Friday brought Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians for âinformation warfare against the United States of America“. The best part was that the special counselâs work was totally under the radar, and there were zero leaks.
And thus far, nobody on the right is claiming Muellerâs indictments are âfake newsâ.
One interesting takeaway was that Russian cells were formed to establish phony Facebook, Twitter and other accounts that pushed divisive politics in the US. We already knew this, but we didnât know specifics: At one point, a supposed Islamophobic group protested outside a Texas mosque, and it was met by a pro-Muslim counter-demonstration. Both demonstrations were called for by fake Russian sites. These sites eventually had hundreds of thousands of followers. They spread false memes, including that Clinton supported Sharia law.
Russian sites that were disguised as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement argued that African-Americans should not vote. While it is impossible to show cause and effect, Clinton underperformed with Black voters.
The jury is still out on the extent of Russian influence, and we may never know if it mattered. Still, it is way past time for the Democratic Party to own up to its own failures, rather than continually blaming the Russians, Bernie Sanders, the Green Party, or the deplorables.
After Mueller indictments, Trump and friends now have some âsplaining to do:
Mitch, Paul and the rest of the GOP think they have zero responsibility for gun violence:
The issue is always the guns:
American Exceptionalism was on display again last week:
Pledge of Allegiance needs new words:
Blockbuster Black Panther movie may help beyond entertaining us:
A false analogy has been made between banning guns and banning drugs. Drugs can be fabricated in bathrooms. But reliable guns that can fire more than a few shots are made with low expansion steels – at least the barrel is. And carefully machined to fit similarly carefully machined bullets. (I was shipping manager for a machine shop in 1982-3. )