"Russia-gaters" gonna hate

"It ain't over till it's over!" shouted Yogi Berra. And he was right! This appears to be the mentality of the people who have been shrieking "TREASON!!!" at the top of their lungs for the last 2+ years. But in this case (unlike Berra) I think they're wrong. Sure, we haven't seen the report. But Mueller hasn't spoken out against anyone who says that his inquiry found no evidence of collusion. So I'm 99% sure that he found no evidence of collusion.



"Yabbut, Trump is still dirty and corrupt! He should be impeached!" they say. And I've never disagreed with that. They'll need a two-thirds majority of Democrats in the Senate in order to do that though. Proving collusion with a foreign power to gain power was necessary to supposedly force the Republican hand in the Senate. The "russia-gaters" were going to have to prove that Donald Trump was like Venezuela's Juan Guaidó, (a domestic politician being supported by an outside power [in that case, THE USA] to seize office and steer foreign and domestic policy to serve his benefactors).

And I'm 99 percent sure that the Mueller Report hasn't done this. And all the media superstars and gullible bloggers and etc., who INSISTED that it would, and who twisted reality, and forced this stupid shit before our eyes with their hysterical, hyperventilating, hyperbole for two fucking years have to reconcile themselves with this painful fact.

[I've seen a video of Keith Olbermann ranting like a madman about how Trump is not the president, but a traitor, and it is a fact that he is a servant of Russia, and freedom has died in the USA, and etc. And I was going to post a link to something about that, but the entire first page of search results was full of all those extreme right-wing shit-head sites (The Blaze, Town Hall, Political Insider) that I don't like linking to. But way to go "russia-gaters"! You have helped the Trump cause more than you'll ever know with your stupid behaviour.]

Once, when I was criticizing the "russia-gate" narrative on F_ceB_ok, a friend told me to wait for the investigation to be over before speculating. I told him that I'd be happy if EVERYONE just waited for the fucking thing to be over rather than devoting 50-70% of the news to this idiocy.

Anyhoo; I just thought I'd share two instance of the behaviour of "russia-gaters" that I saw yesterday.

First off there was some action in the comments section of this rather innocuous post from the Disaffected Lib (wherein he just summarized the competing narratives of AG Barr and the Dems). The comment is from "BM."

Anyway, as I've been saying for ages, ever since that fake Steele "dossier" came out, the pathological need for progressives of a certain outlook to be so freaked out about Trump and supposed Russian collusion, that they in effect supported the dastardly Hillary and her pack of lies in a rush to boot Trump to kingdom come has all come to nought. You read and believed neocon tripe like the NYT, while praising Mueller's dead-ahead forthrightness, honesty and candour - because you thought St Bob would nail the bastard! And Putin, Trump's supposed minder as well. 

I now expect to be bombarded by continued tripe from all the wounded egos in the press and punditry as further nothingburger charges and anti-Russian invectives are hurled at Trump. Sore losers will abound. It's all Barr's fault is already making the rounds. Boag of CBC News was summarizing the next steps the Dems will take. Any little ray of hope to get Trump will be magnified to gigantic proportions to justify this butt hurt from Mueller. That'll probably gum up the intellectual works for another 18 months while nothing gets accomplished. Because an emboldened Trump will now be on the warpath against the Dems - count on it. You can hope the Southern District of New York justice folks will be hard at getting the Donald on obstruction of justice charges, but the basic damage is done. The public will remember Mueller not recommending further indictments and discount the rest of the wailing. That's life. 

If all the effort had been directed at really getting the orange idiot to not ruin Obamacare, at proposing something for the average American instead of tax cuts for the rich, at actually tackling infrastructure repair rather than giving 50% of the budget to Defense, with which the Democrats handily agreed (and gave $57 billion more!) due to their fear of Rooshia and all the fake BS that brand of stupidity has engendered, well, things would be better. Not a chance such logicality would have happened of course, the pack was on the run to bring down the supposedly wounded animal. Like a speck of dust in the eye that irritates continuously, nothing but dunning Trump mattered, pretty much to the exclusion of any other rational thought. 

