I cannot stand generalizations.
Sometimes, just to be a bit of a troublemaker here, I’ll say something that I’m not even positive I believe, just to pushback on the blanket labels, the over the top presumptions, the holier than pronouncements. So, I think that I have kind of earned the right to make a pretty damned sweeping statement. It’s not based on vitriol, ideology or cool-factor, it’s based on the evidence, and the evidence is terrifying.
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At this point, with the evidence in front of our faces, setting aside what Mueller, the NSA, and even the Senate Intel Committee knows, Occam himself would stop, mid-shave, and turn to all of us and say: “Those NOT presuming that every elected official on the Right is a wholly compromised Russian asset, are being dangerously naïve.”
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I work from home, writing, writing, writing. Law, fiction, Kos, whatever. The TV is always on the news, ever present in the background. Pretty much every break I take is used to scan what’s up here, my second home, where most my friends are. I thought that very few on the outside knew more than me on Trump, Russia, Mueller, etc., and I thought I knew everything big that’s been released to the outside.
You know what’s coming, right? Isn’t it always right about then that life rolls you a humble-burger, with bacon, and jams it down your throat? It happened with me, reading through the hundreds of fantastic comments to the diary yesterday. That burger is currently making me sick to my stomach.
Tucked right into the comments was just a little ole landmine.
Rawstory published this only a frigging year and a half-ago! I had no idea. Gaze on in horror.
Russian hackers ‘compromised’ top political and media figures with blackmail, cyber experts warn
Hundreds of top government officials and media personalities might have been compromised in a blackmail scheme orchestrated by Russian hackers as part of the broader effort to undermine American democracy.
The cybersecurity firm Trend Micro warned the FBI and director of national intelligence in May and June 2015 that Kremlin hackers had targeted more than 2,300 influential political leaders, media members and their spouses in a sophisticated attack, reported Politico.
Say what?
Not that Kossacks weren’t on it immediately. At least 17 of us Recommended this diary, pointing it out.
Want a bite of my burger?
Here:
Tom Kellermann, the former Trend Micro official, notified U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials two years ago that Russian-backed hackers were able to turn on microphones and cameras on their targets’ personal devices to gain sensitive information about their personal lives.
If you were not one of the 17 (!) people who recommended that diary to their friends here, the bathroom is over there --→
Do watch your step.
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Of course, there has been tremendously sophisticated reporting and dairying here on the cross-interests through the NRA, McConnell, the Mercers, all that. And, because I have to let my freak fly at least once a diary, I’ll say that I suspect that I’ve warned of Putin purchasing himself a handy Hannity at bottom-barrel prices, early. No point in buying a president and not giving the guy a cheerleader, amirite?
So, it’s not like there wasn’t a ton of evidence available all pointing to the fact that the Right had been overridden by Kompromat. And, of course, nothing in that article says they succeeded in all of those endeavors.
But is anyone here dumb enough to further underestimate how brazen, and talented, the Russians have been? If you’re going to miss in an estimation, don’t you want to miss high on the “catch”?
It’s time to throw out one kernel of “assumed knowledge” that I always held tight. I assumed that Putin’s grand scheme to infiltrate the Right was necessarily limited. The more expansive he gets, the more likely he leaves evidence out in the open. Why risk buying up or even approaching so many in the entire right when just a key dozen will do?
Well, you don’t.
But, if it’s not so much “buying” as “entrapping,” that takes a lot of that risk out. If done well, and he’s truly taken over a controlling interest in our government, well, the consequences are such that World Wars have been declared over a hell of a lot less.
I don’t do hyperbole.
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Some things we always kind of “knew” in terms of who was buried under a pile of rubles and dirty tapes?
Sean Hannity? Da.
Someone got to Sen Graham on some personal stuff he can’t have out? Check.
McConnell? Mother fffffff …. That never-to-be-sufficiently-damned-enough guy might well be the only one Russia doesn’t have compromised, but it would ONLY be because China, the Kochs, and the Defense Industry already own him. From that point, Russia need only have tapped McConnell on the shoulder, whispered in his ear that they’ve got the tapes, and that they get to share him, at least.
Okay.
So, we knew that the Right had been heavily infiltrated. No “Breaking News” there.
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Wait, shit. There’s no “breaking” news here anywhere.
But if you knew of the above, and its ramifications, good for you. I am honestly impressed. But, I’m suspecting that few of you did, because I didn’t, and I’m around enough that I think I can safely say this isn’t digested knowledge.
Besides, it wasn’t until last week that the Republican party planted its anchor on the bottom of the Volga to bury the U.S. aluminum industry by doing Comrade Deripaska a solid.
As I looked at it and asked myself: “How does this happen? What’s really going on here?” My answer was — looking back now — all too limited in imagination. I thought: “Word came down to Trump, McConnell, whomever else has been purchased; “Do this now, because Comrade Trump might be gone by March 1st, and doing it then would look tacky.” And because Repubs fall in line, it got done.
Handy Hannity would come in handy and explain to your Facebook uncle why this vote really triggers the libtards.
Now I look at it and think: “Fk! Putin sent a group email at .gov addresses! Individualized, of course, to highlight exactly what they have on that certain Senator.”
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I cannot stand generalizations.
They usually end up hurting far more decent people than ever cracking back on the specific ones that need to fall back.
But, if you are a Republican U.S. Senator, and you voted for that bill, to lift the sanctions? I’m sorry, Ivan, Occam’s sitting here watching me, and I have looked like a damn fool for too long.
As we sit here and whistle at the expanse, the depth, the insidiousness of this attack on the West, and its success, let’s all kind of resolutely, and calmly pledge to do all we can to rid ourselves of these people. I humbly suggest we all remember that chest-pounding and fury is probably not going to help, in the moment.
Drink-in what this actually means. While doing so, don’t forget, Big wars get started over stuff like this.
No, you’re not dreaming.
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Peace, y’all ... Always, love one another.
At some point, everything should come back to that.