Today is a very serious day because it’s today we’ll find out if Washington will be pulling out of the Paris climate accord or not. If Trump chooses to pull Washington out of the Paris climate accord, the air outside will become very heavy with dread and, well, emissions, and catapult us toward assured and quick global demise. So imagine our surprise when the Notable Life team scored a morning chuckle care of none other than Vladimir Putin.
Putin actually said something quite funny, mostly because it’s ludicrous. Speaking to the Associated Press in St. Petersburg on hacking and elections, and whether Russia meddles in either, he hilariously said, ““Hackers are free people, just like artists who wake up in the morning in a good mood and start painting,” and so therefore Russia had nothing to do with hacking the U.S. Presidential elections last fall.
Seems like a fair point, right? That because hackers are like artists, who wake up in a good mood and choose to paint, they get to wake up in a good mood and hack if they want to — and hack whatever they feel like, including the United States elections! Bonus points for good-mood hackers who are patriotic to Russia and just feel like benefitting their national interests at the expense of another’s.
Putin denies that Russia The Country has interfered in any election but he’s not denying that sometimes hackers are Russian, and sometimes are in good moods, and wake up wanting to hack elections. It’s not Russia The Country’s fault! No, election interference is probably just the Happy Russian Hackers’ faults.
Congressional panels and the FBI are investigating figures close to President Trump for their links to Russia. Meanwhile European intelligence agencies have said Russia is using the same tactics in elections in France, the Netherlands, and Germany in favour of the populist candidates in those countries. Establishment-supported candidates won elections in France and the Netherlands. Germany’s elections are in the fall, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely expected to win re-election.
Putin’s acknowledgment that it was “theoretically possible” that “patriotic” Russians may have engaged in hacking is his first admission that Russians could have played any such role.
But at least he made us laugh!