We took a five hour break from watching America go into full-blown Red Scare meltdown mode, and look what happened: The New York Times barfed up an exclusive story corroborated by very anonymous intelligence sources, which claims that "intercepted phone calls show members of President Donald Trump's campaign had multiple communications with senior Russian intelligence officials before the U.S. election."

And as everyone knows, a scoop provided by "anonymous U.S. intelligence sources" is tantamount to the word of God. Only tax-evading infidels would question the omnipotence of anonymous U.S. officials. They have never led the herd astray.

First in space, too

Are you beating up bears and burning Tolstoy paperbacks in the streets yet? You should be!

Citing US law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, The Times said the contact between Trump associates and Russian officials was discovered during a concurrent FBI investigation into election-related cyberattacks by Russia that targeted Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. Three of the US sources interviewed by The Times said that despite the frequent contact, there was no evidence that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia on the cyberattacks. What concerned the American officials, however, was how often Trump associates were allegedly communicating with Russian officials during an unprecedented election in which Trump repeatedly showered praise on Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.

So...Even the anonymous intelligence sources say there is no evidence of "collusion" with the Russians. Instead, Trump's team is being accused of using a telephone to talk to Russian officials about issues concerning U.S.-Russia relations.

Who would do such a thing?

LOOSE LIPS SINK SANCTIONS?

But the horror story continues. As our friends at Business Insider explain:

Trump infamously made a direct appeal to Russia in July, urging the Kremlin to dig up damaging information on Clinton.

We're pretty sure that was a joke. Yeah ... That was definitely a joke. Come on, it's only the fifth paragraph and you're already grabbing for low-hanging, out-of-context fruit? This anonymous scoop is not nearly as scoopful as we had hoped.

And just to make it perfectly clear what we're dealing with here:

The Times' Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo reported that the communications between people in Trump's orbit and Russia ran deep on both sides. They allegedly included other associates of Trump outside of his campaign. And on the Russian side, people within the country's government — in addition to intelligence officials — were also involved, said The Times' sources, who remained anonymous.

That settles it. We cannot allow Trump's cabinet to have WMDs. It's time to invade, boys.