Breast-feeding, Ecuador, and Treason

In today’s fire hose news cycle, the story about the U.S. aggressively opposing a U.N. breast-feeding resolution elicited one of those “WTF is up with that?!?” reactions before it was lost in the torrent of corruption, scandal, and crazy.

Yesterday on Twitter, @HoarseWisperer provided a very plausible potential explanation for the story, one that is gaining even more plausibility today. It is well worth the trip to Twitter to get it straight from the “Hoarse’s” mouth, but I’ll provide an overview.

The U.N. resolution encouraging breast-feeding seemed an easy and uncontroversial action until the unexpected opposition by the U.S. The NY Times headline talked of stunning world health officials. The U.S. threatened retaliatory action if the sponsor, Ecuador, did not withdraw the resolution. Even if it was doing the bidding of the infant formula industry, this was a bit over-the-top for the U.S. It ultimately passed after Russia took over sponsorship from Ecuador.

The Hoarse Whisperer explanation looks at the push against Ecuador in light of Friday’s indictments, where it seems Mueller may have Julian Assange and Wikileaks in his sights.

Ecuador, of course, has provided asylum for Assange in its London Embassy for years. The new President of Ecuador seems less thrilled with that arrangement and has expressed an openness to discussing a resolution with the U.K. As @HoarseWisperer put it:

“So, here we have:

1) Ecuador expressing openness to potentially turning over Assange

2) The Trump Admin threatening Ecuador about an unrelated matter; and

3) Mueller indicting an array of suspects on crimes leading straight to Assange

Assange is the middleman in an array of criminal activity related to Trump’s illegitimate election. He is the direct connection between members of Trump’s inner circle and now-indicted Russian intelligence operatives. Assange is directly or indirectly connected to everyone in the Trump orbit from Roger Stone to Steve Bannon to Cambridge Analytica to the Mercers…”

Today, shortly after the @HoarseWisperer thread was posted, The Sunday Times in London published a story that Ecuador is beyond open and actually talking with U.K. ministers about evicting Assange.

While watching to see what happens to Assange, have a Sanctuary cocktail. A Classic from the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930 edition), it represents another London refuge from American law enforcement. The Sanctuary is:

.75 oz Cointreau

.75 oz Amer Picon (Bigallet China-China)

1.5 oz Dubonnet (Cocchi Rosa)

Shake well, strain into a cocktail glass

Cheers!