Publisher’s Note: We didn’t author the title of this post. Veteran federal policy maker, journalist, and independent political critic Paul Craig Roberts did, and his column follows below.

If we WERE to have authored the title of this post, the title might be posed as a broader question:

“Vermont’s Democratic  Leadership: Clueless Idiots, Party Hacks, or CIA Assets”?

Here’s the step by step context:

1)The kick off? A breathless and bellicose New Year’s Eve Washington Post story alleging that President Putin’s Russia was attempting to hack the entire U.S. electrical grid through a Vermont utility.

2) The alleged evidence? A Russian-made piece of malware discovered on a Burlington-based utility employee’s laptop. 

3) The immediate responses to this story from Vermont’s Democratic Party leadership? Read them below.

4) The reality? The malware was NOT Russian, the employee’s laptop was NOT connected to the Internet, and (the kicker) the Washington Post made up the entire story, now retracted.

What was THAT all about? Fake News, and Vermont’s Democratic Party leadership with plenty of electronic egg on their faces.

AND – goosing along a much LARGER global story of alleged Russian “hacking” of the 2016 US presidential election, which itself is a GIANT distraction from rampant US voting/voter fraud perpetrated by both Democratic and Republican party operatives, beginning with the Clintonistas’ probable theft of the Democratic primary from Vermont junior Senator and 2016 president candidate Bernie Sanders, and ending with the electoral college victory of Donald Trump, despite his losing by close to 3 million votes (with close to 50% of eligible US voters sitting on the sidelines).

Amidst all the fake news, gas lighting, and disinformation, the parroting of propaganda by the Vermont Democratic Party leadership (again, see below) without any effort to investigate the veracity of the “Putin’s Russia Hacking The US Utility Grid Though Vermont!” story is what is most embarrassing to those of us awake and paying attention here in the Green Mountains.

Media Education 101, Messrs Leahy, Welch and Shumlin. Hop to it.

In the meantime, here is Roberts’ take:

Apparently, the CIA not only owns the US and European media, university faculties, the US Congress, the heads of state of the US Empire, many pseudo-fake leftwing and progressive Internet sites, but also the governors of the US states.

How can it happen that the citizens of Vermont are so incapable that they elected a mindless moron as governor? Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, called on federal officials “to conduct a full and complerte investigation” of Russia’s alleged hacking of Vermont’s electric grid system “and undertake that this never happens again.”

Of course, it never happened at all, as has been confirmed by US intelligence services. But this did not prevent the moronic governor from denouncing Russia for something that not only was Russia not responsible for but which we now know for certain never happened.

Listen to the moron elected governor by the insouciant people of Vermont:

“Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety. This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling.”

Is this idiotic governor simply stupid behond all belief, a half-wit, or is he a CIA asset?

Look at the idiots Vermonters have elected to the US Senate and House of Representatives. Here is Vermont’s Democratic US Senator Patrick Leahy: “This [the alleged Russian hacking] is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly.”

Here is the imbecilic Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat (yes Republicans have their share of imbeciles): “It’s systemic, relentless, predatory. They [Russia] will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country. We must remain vigilant, which is why I support President Obama’s sanctions against Russia and its attacks on our country and what it stands for.”

This from a member of the legislature of a country that is known to spy on the entire world, to disrupt operations everywhere, and has slaughtered and displaced millions of peoples in 9 countries during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes.

Where does Rep. Peter Welch get off?

The low grade morons at the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos trophy wife, went to their work with the totally unsubstantiated Fake News story of Putin’s hacking of Vermont’s electric grid. What a godsend. Here are the bloody Ruskies interfering with out electricity. Unnamed “senior administration officials” go on and on about what it might mean that Russia is hacking Vermont’s electric utility.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI quickly jumped in by issuing a joint analysis report, alleging “that the Russian military and civilian services activity ‘is part of an ongoing campaing of cyber-enabled operations directed at the US government and its citizens.” (Former link, now removed by the Washington Post).

These false charges could not be supported, and were officially disavowed by the US government.

One result was yet another retraction from the completely discredited Washington Post.

What sticks is the false image of Russia as a threat.

Those who produce these fake threats are leading the US into thermo-nuclear armageddon.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.