Notably absent from this notably absent blog is talk of Russia. That’s largely because I ain’t Mother Jones and I can’t keep up with this 80-armed Octopus that is their interference in our politics. So many people are going to get SO busted for their complicity in the plot to tear a Gazprom-sized hole in our democracy, so long as Robert Mueller doesn’t expire in the midst of his thoroughness. I think we’ll all be fascinated by the number of people who go to the pokey for conspiracy and obstruction. Or maybe it’ll fizzle like Iran-Contra and all the culpable bastards will be pardoned or secure commutation. Depends on how big this thing gets.
I’m not exactly slow to learn, but I am sometimes late for the game. For example, this whole “bot” story is blowing me away. Y’all hear about this?
As I understand it, these little automated pieces of software can be very useful in handling simple tasks that could potentially speed up the response time of a customer service center, for example. I’m sure all of us by now have chatted in real time with a bot at some point while trying to contact someone over the internet about a problem you are having with a product or service.
But they can be used for evil. They can crash a site by swarming it, steal your information, wreck your online gaming experience, and defraud your company. But their most nefarious use was (and still is) shitposting accolades and defenses of Donald Trump all over the internet, all in the service of one Vladimir Putin. How do we know this? Because we can trace these bots’ origins straight to Russkieland.
Does everybody remember this?
Yeah. That was Hillary literally warning us that Donald Trump was going to tongue-polish Putin’s little purple-hatted fireman if elected. And did we heed her? In fairness, more of us did than didn’t. But the bots, the geographical peculiarities of our electoral system, vote suppression, the Comey Bomb, and good ol’ fashioned sexism caused the sane candidate, however imperfect, to lose the tally.
Anyway, the internet is full of garbage information coming from Russia, and if you are a Trumper, you probably have retweeted a bot, shared a bot-generated story, or upvoted a bot comment unkowingly. Or maybe you know and don’t care because it says what you want to hear. Fuck you.
So anyway, let’s fast forward in the Russian intrusion/collusion story to round about now. Emperor Zerohito is in a fight with another Gold Star family, and he’s been trying to get sports figures who take the Kaepernick knee fired. It’s pretty fucking pathetic and the press and people in general are letting him have it. And guess who came to Trump’s defense:
“Mr. Trump was elected by the American people. And at least for this reason it is necessary to show respect for him, even if you do not agree with some of his positions,” Putin said at the Valdai International Discussion Club when asked what advice he could give his U.S. counterpart, according to state-run Tass Russian News Agency.
Putin said that “disrespect is shown for [Trump]” in the U.S., which he called “regrettable.”
“One can argue but one can’t show disrespect, even not for him personally but for those people who voted for him,” he said. “I believe that the president of the United States does not need any advice because one has to possess certain talent and go through this trial to be elected, even without having the experience of such big administrative work. He [Trump] has done this.”
Putin said that Mr. Trump “won honestly” in the 2016 presidential election.
Hey, Vlad?
Suck my dick. Don’t you dare come from your giant permafrost fiefdom to lie and tell me how I should behave towards my American president. I will call the president a fuckball wherever I want. Were the president a respectable man, we might agree. But not this guy. No goddamned way. You don’t get to tell me how to respond to one of the stupidest, most worthless heads of state this country has ever produced. And you obviously don’t comprehend what makes Americans free. As a matter of fact, neither does your assboy Trump. You are each tinpot despots, demanding respect when none is given and you can both take a flying fuck at a rolling donut for that.
Ahhh. That felt good.
As sinister as the Trump/Putin axis is already, the intrigue has deepened rather quickly. As has been well documented, Putin likes to kill dissent by, well, killing. Today, a journalist critical of Putin was stabbed in the neck in Moscow. Also, a man named Bill Browder, who uncovered evidence of colossal Russian fraud is now on the run from INTERPOL for the killing of his countepart, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky-and it looks like a frame job because Putin is probably the one who tortured and executed him in prison. And at the same frigging time, the State Department revoked Browder’s visa so nowhere is safe.
Some people may think that Putin isn’t getting his money’s worth for helping fix our election. But perhaps he is, in ways that aren’t screamingly obvious, ways lost in all the other noise generated by this administration.
UPDATE: Browder’s visa has been reinstated. Evidently this move went over like a lead zeppelin and Tillerson backed off.