As Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues to ever more desperately search for new evidence of Russian interference in the US elections, every unscripted tête-à-tête between Americans and Russians indeed turns into a “toxic” compromising liaison (Lenta.ru, March 8).

The real issue about Russia, however, is that it has recently produced an astounding amount of problems that are literarily toxic.

At the top of the list is the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, the United Kingdom, on March 4.

The only reason for this crime, involving the use of the Russian nerve toxin Novichok as a murder weapon, could be Skripal’s past as a double agent. The retired GRU (military intelligence) colonel was convicted, in 2006, for espionage on behalf of the UK secret services and exchanged, in 2010, for the “sleeper agents” exposed in the United States (New Times, March 7).

Moscow engaged in the usual vehement denials, despite the statement of British Prime Minister Theresa May that “either the Russian state was directly responsible for the poisoning or it had allowed the poison, which belonged to the Novichok group of nerve agents, to get into the hands of others” (Meduza.io, March 8; The Moscow Times, March 12).

The headline in British newspapers today (3/14) regarding PM May is:  “We’ve Vlad Enough!”  Putin’s reaction to British anger?  “Don’t threaten a nuclear power!” he sneered.

Picture this: thanks to a combination of diplomatic ingenuity, unique personalities and a historic willingness to see tensions in Northeast Asia disappear, President Donald J. Trump convinces North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to do the unthinkable and give up his nuclear weapons.

While we are a long way from even a meeting between the two taking place, let alone the ending of Kim’s nuclear weapons program, we can stargaze a little.

If the Trump administration can somehow land the ultimate of deals, the geopolitical map would instantly be reset. America’s security, and that of its allies in Asia, would be enhanced dramatically, ridding our planet of one of its greatest security risks.

Not only would President Trump deserve the Nobel Prize, but his place in history would be secure—forever.  And few things would keep China’s Xi Jinping up at night more. Here’s why.

Yesterday (3/06), TTP’s Jack Kelly wrote “Why Trump Is Right on Trade.”  It really hit a nerve, eliciting a number of excellent insightful comments, both pro and anti, on the TTP Forum.  Here is why I think Kelly is right.  It’s based on my personal business experience.

I have direct-reduced iron producing clients in 13 nations. These are the first tier beneficiation plants that convert iron ore into iron pellets for further use in steel making. Iron oxide in the ore is reduced to iron metal using coal or metallurgical coke as a reductant in very large rotary kilns. The process consumes a lot of thermal energy and can have a heavy environmental footprint.

I personally know my way around most of these facilities, know their production costs, their production efficiency, plant and equipment life remaining, and the names of the husbands and wives of the executives. I know the union bosses if they have them. I know this industry.

Free trade theory is discussed daily on American heavy industry shop floors. The blue collar guys understand the theory, they understand Milton Friedman and have studied Free to Choose at length. Many subscribe to the Cato Institute letter, FEE, or even that Mises Institute at Auburn. They understand the concepts as though their lives depend on it…because they do.

Not long ago I waited for a flight to board. The plane took off 45 minutes late. One reason: there were only two attendants to accommodate 11 passengers who had requested wheelchair assistance.

Such growing efforts to ensure that the physically challenged can easily fly are certainly welcome. But when our plane landed—late and in danger of causing many passengers to miss their connecting flights—most of the 11 wheelchair-bound passengers left their seats unassisted and hurried out.

It was almost as if newfound concerns about making connections had somehow improved their health during the flight.

Special blue parking placards were initially a long-overdue effort to help the disabled. But these days, the definition of “disabled” has so expanded that a large percentage of the population can qualify for special parking privileges—or cheat in order to qualify.

In California, 26,000 disabled parking placards are currently issued to people over 100 years of age, even though state records list only about 8,000 living centenarians.

As in just about every cause progressives advocate, this is not progress.

Much has been written in the past few days about the balderdash that was the Oscar Awards program that aired Sunday night (3/04).  Those who lost those four hours of their lives to what amounted to an interminable, self-aggrandizing celebration by celebrities surely regret the waste of that time.

At least they now know what OSCAR stands for: Overrated Self-congratulating Celebrities Acting Ridiculously Self-righteous.

Has there ever been a more self-obsessed group of narcissists outside Washington, DC?  If one were deposited on Earth like the Brother From Another Planet, one would think the creatures in the Kodak theater Sunday night were the kings and queens of the universe.

One can only conclude that they, so blinded by the light of their own reflected glory in film, actually believe they are the kings and queens of the universe.  Why else shoot hot dogs at the peons in the cheap seats watching the show on a big screen?

Italy has progressed from pre-insurrectional anger to outright revolt. Insouciant markets are betting that this can somehow be contained. It smacks of delusion.

Risk spreads on Italian 10-year bonds are exactly where they were a week ago before the "anti-system" parties of Left and Right swept away the post-War establishment. The euro has shrugged off the vote entirely, rising 2% against the dollar since the earthquake.

Investors are acting as if they think Italy’s "poteri forti" and its eternal mandarin class will organize another technocrat government regardless of what has happened, or that the Five Star Movement’s Luigi Di Maio will cobble together a co-opted centre-Left coalition that scarcely differs from the last one.

Now damage control has begun. Praise is suddenly effusive for the elegant choir-boy leader Di Maio sitting on 33% of the vote. “Five Star does not frighten us, we have lived through worse,” the business lobby Confindustria says.

This is to play down the genesis of the Five Star phenomenon and the party’s avowed intent to push an eclectic anti-capitalist agenda inspired by the neo-Marxist writings of Thomas Piketty.  The markets are singing in the dark.