Set aside all Donald Trump’s nonsense about disbelieving the intelligence agencies and insisting there’s no evidence against Russia*. Set aside his amazingly public spat with those agencies. Set aside just why Russia did this. There’s the simple fact that just two weeks before a new President is sworn into office, the country’s intelligence agencies are publicly releasing a report claiming that the United States’ great 20th century rival, Russia, conspired to assist in that new President’s election. Step back and just absorb that. That is simply mind-boggling. Who could have imagined such a thing, such a confluence of events – the original act, the IC’s claims – would ever happen. Here’s the report.

[* ed.note: There’s nothing crazy about being skeptical or disbelieving intelligence analyses. What’s clear in this case is that if there are good reasons for skepticism, they have nothing to do with why Trump insists it’s not true.]