Putin It There

Now it can be told.

Russian President Vladimir Putin put his rubles on Donald Trump to win the American presidential election of 2016, then he had his toadies ensure Trump's victory. Russian hackers, under orders from Putin, deliberately spread damaging stories about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election to, if not defeat her (because who knew that was going to happen?) damage her upon her entry in to the White House. This apparently included the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's e-mails.  President Obama knew all about it, and it was so sensitive to national security that he even communicated with only four people in the government about the issue to keep it top secret, but he was reluctant to do much about it out of fear that he would be seen as politicizing a security issue to persuade voters to support Hillary.  In other words, he didn't want to be seen as "tipping the scales."

Gee, where would we ever get an idea that a Democrat would do something dirty like that?

Oh, right . . .

Be that as it may, there's a huge difference between a primary election and a general election, so if Obama had come flat out and said that the Russians were deliberately trying to elevate Trump at Hillary's expense, I think we would have understood.  Some of us would still have voted for Jill Stein, but we would have understood.  Instead, the Obama administration failed to take tougher action against Russia, and now here we are.  If Obama had taken tougher action and if Hillary had still been defeated, at least Obama could have said he tried.  At least one Republican was outraged by this news.  "The Obama Administration," this Republican said in a tweet, "knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia.  [They] did nothing about it. WHY?"

The Republican's name?  Donald J. Trump.

Ouch!

And yes, I'm still mad at the Democrats for promoting Hillary, especially after Hillary promoted Trump in the primary season because she thought she could beat him.  And I'm still mad that the Democrats discouraged prospective Democratic presidential candidates from running for the party's nomination in 2016 and punished those who did, leaving Hillary with a left-leaning independent with no chance of winning the nomination of a political party he does not in fact belong to as her only viable opponent in the primaries.                      

(Pointless aside I couldn't resist including here: The other day, I was cycling through traffic when I came alongside at a stoplight an SUV with a Hillary Clinton sticker and a Bernie Sanders sticker on the back bumper.  I spat in front of the SUV.  Not on the SUV, just on the street in front of the SUV.  Why?  Because the back bumper didn't have a Martin O'Malley sticker on it.)