Putin’s Puppets

THE TV – I am watching a Senate hearing in which the heads of all our intelligence and anti-intelligence operations – spooks, generals and admirals with more stars than the Hollywood Walk – flatly testify that Russia had influenced our last presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. At which point Sen. Angus King of Maine, an Independent and a guy I really like, asks why our own President has never said so. Indeed, our President won’t even enforce sanctions against Russia that Congress has approved almost unanimously. An interesting question, and the more conspiratorial among us would wonder just what has Vladimir Putin got on Donald Trump? There are all sorts of rumors going around about tapes made in Moscow hotel rooms, kinky women (Trump and women? Nah!) and business deals with billion-dollar unpaid loans. I think that our President prefers to limit his anger to more suitable targets, like Gold Star parents, reporters with physical disabilities and POWs.

This is only part of an unending story we are witnessing that involves misinformation, bots (I think they are the children of bon mots), Russian agents right here in sleepy ol’ Texas, and raises the question: Is Sean Hannity on the Kremlin payroll? Let’s take this step by step. You know you are being manipulated, don’t you? You don’t? Then that’s the sign of a real manipulator, like a scam artist whose victims don’t even know they are being taken. The manipulator, in this case, is Russia which is swamping America with emails, rumors, Facebook, Google, Twitter, anything to turn us against one another. It doesn’t matter which side the Russians are pushing, Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. Rich versus poor. Everybody against Muslims. Liberals against conservatives. The point is to keep the pot boiling. Another major disinformation program occurred in the past presidential elections when the Russians backed Trump and opposed Hillary Clinton.

Putin wants to promote cynicism against our institutions. We are so cynical that trust in the press is at an all-time low. That bastion of society, the FBI, is being humiliated, scorned, its leaders held up to ridicule. Can you imagine for one moment how J. Edgar Hoover would have responded to some Congressman’s insulting line of questioning? Trump has called our CIA officials “Nazis” and our entire intelligence leadership “political hacks.” Our justice system is “a joke.” And here’s the end game: It’s working. Every poll shows Americans are more polarized that at any time since the Civil War. Pootie must be sitting in his office laughing out loud. Stir up the pot. OK, what organization is aiding him by daily stoking the fire of divisiveness and clan warfare? Fox News. Like any good demagogue, it has to have an enemy. Sean Hannity preaches to his audiences a sermon of anger, conspiracies, us against them. Tucker Carlson is full of hateful putdowns of anyone with a different opinion. Fox and Friends wakes up the nation with despair. They keep Americans in a constant state of unrest, mistrust and fear, just as Putin wants. Are we quite sure they aren’t on the Kremlin’s payroll?

We now take up a very important matter which involves all of us. Putin, that old KGB spy, has an ocean of operations flooding social media, and a willing bunch of knuckle-draggers who believe, and pass on, every rumor. Its cover is something called the Internet Research Agency. Remember that name, although it has many fake fronts. I get this stuff all the time and you probably do, too. Each item has a slight ring of truth to bait the lie. That panel of intelligence officials I referred to above warns that this election cycle is already seeing fake news, misinformation and outright lies, and they warn that the 2020 presidential campaigns will be inundated by Moscow-generated falsehoods. Pity the poor Democratic opponent who will be facing Donald Trump in 2020. Already the nerds in the Kremlin basement are lining up their one-liners, photo shopped pics and fake news. We must be vigilant. Be wary of any emails in Russian, or maybe Estonian.

This brings us to Deep State. It means a shadow government within a government, like they have in Pakistan where the military and the secret police actually run the country. Egypt and Iran have it, too. There is a growing belief in this country among the paranoid alt-rights that we have a Deep State and it’s the former Obama administration. Yes, those Kenyan holdovers are supposedly sabotaging the Trump program. They travel by night in black helicopters.

Now to Texas. We have discussed the Heart of Texas Facebook page earlier (always ahead of the pack). It “grew into the most popular Texas secession page on Facebook — one that, at one point in 2016, boasted more followers than the official Texas Democrat and Republican Facebook pages combined.” Texas dummies (is that redundant?) believed its messages of secession, hordes of illegal immigrants arriving daily, etc. Two agents came here to stir up pro-Trump votes, but were told not to bother. Texas is Trump territory. The Ruskies even got some demonstrations going on around Texas. One was an anti-Muslim demonstration in Houston, cleverly staged at the same time and place as a peaceful Muslim demonstration. Guess what? Heart of Texas was sent to us from Russia with love. Yep, the feds traced the movement back to Pootie. And Robert Mueller says there were more dealings in the Lone Czar State, but doesn’t go into detail. Well, Heart of Texas is no doubt gearing up for the upcoming elections. Be wary of messages with y’all spelled yawl, references to the “Rio Grande River” and “Sam Jacinto.” We shall know Heart of Texas hits pay dirt when Gov. Greg Abbott calls up the Texas State Guard to spy on Operation Jade Helm II which is financed by Hillary Clinton.

If you voted for Donald Trump for President, were you manipulated? Yes. Will you admit it? No.

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Ashby is suspicious at ashby2@comcast.net