LAST WEEK WAS A POLITICAL TRAIN WRECK

Russian meddling comes to Tennessee

Careful what you read.

A Russian-faked Tennessee GOP Twitter account, @Ten_GOP, “claimed to speak for Tennessee Republicans to convince American politicians, celebrities and journalists to share select content with their own massive lists of followers,” according to The Washington Post.

The list of people who tweeted out links from the account, which Twitter shut down in August, includes former Trump officials Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, celebrities Nicki Minaj and James Woods, and media personality Anne Coulter and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

The Post reported that there is no evidence that any of them knew the account was run by Russians.

“The spread of links from the account shows the remarkable reach of a disinformation campaign that harnessed the power of American celebrity and the immediacy of social media to propel messages farther, faster and more cheaply than possible even a few years ago,” according to the report.

One tweet by @Ten_GOP on Oct. 10, 2016, the day after the second presidential debate, reads: “Trump slaughtered Hillary,” with the words followed by images of knives and the hashtag #debate.

Michael Sullivan, executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party, whose actual verified handle is @TNGOP, said his group had complained to Twitter about the account in September of last year, as well as in March and August.

Heads up.

John Kelly loses our trust

It became really clear last week why too many generals in the White House is not necessarily a good thing.

Plenty of wise people have known this for a long time. But with Donald Trump in charge of the country, the abundant presence of generals near the Oval Office seemed — at least until now — to be somewhat comforting.

Then came Trump’s bumbling so-called condolence to the young wife of a fallen Green Beret who was killed with three other servicemen in Niger more than two weeks ago.

Family members and a close family friend, Rep. Frederica Wilson, said Trump told the widow that her husband “knew what he signed up for… but I guess it still hurts.” And he referred to the soldier, La David T. Johnson, only as “your guy,” according to both the congresswoman and Sgt. Johnson’s mother, who heard the call on speaker phone.

In the imbroglio that followed, Kelly went to the White House press room to defend the president, talk about hearing similar words from another military man about the death of his own son and to relay what he called the “selfish” behavior of the “empty barrel” congresswoman, whom he never named.

In sinking to his boss’ new low of politicizing the death of service members and insulting a member of Congress, Kelly makes us question why we should believe for another minute that he’s there to protect us from Trump’s dangerous whims.

Kelly clearly has his own demons.

White House then defends Kelly

You can’t stop watching this train wreck.

The day after Kelly defended the president, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to defend Kelly because a 2015 video shows that he misrepresented Congresswoman Wilson’s remarks from an unrelated incident that he used to try to smear her.

In defending Kelly, Sanders told the media it’s “highly inappropriate” to question a four-star Marine general.

Horse feathers!

Let’s be clear: Kelly is not now a Marine general. He is the White House chief of staff who was trotted out to the daily news briefing to provide cover for how poorly Trump handled a phone call to the family of a dead soldier. Then Kelly went on to disparage a Congress member and tell an untrue story about her.

The last time we checked, this is still America and we still have a free press and a strong First Amendment. All Americans — not just the press — still have a right to question the remarks of a White House chief of staff or any other government official whether he is a general or not.

Don’t let this lame administration ever make you think otherwise.

Puerto Rico still in the dark

The pathetic hurricane response in Puerto Rico is a horrifying and continuing failure of the administration.

Four weeks after Hurricane Maria, 80 percent of the island, which is about the size of the southeast corner of Tennessee, still doesn’t have electricity. A third of Puerto Rico, about 1 million Americans, still doesn’t have running water. Even the lucky ones who have water service are still subject to a government advisory to boil the water before use due to contamination. Boil it how exactly? By burning what’s left of their houses?

FEMA says it has distributed 23.6 million liters of bottled and bulk water to the 100-mile by 35-mile island, but those deliveries satisfy only 9 percent of the island’s drinking water requirement. Cellular service is still hard to find because 75 percent of antennas are down. Only a quarter of the island’s hospitals have electricity from the power grid.

FEMA has deployed 1,700 people to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and another 20,000 other federal staffers and military personnel are there, yet still much of the supplies and help are not getting to interior areas of the island, according to volunteers and news reports.

President Trump said his administration deserves “a 10 out of 10” for its response.

Would this be a 10 in Southeast Tennessee?