@Pluto's Republic Matt Taibbi

This is one of the tricks that keeps every good conspiracy theory going. Nobody wants to be the one claiming the emperor has no clothes the day His Highness walks out naked. And this Russia thing has spun out of control into just such an exercise of conspiratorial mass hysteria.
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One way we recognize a mass hysteria movement is that everyone who doesn't believe is accused of being in on the plot. This has been going on virtually unrestrained in both political and media circles in recent weeks.
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I've written a few articles on the Russia subject that have been very tame, basically arguing that it might be a good idea to wait for evidence of collusion before those of us in the media jump in the story with both feet. But even I've gotten the treatment.

I've been "outed" as a possible paid Putin plant by the infamous "PropOrNot" group, which is supposedly dedicated to rooting out Russian "agents of influence." You might remember PropOrNot as the illustrious research team the Washington Post once relied on for a report that accused 200 alternative websites of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season."

Politicians are getting into the act, too. It was one thing when Rand Paul balked at OKing the expansion of NATO to Montenegro, and John McCain didn't hesitate to say that "the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin."

Even Bernie Sanders has himself been accused of being a Putin plant by Mensch. But even he's gotten on board of late, asking, "What do the Russians have on Mr. Trump?"

So even people who themselves have been accused of being Russian plants are now accusing people of being Russian plants. As the Russians would say, it's enough to make your bashka hurt.

And this isn't being called "fake news".

Far more noticeable and obvious are those rare occurrences of "real" news — a written essay that is clearly well-researched and presented ruthlessly, inconveniently, and often sociopathically, with no regard to anyones's coddled sensibilities. Occassionally one stumbles across real news in odd places like Rolling Stone, where the word "investigate" is used in a credible fashion.

For nearly thirty years, "investigate" has meant that all attributions point to super-secret "insider sources" — that most cynical of propaganda delivery systems.

Most of what we talk about here and on other blogs are "opinion" pieces that are intellectually sound, or better yet, information analysis. But the actual facts of the matters at hand are not yet collected and guarded in any repository of note. The best we can muster is Wikipedia, where the facts are still awaiting manipulation and interpretation. The idea of Holocaust denial is an actual genre of thinking about information. Things like the JFK assassination and 9/11 have not even begun to gel into solid history.

The one bright spot in all this is that the American people do not trust their news. Good for them. That's something I can really respect.

I was reading an editorial in a foreign newspaper yesterday about how Donald Trump lied to the people 75 percent of the time, according to Politifact. Thus, Hillary was regarded as far more fit to lead the nation with a lying rate of only 49 percent! Free speech and freedom of the press, the editorial pointed out, had corrupted and perverted US society and responsible political thinking and governance. No one is held accountable for lying to the people about reality. There are no consequences for such social sabotage. There is no fairness doctrine. No direct challenge or rebuttal. The smears are allowed to stand.

The editorial explained that these "freedoms" are something that the American people are very, very proud of. How is it possible that there is energy to get excited over the ever-present and ubiquitous "fake" news? Such excitement would be a full time job for an American citizen, if they were to do it conscientiously. It would be completely exhausting to do it for even a day.