10 December 2016

The Russians Did It! (Not)

Did no one watch (or does no one remember) season 2 of The Newsroom

Did everyone forget the groupthink-bound avalanche of stories about Saddam’s stockpile of WMDs that helped usher in the ongoing series of unfortunate events (aka clusterfucks, catastrophes) in Southwest Asia and North Africa? 

Remember how the Clinton camp, which includes the DNC, blaimed Russia for hacking Podesta’s emails that came out in the Wikileaks releases and how the FBI officially reported that no such evidence had been found?

I’ve watched the growing hysteria over Russia’s alleged hacking of the elections since the seed from which the story sprang was first planted.  Here is the sequence of events in this latest viral political fake news story as I've watched it unfold the past couple of weeks:

1) Wikileaks posts thousands of emails from the accounts of Dem operative John Podesta and the DNC proving beyond a reasonable doubt collusion between the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the primary, collusion between the DNC and the Clinton campaign with nearly every outlet in the mainstream media, including the focus on Trump which they nearly universally adopted because it was thought he would be easiest for their sorry candidate to beat.

2) Podesta and the Clintons cry foul, claim that Russians hacked the emails and was the source of the leaks to Wikileaks.

3) FBI announces there is no evidence whatsoever to prove the claims and that while Russia is undoubtedly laughing its collective ass off, it had nothing to do with it.

4) In the aftermath of the eminently forseeable defeat of the piss-poor Dem establishment candidate in the presidential election, Clinton ally John Podesta comments that Russians may have hacked the election.

5) Outlets tied to Podesta make the same suggestion.

6) Her Royal Catastrophe claims that the election was hacked.

7) POTUS says he is going to look into claims that Russians hacked the election.

8) WaPo almost immediately produces a story claiming with no verifiable sources that a "secret report" by CIA proves that Russia hacked the election.

9) Without pausing to consider WaPo's track record, especially recently, new outlets worldwide regurgitate this misinformation like they did claims of WMDs in Iraq.

Does Russia have active online assets engaging in what used to be called gray propaganda?  You bet your sweet ass, as I myself have pointed out and posted to Facebook verified stories of on more than one occasion.  Have Russians hacked computer U.S. assets?  Indubitably.  Did any Russians hack the electronic voting apparati to rig the elections?  No fucking way.  Could they have?  Yes, no doubt.  But other than the claims of the Clinton camp and the totally and completely unverified fake news from WaPo, there is no evidence of any kind whatsoever that such a thing happened.  Zero.  Zip.  Nada.  Fuck all.  Besides, rigging elections is the purview of the Clinton camp and the Democratic National Committee.

Dems, please grow the fuck up.  If you want to find out who is responsible, you need only look in a mirror (I quote from one of the best political speeches on film ever).  And get your shit together, and do it quickly.  Like it or not, Donald Trump is validly POTUS-elect, and the next four years could be hell. 

I am not one of you.  I left in the 1990s when Slick Willy and the Goldwater Girl took the Dems on a hard right turn and changed it into the Republican-lite Party.  However, if we are going to prevent a second Trump term in 2020, you need to pull your heads out of your arses and do some serious fucking soul-searching and self-criticism and get back to the social democratic policies that made the DP the unquestioned majority party in the country.


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