asshole culture

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had the stomach to delve into the feverish miasma of FreeRepublic, so this morning I decided…wait. Damn it. Okay, sorry, first tangent of the day. Can you actually ‘delve’ into a ‘miasma’?

I mean since the 1600s, ‘miasma’ generally referred to effluvia or foul-smelling vapors that rose from the ground and was considered to be infectious or injurious to health (which is applicable to FreeRepublic). But ‘delve’ comes from the Middle English term delfan, which meant “to dig, turn up with a spade or other tool, excavate.” Can you dig a stink? Not so much. However, I see that modern definitions of ‘delve’ include ‘to search for information’ so I’m going to go with yes, you can delve into this particular miasma.

Sorry. Back to business. FreeRepublic, where Asshole Culture masks itself as patriotism. The first post that caught my eye was about an article in the New York Post, a daily tabloid local to NYC.

“An unvaccinated Virginia man who thought he was ‘invincible’ to COVID-19 is rallying anti-vaxxers to get their shots from his hospital bed, where he is laid up with a dire case of the virus.”

Now, I’m fairly certain that none of the Freep folks who responded to the article actually 1) live in NYC or 2) read the NY Post on a regular basis, or 3) give a rat’s ass about what happens in NYC. But this topic is raw meat for FreeRepublic patriots. And they didn’t disappoint.

  • “People should direct their anger to the culprit…Chiiina.” by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.)
  • “has he received the correct Rx, or is he being used? did he take preventative HCQ, or was that politically not allowed?” by Diogenesis (Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum)
  • “Doesn’t look like any kind of hospital room I’ve ever been in.” by Mathews (It’s all gravy, baby!)
  • “Crisis Actor. Clowns giving money away.” by Cletus.D.Yokel
  • “If you’ve decided not to vax, you really must have Ivermectin or HCQ on hand.” by G Larry (Those destroying the Constitution must demonize those who would defend it.)
  • “I would much rather die from Covid than live with the shot.” by Safrguns
  • “An unvaccinated Virginia man should shut up it’s his business not ours or this could be another Fake” by butlerweave
  • “Put this guy beside one of the people killed or maimed by the shot. And what therapies were used? Ivermectin? HCQ? Anything? No…” by DesertRhino (A coup government may not claim the protection of the same constitution it overthrew. )
  • “Another sick fat dude. Maybe COVID isn’t the problem. When you’re obese, there’s a lot of crap that can kill you…” by Magnatron
  • “Who sticks a damn microphone up to a dying man’s mouth so he can make a PSA? This is as phony as a 6 dollar bill. Looks like that hospital needs to finish up it’s drywall.” by dforest (huh)
  • “If the media wanted, they could print about 12,000 human interest stories how someone got the vaccine, then died.” by Flick Lives (We may or may not have reached herd immunity, but we’ve definitely achieved herd stupidity.)
  • “This is the third story I’ve read this week where a supposed average everyday person is “dying” from COVID and giving us a dire warning of the need to get vaxxed. Funny how all three of these poor souls are overweight/obese and were probably already suffering from one or all of diabetes, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver, or kidney failure due to their being fat slobs.” by Qui is (Biden spews and Harris swallows)

These folks are why the Tractor Supply Company had to put up signs warning their customers NOT to ingest large animal de-worming chemicals. They’re shining examples of willful stupidity tempered with arrogant unthinking nationalism, completely unfettered by empathy.

Another short tangent. You may have noticed one of the Freep commenters had a tag line that read Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum. That’s the motto of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, which back in the 11th century were more commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller. They were a religious military order–crusaders and all that. The motto translates as “defence of the faith and assistance to the poor”.

Asshole culture may not be immune to Covid-19, but they’re certainly immune to irony.

peat moss and mice bones

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Yesterday I tossed off a quick post about the Tractor Supply Company feeling the need to put up a sign warning their customers NOT to ingest chemicals designed to prevent worms from inhabiting the intestinal tracts of large farm animals in an effort to somehow save themselves from a virus primarily transmitted through aerosols. I suggested the store take down the sign.

It’s not that I want people to eat or inject Ivermectin. It’s that after we’ve seen more than 600,000 people in the US die from Covid-19, and after we’ve created vaccines specifically designed to prevent Covid infection (or reduce the effects of the virus), and after we’ve made those vaccines free and widely available, we shouldn’t have to be warning people away from other unproven and dangerous alternatives.

