting the No. 2 official.

—  Former acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and his deputy, Andrew Hallman, resigned on Friday. According to The New York Times, Grenell told Hallman, who has worked for national intelligence and the CIA for three decades, that his service was no longer needed.…

Please note that the new “acting” director has ZERO experience in intelligence, whatsoever.

I say that because the “media” seems to have forgotten that deductive logic is also factual. The question: What does this mean? is not purely confined to the Op-ed pages, nor has it ever NOT been part of the journalist’s  Who What When Where Why.

If Trump were a traitor, working for Russia, the first thing he’d do is to cripple the intelligence community in their abilities to counter the hacking.

Oh wait. Did I say that out loud?

All right, riddle me this:  Has Trump EVER made a move on foreign policy that WASN’T perfect for Vladimir Putin’s New Russian Empire goals?

Heck, he even handed over a US base in Syria to the Russians, in essence. He managed to hand over Turkey to the USSR. To continue his annexation of Ukriane not only without much opposition (save for from Congress) but, provably withheld military aid as the House managers proved beyond a treasonable doubt.

The point being that even l’Affaire Ukraine has Putin’s best interests all over it.

So, the acting Intel chief (who coordinates, Post 911 ALL seventeen US intelligence agencies) briefs congress on Russia’s renewed and more sophisticated attack on the US elections, including ratf**king the Democratic primaries. And is promptly fired.

His replacement is a political hack with zero experience in intelligence, and not necessarily noted for having any.

The FIRST THOUGHT of journos?

Trump has appointed a loyalist!

OK. But the obvious loyalty here is to Putin and his Troll Farm, not to Combover Caligula  —  who is weirdly, albeit less bloodily replicating the actual Caligula’s three-and-a-half year reign: after a major illness, “Little Boots” initiates a series of “revenge” removals and executions, falsely believing that he has been poisoned, as had his sister been “poisoned” and not that he was ill. Since he was poisoned then it was a plot, and therefore all the plotters must be punished. This is eerily similar to what Turkey’s Erdogan does after a failed  coup attempt against himself, arresting more than ten times the number of persons proven to have been involved in the coup attempt.

Caligula, however, seemed sincere in his lust for vengeance; Erdogan seems more opportunistic in his use of the coup attempt to solidify and consolidate his increasingly ultimate power within the Turkish state …

Which brings us, by commodius vicus of recirculation to Trump Castle and environs …

Trump, too, has gone off on a spree of revenge/retaliation moves, but this does not necessarily  fall into that category. Indeed, Occam’s Razor suggests the Putin connection, less than some desire to rob congress of its Constitutionally-mandates oversight abilities (although that enters into the mix as well, AND falls into the “helping Putin” line of endeavor much more neatly).

Occam’s Razor: “Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate,” or “Plurality must never be posited without necessity.”  

i.e. the simplest explanation is the best explanation. 

Now, exceedingly clever readers will note that Occam’s Razor is NOT a law of logic, nor of science, but it is an artificial construct, a paradigm (like “objectivity“) which has been of infinite and invaluable use in the history of science and philosophy.

Then again, the exceedingly clever readers probably checked out five paragraphs ago, so this explanation will not have entirely been in vain.

Sherlock and Occam:  Trump’s moves INVARIABLY benefit Putin, whether they benefit Trump or not. Therefore, Trump is controlled, in some wise, by Putin.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Now: that being the case, it ought to be factored in, at least as an assumption, every time some action is taken that ACTIVELY DAMAGES US NATIONAL SECURITY, don’tcha think?

Hello?

Hello?

Oh, heck, go back to sleep.

They’re caucusing in Nevada, and that’s the only news that actually matters.

Otherwise, what would the talking heads have to do and blather about and talk around and over and under and even occasionally about, and might have to report actual NEWS to us on the “twenty-four-hour” cable news networks that serve up about fifteen minutes’ worth of actual hard news a day?

Occam’s Razor is a clear impediment to a medium whose raison d’être seems to be the endlessly gilding of the lily.

(Or styrofoam coffee cup if no lilies are available.)

The [New York] Times also reported that [acting Director of National Intelligence] Grenell — who was only officially tapped into the role on Thursday and who says he will not be the nominee for the full-time role — also made a slew of his own new hires on Friday, including an expert on Trump conspiracy theories … [who] has reportedly been given permission to “clean house” at the agency….  [The Hill, ibid.]

DNI temp hire purges professionals and hires conspiracy moonbats?

That doesn’t help Putin? Oh, sorry. We were trying to sleep here.

So let’s just drop it comrades. Da? Da!

Antigonish

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…

— Hughes Mearns
(public domain)

Courage.

Cross-posted from his vorpal sword (where it is known as “Shaving with William of Occam”)