Your “light poke” was a knee-jerk accusation and repetition of your usual dismissal of every inconvenient fact that crosses your mind, that it is the result of a cabal of evil liberal masterminds that is constantly seeking to invade your world and steal your stuff.

Every single thing you post here with a political bent is designed to discredit the Left, or to divert attentions from the contradictions and inconsistencies in your own politics.

You’re a fanatic, TB. Your inability to concede an inch of ground, to compromise, to meet anyone half way, has become obvious to everyone here but you. Look at the other posters in this thread. You have lost all credibility, and you don’t even seem to be aware of it, much less to consider re-examining your position and even partially re-evaluating your views. Look at all the other evidence presented in this thread, from a variety of sources, that shows there is some support, even from your own party, of Russian propaganda warfare and provocations both in the US and in Europe. This isn’t about Macedonian hackers, you simply refuse to even consider any alternatives.

And you seem incapable of understanding that the intellectual, spiritual and moral failures of modern American Conservative thought not only make the barbarism and savagery of Donald Trump possible, they make it inevitable.

Paraphrasing George Smiley…

…you’re a fanatic! I may have acted like a soft dolt, the very archetype of a flabby Western liberal but I’d rather be my kind of fool than yours. One day that lack of moderation will be your downfall.

You’re a fanatic. And the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt.

And if you can’t see that, I haven’t any hope of convincing you otherwise.

I found more information for you, located the original piece, and lightly poked the credibility of the reporter using the same “who’s paying them” tactic that is a favorite around here for any article or paper. Then I pointed out an older article with alternative explanations for the Macedonian activity that even you think are plausible.

So why the raving hysterics?

Have you really gotten this fragile?

Literally, it means “hard face”, but in Cuban slang it is a phrase that means capable of shameless and unrepentant straight-faced bullshit.

Somewhere between the English “He’s got some balls.” and the Yiddish “Chutzpah”.

While TB is still playing Trump’s loyal defender, other republicans are taking a big step back….

Issa: Trump-Russia probe requires a special prosecutor

Just ask TB if HE supports a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s involvement and watch the ideological gears in his brain clash, and smoke pour from his ears… I would wager he is incapable of answering that simple question…

Besides, the Russians (and purely coincidentally, I am sure, the Macedonians) are moving on to target Europe….

http://www.newsweek.com/angela-merkel-german-election-2017-fake-news-russia-netherlands-france-547307

http://www.politico.eu/article/russian-fake-news-campaign-targets-merkel-in-german-election/

posted on Nov. 3, 2016, at 8:02 p.m.

That was almost 4 months before the radio piece I referred to.

There is not one syllable in that article that contradicts anything in the NPR piece. In fact, the new reporting claims that what is in that article (and which apparently is very old news) is that there is more to this story than meets the eye.

That doesn’t mean that the radio piece is or is not correct, or that it was or was not financed by George Soros’ minions in order to comfort Democratic losers. In fact, it is totally irrelevant to what we are talking about. That’s probably why you didn’t use it in your first Followup. I suppose it is possible that perhaps the Buzzfeed piece is more representative of the facts than the radio report. But we have absolutely no evidence for that, one way or the other. Nothing you have turned up leads me to believe the Cvetkovska piece is misleading or wrong. That may not necessarily mean its correct, either, but all we ever get from you is plots and conspiracy theories. Now do you see why we no longer take you seriously? It’s not that we think you’re mistaken but sincere, its because we are convinced you are deliberately making this shit up.

For example, your AHA! moment becomes, on closer inspection, to be just another piece of sly misdirection and confusion, designed around the smug conviction that those dumb liberals are too lazy and stupid to look things up for themselves. Well, they’re not. They’ve just learned that looking up your stuff either leads to another lie, or leads nowhere at all. It is a waste of time. We want answers, we just know we’re not getting any from you. We always know ahead of time exactly what you’re going to say.

So the kids are only in it for the money, eh? Didn’t that radio reporter say that too? Of course, if they’re publishing lies for profit, I guess that makes it all right. That’s free fucking enterprise, ain’t it?

Also unperturbed is Veles’ mayor, Slavcho Chadiev.

“Is it criminal activity? Not according to the law of Macedonia,” he says during an interview in his office. “All that money went through the state system and everyone paid their taxes.”

He isn’t bothered by accusations that Veles’ teens swayed the U.S. election. In fact, he welcomes the idea.

“Not as a mayor, but as a man and as a citizen, I’m glad if Veles contributed to the Republicans’ victory and Trump’s victory,” he says.
…
Dimitri says his goal is to earn $1 million, and it’s no surprise the young entrepreneur sees Trump as “a small role model.”

There’s only one question that sees doubt creep into Dimitri’s cocksure demeanor. When he copies posts from other fake news websites, does he worry he’s being used as a pawn to spread propaganda?

“When you buy a certain product, you don’t know who created it,” he says. “You don’t know who creates your shoes, and there are rumors that small children in Africa create them.”

He adds: “Maybe I don’t want to find out, because if I find out maybe I’m going to feel bad. Right now I’m feeling OK.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-trolls-cyberattacks-propaganda-influence-election/story?id=44610568

A declassified report on Russian hacking activity pertaining to the recent U.S. presidential election details how intelligence officials believe Moscow and its supporters attempted to put their stamp on the political process.

The report, which comes after an investigation ordered by President Obama, specifies that there is no indication that Russian actors directly interfered with vote counts but does indicate that there were a number of other ways that they got involved in the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

In March 2016, two months before Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, the report says that “Russian Government-linked actors began openly supporting President-elect Trump’s candidacy in media aimed at English-speaking audiences.”

Trump has repeatedly called into question U.S. intelligence assessments about Russian interference in the election, specifically hacking, despite several statements from those agencies indicating they believed that to be the case.

https://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/

Now, instead of pranking petitions, Russian influence networks online are interfering with the 2016 U.S. election. Many people, especially Hillary Clinton supporters, believe that Russia is actively trying to put Donald Trump in the White House.

And the evidence is compelling. A range of activities speaks to a Russian connection: the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign officials, hacks surrounding voter rolls and possibly election machines, Putin’s overt praise for Trump, and the curious Kremlin connections of Trump campaign operatives Paul Manafort and Carter Page.

But most observers are missing the point. Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.

Russia’s desire to sow distrust in the American system of government is not new. It’s a goal Moscow has pursued since the beginning of the Cold War. Its strategy is not new, either. Soviet-era “active measures” called for using the “force of politics” rather than the “politics of force” to erode American democracy from within. What is new is the methods Russia uses to achieve these objectives.

The kids in Macedonia are in this to make money. They post about Trump because it makes the most money right now. When politics stops working, they’ll move back to sports or health news. It’s that simple, but neither you nor Cvetkovska want it to be.

This isn’t as politically useful or personally comforting to Democrats as a Great Russian Conspiracy putting Trump in the White House, but there it is. The alternative is apparently a lot more terrifying.

If you don’t want answers, don’t shoot up a flare for them.