RUSSIA, IF YOU'RE LISTENING ...

Trump's data guru stinky hairball person Brad Parscale has a prediction for 2020. Or is it an instruction?

This weekend, Brad Parscale, the malignant hairball of weasel pubes and regretful mucus who served as a data guru for Trump's 2016 campaign and is serving as the campaign manager for 2020, made some news on CBS's "Face The Nation" when he gave out this prediction:

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale says the campaign believes New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada and Colorado coul… https: //t.co/ZdoUzRMcQb

— CBS News (@CBS News) 1556464256.0 

"Obviously we have to go back and win Michigan again, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin," Parscale said in the interview , which was taped earlier in April. "We plan on also being in Minnesota very soon. I think New Mexico is in play in 2020. I think New Hampshire, I think we continue to grow the map. I think Nevada, you know, even Colorado. And so those are states we did not win in 2016 that I think are open for 2020."

And the entire choir -- by which we mean half of Twitter -- said RUSSIA, IF YOU'RE LISTENING! And everybody got the joke, because everybody knows that when Trump people call out to Russia in the night, Russia is there and comes running.

He's Batshit, Right?

If we were any of those states, we'd be making sure our election systems are even more secure than they were yesterday, wouldn't you? Because oh boy, we still do not know what happened in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin last time -- or what they thought was going to happen in Minnesota last time -- but besides Hillary Clinton not campaigning in the Rust Belt quite enough, that Trump team sure did knock down that blue wall with almost surgical precision, didn't they? It was almost like they had help.

And we don't know why the hell they'd think that New Mexico or Colorado would be in play, since Hillary Clinton won them by eight and five points, respectively, and there's no evidence those states have swung back the other direction. New Hampshire and Nevada were closer, of course. But, you know, if somebody were in there tinkering with the rolls ...

We're thinking Trump people should probably STFU in general at this point about the prospect of Dipshit expanding his map. First of all, we're talking about a president who was unelected by a 2.9 million-vote deficit, and who barely squeaked in to an Electoral College win in three states, by a total of about 70,000 votes. Strangely enough, these were the the very states Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was discussing with his Russian spy friend Konstantin Kilimnik, and passing polling data to him, which was almost definitely handed to the Russians who could get the most use out of it. (The Mueller Report also lists Minnesota as the fourth "battleground state" Manafort was dicsussing with Kilimnik, which is why we said that thing above about what they thought was going to happen in Minnesota.) What we're saying is that it hasn't even been proven that Trump's 2016 win was legitimate, and since the man cheats and lies about every other fucking thing, we think it's safe to assume he cheated and lied to win the presidency, or that his campaign did it for him. (Remember how Stinky up there was the "data guru" for that campaign? Mm hmm.)

Nextly, we are talking about a president who's polling so badly in Texas against several of the Democratic contenders that this could legitimately be the year Texas moves over. It might not be, but simple demographic math says that's going to happen sometime in the next few presidential election cycles.

He's also polling really badly, approval-rating-wise, in specific states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, AKA the states that gave him the Oval in the first place. If the 2020 Democratic nominee picks off two or three of them, they'll be sworn in as president while the forklift is removing Trump from the Oval Office in January 2021.

But sure Brad (SURE JAN) tell us more about Trump winning Colorado.

Thirdly, we are talking about a president who HAS NEVER HIT A 50 PERCENT APPROVAL RATING NATIONWIDE, even though for the duration of his presidency so far, the economy has (luckily) held on and not careened off a cliff, mostly because Wall Street has figured out how to absorb the roller coaster ride of America being led by a president with an (allegedly!) syphili-rrific brain. For God's sake, this president is so weak and pathetic he thinks he's winning when his approval rating kisses 45 percent for a second, which pretty much never happens .

Could Trump get re-elected legitimately? Sure. It's theoretically possible that the Democrats could fuck it up really badly and somehow, by the hair of his chinny chin chin, he could hold on. It is also theoretically possible that Beyoncé could walk in our front door right now and demand we quit our job and come on tour with her. (BRB somebody just knocked on the door.)

Could Trump get "re-elected" illegitimately , like we're pretty sure he was "elected" the first time? Oh hell yes. We already know that Trump is absolutely hellbent on ignoring election security issues, and it's pretty obvious the reason is because election security is a natural opponent to his own bottom line chances of being re-elected. The Mueller Report found conclusively that Russia engaged in a "sweeping and systematic" campaign to elect Trump, that his campaign just loved that help, and his margin of "victory" alone suggests Russia was successful beyond its wildest dreams. They'll be back in 2020.

BUT WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF 2016.

Y'all Seen The News About Florida? (It's Always Florida.)

There was a quick section on page 51 of the first volume of the Mueller report that stated that in November 2016, the GRU (Russian military intelligence) sent spearphishing emails to "120 email accounts used by Florida officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election." The FBI investigated this separately, and Mueller reports that "[t]he FBI believes that this operation enabled the G.R.U. to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government." At least one .

This revelation had made Florida Republican officials a little bit crazy, as they demand to know what's going on, even though when they've been told about this previously, they didn't seem so curious about it. The original story broke back in 2017, when Reality Leigh Winner leaked a top secret NSA document to The Intercept, detailing the Russian operation. She is now in prison.

But don't worry, y'all, Marco Rubio is on the case now:  

In an interview on Friday, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida took it one step further, saying that Russian hackers not only accessed a Florida voting system, but were "in a position" to change voter roll data. [...]

"They won't tell us which county it was. Are you kidding me?" an exasperated Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor, said at a news conference in Miami on Thursday. "Why would you have not said something immediately?"

They ... but ... like ... OK, Ron ... so ... that whole time when you were in Congress sitting on Jim Jordan's lap, which was itself firmly ensconced in Donald Trump's lap, and you all were giggling and clapping your hands and obstructing justice together? People were saying something about it then. WE'VE BEEN SAYING IT FOR ALMOST THREE FUCKING YEARS NOW.

Know who else said something? Former Democratic Florida Senator Bill Nelson. He said a lot of things. Florida Republicans treated him like he was batshit. Rick Scott said he was "making things up" and that he was "confused."

Anyway. Remember how Florida was supposed to be such a nail-biter on election night, but then it wasn't? One way to do that is to make it so a bunch of Democrats head out to vote, only to find that their names are no longer on the voter rolls. (Florida is a handy target for Russia in this regard, because the GOP has been purging voter rolls there for questionable reasons FORFUCKINGEVER.)

Anyway, Marco Rubio says the Russians got in, but that they weren't ultimately successful (he doesn't think), that the victims of the hack were never told about it, but we're sure it'll all be fine in the end, you betcha, unless it's not.

Whatever. Read the whole New York Times   story on the Florida shit when you have time.

Oh look, it's your OPEN THREAD. Don't open any spearphishing emails from anybody named Igor.

[ New York Times / CBS News / Mueller Report ]

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