A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Quora, Trump supporter Larry "Two Accounts" Walden asks this incredibly rude question about the Mueller Report and the Democratic Party: Now that the Mueller report has been finally investigating, do you think the Democrats are a bunch of clowns? Here's my reply: This question, in all frankness, is rife with far too many issues that make it hard for anyone to understand, much less answer it in a mature, rational way. The first half,  Now that the Mueller report has been finally investigating,  makes no sense whatsoever. The two-volume Mueller Report is not a sentient, self-aware entity that can conduct an investigation on its own; therefore, it can’t investigate anything or anyone. I’m guessing that what the Trump supporter who wrote this pseudo-question really meant to say is,  Now that the Mueller investigation has come to a close, do you think the Democrats are a bunch of clowns? Which, of course, brings me to the crux of the matter. Obviously, th...

On Quora, Adrian J. Zarazua asks: If it’s true that Russia meddled with the 2016 US election then why did they want Donald Trump to win and not Hillary Clinton? My reply:  First of all, there is no “if.” Russian state-run hackers working for Russian Military Intelligence (or GRU in its Russian acronym) worked at the Internet Research Agency (IRA) to intervene in the ’16 elections in favor of now-President Trump. Second, Vladimir Putin had several motives for wanting Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose. And none of these motives were because he favors Republicans over Democratic Party pols or because he believed all the innuendoes and myths that the conservative movement has been crafting about Hillary Clinton since the 1992 Presidential election. In any criminal investigation, you have to apply the principle of  cui bono,  or, “who does it benefit?” Or more germane to the matter at hand, what does Putin’s Russia get out of a Trump Presidency? W...

On Quora, die-hard Trump supporter Eda Acuri asked this question yesterday: Why should the American public NOT take the Democrats interpretation of the Mueller's report? Quora has marked this question as being insincere. Here's my reply to Ms. Acuri: First, my fellow American, it’s not “Mueller’s report,” it’s the “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election,” by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. If you’re going to ask loaded, insincere questions in an effort to defend  “the greatest President in American history,”  as some of you like to call Donald J. Trump, you can at least try for a modicum of accuracy when you write, especially on a public forum like Quora. Second, it’s not the “Democrats interpretation” of the above-mentioned “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election.” The way you phrased that question is as dishonest as it is grammatically incorrect, my friend....

On Quora, Trump supporter David Smith asks: If the Mueller report has been submitted and there is nothing about Trump, why are the investigations continuing? I reply:  Oh, sweet summer child. Such an assumption clearly indicates that you’ve not read any of the Mueller Report, which even in its redacted version shows a disturbing picture of not just Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election with a specific goal in mind, i.e., to help Donald Trump win said election, but also of links between members of the Trump Campaign and representatives of organizations and oligarchs with ties to the Russian government. Here’s an excerpt of some of its conclusions: That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government "directed recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political organizations," and, [t]hese thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process." After the elect...