Imagine a room in which we’ve set up two tables–one with a vaccine that’s proven effective against the virus and one with a chemical that’s proven effective against intestinal worms in cattle. In that room, we have a person who is entirely free of either the virus or cattle worms, but who is concerned about being infected by the virus. We really shouldn’t have to give that person a lot of directions about which table to visit.

In a comment to yesterday’s post, Chris wrote:

“Take the sign down,” as in, “Sometimes you have to thin the herd”?

I’ve never been a fan of the ‘thinning the herd’ form of Darwinism. That concept inevitably leads to abandoning the weak and infirm alone in the desert, or in the forest, or on ice floes.

The thing is, we’ve made every effort to keep the weak and infirm OFF the ice floes. We’ve made it EASY to keep off the ice floes. We’ve put up ‘Thin Ice’ signs and directed people away from areas where ices flows form. Hell, we’ve even made it harder for ice floes to form, just as a way to keep folks off the damned things.

But there’s a culture out there promoting the idea that there’s no real danger in being on an ice floe. A culture that sometimes even argues ice floes don’t actually exist, that they’re a hoax. A culture that argues that purposely positioning yourself in a place where ice floes will form is somehow courageous; a display of rugged individualism; a method of demonstrating loyalty. They argue that most folks who get trapped on an ice floe are rescued, so it’s not a real problem. There’s a culture out there with leaders who argue that even if ice floes DO exist and ARE actually a threat, the best way to avoid being trapped alone on one is to rely on magical beans or wearing a fetish pouch containing peat moss and mice bones.

Advocates of that culture who find themselves suddenly alone on an ice floe are surprised by their situation. They’re shocked that the moss and mice bones didn’t work.

What happens then? Then all those folks who’ve been working their asses off trying to keep these dolts away from the thin ice have to work their asses off trying to fetch them back from the ice floes.

It’s about eighteen months; we’ve had over 610,000 people die on ice floes in the US. We’ve spent billions of dollars and working hours trying to resolve the ice floe problem. Obviously, we need to continue to help the old and weak and infirm stay away from the thin ice. But I’m weary of trying to stop those folks who deliberately play Ice Floe Roulette.

just take the sign down

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Some mornings I just can’t be bothered to care anymore. I know it’s wrong, but Jesus suffering fuck, how far do we have to go to protect people–people who are willfully, deliberately, and aggressively ignorant–from themselves? I’m talking about this thing right here in particular:

The Tractor Supply Company, which is an absolutely great place to buy stuff like rubber boots and rope and stuff to deworm your horses, has found it necessary to put up a sign in the Deworm Your Large Animals aisle telling its customers NOT to use a product designed to treat or prevent parasites in large animals as a prophylactic against Covid-19. I am NOT MAKING THIS UP.

Why did the Tractor Supply Co. feel the need to do this? Because some Trumpist tunaheads don’t want to die from Covid BUT are unwilling to take an effective vaccine because Comrade Trump (who has actually taken the damned vaccine) and his criminal accomplices in the Fuckwit Media have decided its to their political advantage to use a goddamn global pandemic as a wedge issue. These are the same tunaheads who’ll spend hours online poring over conspiracy theories in which the 2020 election was rigged by Nancy Pelosi using Hunter Biden’s laptop to get Italy and China to send cargo planes full of ballots with Uncle Joe’s name on them to be hidden under tables in Arizona BUT who won’t spend two minutes googling Ivermectin to learn that Ivermectin products for large animals are different from Ivermectin products for people.

Tractor Supply Company, do us all a favor. Just take the fucking sign down.

it’s all fish. wait…archery, maybe.

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I’m something of a low intensity news junkie. I spend a couple of hours every morning reading the news from a variety of sources–one of which is the Washington Post. That’s the ‘junkie’ part. The ‘low intensity’ part is that I don’t read ALL the news. I almost always skip the business/financial news (which I realize is important, but lawdy that shit is dull). I usually skip most of the sports news (which in recent years seems to be a mash-up of business news and scandal-mongering). And I generally just scan the entertainment news.

All of which is to say that while I read a lot of news, I rarely wade all the way through any single news source. But for some reason, this morning I found myself scrolling through the entire digital edition of the Washington Post. And I discovered they still publish horoscopes.

