Krugman compares the fall of the Roman Empire to modern day US politics.  And it’s scary.

In the last couple of days, big time mainstream republicans have backed Tillerson for Secretary of State.  The problem is, though, that they left out a little detail about their endorsements: they all work for Tillerson’s company, Exxon Mobil.

James Baker, Secretary of State under Bush I and who led the recount effort for Bush II, strongly endorsed Tillerson, hailing his “management skills”.  He left out the fact that his law firm, Baker Botts, represents Exxon including a price fixing allegation against the company.

Robert Gates and Condoleezza Rice also strongly endorsed Tillerson heaping praise on his abilities and suitability for the job, but dodging questions about his close relationship with Vladimir Putin.  They also left out the fact that their consulting firm, Rice Hadley Gates, also works for Exxon.

Most of the MSM has ignored the clear conflicts in these endorsements.  Politico is reporting it and surprisingly, since there is no Ebola outbreak this month, so is CNN.

I’m not a big fan of Lindsey Graham, but sometimes he delivers great lines.  Yesterday in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, he delivered one:

“If it was a 400 lb. guy, it was a 400 lb. Russian guy.”

Yesterday the New York Times published an explosive story detailing the boldness of two Russian hacking groups infiltration of government and political party computer systems and the stupidity of those, especially at the DNC, that allowed both groups access to EVERYTHING for over a year.  The “IT Guy” was a part timer, who ignored multiple attempts by the FBI to warn the DNC that they were compromised, and especially makes the FBI look inept because no one from the agency went to actually visit higher ups to report that they knew the DNC was hacked and who was doing it.

Most disturbing was the complicity of the media when it was clear what was going on when the daily email dumps began, and how the Republicans, trying to win the election by hook or crook (emphasis on crook) refused to cooperate with the Dems and the Obama administration to go public with what they knew.  Infuriating is the fact that the hackers got in like they do to unsuspecting people every day, with a fake Google or other provider email saying “click here to change your password”.  You would think that government and party staff would know better, but apparently not.

The result is that the Russians actually helped Cheeto Jesus get elected.  The continuous noise of the email and document dumps, the uncritical and breathless reporting by the media added to the stupidity of DWS and other DNC leadership all came together in the conflagration we are seeing today.

All of this could have been prevented, but we are now in a post democracy era where party trumps country (no pun intended).

Paul Manafort, with close ties to pro-Russian Ukrainian strongman, Viktor Yanukovych.

Calls for Russia to hack Hillary’s emails, and complementary statements made about Vladimir Putin during the campaign.

Clear Russian hacking and selective disclosure of hacked emails to help sway the election by damaging Hillary.

Open celebrations in Russia after US election results were announced.

Antagonism against the CIA report of Russian hacking and dismissal of the findings without any basis except that he doesn’t like the answer.

“I’m a smart person,” and “don’t need” daily intelligence briefings.

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Russia has a new friend, and no, it’s not Cheeto Jesus.  He’s been a friend for a really long time.  The new friend?  Mitch McConnell.  The Washington Post is reporting today that the Obama administration, after being briefed by the CIA that Russia was clearly trying to intervene in the presidential election, attempted to form a bipartisan coalition to go after their hackers.  Obama wanted a bipartisan effort to avoid looking like he was playing politics during the campaign.

In mid-September, intelligence officials briefed congressional leaders in a secure room in the Capitol.  The Democrats present unanimously supported a bipartisan effort to go public with an accusation against Russia for (more…)