Few things are more pathetic than the fixation the left/NeverTrump has on Russia. By any objective measure, Russia is a Third World economic, social and demographic basketcase. It has the GDP of New York. Yes, it has nukes but keep in mind that those nukes have not been tested and have been maintained by vodka-besotted Russians for 30 years when evaluating who they actually threaten the most. During the 2016 election, the Russians did what a lot of countries do when other countries have elections…they try to tip the scale to their preferred candidate or they try to sow confusion and discord. Thanks to the efforts of the Democrat party, John Brennan, James Comey, and Robert Mueller trying to prop up the “I wuz robbed” narrative sold by the Clintons, we now have a lot of people hiding under their beds at the mention of the mere word “Russia.”

One would have thought that this self-induced phobia would have dissipated by now but one would be sadly mistaken. Take for instance this offering from Michael Bloomberg’s personal media outlet which has pledged to not criticize any Democrat this election cycle:

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are assessing whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden in its ongoing disinformation efforts with the former vice president still the front-runner in the race to challenge President Donald Trump, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The probe comes as senior U.S. officials are warning that Russia’s election interference in 2020 could be more brazen than in the 2016 presidential race or the 2018 midterm election. Part of the inquiry is to determine whether Russia is trying to weaken Biden by promoting controversy over his past involvement in U.S. policy toward Ukraine while his son worked for an energy company there. Trump was impeached by the House and faces a trial in the Senate over his pressure on Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as an unsupported theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.

Here are some snippets to give you a flavor of the piece:

“Vladimir Putin has interfered in our elections before and it’s no surprise he’s doing so again to prop up President Trump,” said Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates.

Trump has questioned the finding of Russian meddling and has asserted that government agents biased against him conducted a “witch hunt” into whether his campaign conspired with Russia.

Officials also expect Russia to continue trying to hack organizations, release embarrassing information and carry out malign social media operations.

This time around, the narrative about Biden and Ukraine is already well-publicized and being advanced by Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and the president’s Republican allies in Congress.

“The difference is that you have Trump in the White House who is also leading that charge and also trying to dig up dirt in Ukraine,” said [long time Russia interference conspiracy theorist Clint] Watts, who’s now a distinguished research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Biden received the most negative coverage by the outlets through December, according to the analysis [of RT and Sputnik articles].

Michael Bloomberg, who announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in November, also had one of the highest percentages of unfavorable coverage. [Whoa, talk about a non-sequitur. Wonder how that got passed the editors.]

“Going all the way back to May they were talking about Biden-Ukraine very heavily,” [Watts] said. “It’s a great narrative for them.”

Let’s be serious. If Russia is having to get in the business of exposing QuidProJoe’s corruption, then a lot more of our ‘fearless firefighters’ of the Fourth Estate than Bloomberg’s employees are asleep at the switch. The story of Joe Biden either using his position to enrich his brother and his son (or, if you wish to be charitable, Joe Biden allowing his brother and son to enrich themselves off Joe Biden’s position) is a huge story and it is impossible to imagine any GOP candidate being given a pass on such a story. The story that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election was accepted as fact by the media right up to the point that President Trump’s campaign started hammering QuidProJoe on it and now it is “debunked,” or “unsupported,” or a conspiracy theory.

What this article actually represents is an effort by an outlet owned by a Democrat candidate that has stated it will not criticize Democrats in 2020 to start a narrative that the Russians are active in our 2020 election, that Joe Biden is a particular target (why? I don’t know — Joe Biden does more damage to himself in a week than the Russians could possibly do), and that President Trump is the beneficiary of their efforts. It is also trying to frame the generic Hunter-Biden-corruption story as Russian propaganda so that anyone who mentions it will be accused of spreading the same.

You can guarantee that when Biden flames out, that the same stunt will be pulled to prop up the next Democrat in line.