I don’t know why that surprised me. Wait…yes, I do know why it surprised me. Because WaPo is a newspaper. The operative term being ‘news’ and ‘news’ being ‘information about recent, current, or ongoing events’. Now, I understand that newspapers also include stuff that’s not news, stuff that’s just there to entertain the reader. Like comics. And yes, folks can be entertained by horoscopes.

But the thing about horoscopes is that they claim to be a method of divination–a tool for predicting or foretelling the future. There’s nothing inherently wrong with predicting what might take place in the future; speculative fiction does that all the time. And trend analysts are always suggesting what might be coming in stocks or fashion or sports or politics or just about any human endeavor. The difference, though, is trend analysts base their future scenarios on observations of a wide variety of current and recent events. Horoscopes, on the other hand, base their predictions on a single moment in time–the hour a person was born.

Eternally optimistic, that’s me. I’m a goddamn gift to the world.

It’s right there in the name: horoscope. It’s from the Greek ‘hōra‘ meaning ‘hour’ and ‘skopos‘ meaning ‘watcher’ or ‘observer’. The concept is grounded in the belief that a person’s characteristics and personality are shaped or influenced by 1) the placement relative to Earth of 2) the major celestial bodies that are gravitationally bound to our Sun 3) at the moment of that person’s birth. It’s not clear exactly HOW those celestial bodies shape or influences a person. Is it through magnetism? Gravitation? Some combination of weak and strong nuclear forces? Who the hell knows?

Of course, the daily horoscopes presented in WaPo are generic. They couldn’t possibly include an individualized horoscope for every reader. Instead they opt for the most generic type of horoscope, based solely on a wide range of days on which a person was born. The actual day, or even the year, in which you were born is somehow irrelevant. It’s like offering ‘fish’ for lunch, without telling you whether it’s trout or salmon or fugu. It’s all just fish.

Daily horoscopes are all just fish. They’re all different, while still having some basic stuff in common. At least that’s my impression. So I decided to check out my horoscope for today on a few different sites. You know, so I’d know how to prepare for my day.

I get two (2) eclipses this year! How many do YOU get?

According to my WaPo horoscope for today, ‘authority figures will be especially helpful to you now — but it won’t seem that way at first.‘ Fucking authority figures. However, if I ‘force them to go over the situation with you, they’ll be able to see the problems.’ So that’s not so bad. It doesn’t offer suggestions regarding HOW I force authority figures to go over the situation with me. I figure high explosives would demonstrate my sincerity and commitment to resolve the problem…whatever it is.

According to Astrology.com, ‘Pleasure before productivity is key today.’ Also, the ‘enthusiastic Aries moon encourages you to find a stage of your own and shine up on it unabashedly.’ Who doesn’t love an enthusiastic moon? The reference to Aries (the god of war and combat) seems to support the use of high explosives in my interactions with authority figures. Although it does seem somewhat at odds with ‘the moon’s sweet link with happy-go-lucky Jupiter‘ which is supposed to ‘uplift‘ my mood and bring ‘mental equilibrium before moving into grounded Taurus.’ I’m not sure how to interpret that. Maybe that Taurus business means my interaction with authorities will involve bullshit…and nothing cuts through bullshit faster than high explosives.

CafeAstrology seems to agree, because ‘Fiery, energetic Mars is now enlivening your sector of career and reputation.’ Nothing enlivens your reputation like high explosives. However, ‘Complicated energies are with you today. Fears or insecurities can surface, and you may need to tame the tendency to expect negative responses from others.’ Well, negative responses are sort of expected when you employ high explosives. But what’s really concerning is this: ‘Timing could be off temporarily. You might end up deliberating over a response for far longer than is good for you.’ Obviously, you don’t introduce high explosives into a negotiation unless you’re serious…but timing can be tricky. Clearly I should rig some sort of hair-trigger or a dead man’s switch when I deal with…wait.

Careless? WTF? Childish? Fuck you. C’mon.

I don’t have anything scheduled for today that will involve authority figures. I mean, there’s a good chance I’ll get a phone call about my extended warranty at some point, but…shit. Now what am I supposed to do with all those high explosives?

You know, I probably wouldn’t have this problem if I wasn’t a Sagitarrius Saggitarious born in early December. I suspect folks born under…uh, my sign…are known for being impulsive and sometimes acting without thinking things through. I’ll google my zodiac sign to see what sort of person I am while I have lunch (ooh, I bet Sagittarrians people like me are multi-taskers!). I’m having fish.

a mook and his money

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Back in the Dark Times, when Comrade Trump was the actual president (and lawdy, that was only six months ago; it’s still hard to believe that happened), I made routine recon sweeps through the loopiest of loopy right-wing ‘news’ sites. I felt it was important to know what they were thinking and planning–not because I saw them as the enemy, but because they believed people like me were their enemy. You don’t have to actually be an enemy to be perceived as one, and the success of the Republican Party depends on having lots of enemies.

