Originally published Mar 24

Now that the long-awaited Mueller Report is at last writing finis to the wholly unwarranted claim that the Trump campaign was “colluding” with the Russian state to corrupt our democracy, the astute analyst Michael Tracey has offered some pungent observations:

It will take years to fully process the true scope of the media failure on Trump/Russia. The scale of their malfeasance is breathtaking. I have eternal contempt for these self-interested, cynical frauds who deceived the public for profit and political gain. Malignant scumbags.
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I’m just going to keep saying it. The same coalition of nefarious neocons, liberal interventionists, ideologically-driven security state officials, and motivated-reasoning media alarmists who brought you the Iraq War also brought you Trump/Russia. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
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For almost three years I’ve been lambasted every single day for “defending Trump” because I rejected that there was ample evidence for a Trump/Russia global espionage conspiracy. You know who was really “defending Trump” after all? The people who promoted this nonsense.
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Congratulations to Russia-obsessed Democrats for being the single-most valuable contributors to the Donald J. Trump 2020 re-election campaign!

Tracey is right — the hysterical promulgators of the Russiagate narrative have finally only succeeded in making Trump seem more sympathetic to the Independent voters who will determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

Not only did Trump associates not collude improperly with Russians attempting to influence the 2016 election, they actually FENDED OFF a number of offers from individuals purporting to represent Russia who claimed to have damaging info on Hillary Clinton. In all probability, some or all of these interactions were set ups by US and UK intelligence operatives attempting to create the false impression that Trump’s team was seeking help from the Russian government.

The Elements of Spygate
https://caucus99percent.com/content/elements-spygate

The Entrapment of Papadopouplos — The Deep State “Informants” Used Against the Trump Campaign Were…
https://caucus99percent.com/content/entrapment-papadopouplos%E2%80%8A%E2...

Yet the Trump/Russia collusion hoax was only the tip of the iceberg. The claims that the Russian government executed a plan to intervene in our election on behalf of Trump are unsupported by any publicly available evidence. They were concocted by Hillary’s campaign in concert with their hired lackey Crowdstrike and their allies in the Deep State. Allies such as Brennan and Clapper who are documented perjurers and virtually psychotic Russophobes. Mueller’s indictment of Russian intelligence operatives for hacking the DNC and Podesta and transferring their booty to Wikileaks, is bogus at its core, as is readily demonstrated.

Every Aspect of Russiagate is an Outright HOAX, Crafted by Paid Associates of the DNC, and Abetted…
https://caucus99percent.com/content/every-aspect-russiagate-outright-hoa...

Mueller’s New Indictment — Do the Feds Take Us for Idiots?!
https://caucus99percent.com/content/mueller%E2%80%99s-new-indictment%E2%...

To understand that Mueller’s investigation of Russian hacking during the 2016 election was in fact an overt farce, one need only note the fact that Mueller never attempted to interview Julian Assange, Craig Murray, or Kim Dotcom, all of whom knew or claimed to know the sources of the DNC/Podesta emails released by Wikileaks.

Mueller’s indictment of principals of the Internet Research Agency — a private Russian company making money in the US by building a diverse array of websites and driving eyes to these sites with inexpensive internet ads — is a bad joke on the American public. The actual indictments are for: placement of 13 (!) ads (out of about 3,000 the IRA purchased), costing in total somewhere around $500, which boosted Trump or attacked Hillary during election season — a technical violation of campaign laws, as foreign nationals are forbidden to buy campaign ads; purloining of the identity of one US individual, which enabled the members of the IRA to receive Paypal payments (said theft causing no expense or inconvenience whatever to its target); and an alleged misstatement of the motivation for a trip of two Russians to the US on a visa application years before the election. This was hilariously spun as a nefarious plot by the Russian government to “cause chaos and destroy our faith in our Democracy”. This idiotic claim was adopted only after it became obvious that the ads purchased showed no clear intent to elect Trump. The politicians and media whores who ceaselessly parroted that ridiculous claim should never be taken seriously again. (“So Ivan, what are your career objectives?” “Well, I had been thinking of going to medical school, but I have decided instead to devote my efforts to creating chaos in American democracy, as the Americans are not capable of creating enough of their own chaos.”)

HILARITY ALERT: Moon of Alabama Explains What the Indicted Russian Trolls Were Really Doing
https://caucus99percent.com/content/hilarity-alert-moon-alabama-explains...

None of Mueller’s other indictments had anything to do with “collusion with Russia”. With one exception, they arose from process crimes stemming from the investigation itself. Evidently, Mueller’s team was intent on interrogating Trump associates and catching them in inconsequential misstatements — thereby enabling the investigators to file perjury indictments to justify their costly investigation, and to squeeze the victims in search of (non-existent) evidence incriminating Trump. With respect to Manafort, he had indeed committed real financial crimes in the previous decade — crimes that had nothing whatever to do with Trump’s subsequent campaign. It is telling that the DOJ had investigated these crimes earlier and had declined to prosecute.

Claims that Russian government hackers have been trying to break into our electoral data bases to influence the outcome of our elections, are without merit, and have been demolished by journalist Gareth Porter.

How the Department of Homeland Security Created a Deceptive Tale of Russia Hacking US Voter Sites
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/28/how-the-department-of-homeland-sec...

