“At a congressional hearing this week, Senator Richard Blumenthal displays an example of fake news disseminated by a Russian social-media account.” — The New Yorker

How Trump Helps Russian Trolls

by Ryan Lizza

Who knew?

It looks like Kremlin infiltration goes much deeper down the rabbit hole than we could possibly have imagined.

Did anyone ask Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT) just how dumb he must believe Hillary voters must be to fall for a photoshopped image of super-trustworthy-looking popular comic TV star Aziz Ansari holding a sign with a joke on it?

Or maybe both Blumenthal and New Yorker editor David Remnick are on Putin’s payroll as part of the Kremlin’s Operation MetaJoke to make Russia’s secret takeover of America seem silly?

In case you are thinking that old iSteve is just making this up for laughs, from ABC News:

MISLEADING ADS REVEALED

Sen. Richard Blumenthal revealed some of the ads taken out by Russians, including one that showed comedian Aziz Ansari holding up a sign that said “Save time, avoid the line, vote from home,” a message that falsely suggested voters could cast ballots by text message.

Another Twitter post urged voters to text “Hillary” to 59925 to cast their vote.

Blumenthal pressed Twitter’s acting general counsel Sean Edgett to commit to researching how many voters may have been misled into incorrectly believing they had voted because of the posts.

Blumenthal asked Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, how many people had responded to the ad and tried to vote for Clinton by tweeting.

Edgett said he did not know.

“We were focused on removing the content,” he said.

Although Edgett said Twitter took down the ad as “illegal voter suppression,” Blumenthal said similar ads kept being posted.

“I have 20, 30, 40 of them,” Blumenthal said. “They kept reappearing.”