I still do occasional recon sweeps of loopy right-wing sites, but without the same sense of urgency. Now it’s more of a prophylactic measure. They’re still a threat to democracy, but without Comrade Trump squatting in the Oval Office, they’re less of an imminent threat than they were before.

They’d be more of a threat if Trump 1) wasn’t increasingly losing contact with objective reality, 2) hadn’t convinced so many of them to impale themselves on the pointed stick of Covid, and 3) was actually using his influence to further his conspiratorial-authoritarian agenda instead of to make a quick buck for himself.

As I waded through the muck of loopy right-wing sites this morning, I came across a post in which an ardent Trump supporter said he’d donated more of his hard-earned to Trump’s Save America Leadership PAC. You know, to support the audit in Arizona and reinstall Trump as president and prevent the US from becoming a completely communist pedophile nation. He encouraged others to “donate as much as you can afford or more” so other states could conduct their own audits and prove the extent of the fraud.

There’s a part of me that feels sorry for this mook, because as near as I can tell, Comrade Trump hasn’t donated a single ruble to support any audit in any state. It seems Trump’s PAC has taken in somewhere around US$75 million in the first half of this year–much of it from mooks like this guy. Trump has said he’ll probably use some of the money to fund other election audits, but so far the PAC has only spent the cash on travel, legal costs, staff expenses, and on the PR campaign to raise more money. Most of that $75 million is sitting in the bank.

Do you think this mook has a clue how Trump is actually spending his donation? Probably not. Do you think it would matter if he did know? Probably not. This is why only a part of me feels sorry for him. He’s a willing participant in his delusion. He’s not a victim of propaganda; he made deliberate choices about where to obtain information. If he suffers financially, it’s because he has agreed to it.

In effect, this guy is a financial flagellant. Remember the flagellants? Those 14th century religious zealots who made a public demonstration of their religious fervor by literally whipping themselves? Here, let the Dominican friar Heinrich von Herford describe them:

“Each whip consisted of a stick with three knotted thongs hanging from the end. Two pieces of needle-sharp metal were run through the centre of the knots from both sides, forming a cross, the end of which extended beyond the knots for the length of a grain of wheat or less. Using these whips they beat and whipped their bare skin until their bodies were bruised and swollen and blood rained down, spattering the walls nearby. I have seen, when they whipped themselves, how sometimes those bits of metal penetrated the skin so deeply that it took more than two attempts to pull them out.”

This mook whips his checkbook instead of his body. There’s also an excellent chance he’s one of those folks who believe Covid is a hoax, so he’s willfully offering up his health and life as a tribute to Trump as well. This doesn’t mean he deserves to be broke and infected with Covid. It just means that if he becomes broke and Covid positive, he only has himself to blame. Comrade Trump didn’t hand him a whip; he just collects money off the whipping.

This guy deserves our compassion; he doesn’t deserve our sympathy or pity.

modesty masks and other thoughts

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Some of my best friends are Christians. They’re good people; mostly honest, mostly friendly, usually willing to be helpful, relatively clean. They don’t cause much trouble. Terrible dancers, but basically good people. So I am embarrassed for them when some other Christians–people they don’t even know–do something really stupid.

It’s like if you’re a Red Sox fan and you see somebody wearing a Red Sox cap on television and you think, “Hey, fellow Red Sox fan, probably a good person” and then that Red Sox fan does something stupid or wicked–uses a racial slur, maybe, or praises Comrade Trump’s intellectual achievements, or wears black socks with sandals–and suddenly you’re embarrassed for all Red Sox fans because that one asshole has called the integrity and decency of every Red Sox fan into disrepute. Same thing.

Anyway, I came across this in the news:

“[A] Catholic elementary school – Lansing-based Resurrection School – which contends that any state mandate that children age five and older wear a mask in classrooms is unconstitutional. The school says such a rule would violate ‘sincerely held religious beliefs”’ because they say humans were made in the image of God, and masks shield that image from being seen.”

