Put Up or Shut Up on These Accusations, Hillary

“They’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said on the podcast. “She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”

This is bonkers. You don’t have to look at Tulsi Gabbard’s record on foreign policy for long to find areas for fair criticism, perhaps most infamously her meeting with Bashar al-Assad at the height of the Syrian Civil War, and exhibiting a strange reluctance to criticize the dictator upon her return to the United States. She’s still not willing to say she thinks Assad is a war criminal.

Gabbard’s foreign policy views may well be wrongheaded ones. But she’s direct and honest about them, and it’s highly unlikely that she’s been bribed, brainwashed or coerced into these positions.

 Yes,  it’s highly unlikely that she’s been bribed, brainwashed or coerced into these positions. But that doesn't mean that Russia hasn't picked her to support and created sites and bots that pretend to be Americans to drum up support for her. Or that Americans might be duped by the sites or that Gabbard supporters might unknowingly use the information these sites provide to drum up support for her.

It's the same question we ask about Russian influence on the election and Trump. It's clear the influence was there but did Trump collude? In Trump's case I think yes, in Gabbard's I think no, but in both cases there are signs of Russian attempts to influence the election with these fake sites. It's not Gabbard's fault, nor should she be punished for it. But we certainly should be paying attention to what Russia is up to on the internet and find ways to stop it.

It's clear 98% of the politicians of the Republican Party would tell any lie, support any criminal, defend any outrage and sell America down the drain, as quid pro quo for a Russian or American or Ukrainian oligarchs illicit cash, lies or help, just to aid with their re-election campaigns.

Other Americans will do the same for personal fame, power or enrichment. Up to half of the entire population might go this route, lying, scamming and grifting, if the opportunity presented. Putin knows this, ergo his bots, his NRA connections, his oligarch network, and his "grooming" of ripe prospects.

It's why Trump's base idolizes him, it makes them co-conspirators in his flagrant destruction and gaming of the system they can't personally scam, or get away with defrauding.

That's not a pretty picture of where this country is, or where it may, hopefully not, be going.