The Russians Did Come

Today Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 Presidential Election, conducting a multimillion dollar organized attack on Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They used social media and live events to subvert American democracy. They used bots, false identities and even hired "unwitting" Americans to assist them.

President Trump refused to comment to the press, opting to use his Twitter account for his response. It was typically inaccurate about his own innocence but whether he realizes it or not, he finally acknowledged the Russians interfered in our elections and in fact is not a Democratic hoax. I'm sure he'll be retweeting soon. Trump has consistently refused to believe the 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies which have already told us this happened. He has refused to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

I wrote those first two paragraphs the day this monumental announcement was made and then pressed the pause button, a luxury of having no deadlines. This was the opportunity for Donald J. Trump to finally stand up and be the President of the United States and condemn Putin and his surrogates for executing a multimillion dollar operation to not just interfere in our democratic process but to target an American Presidential candidate specifically to take her down. You're giggling and rolling your eyes right now but it truly was an important moment for Trump and he blew it. He chose instead to go on a Twitter binge blaming everyone but the Russians and of course not a word about Putin.

Trump blamed President Obama for not doing anything about this, it began in 2014 before "I even announced" Trump exclaimed. It's a bogus charge in most ways except for this, by 2016 the Obama Administration and it's intelligence services knew that Russia was engaged in activities of disinformation in our election. Obama personally looked Putin in the eye and told him to "knock it off". President Obama personally met with Senate Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Ryan to inform them of what was going on and wanted them to join with him in a bipartisan announcement to the public that this was going on and they flatly refused. Fearing that it would appear the administration was trying to put a thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton, they said nothing. That was a mistake. Obama should have informed the nation of both the Russian interference and the Republican Congressional leaders refusal to act. It was Obama who placed further sanctions on Russia after the election including expelling a large number of Russian "diplomats" and seizing multiple Russian properties in the U.S. Whitehouse Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated on February 20 that Trump has taken more action against Russia in one year than Obama did in eight years, that is a lie. Trump has done nothing with regard to Russia's behavior and continues to refuse to say anything negative about Putin. In August of 2017 Congress passed a new set of sanctions against Russia with nearly every member of the House and Senate voting yes, President Trump has refused to implement them. The President is ignoring the order of the equal branch of our government, the one that is actually Constitutionally charged with making our laws and the Republicans in charge are accepting this.

The actions that President Obama took against Russia after the election would normally have been responded to by Putin with equal measures but he did nothing because we clearly know that the criminal former N.S.A. Director, General Michael Flynn, told the Russians not to worry, everything would be fine after Trump took office.

The question many ask is "what does Putin have on Trump?" The answer is everything. Trump is the Chumpcherian Candidate. Does he know it? Yes he does. That doesn't mean he was recruited by the K.G.B. when he was a child or turned pro Russia as an adult. He is pro Trump and it needs to be understood that Trump the businessman has screwed over everyone he's ever done business with, from the independent contractor that laid tile to the U.S. Banks that ultimately got tired of his nonsense and cut him off from financing. So off he went elsewhere in the world. We know as fact out of his own son's mouth in a magazine article that the Trump Organization eventually got the majority of their financing from Russian Banks and investors but we're supposed to ignore that and believe the backstepping lies that he never said it. We haven't seen Trump's tax records for two important reasons. The first is in all likelihood they reveal he's not as rich as he says and for Trump, that alone is enough. But there's a second thing far more tangible and damaging, they would probably reveal his deep involvement with Russian oligarchs that he wants to keep secret.

Russia is still at it, the same objective, interfere in our elections using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and actual on the ground activities to sow discord with a substantial number of Americans lapping up this lunacy and spreading the lies via their own accounts unaware or indifferent to the propaganda because it suits their own thoughtless political objectives, clicking share and retweet without ever researching for truth. There was a time in this country when no matter how divided we were and bickering amongst ourselves, we never tolerated a foreign power assailing our democratic institutions. Collectively we stood together, extended our middle finger and said NO, you don't get to do that. It's not that way anymore. There are still people who believe the "Russia thing" is a hoax perpetrated by "the Deep State" which is out to get Donald Trump, the man they voted for and refuse to see what he really his.

To the left, progressive, liberal or whatever you call yourself who were so disappointed that Bernie Sanders didn't get the Democratic nomination, a candidate who specifically was off limits from being attacked by the Russian disinformation, who then participated in the spreading of lies about Clinton and then stayed home or cast your vote for Trump or Jill Stein, are you happy with your choices? To have chosen Trump proves you certainly were careless in buying into the idea that Sanders and Trump were alike, which was an ongoing false narrative easily debunked by listening to Sanders himself. Votes for Jill Stein, a darling of RTV, were extremely damaging in Pennsylvania. Trump won the Electoral College by 77,000 votes in three key States. Clinton defeated Trump by three million in the popular vote. How are you feeling now? We have every right as Americans to vote for the candidate of our choice but did you believe in who you voted for or were you simply pissed off? Only you can answer that.

Two weeks ago Secretary of State Rex Tillerson essentially said there's not much we can really do about these Russian interferences because they're very good at it, he was singularly uninspiring. A day before Mueller indicted those 13 Russians, our top Intelligence chiefs appeared before Congress and said we are under attack, the Russians will do it again in 2018 and 2020.

Our President does nothing. Is that okay with you? I suppose for his supporters it is.