Why would Russia help Trump? Aside from the fact that Vladimir Putin has no love lost for Secretary Hillary Clinton he also stood to gain an insane amount of money.

The rift between Putin and Clinton, was sparked by her criticism of Russia’s parliamentary elections in 2011, which she said were not free or fair, and Putin was furious.
That re-election

tainted by widespread fraud allegations and massive protests, (could be followed by another run in 2018 keeping him in power until 2024).

After that election, Putin tearfully thanked supporters, declaring: "I promised that we would win and we have won! We have won in an open and honest struggle."

Sadly, like Herr Gropenführer, Putin is also a narcissist, concerned with his image.

The Russian president is also allegedly obsessed with knowing what the world is saying about him. Aides prepare daily press clippings, and while he rarely uses the Internet, his advisers show him parodies. "He must know how they mock him," sources say.

But more importantly, all those unpleasant election similarities aside, it's really all about the Rubles or the Benjamins. U.S. sanctions unfortunately, had dire consequences, much like the blockade of oil to the Japanese in 1941. Pearl Harbor was a physical declaration of war. This hack was a cyber version of the same exact affront.

Back in April, 2016, Lilia Shevtsova wrote in The American Interest about the powerful effect of US-European sanctions against Russia and Syria. Frozen assets in the U.S. of the oligarch Yuri Kovalchuk, a close ally of Putin, have totaled $572 million. In Italy, the Rottenberg brothers have also sustained losses worth nearly $40 million.

Ms. Shevtsova emphasizes that these “sanctions have exacerbated the economic recession in Russia: by accelerating capital flight and shrinking internal financial resources; by restricting Russia’s access to international financial markets and triggering a financial crunch; and by creating crisis of confidence in international business circles regarding Russia.” As a result, Russia could find no buyers or investors for its government-owned oil companies.

In March 2016, President Obama extended the sanctions on Russia for another year. (Apparently, this shocked the Kremlin, which expected that the U.S.-Russian agreement on Syria would mean softening of the sanctions regime.) Existing measures will stay in place as “Russia’s actions continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” the U.S. President’s decree says.

Curious, right? Putin's intent to seriously damage Hillary Clinton versus the unexpectedly propitious outcome of actually installing a flawed lunatic like Donald Trump paid dividends. Only eight months later, just one month after Election Day, this happened: Fortune Magazine reported:

Russia said on Wednesday it sold a stake in oil giant Rosneft for 10.5 billion €uros ($11.3 billion) to Qatar and commodities trader Glencore.

That $11.3 billion profit certainly makes a Trump victory seem much more financially appealing to the Kremlin indeed. ALWAYS follow the money. This election windfall really helps Putin mitigate losses from those sanctions that Trump will end, that have been costly and inconvenient.

It was personal too. Hillary Clinton not only supported the sanctions, but made it crystal clear that as President she would continue a hard line against Syria and Russia’s brutality. Not only would the current economic sanctions remain in place, but she promised more actions. Hillary was Putin’s number one threat to his power and to his country’s economic stability.

Vladimir Putin has proven to be nothing more than another brutal dictator. He will do anything—including murder—to maintain enormous power, thwart any and all perceived threats to him and Russia, while personally enriching himself with riches that no one covets more than Donald Trump. Trump's entanglements present another problem: blackmail. Just a few weeks before the election, not that it mattered, Slate's Franklin Foer broke this incredible story on Russia’s Alpha Bank server, which is installed in—yes, it’s true—Trump Tower! Funny how Corporate Media buried that story tout de suite.

To this day, Trump, and every member of his campaign, plus way too many Republicans have challenged the now insurmountable evidence that Russia and Putin himself directed a multiple and major hacking of US agencies. Why do these so-called Americans now in power trust Russia’s Intel more than our own? Because, it suits them, and allowed them to steal this election, and not just the Presidential Election we now know.

Eleven US Intelligence Services have confirmed the hacking by Russia of the following:
1. DNC 2. RNC 3. Hillary Clinton & her campaign 4. The Joint Chiefs of Staff email system
and most recently,
5. The US Election Assistance Commission, whose sole purpose is to certify the security of American voting machines.

We know that Donald Trump was an obvious and very easy choice, because he owes enormous financial debt to Russian Banks, and many others, likely. We haven't even begun to discuss CHINA. The amount that he owes is, of course, anyone's guess, but the fact that it's such a well-guarded secret, it has to be quite a fortune. We would know the exact amounts if the mainstream media had done their job of focusing on important news, instead of focusing most of their time on Trump’s sophomoric antics.

What if Corporate Media, sometimes called the 'mainstream media,' focused as much attention on Trump’s utter defiant refusal to release his tax returns as they did on Clinton’s e-mails? Well, I think we all know that answer.

Recently Hillary herself referred to our democratic process as 'a thing of the past.' Putin has eviscerated the very core of US democracy and put “free & fair elections” at great peril.

Hillary Clinton has almost 3,000,000 more votes. She is the clear winner of the popular vote. Don't hold your breath that the obsolete Electoral College will do the moral and right thing to protect our democratic republic and stop this madman. This is a fait accompli.

Since the President is limited in what he was able to do and thought he did enough to sound the alarm about the hacking and treachery, he said, in no uncertain terms, that the press dropped the ball, and that's that. He seems to be done with this election, sadly. In his last press conference, President Obama excoriated the press and all the folks who sat on this information for not acting on the intel.

So here we are, just days out from the Electoral College vote, this Monday, and having optimism will once again prove to be painful. Our most unpredictably perilous future will go on as Putin arranged, and he'll continue to have the traitorous Republicans to defend him over the interests of the American people. Deplorable does not do this atrocity justice. But steadfast we must remain and keep calling out these monsters. They're bound to eventually lose favor like Bush 43's crime family inevitably did, but hopefully America won't take almost eight full years to figure out how they voted to screw themselves most of all.

Credit is due to Meema Sue for her ideas, and the generous permission she granted me to elaborate and amend her original post. If you're reading this, likely you're beyond livid like most of the world and a good majority of America. The dilemma is how can we make sure we are an informed electorate, not just people under the illusion that we know what's really going on? How do we disseminate the sensationalism from the vital news so we don't allow ourselves to be duped again? We wish we knew.