What a complete waste of time this has all been. 

Here's an article published at least a day before Mueller sent the report to the AG. It details the two kinds of progressives, ones like me who got told off for being supposedly pro-Trump by people unable to read what we wrote, and the majority progressives who lost their cool over pure naked hate of Trump and couldn't think straight about much else:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/03/mueller-dammerung/ 

Now FFS, stop believing the corporate-spin press and lets get on with the environmental challenge and NOT supporting takeover of the sovereign country of Venezuela and other BS Democratic Party neocon policies since taken up by Trump. Or is there no appetite for reality left? Because Trump is likely to win by a landslide next time due to this massive cock-up where he has in effect for all practical purposes been found not guilty. And keeping some semblance of social democracy alive is badly needed, so long as it is not intertwined with neoconnery which includes Trudeau and Freeland. Wake up, progressives and lets actually be progressive, not neocons. 

BM

Fairly substantive right? And this HAS been a complete waste of time and resources. And the ENTIRE TIME I resented having to be subjected to it. You went after Trump for something that he didn't do. You fixated on a made-up crime. Just do a thought experiment: Think back of the last two years of coverage of the Mueller Inquiry and imagine if all that energy and effort had gone into covering Trump's real crimes. Imagine the difference! So how did these stupid "russia-gate" dead-enders respond to this spanking? An anonymous commentator replied:

LMFAO, only thing missing is QAnon

Right. The sort of puerile snark that right-wingers give when they're shown to have been miserable stupid failures. When you find yourself reduced to acting like someone from Small Dead Animals or Celestial Junk, you really ought to examine your life and find out where you went wrong.

Earlier that day, We Hunted The Mammoth had an open thread to discuss the bad news of the Mueller conclusions. One comment was a small burst of sanity:

You’d almost think the democrats wasted too much time on this when they could have been fully re-branding themselves as a party of fresh alternatives and not the status quo failures they seem to be. Well, at least they made the world a more dangerous place by ramping up the bellicosity with Russia over this failed endeavour.

That was from "Rick." Now, to be fair; some few progressive Democrats have been pushing for fresh alternative policies. But the party leadership has been resisting. They have been hiding behind the "Treason" allegations the same way that the Repugs fixated on "Benghazi." Hoping a partisan witch-hunt can distract everyone and save them the trouble of having to contest the government party with actual legislation to improve people's lives.

"Rick's" comment inspired a few replies. "Weirwoodtreehugger:Chief Manatee" said:

Rick,
Are you assuming that Trump didn’t coordinate with Russia to attack the 2016 election?
Or are you saying that it doesn’t matter if he did?
There’s no fresh alternatives that are ever going to be implemented if we have one major political party dedicated to attacking what Democracy we do have. And make no mistake, that’s what they are doing. As right wing ideology becomes less and less popular, the only way they will retain power is by rigging the elections.

Now then: "Are you assuming that Trump didn't coordinate with Russia to attack the 2016 election?" You know who else has CONCLUDED that he didn't? ROBERT MUELLER!!! If I have to explain the significance of that it means explaining it is already a useless endeavour.

The USA is an oligarchy. Not a democracy. (Just like Canada!) Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspired to install her as the Democratic candidate. That was an attack on the pretense of democracy in the USA. The person you had as your alternative to Trump was decided by insiders to be the rotten Hillary Clinton. I agree that right-wing ideology rigs elections to survive. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are two of the main ways. And if the Democrats had spent the past two years going after THOSE abominations, which are REAL, rather than the IMAGINARY one of "russia-gate" they'd have made their country a better place. But they didn't.

Next, "Kinda, Sorta Harmless" wrote:

@rick

And the fascists have been making the world a more dangerous place by kowtowing to Russia and other autocrats, but sure, let’s focus on how the party not in power has been resisting tyranny imperfectly.

