RUTHFULLY YOURS

I recall the time when President George W. Bush claimed to have looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and seen a soul. My response: “Whose?”In 2006, while I warned Putin was a Stalin-wannabe and enemy of the United States, the Swamp’s “sophisticated” foreign policy swells contemptuously chuckled at my antiquated “Cold War” paranoia. Six years later, when Mitt Romney argued Russia was the most dangerous threat to the United States, he found himself similarly dismissed. Two years after that, when House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sounded the alarm over Russian information warfare against the United States, the Obama Administration ignored his warnings and approved Putin controlling 20 percent of our uranium deposits.

So much for Bush seeing souls and Obama’s reset. Sadly, we were but a few of the many voices over the past two decades derided and dismissed respecting Russia’s aims to undermine the United States at home and abroad.

But what of today? With the Swamp’s political class and the lemming media in full clamor over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s announcement that 13 Russian nationals have been indicted for their attempts to to interfere in America’s 2016 election, one would be tempted to think the true nature of Putin’s revanchist kleptocracy is finally exposed and that those who formerly mocked concern over Russia might finally be ready to do what they can to impede it now.

But one would be wrong.

Given the immense scope of America’s intelligence, counterintelligence, law enforcement, and defense entities entrusted with monitoring the espionage and interference of other nations, why did it take a special counsel to catch this ham-fisted, half-assed gaggle of Russian spooks?

Republicans enacted a tax cut in December and any day now, most of the country will find out about it. News has been travelling slowly because media folk have been diligently cataloging the relatively few examples of Americans who will not receive a direct benefit. But details on the individual and corporate tax reforms have begun to seep out of Washington.

The New York Times reports:

The tax overhaul that President Trump signed into law now has more supporters than opponents, buoying Republican hopes for this year’s congressional elections.

The growing public support for the law coincides with an eroding Democratic lead when voters are asked which party they would like to see control Congress.

The tax cut is already popular among Republicans, adds the Times, and “in contrast with many other issues — including Mr. Trump’s job approval rating — it also appears to be winning over some Democrats. Support for the law remains low among Democrats, but it has doubled over the past two months and is twice as strong as their approval of Mr. Trump today.”

It seems that the more time people have to learn about the new law, the more they like it:

Over all, 51 percent of Americans approve of the tax law, while 46 percent disapprove, according to a poll for The New York Times conducted between Feb. 5 and Feb. 11 by SurveyMonkey. Approval has risen from 46 percent in January and 37 percent in December, when the law was passed.

But the poll results also suggest that the GOP has hardly even begun to reap the political benefits. While an overwhelming majority of Americans has received a tax cut, the survey finds that most people still don’t know it. According to the Times:

In movies, novels, music, and art, progressives murder their enemies, including presidents, in myriad ways.We live in a society in which gratuitous violence is the trademark of video games, movies, and popular music. Kill this, shoot that in repugnant detail becomes a race to the visual and spoken bottom.

We have gone from Sam Peckinpah’s realistic portrayal of violent death to a gory ritual of metal ripping flesh, as if it is some sort of macabre ballet. Rap music has institutionalized violence against women and the police — to the tune of billions in profits, largely as a way for suburban kids to find vicarious street authenticity. And this idea of metaphorically cutting, bleeding, or shooting those whom you don’t like without real consequences has seeped into the national political dialogue.

For example, why does popular culture wink and nod at the widespread metaphorical killing of Republican presidents? Liberals used to believe that words mattered and images had consequences; the casual glorification of carnage trivialized violence and only made it more acceptable — and likely.

In 2017, the obsessive hatred of Trump led, for instance, to many obscenities: Madonna told us she dreamed of blowing up the White House, comedian Kathy Griffin posed with a bloody facsimile of Trump’s head, Snoop Dog shot a Trump likeliness in a video, a Shakespearean company ritually stabbed Trump-Caesar every night on stage, Johnny Depp joked, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? … It has been a while, and maybe it is time.”

Much of the media coverage is hailing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian trolls as stunning proof of foreign hacking of the 2016 election. Mueller may have other cards up his sleeve and the jury is still out. But the U.S. government likely duped far more voters than did the Russians on Election Day 2016.

Mueller revealed that 13 Russians and 3 companies were allegedly involved in attempting to sow dissent in the U.S. prior to and after the election. Most of their spending on Facebook ads occurred after the election, and they included spurring both pro-Trump and anti-Trump outbursts. Many of the ads were dopey even by Facebook standards, including a picture of Jesus getting ready to punch Hillary Clinton. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declared that there is “no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the American election.”

At least one of Mueller’s allegations blames Russians for a homegrown political debacle. Mueller charged that Russian trolls conspired to “defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission.” But this is akin to blaming panhandlers for the notorious unreliability of the Washington subway system.

The FEC has long been “borderline useless,” as a New York Times editorial scoffed in 2011. Federal Election Commissioner Ann Ravel complained last year that, thanks to FEC gridlock, “major violations are swept under the rug and the resulting dark money has left Americans uniformed about the sources of campaign spending … violators of the law are given a free pass.” Common Cause, People for the American Way, and other liberal groups complained in 2016 that the FEC “is a failed, dysfunctional agency … Campaigns, political operatives, parties, and independent spenders know they can operate with impunity … for campaign finance violations.” FEC negligence permitted far greater violations of campaign law than the $1.25 million a month the Russian trolls allegedly spent.