Who remembers SMARTECH?

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I got to thinking about why, after Nixon and Reagan and all the GOP history of raging against the evils of Russia. Why would the Republicans turn a blind eye to the fact that our electoral process was attacked by the country on which they had spent so much American blood and treasure? Why would they protect a man and a campaign that so obviously colluded with the Putin regime?

Sure, there are the sad, cynical truths. BLOTUS is doing everything the GOP wants and he's doing it in hyperdrive. And if he weren't they have their spare, Mike Pence. They know that if BLOTUS doesn't do it their way, they can draw up articles of impeachment and force him out of office and still have a useful idiot in the executive branch.

But it doesn't seem that simple to me. It's damned weird that Russia, freaking Russia, is all of a sudden "not so bad". It was barely yesterday when the wingnuts described both President Obama and Secretary Clinton as COMMUNISTS.

Now it's all "nothing to see here" and "tee hee, the Russians didn't hack us!"

Except they did. The Russians did hack into an RNC server. But the Russians didn't give that information to Wikileaks for dissemination.

According to James Comey, the GOP was hacked but it didn't go very far because it was some old server that was about to be decommissioned:

WASHINGTON — The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, told lawmakers at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that Russian hackers had penetrated the Republican National Committee’s computer records, but he called it a “limited penetration of old R.N.C.” computer systems that were “no longer in use.”

Mr. Comey’s statement was significant because the committee said weeks ago that it did not lose data to the Russians because of its strong cybersecurity. President-elect Some rich asshole has repeated that assertion and has also said weaknesses in Democratic National Committee systems had opened the way for their systems to be hacked.

While Mr. Comey did not go into detail, he appeared to be referring to a Russian-led attack on a contractor in Tennessee, Smartech Corporation, used by the Republican committee to host some of its websites and handle some lists of donors.

Federal investigators have said that a single email server used by that contractor had been penetrated. But it was going out of service and contained outdated material that the Russians probably found to be of little value. People with direct knowledge of the server’s contents said it had been used by Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/politics/russia-hack-hearing-clapper-rogers-brennan.html

Whoa, back up there pal.

While Mr. Comey did not go into detail, he appeared to be referring to a Russian-led attack on a contractor in Tennessee, Smartech Corporation, used by the Republican committee to host some of its websites and handle some lists of donors.

SMARTECH? The SMARTECH? The company that DUers spent months, years researching? The web host that was home to the infamous GWB43.com? The one that the entire GOP used as an unofficial/official communications hub before during and after the 2004 election?

Maybe I'm wacky. Maybe I'm way out of line. But I think another reason practically every single Republican waves off a Russian attack on our election process and the collusion of BLOTUS and his team with Vladimir Putin is because of blackmail.

The dirt is old but it is dirty, filthy dirt.

Well, anyway. That's what I've been thinking about.

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1. kick

Because what the hell. Paranoia seems to be in fashion these days.