You Don’t Think Smart People Can Be Scammed? February 19, 2018February 21, 2018 Read this. A guy “opened” a non-existent restaurant and posted so many fake reviews praising it, it became the hottest place in London. Literally #1 on Trip Advisor. No one could even get a reservation — because when they called for one, he’d tell them, sorry, sold out. So eventually, once it was literally the place to go, he opened it in his shed and served frozen dinners. And at least one couple was so pleased, they asked to re-book. It’s a great story. (And fascinating to know he got his start on this writing fake positive reviews of restaurants he’d never visited, at $13 a pop.) But — with this in mind — do you really think the massive Russian disinformation campaign was not able to get millions of people to think less of Hillary Clinton? > It got one well-intentioned North Carolina man to so believe she ran a child sex ring out of a DC pizza parlor that he showed up with an AR-15 and shot the place up! > It got millions to think there was “there” there with Benghazi, even though eight Congressional investigations found no wrongdoing. > It got millions — including my friend Matt’s hedge-fund uncle — to think Hillary gave Russia our uranium. (Snopes, among many others, points out this is false.) I don’t know whether any of these three phony smears actually originated with the Russians. Let’s assume not. But once they were in the air — perhaps from Trump pal Alex Jones, who claims the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax? — the Russian operation amplified them. Even with all this, Hillary won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump — more than ANY Republican presidential candidate had ever racked up. But Putin won, and unless the Supreme Court intervenes, Trump is the “national disgrace” (Colin Powell) and “dangerous con man” (Marco Rubio) . . . the “pathological liar” (Ted Cruz) and “complete idiot” (Karl Rove) . . . leading our great country deeper into debt, dishonor, and discord. My fantasy, once again . . . that someone soon sue to have the election overturned, once the Russian attack becomes widely known and accepted, and the Court issue this ruling: Seventeen years ago this Court faced a national crisis and — in a ruling it went out of its way to brand as non-precedential — made a tough and widely criticized call that, in effect, gave George W. Bush the Presidency and, as it happened, the opportunity to appoint two of us to this body. Last year, the Senate made the unprecedented decision not to allow the President to fill a vacancy on this Court, on the grounds that the will of the people as expressed in 2008 and 2012 did not give him that authority — the Senate needed to see how the people leaned in 2016. As we now know, the people in 2016 — not the Electoral College, the people — leaned toward the Democratic candidate. Today we face a new crisis. In developments that have been building all year, it has become clear that the 2016 election results were interfered with by a massive Putin-directed thumb on the electoral scale. In that context, we have been called upon to overturn the 2016 result as tainted, and to order a workable mechanism by which the country can move forward and regain its footing. We hereby direct former presidents Obama and Bush, acting in concert, to recommend to this Court, in the shortest time possible, an interim president and vice president to serve out the remainder of this presidential term — or a shorter term if a majority of the House and Senate shall call for an earlier election. Or something like that. And Barack and George, very different people but both sane patriots, would perhaps recommend to the Court Joe Biden and Mitt Romney; the Court would approve; and most of the nation — not having attained anything like great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost — nor remotely to have tired of “winning so much they got tired of winning” — would breathe a huge sigh of relief. As would the world. In the meantime, I know a great restaurant in London.