Warner on Russia.

Senator Mark Warner talked with Politico about the Russia investigation. There is no doubt Russia interfered with our election. And the trump campaign was at least complicit, though it seems likely it was more than that. So the questions the senate intelligence committee are trying to answer are: how far did it go? And how involved was the trump campaign?

It's a good article, link below. 

But here was a quote that struck me:

"If you add up all of the money Russia spent interfering in our election; if you add on what they spent in the French elections, where Facebook took down 50,000 sites that were connected to Russia because they'd seen the Russian intervention, if you add up what they spent on the Dutch elections, where the Dutch hand-counted all of their ballots because they were so afraid of Russian intervention. You add all that up and you're still talking about less money than the cost of one new F-35 airplane."

It's either an indictment on just how vast (and expensive) our military is, in sort of a ridiculous context, or its shows how sophisticated the hacking effort was. 

Or perhaps it was a little of both.

Without dropping a single bomb, Russia was able to move the United States and parts of Europe off of the national stage, and now can focus on shaping global policy the way it sees fit.  In effect, they waged war - and won the opening skirmish - for under $100 million. And no one was killed on the battlefield; though surely some did (and will) as a result of the action, and the resulting decisions of the man in power.

And, unfortunately, some of the people who are key to balancing the US's power are involved, complicit, or just want to shape America in their own way...and are simply letting all this happen or providing cover.

You could probably rightly argue that Russia managed to win that battle, too.  And now has total victory within its reach....

Article https://apple.news/APtabYAXzTbyrE3DDsbo27g

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