At the outset of Red Dawn, Russian paratroopers open-fire on a high school. I think I recall the camera lingering on a dead kid. It's a chilling opening sequence to a film that quickly tumbles and lurches into jingoistic ridiculousness. Wolverines!

All my life, all my parents' life, and much of my grandparents' life – for almost three generations – we've heard claims of Russians infiltrating our unions, student groups, civil rights groups, the Black Panther Party, the Democratic Party, environmental movements, libraries, novelists, Hollywood, water filtration systems, immigrants, parklands, Disneyland, jazz, soul, rap, rock, funk, reggae, dancing, hippies, beats, comedians, poets, priests, rabbis, military services, comic books, farm workers, migrants, doctors, professors, universities, high schools, elementary schools, preschools, cartoons, textbooks, magazines, rebels, punks, slackers, sports, and neighborhoods...

But all along it was the National Rifle Association. The aged agents of the KGB finally found a home for their propaganda and money... a receptive organization intent on fostering fear and American carnage. Influence is invasion. The similarity between the fictional Wolverines and the Stroman Douglas Eagles: innocent dead kids.

School Shootings since 2009: United States 288 Mexico 8 South Africa 6 India 5 Pakistan 4 Nigeria 4 Afghanistan 3 France 2 Canada 2 Brazil 2 Greece 1 China 1 Kenya 1 Azerbaijan 1 Germany 1 Russia 1 Estonia 1 Turkey 1 Hungary 1 Spain 0 Australia 0 Switzerland 0 Italy 0 Japan 0 Netherlands 0 Argentina 0 United Kingdom 0 ... the list of none goes on and on, obviously.

Didn't even require paratroopers.

So, civility aside (where it ought to be tossed in an era of oligarchy and fascism), fuck you NЯA.

All of which is really just a dispiriting preamble to...

In a 2016 recorded conversation between Republican congressmen:

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) claimed. McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

Paul Ryan then instructed his Republican colleagues to keep the conversation private, saying: “No leaks... This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

Yesterday's indictment of Mario Butina suggested she arranged a Kremlin private backchannel with a GOP politician through the NRA... making this an incredibly tidy addendum and raising this preposterous question:

Given that there are at least two instances in which Trump revealed classified information to Russian a foreign minister and ambassador... is the President of the United States a Russian spy?

I doubt it. But he is traitorous.

The Rock*A*Teens' single from their first record in nearly 20 years is "Go Tell Everybody." I first saw the Rock*A*Teens at CBGBs. Their ancient and echoey guitar sound was not New York. They took the wry delivery of the Fall and merged it with southern-rock swampiness. The band should've been hailed as a post-punk garage wonder. Instead, they simply spawned a heap of more popular bands that sound like 'em (The Hold Steady, Okkervil River, etc.). I'm glad they're back.