This is something that never fails to disgust me. All the pompous, pretentious, prevaricators who tell you with a straight face that Trump is unique in that he cozies up to dictators. (It's his innate authoritarian tendencies don'cha know?) Whereas Hillary Clinton said out-loud that she regarded Egyptian dictator/torturer Hosni Mubarak as a family friend. Whereas almost ALL US-American politicians cozy-up to racist, mass-murderer Benjamin Netanyahu. Whereas they (and Trump) play footsie with Saudi Arabia's despotic ruling family. Listen fools: The US ruling class has ALWAYS supported dictators. Trump's personality might make him somewhat more obnoxious but let's not pretend he's a major aberration from the status-quo.

And, NO. The "party not in power" has NOT been "resisting tyranny imperfectly." Just ask the Hondurans. Ask a Chilean. Ask a Palestinian. Ask a Libyan. Ask an Egyptian.

Followed by "Seraph4377"

So. Three possibilities here:

1) The kind of “progressive” who thinks that the only legitimate change would be to shift the focus entirely to economic issues and ignore “identity politics”. Also, the only truly progressive leader for the party is Bernie, and anyone else means they’re not serious.

2) Not paying attention. At all. To the point that you’re simply mouthing the narrative you’re used to and not even noticing that the second most talked-about politician in the country, the new face of the Democratic party (for all that she’s just one of a new generation that’s shaking things up – and the wisest party elders are working with her on that), is bringing a whole lot of fresh alternatives.

3) Troll.

Which is it?

...

Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That is not in question. That is fact. We should be doing a lot more about this.

As for bellicosity, this was an act of war. If they’d tried this thirty years ago, the nukes would have flown, and rightly so.

PS – You used the UK English spelling for “endeavour”. Are you perhaps writing this from somewhere in Europe, comrade?

The first bullet-point is nothing but deflection. Regardless of "Rick's" stance on identity politics or Bernie Sanders; the fact remains that "russia-gate" was a conspiracy theory, that the Democratic Party invested shit-loads of its already tattered credibility into, and that this stupid strategy has blown-up in their faces.

"Simply mouthing the narrative you're used to," .... My. Fucking. God. "Dr. Pot, please contact Dr. Kettle!" "Seraph4377" tries to point to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as disproving "Rick's" assertion that the Democrats have been advancing ambitious policies. But "Seraph4377" is either lying or deluded in saying that "the wisest [!] party elders are working with her on that." Such colossal ignorance, stupidity, delusion, deceit!

Finally, "Rick" might just be a troll. By pointing out the FACT that "russia-gate" has imploded and that the Democratic Party has wasted shit-loads of time and energy pursuing it, "Rick" might just possibly be a "troll" and can therefore be safely ignored.

Not content with appearing to be a useless idiot, "Seraph4377" descends into total shit-headery. Insisting that Russia interfered in the 2016 election as a stated fact. This is simply not true. We know that "Russians" posted memes on facebook to build lists of users they could offer to advertisers. The threadbare case that the Internet Research Agency affected the election in any major way is so pathetically stupid that I weep for anyone so brainwashed that they believe it.

We don't know if Putin gave Wikileaks the DNC, etc., or if someone on the inside of the DNC leaked the information to Wikileaks. That's a FACT. You "russia-gaters" have swallowed so much bullshit and spewed so many distortions that your assertions of what are "facts" and what are "lies" have no credibility.

"Seraph4377" ratchets up the insanity saying that interfering in other countries' elections is an ACT OF WAR!!! displaying the nauseating hypocrisy and narcissism that so many US-Americans have displayed during this whole sorry episode. The USA is itself guilty of ACTS OF WAR then! Look at Venezuela right now idiot! The USA brazenly interfered in Russia's election of 1996 to allow their stooge Yeltsin to remain in power. The Russians didn't launch a coup against this US-American puppet and fire missiles at the USA. And rightly so.

Finally, this shit-head points to "Rick's" use of the UK English spelling of "endeavour" (as opposed to the US-American "endeavor") and speculates that "Rick" might actually be a RUSSIAN. Fucking imbecile. Maybe "Rick" is a CANADIAN? Or British? Or Australian? And, even if he's Russian, ... well that's a genuine case of an ad-hominem argument.

Progressives are supposed to be smarter than right-wingers. Sadly, "russia-gate" has shown that's definitely not the case.

The End