But this is just a small part of the malicious calumnies leveled against Russia and its allies during recent years by our Deep State and its media toadies. No, Russia or pro-Russian rebels DID NOT shoot down MH17 — we now know that the missile responsible had been in the possession of the Ukrainian SSR when the Soviet Union dissolved. No, Russia DID NOT invade Crimea — its troops were already there under terms of an agreement with Ukraine, and its annexation was achieved only after the Crimean people had overwhelmingly requested it in a referendum organized by their own duly elected parliament. The Skripals always certainly WERE NOT the victims of an assassination attempt by Russian agents; engaging in political assassination right before their marquee World Cup was the last thing the Russian state would want to do, the British government has repeatedly overtly lied about this case, and informed speculation suggests that the operation was a British false flag intended to silence Skripal (who is suspected of contributing to the fraudulent Steele dossier). No, Assad’s government DID NOT “gas its own people” — this claim stemmed from false flag attacks and hoaxes concocted by murderous jihadis funded and armed directly and indirectly by Western and Gulf State interests, working in collaboration with their White Helmets propaganda arm, whose phony claims were swallowed whole by our complicit MSM.

Did the Syrian Army Ever Use Chemical Weapons in the Recent War? I Very Much Doubt It.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/did-syrian-army-ever-use-chemical-we...

White Helmets Report on Douma Proven to be a Total Fraud — Mainstream Media Remain Silent
https://caucus99percent.com/content/white-helmets-report-douma-proven-be...

As Gareth Porter has also clarified, Iran in all probability HAS NEVER HAD a nuclear weapons program.

Gareth Porter: The "Manufactured Crisis" and drive for U.S. / Israel military actions against Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY-6mmj3HsI

And the citizens of Venezuela ARE NOT starving, their government IS NOT refusing humanitarian aid from well-intended allies and international organizations, and most of their economy is in private hands. LIE upon LIE upon LIE — all intended to provide us with ENEMIES so that our Military-Industrial-Surveillance Complex can continue to ROB US BLIND and do the bidding of our puppet master Israel.

Not surprisingly, we’ve recently learned about the Orwellian-titled Integrity Initiative, a secret project funded by the UK government whose goal was to coordinate the efforts of complicit journalists worldwide to target Russia with smear after smear:

Moon of Alabama Unveils Western Government-Funded Smear Campaign Against Russia
https://caucus99percent.com/content/moon-alabama-unveils-western-governm...

And these efforts apparently have fallen on fertile ground. The rampant, seething Russophobia that now underlies much American political discourse, both from Democrats and Republicans, is beyond despicable. Those in its thrall are little different from the Germans who parroted the psychotic anti-Semitism of the Nazis, or the racists of the Jim Crow South. Americans now spit out the phrase “the Russians” the way others once referred to “the Jews” or “the N — — — .” Would it be too much to ask these people: what has Russia ever done to YOU to make you so hate-filled? The Russians were our allies in both World Wars, and their incredible heroism and sacrifice in the WWII may have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans. After 9/11, Putin was the first foreign leader to offer the US tangible help. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia asked to join NATO — though of course they were refused, as NATO realized they needed an enemy to justify their continuing existence. The current confrontations in eastern Europe have come about largely because the US broke its solemn pledge to Gorbachev not to expand NATO one inch eastward. And, in case it has slipped your attention, it is the US that has initiated a number of illegal catastrophic wars over the last two decades — wars that have caused the death, maiming, or exile of literally millions of innocent civilians, while only fomenting more terrorism and leading to grave refugee crises. Yet the American war criminals responsible have gone unpunished — while the American people by and large reserve their contempt and hatred for Putin, even though Russia has initiated no such wars.

And what eats at me the most — because I was a Democrat back in the day when the Democrats were the “peace party” — is how hatred of Trump and the canards of Russiagate have turned so-called “liberals” into fanatic foes of Russia. This is particularly bizarre given that, only 7 years ago, Democrats laughed along when Obama ridiculed Romney for describing Russia as an enemy. And they seem to be oblivious to the fact that this hatred undermines the progressive political agenda. If we are spending ever more money on our defense establishments and new generations of nuclear weapons to intimidate “our enemies”, how are we ever going to have the money to pay for the humane social programs that progressives would like our government to implement? Nor should we lose sight of the fact that a pointless Second Cold War puts all of civilization at risk for a nuclear catastrophe triggered by accident or by escalation of a smaller conflict. This is sheer insanity — as Caitlin Johnstone has powerfully underlined.

The Increasing Likelihood Of Nuclear War Should Straighten Out All Our Priorities
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-increasing-likelihood-of-nuclear-...

Prior to the Deep State lies and deceptions which motivated our invasion of Iraq — lies parroted robotically by most of our mainstream media — I might have excused people who simply believed what they are told. But after the experience of Iraq, anyone who accepts the claims of our Deep State, without demanding concrete verifications and vetting them in the independent media, is acting with grave irresponsibility. In particular, in the last several years, our MSM have disgraced themselves beyond any possibility of redemption. TURN THEM OFF!!! Seek your news from credible, critical online sources — preferably sources that are barely eking out an existence via support from their viewers. The well-funded outlets owned by plutocratic interests have demonstrated that they are unworthy of any attention whatever.