"Fake news." "Witch hunt." Etc.

Really big news.

Geez, someone really did not want HC to be president.

People within the Democratic Party allowed ourselves to be sucked into this vortex and instead of looking for ways to unite and compromise, we allowed the wedges the trolls put between the various factions of our party to turn into insurmountable barriers. We were our own worst enemy, all of us.

We must find common ground issues that bridge, not only the gap between moderates and progressives, but between our party and republicans with common sense and a sense of fundamental human decency and integrity.

I think Rachael Maddow had it right when she said this indictment was the first time in over a year I actually felt like the government was doing its job and functioning in the general interest of American citizens.

Here's the indictment:

(link...)

Observers suggest that the Justice Dept. has no expectation that any of these people will be arrested or extradited to stand trial. Instead, it is a message to show that the allegations being investigated are real, not a "hoax," and that they have concrete evidence they are working from.

I wish they would name the American companies the Russians leased server space from. I'd like to compare IP addresses I blocked during the election. There were a few that kept popping up over and over that made me curious at the time.

Mueller names social media accounts in indictment — here are the tweets

Kate Starbird at University of Washington Examining the Alternative Media Ecosystem through the Production of Alternative Narratives of Mass Shooting Events on Twitter

Sunstein & Vermeule (2009) write that contrary to popular framings, belief in conspiracy theories does not imply mental illness, but is instead indicative of a “crippled epistemology” due in part to a limited number of information sources.

Our research suggests this crippled epistemology may be exacerbated by the false perception of having a seemingly diverse information diet that is instead drawn from a limited number of sources. This understanding of
the dynamics of alternative media, where the same content appears on different sites in different forms, combined with what we know about how believing in one conspiracy theory makes a person more likely to believe another (van Prooijen & Acker, 2015), suggests that alternative media domains may be acting as a breeding ground for the transmission of conspiratorial ideas. In this way, a “critically thinking” citizen seeking more information to confirm their views about the danger of vaccines may find themselves exposed to and eventually infected by other conspiracy theories with geopolitical themes, with one conspiracy theory acting as a gateway to others.

“The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did,” [Bernie] Sanders said in the interview with Vermont Public Radio.
...
Sanders said that his campaign had shared information with the Clinton campaign about suspected Russian anti-Clinton trolls on a campaign Facebook page. But [campaign manager Jeff] Weaver later acknowledged that the Vermont senator had no firsthand knowledge that this had happened.

(link...)

This little puppy hit the Washington Post last night. Rachal Maddow missed it, but I look for her to put the pieces together Friday night. Note that the guy who ran the mercenary unit was indicted. Note that the U.S. holds the territory, and is supporting the Kurds, in the area containing the oil fields. Ask yourself this, how were we able to counter this attack so thoroughly? Could it be that our foreign service and intelligence people have decided to sit out the politics and simply do their jobs? It's starting to get interesting.

Look for the Russians to attack Hillary and Obama through Sanders. They have to get the heat off Trump. If Sanders and Clinton form a united front, look for the coalition the Democrats need to begin to take form. But remember, there will be a lot of repair work after this administration.