1 What has been left out of the current conversation, though it was brought up by intelligent people at the time, is the fact that IF Vladimir Putin wanted to mess with American elections to influence one side or the other, he would be likely to pick the side he saw as the winner -- of course. And that side would be, quite naturally, Hillary Clinton, who was well-known in politics, as opposed to Donald Trump, who was a total neophyte. There's no way Putin would have colluded with Trump; Hillary would have given him SO much more of anything he wanted.

Putin would have gone where the "smart money" went. I expected "Felonia von Pantsuit" to mop the floor with Trump, and I'm sure everybody reading these comments did too, though it doesn't mean you -- or I -- voted for her. The day after Election Day I was deliriously happy, and so was my wife (I think I started drinking early that day), and we laughed our a$$es off at the people who apparently needed such things as "safe rooms" and the like in order to deal with their grief.

I wonder to this day if Putin needed a safe room?

2 Agree completely Dana. Putin had no reason to support Trump.

And look at "America First" and the other Trump policies - they were terrible for Russia and Putin. American oil and gas, for instance, was far, far more dangerous to Putin and Russia's economy than "green energy" which it turns out was supported by Russia and Russian intelligence precisely because they knew it was a boondoggle.

Russia's economy is almost entirely oil-based and Putin's entire foreign policy was aimed at conttrol of energy to Europe. Trump wanted to drill American oil and gas. Putin had zero reason to support Trump.

Trump also promised to make Europe take more of a hand in their own defense, and that meant Germany rearming - something antithetical to Russian interests and Russian cultural experience.

Hillary's solution was to prance around with a big cardboard button saying "Reset" on it.

Trump was going to push for cheaper oil and gas elsewhere too. That was ruinous to Putin and Russia.

Furthermore Trump was going to streamline our military, de-deploying a lot of our troops, thus making it leaner and more efficient and more capable of fighting as it wouldn'tbe bogged down in multiple quagmires. As Kruschev said "we will start brushfires all over the world that America will exhaust itself putting out" and that has largely been the policy of the Ruling Class types since Reagan. Putin was KGB; he understood the value of keeping America "engaged" meaning chasing after every brushfire across the globe. And we were going bankrupt doing that too and Putin knew it.

Economic growth was a danger to Putin as a prosperous America had the means to stop him. He wanted America bankrupted.

Environmentalism too was a fools game and Putin helped foment it.

All of this stuff would have been still happening without Trump. Putin understands power. He would never have backed Trump over Hillary, who only understands self-aggrandizement.