If you’re anything like me (and I’m not sure how I want you to answer that) you had two almost immediate thoughts. Thought 1: That’s really fucking stupid. Thought 2: Five bucks says that school has a dress code based on modesty. And hey, bingo, guess what.

There it is. Girls MUST wear opaque tights, ankle length leggings, or modesty shorts underneath at ALL times. I guess because the legs and ankles of girls weren’t made in the image of god? I don’t believe in god, so who am I to say–but I have a hard time believing an omniscient omnipresent god would want everybody to see your nose and lips, but gets coy when it comes to a girl’s ankles.

At this point I had another thought. Thought 3: what the hell are modesty shorts? Which was quickly followed by Thought 4: Am I really going to google ‘girls modesty shorts’? Which led immediately to Thought 5: Probably the people who think girls need to wear modesty shorts are the types of people who’d google ‘girls modesty shorts’.

Reader, I googled ‘girls modesty shorts’. For research. And I felt a tad creepy. Because let’s face it–the only reason to be concerned with modesty is if you’re having immodest thoughts. Otherwise modesty shorts are just shorts.

But that led me to Thought 6: Maybe we could call the masks ‘modesty masks’ and the school would be okay with it. Or maybe the school would let kids wear modesty shorts over their heads instead of masks. But no, probably not.

In the end, I came back to a thought I’ve been nurturing for a long time. Thought 7: Burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, Burn it to the ground and collect the ashes, and grind them into powder. Bury the powder deep in the earth, and salt the ground above it so nothing will ever grow there. Pour cement over the salt. Then nuke the entire site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure).

Also? Thought 8: Christians, don’t let these venal anti-science fuckwits be the voice of your religious beliefs. I don’t believe in god and I’m not a Christian, but y’all have something really solid in that whole “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” business. Love your neighbor, encourage them to wear masks for their health as well as your own, don’t waste any time thinking about what’s under the skirts of girls, and really–burn the patriarchy.

the odor of burnt communism

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Reader, you may be asking yourself, “What in the name of maple oatmeal fuck were Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene doing in California?” It’s a valid question. I mean, he’s a soon-to-be indicted child sex trafficker and generic party creep from Florida and she’s multi-delusional insurrectionist from Georgia who isn’t trusted by her own party to hold any committee seats. So why were they in California instead of promoting conspiracy theories their home states?

The answer is…communism. No, I am NOT MAKING THIS UP. MG and MTG were in California to hold a Free Speech Against Communism rally. Now, you may be asking yourself, “Where is all this communism in California coming from?” Silly rabbit. According to noted scientists in starched white lab coats, it comes directly from gazooney rays emanating from the brain of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Those rays are amplified by Jewish space lasers and tight-beamed straight into the brain of Matt Gaetz, temporarily disrupting his brain’s primary sex-with-minors receptors.

“Attica! Attica! Power to the perverts!”

It’s fair to say the Gaetz-Greene ratfuck rodeo has struggled. They’d originally intended to kick communism in the balls at the Pacific Hills Banquet & Event Center in Laguna Hills. But it was canceled after people who actually live in Laguna Hills said, “Oh, c’mon, keep these crazy fuckers out of our sweet little town.” Gaetz-Greene shifted their plan to the Riverside Convention Center (coincidentally located in Riverside, CA). But the people who live in Riverside said, “No, seriously, we can cope with the earthquakes and the wildfires and shit, just don’t inflict these fuckwits on us.” So the event was canceled. Not to be deterred, G-G moved their Free Speech to Stop Communist Speech rally to the Anaheim Event Center. But the people of Anaheim said, “We’d rather have a battery acid enema than listen to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Whatshername.” So, canceled again.

Did that stop Gaetz-Greene? Hah! They said, “Hah! If six hundred thousand dead Americans didn’t stop us from standing up for your right not to wear an annoying mask, do you think being rejected by a few respectable venues is going to stop us? Hah! I say again, hah!” No fucking way. They took their Free Speech Dammit rally to a public parking lot outside of the Riverside City Hall.

Was it a success? Absolutely. According to a local newspaper, G-G “drew a crowd of more than 100” (some of which, it must be said, were counter-protestors. Oh, and news media. And a few police officers). MTG told her fellow free speech anti-communists:

“We won’t back down. The radical left wants to threaten you, they want to harass you, they want to target you, and they want to cancel you. And here’s what we’re going to do, America. You’ve got two members of Congress right here and we refuse to be canceled because we won’t let you be canceled.”

