The Russian connection

The mainstream media hasn't been this anti-Russia since the Cold War. While they have valid reason to be, the "election hacking." (as it is becoming known) shouldn't be viewed in a vacuum.

Keep in mind the other factors which influenced this election:

1. The MSM dismissed Libertarian Gary Johnson with one phrase: "What is Aleppo?" Does knowledge of a city in Syria rate more important than all the flaws which both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump revealed during the campaign? The fact is, the MSM was so deeply convinced of Hillary's ascension to the presidency that they never even considered Americans might not want her. As usual, the MSM presented the election as a choice between the two major parties, instead of providing fair coverage, which is what they should be doing anyway. The MSM set up Trump as the only alternative to Clinton. Unfortunately, America called their bluff. 

2. Complain about the Russian hacking all you like, but the emails released by Wikileaks were damning of the Democratic Party, Hillary's campaign, and the MSM. Nobody ever said the information in the emails was wrong, or even taken out of context. While many of us thought the Democrats were that arrogant, the emails proved it.

Sadly, the MSM is now all about blaming the election results on Russian hacking, as if the Russians actually hacked the polling machines. Note there is no evidence of that from anyone, although you might not know it by some of the news stories and editorials.

For example:

The Daily Beast: Donald Trump Keeps Blaming Everybody but Russia for Election Hacking 

On Saturday, The Washington Post broke the news of a “secret CIA assessment” that pointed to Russian forces behind cyberattacks and hacking aimed at trying to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Senators Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Jack Reed released a bipartisan joint statement calling on Congress to investigate, stating that the "stakes are too high for our country." President Barack Obama has already ordered a “full review” of election-related hacking.

The news here is Donald Trump denying this. If Russia did support Trump with their actions, who is to blame? Both the DNC and Hillary's campaign didn't secure their email as they should have. Inevitably, that is the only possible action we can take. Then again, if the Democrats were good people, they wouldn't have had to worry about what was in those emails, would they?

The Daily Beast: How Russian Hackers Can Blackmail Donald Trump—and the GOP

Former and current U.S. national security officials and experts say that if it is true that the Russian government possesses documents belonging to the Republican National Committee, Donald Trump’s incoming administration may be the most compromised in U.S. history.

A senior U.S. administration official confirmed to The Daily Beast that the CIA believes the Russians hacked the RNC. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

On Friday, Dec. 9, The New York Times reported that hackers connected to two separate Russian security services allegedly broke into the computer systems of the RNC, but chose not to disclose the digital contents of those systems, in marked contrast to the gradual release, via WikiLeaks, of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee throughout the spring and summer.

Is this possible? Certainly.

But it should be remembered that any president who performs unethical acts could be subject to blackmail from a foreign power. As much as you can say that Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was only his business, would you still say it if the Russians or Chinese discovered it and were blackmailing him? This is why integrity is important in a president, and also why both Trump and Hillary Clinton were unqualified for the job.

New York Magazine: Trump, McConnell, Putin, and the Triumph of the Will to Power

Of the many things that resulted in Donald Trump’s election, from Hillary Clinton’s own errors to James Comey’s extraordinary insinuations against her in the contest’s final stages, Russian hacking played a meaningful-enough role to tilt a razor-tight contest. Russia successfully riled up Bernie Sanders diehards against the Democratic Party by leaking minor intrigue that fueled Sanders supporters’ suspicions, aggravating a Clinton liability with young voters that never healed. Russia also dribbled out enough emails in the succeeding months to keep stories using the word “emails” in the lead of Hillary Clinton news, adding more smoke to the haze of scandal that permeated coverage of her campaign.

The fact there WAS "intrigue" in Hillary's campaign isn't the point? This is like blaming the whole Watergate scandal on Deep Throat.

We now know with near-certainty that Russia did this with the goal of electing Trump president. During the campaign, this reality was not quite certain enough to be reported as fact. 

The MSM was too busy assuming Hillary would be our next president to even consider that maybe Russia was hacking her party's emails. Although the MSM did seem to have a mental block when it came to discussing "Hillary" and "emails" in the same sentence.

Friday, the Washington Post reported that the CIA had concluded well before November that Russia specifically sought to elect Trump. The CIA’s analysis is obviously not infallible, but it fits within a wide array of other evidence.

You mean like the CIA's conclusion about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction? That fit within a wide array of other evidence too, including the fact the U.S. had sold them the technology in the 1980's, so we knew they knew how to make the stuff.

Then again, the MSM didn't challenge the Bush administration's WMD allegations either.

On the other hand...

The Hill: Former ambassador to Russia: Putin wanted 'revenge' against Clinton

Russia interfered in the U.S. elections to get revenge against Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. ambassador to the Kremlin said Sunday.

Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help Donald Trump win the presidency to hurt Clinton.

"Let's remember that Vladimir Putin thinks [Clinton] interfered in his election - the parliamentary election in December 2011 - and has said as much publicly, and I've heard him talk about it privately," McFaul said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Now we have motive.

Unfortunately, the MSM hissy fit doesn't end there...

Business Insider: 'A model for civilization': Putin's Russia has emerged as 'a beacon for nationalists' and the American alt-right

Russian President Vladimir Putin has emerged as a hero of several prominent alt-right figures, raising new questions about the Kremlin's influence on the far-right, white nationalist movement that has asserted itself as a new force in American politics.

Whether Russia has played a direct role in awakening the American alt-right, whose resurgence as a crusade against establishment politics coincided with the rise of President-elect Donald Trump, is debatable.

But the extent to which the alt-right has found a natural ally in Russia's current zeitgeist — which perceives the US as a globalist, imperialist power working on behalf of liberal elites — is hard to overstate.

Self-described white nationalist  Matthew Heimbach, who said he identifies as a member of the alt-right, has praised Putin's Russia as "the axis for nationalists."

“I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now," Heimbach told Business Insider in a recent interview. "Putin is supporting nationalists around the world and building an anti-globalist alliance, while promoting traditional values and self-determination."

In case you missed it, the intimation of that article is that Russia is racist, and they do lay out a fine case of it.

In summary, we have a racist country (or at least a country who doesn't have issues with racism, which is close to the same thing) with a leader who is motivated to defeat a Democratic Party candidate in the presidential election, and who probably had some hackers steal some emails from the DNC and said presidential candidate's campaign.

As Dennis Hopper said in Speed, "What do you do?" Answer: Not a darned thing. You cannot attack Russia without starting the mother of all nuclear wars. You cannot sanction Russia effectively, because Europe relies on Russia for their energy needs. The best you can do is try to prevent it from happening again.

It doesn't require a congressional investigation to tell you that.

However, that isn't what is happening here. This is the globalist/elitist/progressive MSM trying to continue their propaganda war on Trump. They have already killed Trump with the racism allegation, so now they want to paint him Russian. It is becoming impossible to legitimately criticize the real things Trump is doing wrong for all the phony or pointless charges being screamed to the hilltops by the MSM.

Of course, if the MSM had done their job during the election, rather than serving as a propaganda arm for the Hillary Clinton campaign, they might have presented people with realistic coverage of their third party options, instead of buying into the major party's b.s. line about "wasting your vote on third party candidates". Now, the American people did what the MSM told them to do, and that was vote for one of the two major parties. And still the MSM isn't happy.

As much as I dislike Trump, the MSM is slowly turning me into his fan. And I am starting to revisit my opinion of Putin too. Anyone that ticks off the media's talking heads so much can't be all bad.