Bernie's Blowout Nevada Win and the Return of Russiagate

In the wake of Bernie's blowout win in Nevada, the Democratic primary contest is his to lose. Voters are climbing aboard the bandwagon.

The corporate press is not yet ready to concede. A line of argument that has started to appear, incredibly, is that Sanders, a politician of national stature for decades, has not been seriously vetted.

Also, Russiagate, which, remember, was spawned originally to obscure the DNC conspiracy to hobble Bernie's 2016 challenge to Hillary's anointing, has returned. Here, based on the Julian Barnes and Sydney Ember story, "Russia Is Said to Be Interfering to Aid Sanders in Democratic Primaries," is the long and short of it:

But some current and former officials expressed doubt that Russian officials think that Mr. Sanders has a hidden affinity for Moscow. Instead, they said that a Russian campaign to support Mr. Sanders might ultimately be aimed at aiding Mr. Trump. Moscow could potentially consider Mr. Sanders a weaker general election opponent for the president than a more moderate Democratic nominee, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The Washington Post first reported the briefing of the Sanders campaign. The campaign sought to pin the blame for the disclosure on the Trump administration, suggesting it was retribution for critical remarks Mr. Sanders had made about Mr. Grenell in 2018.

Russia also worked to support — or at least not harm — Mr. Sanders in 2016. Operatives at a Russian intelligence-backed troll factory were instructed to avoid attacking Mr. Sanders or Mr. Trump, according to the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and an indictment he secured of 13 Russians working on the operation.

Both the indictment and Mr. Mueller’s report quoted internal documents from the Internet Research Agency ordering operatives to attack Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest except for Sanders and Trump — we support them,” the document said.

Russian operatives used the troll factory in 2016 to pose on social media as Americans and sow divisions among already divisive issues like immigration, religion and race. It was one part of the Kremlin’s multipronged attack on the election that also included hackings of Democratic emails, payments to unsuspecting Americans to stage pro-Trump rallies in battleground states and at least one scouting trip to the United States in 2014.

It's a helpful rehash of what lies at the foundation of a huge part of American domestic politics the last four years. Thirteen people couldn't staff a city council campaign in a large U.S. city let alone have any sort of measurable impact on a multibillion dollar presidential campaign.

The whole "Putin Wants Bernie to Win" is a product manufactured by spooks -- no doubt with the intention of doing the oligarchs who run the country a solid -- designed to brake the runaway train that is Bernie 2020. I think voters will pay about as much attention to it as they do the oratory of Adam Schiff.

Shane Goldmacher thinks there is little chance that the corporate Dems will coalesce around a single candidate by Super Tuesday. I think he's correct. But I also think that there will be tremendous pressure placed on candidates after South Carolina to clear the field, particularly Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar. Additionally, starting now, the negative ads attacking Sanders are going to pop up everywhere.