It’s fair to say the group of anti-Communists were encouraged, if confused, to learn that MG and MTG were going to do…you know, something. And if it wasn’t clear exactly what they were going to do, it was enough that it involved refusing to be canceled.

MTG leads the crowd in singing ‘Delta Variant Dawn’.

MG supported MTG, saying:

“These folks, they tried to cancel our venues, but they can never cancel our patriotism or our American spirit.”

It’s not clear who MG meant by ‘these folks’. Communists, possibly, or the owners of the other venues, or the people of Anaheim and Riverside and Laguna Hills, or Californians in general, or Hunter Biden art collectors. But he was adamant that they couldn’t cancel his American spirit.

They each spoke for about five minutes, posed for a few photos, then left. The crowd dissipated. Nothing was left but the lingering odor of burnt communism.

UPDATE: Sources say MG has reserved two VIP tickets to Anaheim’s Battery Acid EnemaFest using the screen name DeltaVariantBoi.

did putin just burn trump?

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There’s an unoffical mantra in the investigation biz. It applies to everybody who does detective work; it doesn’t matter who you work for, it doesn’t matter if you’re a police detective or a private investigator. Call it the ABC of investigation.

Assume nothing.
Believe nothing.
Check everything.

This mantra especially applies when it comes to information you WANT to believe. And that brings me to this article in The Guardian:

Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House

Essentially, the article states The Guardian has come into possession of a reputed Kremlin report of a meeting between Vlad Putin, his spy chiefs, and his senior ministers in January of 2016. At that meeting, they decided to initiate an intelligence operation to help Comrade Trump become POTUS. According to the article, they felt the election ofTrump (who is described in the report as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”) would “definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system.” And basically, that’s what’s happened.

Trump after his private two-hour meeting with Putin

The Guardian article also indicates the leaked Kremlin report suggests Russia has some form of kompromat on Trump. I’ve written about all this stuff before, so I won’t repeat it here. I mention it primarily because The Guardian’s article has resurrected the debate of the so-called Steele Dossier.

It’s important to understand that the Steele Dossier is actually a collection of seventeen memoranda containing raw human intelligence prepared by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 expert on Russian security and counterintelligence issues. Steele had been hired by a research firm called GPS Fusion, which had originally been contracted by the Jeb Bush presidential campaign to do opposition research on Trump. After Bush left the presidential primary race, the Hillary Clinton campaign continued the GPS Fusion investigation. Steele’s assignment was to explore Trump’s business concerns in Russia and the former Soviet republics, some of which involved former Russian intelligence agents and/or members of Russian organized crime.

Essentially, the document reported in The Guardian substantiates the main allegations in the Steele dossier: 1) that there was a concerted, coordinated Russian intelligence operation to promote the Trump campaign and damage the Clinton campaign, 2) that members of the Trump campaign were eager (though probable unwitting) conspirators with the Russians, and 3) Russian intelligence services likely has kompromat on Trump.

Somebody’s happy; somebody isn’t.

I believe that to be true. This is where that ABC of investigation comes into it. Because I want it to be true, I have to be doubly skeptical about it. I have to ask how and why this document came into the hands of the Guardian. I mean, Russian intelligence services just don’t leak documents by accident. IF the document is genuine (and apparently both UK and US intelligence agencies have known about it for months), why would Russia ‘leak’ it now?

Assuming it’s true (remember, assume nothing), it would be leaked to serve Russian state interests–which includes increasing US political and social instability while protecting her own international political priorities. I believe (believe nothing) it’s POSSIBLE that Russia MIGHT be deliberately burning Trump as an intelligence asset. His legal vulnerability and age put him near the ‘sell-by’ date as a useful asset. Burning him COULD be a warning to other still useful assets in the Republican party–MAYBE to cut Trump loose and bury themselves deeper into the body politic where they could still help shape US policy toward Russia. Burning him COULD also make Trump valuable as a flashpoint for insurrection and ongoing social instability. The more precarious Trump’s legal situation becomes, the more desperate he is, the more likely he is to actively encourage his supporters to resort to greater political violence. Even as a burned asset, Trump could prove useful to Russian interests.

This serves Russian interests.

Assume nothing. Believe nothing. Check everything. There’s relatively little we can check about this. The checking will have to be done by others–reporters, investigators, agencies, authorities. We’ll have to assess the value of their checking based on their credibility.

This is how investigation is done. Always mistrust what you want to believe.