The Return of Russiagate

Despite the best efforts of her Joyful Vibe Machine, Kamala Harris remains in a statistical dead heat with Donald Trump.

So with only two months to go before Election Day, the Uniparty has had to augment the joy with some good old-fashioned fear-mongering. Just when you thought the debunked Russiagate vampire narrative was resting safely in its grave, the stake of sanity thrust firmly in its heart, its producers have come back to haunt us with yet another cheesy sequel.

It's even more gruesomely  gory messaging than usual in this election cycle, because the US is actually at physical war with Russia via its client state, Ukraine. And a Trump victory, we are told, might slow or even stop the flow of billions of dollars in weaponry, the profits of which continue to  enrich investors and corporations beyond their wildest dreams. 

So the Paper of Record and the Uniparty have no other choice but to spread the word that if you are opoosed to this war or  or even worse, openly express your negative opinions about this war,  you just might be a Trump supporter and/or or a Putin puppet. You are at least the"unwitting" victim of another Russian disinformation and election-interference campaign.

If you're not careful, you may even end up in a a criminal courtroom!

 The New York Times, perhaps the premier self-professed media guardian against the alleged plague of "disinformation" sweeping the globe, wasn't taking any chances in its Tuesday edition.  It  was even forced to fight Bad Disinformation with Less-bad Disinformation! 

"Activists Charged With Pushing Russian Propaganda Go on Trial in Florida" was the false and misleading home page headline,  strategically placed right below its coverage of the Ukraine war, which is not going particularly well these days. 

Since the spreading of propaganda - Russian or otherwise - is not a criminal offense in the United States thanks to the First Amendment, the Times headline is deliberately and patently false.

It is not until deep into the article that the Times bothers to correctly report that the actual charge is not the spreading of propaganda at all. The crime alleged is simply the activists' failure to register as agents of a foreign government.  Their acceptance of relatively small donations or payments from a Russian national to help finance a run for local office is apparently the gist of their perfidy.

 But the damage was done in the headline. Many readers of news don't read beyond the headline or lead of any given news story.

The subhead of the Times article continues the subterfuge, citing "experts" who have been warning us that Russia has "tried for decades to secretly influence American politics."

However, the only expert that the article quotes by name is one Bret Schafer, a "senior fellow" at the German Marshall Fund,  weapons industry-funded NATO think tank located in Washington.

In the Florida case, which did not result in any pro-Russia candidate elected to public office, the payoff for Russia may seem exceedingly small. But on a broader level, Mr. Schafer said, Russia wants more “authentic” American groups to adopt Russia’s perspective.

“Even if they are not in a real position of power,” he said, “if you can infiltrate and influence enough of these groups and have them at some level adopting positions that are beneficial to you — and that doesn’t necessarily mean pro-Russian positions, but just to further radicalize them and create further divisions — we know that’s obviously a win for Russia."

The subterfuge still continues.  The Times has failed to inform readers that Schafer's expertise is limited to his creation of the notorious Hamilton 68 Dashboard, which purported to list hundreds of Twitter users as Russian bots or trolls trying to  mess with our free, fair and democratic elections. Journalist Matt Taibbi exposed the dashboard last year as a complete fraud, and verified that many if not most of the accounts belonged to innocent citizens who were unaware of their placement on the phony blacklist.

The fake dashboard has risen from the grave under the new name of Hamilton 2.0 and Schafer continues his role as go-to source for any corporate media outlet invested in the lucrative Russiagate franchise. Don't they say that love is better the second time around?

In case you're wondering how Schafer got to be such an expert , look no further than his website bio. Before embarking on a career in professional Russophobia,he worked as a writer at the Cartoon Network.

The Russiagate franchise is just starting to get its second (or third or fourth or fifth) wind. 

Of course, since no one fraudster or clown can  sell the Russiagate product all byhis lonesome, the Times followed up the next day with an announcement that the entire "United States Announces Plan to Counter Russian Influence Ahead of 3024 Election."

Just in case you aren't taking the cautionary tale of those Florida defendants seriously enough, or  scoffing at AOC's vicious attack on Jill Stein, the Times is here to inform you that as either witting or unwitting tools of the Kremlin, you may be subject to searches and seizures of your computers, your websites with resulting criminal indictments and even economic sanctions! You may be under FBI investigation right this very minute:

"The Justice Department and the F.B.I. have also been investigating a handful of Americans accused of knowingly spreading false Kremlin narratives. But officials have emphasized that they are not aiming to curb free speech. Americans who merely repeat or spread stories they see on Russian state media are not being investigated as part of the efforts, officials said."

I love the way they claim that their McCarthyism does not infringe upon the First Amendment. You can think or write or say anything you want. Just know that they are watching you.

Ray McGovern over at Consortium News quotes the article at greater length, suggesting  that the latest version of Russiagate is designed to make American citizens amenable to a direct war on Russia. And that means getting Kamala Harris elected.

The latest indication that the U.S. is already under rule by one state party is Liz Cheney's endorsement of Harris. She is already being floated for a cabinet position in a next Democratic administration. And that makes it more pressing for the media-political complex to overcome what's known as the Vietnam Syndrome: the distaste of US citizens for war and imperialsm. If they were able to cure this syndrome temporarily with Daddy Dick Cheney's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, they think they can overcome it again, by making war and mass death so damned bipartisan and downright joyful.

Send in the clowns, indeed.

"If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Fear!"