Don’t Menshn Russia Paranoia

If only to prove that a stopped clock is right twice a day, (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch finally managed to latch on to something plausible about the connections between the new administration in the White House and the increasingly unelected dictatorship of Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin. But, sadly, it was then a case of two steps forward and three steps back, as she lost it totally on Russian influence in the USA.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

The Guardian - not previously Ms Mensch’s favourite paper - has reported “In the journalistic race to get to the bottom of one of the most closely guarded secrets in Washington - the investigation into the Trump team’s contacts with Moscow - one of the biggest scoops came from an unexpected source: the British former MP and novelist Louise Mensch”. And what, pray, was her scoop?

“On the eve of the November election, Mensch published a sensational story reporting that a special intelligence court in Washington had granted a warrant to allow the FBI to conduct surveillance of ‘US persons’ in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump organisation”. She has since alleged that aircraft movements show a possible Russian “handler” meeting with Trump in Florida.

But then it all went wrong as she ranted “I absolutely believe that Andrew Breitbart was murdered by Putin, just as the founder of RT was murdered by Putin … under his successor, Breitbart has agitated for Russia's strategic objectives in US and UK. Including Texas separatism even”. Wibble, wibble, she’s a hatstand.

One hates to pass adverse comment on Ms Mensch’s pearls of wisdom, but this is weapons grade bullshit. Andrew Breitbart died from a sudden and massive heart attack - which was not his first - in February 2012, or to put it in the US political context, some months before Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term. Is Ms Mensch suggesting that the Russians were planning their interventions so long ago?

Moreover, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole admitted that Breitbart enjoyed “a voraciously Type A lifestyle - drinking, smoking and burger-scoffing like there was no tomorrow” (yes, Del Boy now works for the Breitbart empire, but when he made those comments, that appointment, and the creation of the Breitbart London outpost, were around two years in the future). And there is more.

Not long before he died, Breitbart, clearly fired up, was caught on camera ranting and raving at Occupy protesters outside the 2012 CPAC venue. That would not have helped his condition one bit. The Los Angeles County coroner’s report into his death stated “No prescription or illicit drugs were detected. The blood alcohol was .04%. No significant trauma was present and foul play is not suspected”.

Andrew Breitbart had his warning some months before the heart attack that killed him. As the CPAC protest video shows, he took little notice of it. And soon after that video was recorded, he was dead. That is all there is to it.

Louise Mensch is once again adding two and two, only to get a result well in excess of four. And remember, they allowed her to become an MP.