So the Washington Post just posted this story about Vladimir Putin’s personal role in ordering the election interference in the 2016 election. I am so angry, I don’t know where to begin. The article is long, but well worth the read if not an absolute necessity. It explains in detail how the Obama administration reacted, and failed to react appropriately. There are so many things to comment on, but I suppose we should start here:
THE US MUST RESPOND FORCEFULLY TO RUSSIA. Granted, Trump won’t do it because he is their puppet. But once he is removed, and he will be, we need to go after Russia hard. For so many reasons, but mostly to embarrass Little Vlad and generate even more Russian desire to rid the world of his influence. Nobody wants open warfare, but Russia can NOT be allowed to get away with this. From the article: “In political terms, Russia’s interference was the crime of the century, an unprecedented and largely successful destabilizing attack on American democracy.” Yeah, fuck that shit!
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s move on to the article itself:
1. Obama knew in August 2016 that Putin personally ordered the election interference. He received an intelligence report that was basically ultra classified that stated that a source deep within the Kremlin had reported that Putin personally ordered the hit on our election. Now, before we go any further, let’s all agree that the person that leaked that information to the US is dead or imprisoned in Russia. I’m sure we have all seen the news reports of high level Russian officials suddenly dying, as well as the case of Sergei Mikhailov, a high level FSB official who was dragged out of a meeting and charged with treason for leaking information to the US. It is not difficult to extrapolate that Putin knows who potentially could have leaked his own words, as he is notoriously secretive and difficult to collect intelligence on. And that person will not be giving testimony or providing any follow up interviews anytime soon.
Obama seemingly did the right thing after learning about Putin’s order, and had US intel agencies working around the clock to confirm the report (I’m summarizing as to avoid block quoting whole sections of the article). He also personally warned Putin, both in person and using the red phone that was established to avoid nuclear war with Russia during the Cold War. Unfortunately, this was wholly insufficient for a variety of reasons.
2. Everyone thought Hillary would win. This is the most infuriating part of our recent history. Obama wanted to stay out of the election for obvious reasons. With Trump claiming the election was fixed and far right-wingers itching to start round 2 of the Lost Cause, he rightly feared that any public action he took would send the Republican party into a temper tantrum that would make Hurricane Katrina look like a sunshower. Republican leaders, not only Mitch McCon-job and Paul “my sole goal in life is killing old people and children by taking away their health insurance” Ryan, but Republicans at the state level as well. And Hillary would have won, but-for the Russian intrusion into the election. (I’m not debating this point with anyone — I was (and remain) a big Bernie supporter that happily voted for Clinton. Yes, Comey’s letter was also a huge factor, as well as a variety of other factors including her electoral strategy, but I would submit that without Russia’s interference, Hillary would have won. I’m not arguing that point. FOCUS PEOPLE)
Hillary and her team are rightly fucking pissed at Obama and his team, and FOR GOOD REASON. They fucked her over, and fucked the entire country over. All because they didn’t want to look ‘political’. I will explain further below.
3. I am happy to see that Obama took an intelligent and sensible position and acted on the information available, and we all agree that hindsight is 20-20, but the Obama administration’s conduct after learning about Russia’s actions are totally inadequate. There was only 1 right answer to Russia’s actions in 2016 — publicly calling them out and rebuking them in the strongest possible way. But, but, but, the Republicans will say mean things about him! And Hillary! Good, and we can tell them to fuck off and take their traitorous candidate with them. This is what has me reeeeeeeally seeing red right now.
The country is under attack. During an election campaign. There are no deaths, and no physical destruction. But it is an attack all the same. We now know that the Obama administration was well aware that Putin was personally behind it. And yet, they were too scared to do anything of consequence. Yes, they did issue public pronouncements (that got lost in the noise of the campaign, except for, ya know, people that actually care about the country and know how to read and think cogent thoughts). If the Republican party wanted to pick a fight about whether the President should protect and defend our election and country against a foreign enemy, that is an argument we should be itching to have. And boy howdy! I can’t wait til we remove Trump and focus our attention on the fucking assholes in the Republican party that knowingly looked the other way while our country was attacked.
4. I can’t even get to the possible responses that the Obama administration came up with, but let’s just say some of them are far more damaging than I thought we would be willing to consider. And ultimately, they chose to avoid direct confrontation with Putin and the Republicans (that’s not exactly true, but it sure feels like it).
I don’t have time to write further, but I am angry as hell. I don’t understand how Democrats do not make this THE campaign issue for the next year (next generation for that matter, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). It’s so simple:
To every American voter:
The Democratic Party is prepared to repair the damage inflicted by the Republican Party. We have a 5 point plan that covers our proposals on health care, education, economic growth, repairing our infrastructure, and addressing civil rights issues. However, there is an over-riding concern that we must address first. We were attacked during the 2016 election, which the Republican Party won. The Republican Party, with control of the Presidency and Congress, chose to defend the attacker, Russia, instead of defending America. The Republican Party did nothing to punish them for their assault on our democracy, and in fact coddled them as though they wanted to reward them for helping them win the election. In every generation, there is a moment, an opportunity, a test to defend the country in a moment of peril. The Republicans failed that test. Badly. They have no business governing this country anymore, as they have put their own selfish, greedy interests ahead of the good of the country, or even defense of the country.
(and then just repeat ‘The Republicans supported and elected the traitor Donald Trump’ over and over and over and over and over and over and over)
In any case, the article is truly a astonishing in the depth of reporting and providing an inside view of what the Obama administration was seeing/doing as the Russian interference continued. We all need to read it and understand it.