Russia

Via The Saker,

For a lot of Trump supporters the past week has been a painful one. Whether we chose to react with abject panic or pretended like nothing happened, something did happen and it was something big: the Tree Letter Agencies pulled-off a de facto coup against Donald Trump by forcing him to fire his most important foreign policy advisor and the man who had dared to declare that he wanted to reform the bloated and largely ineffective US intelligence community.

Via The National Interest,

Victory by the 'Russia scare' coalition will limit America’s ability to fight ISIL, complicate efforts to win UNSC support for tough enforcement of the Iran nuclear deal and give China more leverage over both Moscow and Washington.

The "Russia hacked the US election" is getting its second wind.

One day after Reuters provided further details of the ongoing FBI probes - of which there are now reportedly three - into activities that are generally classified as the Kremlin's hacking of the US presidential election, the Senate Intelligence Committee has likewise escalated its probe into Russian interference, and is requesting that agencies preserve all materials that could tie into the committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

When asked which military power they’d want fighting on their side if attacked, citizens of four NATO nations said they would choose Russia. A Gallup poll has revealed that citizens of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovenia would rather have Russia defending them than the US, reflecting changing perceptions of the United States role in global security. RT reports: Between October and December 2016, WIN/Gallup International asked around a thousand people in 66 countries who would be their go-to ally if attacked.

The Trump-Putin honeymoon continues to chill... that is if Trump's top foreign policy advisors speak for the president, which remains very much unclear.