Russiagate's Greatest Hits

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 12:48pm

Now that Mueller has turned in his final report, but without indictments, it's time to acknowledge that Russiagate has now matured into a fully developed konspiracy theory.
This means several things. Primarily it means that Russiagate's already tenuous connection to reality can now be severed. Too many careers depend on Russiagate.

The careers of many previously semi-obscure Democratic members of Congress have been greatly enhanced—if that is the right word—by their aggressive promotion of Russiagate. (Think, for example, of the ubiquitous media coverage and cable-television appearances awarded to Representatives Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Maxine Walters, and to Senators Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal.) If Mueller fails to report “collusion” of real political substance, these and other Russiagate zealots, as well as their supporters in the media, will need to reinterpret run-of-the-mill (and bipartisan) financial corruption and mundane “contacts with Russia” as somehow treasonous.

Democratic politicians are only a small minority of those careers.
There is late-night comedians and political pundits. Plus those that profit from political tensions, like the intelligence industry, the MIC, defense lobbyists, and of course the grifters at New Knowlege and Hamilton 68.
Let's not forget how incredibly useful Russiagate is for TPTB.

By an extraordinary coincidence, virtually all the “anti-system” movements and candidates that so terrified the political establishment two years ago have since been identified as covert or overt Russian destabilization initiatives, puppeteered from afar by the diabolical anti-Western dictator, Vladimir von Putin-Evil.

Since Trump’s election, we’ve been told Putin was all or partly behind the lot of it: the Catalan independence movement, the Sanders campaign, Brexit, Jill Stein’s Green Party run, Black Lives Matter, the resignations of intra-party Trump critics Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, Sean Hannity’s broadcasts, and, of course, the election of Trump himself.

We’ve jumped straight past debating the efficacy of democracy to just reflexively identifying most anti-establishment sentiment as illegitimate, treasonous, and foreign in nature...RT stories about 100% American protests against fracking, surveillance abuses, and “alleged Wall Street greed,” were part of “Russian strategic messaging” campaigns, the intelligence analysts insisted.

One thing that is so hilarious is how many times the media practically begged leftists to get on-board with Russiagate. A Russiagate without actual leftists always looked dubious. These attempts will now stop.

NYMag: "It is very strange that the self-styled populist wing of the left is so indifferent to this project."

Atlantic: "If Blumenthal and Greenwald are indignant about Kris Kobach’s efforts to limit Americans’ ability to choose their leaders, they should be indignant about Vladimir Putin’s too."

NYTimes: "But as the investigation led by Robert Mueller closes in on more Trump associates like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, it seems clear that the Russia story is only going to get bigger. Rather than downplay or deny it, the left should embrace it."

Week: "But the Russiagate story matters, and the left should be paying attention...But consider Watergate, probably the most relevant comparison (indeed, at this point it seems likely that Russiagate is considerably worse than that scandal)."

Russiagate skeptics point to independent (and anti-Putin) Russian journalists and activists, who have been highly critical of Western reporting on the scandal, finding it overheated, flawed and sometimes laughable. They also point to a media climate that has permitted all manner of errors, so long as accusations and conspiracies involve Russia.

With that in mind, the Intercept has a great Russiagate Top 10 list for all of the best journalistic fails.

#10

#9

#8

#6

#5

#4

#2

#1

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russiagate
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Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 2:24pm

RT has some fun

Caitlin Johnstone unloads

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Submitted by Shahryar on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 1:22pm
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or that Mueller was a Trump plant all along.

and by "TOP" I don't just mean TOP, I mean all the people who believed something just because they were told it and wanted to believe it.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 8:18pm

@Shahryar @Shahryar
Selection_002_5.png

Mueller was a Trump plant all along.

Mocking Russiagaters was what got me banned on GOS.
Now they will be just like Repubs who still believe Saddam was behind 9/11

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Submitted by detroitmechworks on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 1:41pm
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But then, people used to turn into soap operas all the time before they moved them to the news slot.

I mean, this isn't "An Alien shows up" or "Oh look, they are getting married AGAIN", but they are hitting all the requisite beats. Goes on way too long between anything happening, Most of the stuff takes place on the same few sets, and the actors should have fucking retired YEARS ago.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMFm4bqqu2o]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by dkmich on Sun, 03/24/2019 - 8:54am

Trump’s term is more than halfway over, and Russiagaters chose to suck all the oxygen out of the room for this brainless, fruitless, worthless endeavor instead of allowing space for progressive reform and for criticism of Trump’s actual pernicious policies from the left. And they did it on purpose.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 03/23/2019 - 8:29pm

@dkmich WMD's

For those anxious to keep the dream alive, the Times published its usual graphic of Trump-Russia “contacts,” inviting readers to keep making connections. But in a separate piece by Peter Baker, the paper noted the Mueller news had dire consequences for the press:

It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole…

This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: “Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?”

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Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 03/25/2019 - 5:01am
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But those “independent researchers” don’t get 1% of the media attention that “independent researchers” like Crowdstrike or Fusion GPS get, whose supposed independence turns out to be Deep-State and Democrat-linked connections in a paper-thin disguise.

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