Deflection Election

Donald Trump is dishonest, bigoted, and ignorant (probably in that order) but he's an excellent strategist- and he's doing it again. You will be forgiven- not by me because only the Chosen One himself can forgive your sins- if you barely noticed

Russian hackers recently targeted the Ukrainian gas company that was at the center of President Trump's impeachment — and they succeeded in gaining access to its email accounts, according to California cybersecurity firm Area 1 Security.

The hackers are said to have infiltrated Burisma Holdings months after Trump urged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served on Burisma's board.

"What we've uncovered is that the same Russian cyber actors who targeted the [Democratic National Committee] in 2016 have been actively launching a phishing campaign against employees of Burisma Holdings and its subsidiaries, to try to steal their email usernames and passwords," Area 1 co-founder Oren Falkowitz tells NPR's Morning Edition.

So the GRU probably is screwing with our elections again, emboldened not only by the President himself but also by the other leaders of his cult, the GOP members of Congress, who have bagged election security while the media has been paying insufficient attention.

And you may not have noticed at all when a few months ago President Trump's State Department concluded its study of Hillary Clinton's private email server by declaring "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information;" nor that after a two-year investigation, the investigation by Trump's very own Justice Department into Hillary Clinton's activities evidently has "found nothing worth pursuing" and "has effectively ended with no tangible results."

Neither the ongoing Russian effort to subvert American democracy nor the exoneration of Hillary Clinton- three years after her opponent successfully branded her as "corrupt"- has been extensively covered because neither is a bright, shiny object.

Neither has much drama or any sex appeal. Instead, the past twenty-four hours have been dominated by a he said, she said tiff about whether Bernard Sanders told Elizabeth Warren that a woman can't be elected President.

Determining who said what- and the validity of whatever Sanders said to Warren- is up for grabs and really should not be the focus.  It is to keep your eyes on the prize, to put forward a credible, achievable progressive agenda, and to defeat the incumbent, a fake, phony, and fraud. 

This is made more difficult by pro-Sanders and pro-Warren supporters duking it out on Twitter, encouraged by a media more interested in exploiting minor differences in the Democratic Party than in examining Donald Trump's record and pattern of corruption.  President Clinton's Labor Secretary has the condensed version:

While the press feasts off a tiny "he-said, she-said" tiff between Warren and Sanders, Trump is

Cutting 700,000 off food stamps.

Still threatening war with Iran.

Equating Islam with terrorism.

Doing nothing to stop Russia from interfering in the 2020 election.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 14, 2020

Donald Trump is a master of diversion. Instead of emphasizing his emasculation of the social safety net, passion forviolence, depth and breadth of prejudice, and effort to rig the next election cycle, the media and many supporters of the two progressive candidates are fighting over who said what and why at a meeting 13 months ago. Tonight in Des Moines, the candidates need to answer the bloodlust of the media (and probably of the questioners themselves) by noting the thoroughgoing failure of the Trump Administration. Additionally, it would help to turn the tables on the media for assisting Donald Trump in his strategy of diverting attention from substantive issues.

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