The Great ‘Crime’ of Maria Butina: Practicing Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’

Last weekend, U.S. federal authorities arrested and jailed Maria Butina — a 29-year-old Russian woman —  for some nebulous Orwellian crime of “illegally acting as an agent of the Russian government in a covert operation aimed at infiltrating the U.S. political establishment.”

Even if true, how many countries do this in a major way?

The “political establishment” of which she is accused of “infiltrating” is the National Rifle Association (NRA) and her infiltration includes attending a National Prayer Breakfast. At a NRA annual meeting, Butina took selfies with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and 2012 U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.). At the 2015 NRA annual meeting, she also selfied with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Butina wrote an article for The National Interest, a conservative, American, international-affairs magazine, in which she urged better relations between the U.S. and Russia. She was also spotted hobnobbing with “movers, shakers and heavy hitters” at a teen GOP summer camp in South Dakota. Oh, the humanity! Put the handcuffs on.

In reality, Maria’s real crime is being a diplomatic firecracker and networker. She also has skills in building an image. Does the photo at left look like the handiwork of a sleuth “covert agent” or a gorilla marketing promoter? I say maybe the later. I wouldn’t be half surprised if she isn’t on the payroll of some Russian outreach diplomat program working on better U.S. relations.

But the usual suspects will have none of that. The whole thing would be comical, if it wasn’t used to infect inter-nation relations and further demonstrate what a hypocritical joke human rights in the West has become.

Additionally, her worldview was clearly not nearly cynical enough. (It’s like we always say, read The New Nationalist to get real.) It seems she made the mistake of reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I get the impression she also made the mistake of liking the U.S. and not properly recognizing the country as a twisted, evil and inverted place. As we now review the star chamber justice charges against her, you will see that she also made the mistake of viewing the kleptocratic U.S. as a “liberal democracy,” a common error among young people in eastern Europe.

It looks like the Crime Syndicate and The New York Times (aka The New York Slimes) must have spotted this Russian firecracker hobnobbing around D.C.’s Republican circles, rubbing shoulders and having selfies taken with some minor-league movers and shakers.

One of the charges against Maria is that she sought to arrange a back channel for Trump to meet with Putin in 2016. The implication is that the Russian vixen used her sexual wiles and skills to whisper these suggestions in some unnamed persons’ ears. Beyond the sheer drama and theatrics, this is laughable on its face, as Trump has plenty of conduits to network and connect with Putin. Indeed, he probably met Putin personally when he was conducting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow (though this has been denied by both Putin and Trump). Furthermore, in what kind of twilight zone is it a high crime to promote good relations and personal contacts between two countries?

In the lugenpresse, there is the use of the vague term “court documents,” which means very little. In a star chamber system, with warped justice — such as practiced in the U.S., U.K. and Germany — this can be nothing more than innuendo.

Maria “the agent” was also active on social media, where she also demonstrated a proclivity to be ambitious, a social butterfly and networker. When you look at Maria, you see a big personality who read Carnegie’s book. She is cute, but hardly a great beauty. Still, a big mistake for a Russian apparently, as this in turn has opened the door for The Slimes to do a hit piece “expose” on her.

The hit piece has to be seen to be believed, but Henrik Palmgren at Red Ice does a superb job of dispensing with The Slimes’ inversion. You will see very heavy-handed neural-linguistic programming from The Slimes’ narrator, as he describes the so-called nefarious activities of this Russian vixen “seductress” and “super-spy.” But, objectively speaking, what was so nefarious about anything she was doing?

Along the way, she was reportedly “caught” openly networking and taking selfies with a leading Russian politician Aleksandr Torshin. This innuendo being made is that this Russian oligarch funneled contributions to the NRA. The NRA in turn supported Trump. This kind of conduit transaction runs rampant in the U.S. money-in-politics dominated “liberal democracy.” The real issue is major reform, not focusing on one legal example of how the game works.

One hack “human rights” publication pontificated that this selfie “leaves no question as to where her loyalties lie.” Really? This is a point of discussion? That a Russian woman wouldn’t be loyal to her country? And since she is ambitious and socially aggressive, she wouldn’t seek out a selfie with a leading Russian figurehead? This is right out of Carnegie’s book — but in upside down world, a big mistake for Maria.