voting booths
© Reuters/Brendan McDermid
The Daily Beast continues its mission to become a regular contributor to the Digest this week with some clairvoyant journalism, while a number of Senators are playing the Russophobia card ahead of the midterms.

Here's a look at the last seven days or so of Russophobia.

Another Beastly story

The Daily Beast makes the Digest again this week. It is now innovating the very concept of breaking news, by reporting events before they actually happen.

The beastly story is titled: Researchers: No Evidence That Russia Is Messing With Campaign 2018 - Yet and it's an absolute beauty, it even starts with a stereotype about bears!

The story is actually just a list of self-appointed analysts concluding that while there is no evidence of anything happening, Russians can still be blamed for it.

The level of expertise on show is staggering. Robert Johnston, CEO of Adlumin remarked,"They needed that level of action in 2016 to achieve their objective. They don't need that today. Today is a much different America than 2016."

Yes it is different. It's paranoid, Russophobic and refusing to accept responsibility for anything.

The lights are definitely out

Britain's Times newspaper led with a story this week declaring that the UK is 'war-gaming' a cyber attack on Moscow in order to "turn off the lights in Moscow to tell them that they are not doing the right things". That's right, just turn off the lights in Moscow.

When Britain's Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson claimed earlier this year that Russia was also making similar plans, he declared Moscow could "actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country [Britain]."

This gives us a key comparison to show how Russophobia works.

Russia does it = "thousands and thousands and thousands" dead.

Britain does it = "turns out the lights in the Kremlin".


Russophobia by proxy

US Senators Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson are trying to push through something called the European Energy Security and Diversification Act which aims to combat "Russia's energy dominance" in Europe.

No, that's not a mistake ... that is two Americans making legislation to diversify European energy.

Why?

Because "Russia uses its dominance of the energy market, along with bribery, corruption and propaganda to undermine Western institutions" say Murphy and Johnson who clearly want Washington to secure a monopoly on undermining foreign institutions.

Russia tends to dominate because it has lots of energy and Europe has lots of money, which has worked pretty well so far. Selling goods for money seems like a good system, someone should give it a name.

Burr-ying the truth

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr says he isn't ready to conclude Donald Trump's campaign didn't work with Russia, even though the committee can't find any evidence of it.

Why is he so adamantly refusing to admit defeat? Well Trump is using Burr's admission of a lack of evidence as proof his campaign had nothing to do with Moscow.

Burr told CNN that while the President is right that his committee has found no "hard evidence" of collusion, the investigation isn't over.

The Republican senator would rather continue down a blind alley than admit the investigation is probably more about Russophobia than evidence at this point.