I agree with Glen Greenwald.
That's a sentence I thought I would never write, but I have and it's true. In a column on The Intercept, Greenwald points out how the media is willing to accept any claim that indicates collusion between Trump and Russia in the campaign without ever bothering to check the facts on which the claim is based. Greenwald bases his column on the latest story to collapse, namely the one from last week in which we were told that 21 state election systems were the target of Russian hackers. Except the story was false. The chief election officer in Wisconsin said the claim that his state's system was hacked is bogus. Then the Secretary of State of California issued an angry denunciation of the same story as false. Then more states joined the chorus. Then the whole story collapsed. But as Greenwald points out, the denials don't seem to matter; the story was published in the NY Times, so it MUST be right.
Greenwald goes on to debunk the claim by Bill Kristol's new group that Twitter was used by the Russians to affect the election. That's based upon supposedly finding "bots" controlled by the Kremlin that posted inflammatory items on Twitter designed to help Trump. Of course, the Kristol group refuses to name even one such "bot". We're just supposed to trust them. Trusting Bill Kristol, however, is not something that any sane person would do, but the media reported the latest story nevertheless.
Here we are nearly a year after the election and nearly a year and a half after the federal government supposedly knew of Russian interference in the election, but there's still no proof of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Sure, Donald Trump's son met with a Russian lawyer and discussed adoptions even though he was lured to the meeting by claims that the lawyer had some dirt on Hillary (she didn't). Is this supposed to have swung the election? Of course not. It's hard to see how a non-public uneventful meeting made any difference. So again, where's the proof?
Of course, we now have people like former DNI James Clapper who is worried that the election was swayed by Russia. Clapper is the guy who lied under oath to Congress about the existence of the largest program run by the NSA in which millions of Americans were spied upon. Clapper is also the guy who testified under oath last March that there is no evidence of any sort of any Trump/Russia collusion. Funny how Clapper gets no new information but switches sides on the story, isn't it? That means we have a guy like Clapper who is honest as the day is long (so long as you are above the arctic circle in the winter when the sun never rises) making these charges, and the media prints them as if they have any more validity than the ravings of madman. What's next? Will we get morality lectures from Anthony Weiner? Maybe we'll hear non-violence appeals from Antifa. We could even get Hillary Clinton admitting she was a bad candidate. No, that last one is surely a bridge too far.
It's time to give the Russia story a decent burial. There's nothing to it. Even the special prosecutor who was supposed to look into it has moved on to other subjects -- according to the regular leaks from that office to the press.
That's a sentence I thought I would never write, but I have and it's true. In a column on The Intercept, Greenwald points out how the media is willing to accept any claim that indicates collusion between Trump and Russia in the campaign without ever bothering to check the facts on which the claim is based. Greenwald bases his column on the latest story to collapse, namely the one from last week in which we were told that 21 state election systems were the target of Russian hackers. Except the story was false. The chief election officer in Wisconsin said the claim that his state's system was hacked is bogus. Then the Secretary of State of California issued an angry denunciation of the same story as false. Then more states joined the chorus. Then the whole story collapsed. But as Greenwald points out, the denials don't seem to matter; the story was published in the NY Times, so it MUST be right.
Greenwald goes on to debunk the claim by Bill Kristol's new group that Twitter was used by the Russians to affect the election. That's based upon supposedly finding "bots" controlled by the Kremlin that posted inflammatory items on Twitter designed to help Trump. Of course, the Kristol group refuses to name even one such "bot". We're just supposed to trust them. Trusting Bill Kristol, however, is not something that any sane person would do, but the media reported the latest story nevertheless.
Here we are nearly a year after the election and nearly a year and a half after the federal government supposedly knew of Russian interference in the election, but there's still no proof of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Sure, Donald Trump's son met with a Russian lawyer and discussed adoptions even though he was lured to the meeting by claims that the lawyer had some dirt on Hillary (she didn't). Is this supposed to have swung the election? Of course not. It's hard to see how a non-public uneventful meeting made any difference. So again, where's the proof?
Of course, we now have people like former DNI James Clapper who is worried that the election was swayed by Russia. Clapper is the guy who lied under oath to Congress about the existence of the largest program run by the NSA in which millions of Americans were spied upon. Clapper is also the guy who testified under oath last March that there is no evidence of any sort of any Trump/Russia collusion. Funny how Clapper gets no new information but switches sides on the story, isn't it? That means we have a guy like Clapper who is honest as the day is long (so long as you are above the arctic circle in the winter when the sun never rises) making these charges, and the media prints them as if they have any more validity than the ravings of madman. What's next? Will we get morality lectures from Anthony Weiner? Maybe we'll hear non-violence appeals from Antifa. We could even get Hillary Clinton admitting she was a bad candidate. No, that last one is surely a bridge too far.
It's time to give the Russia story a decent burial. There's nothing to it. Even the special prosecutor who was supposed to look into it has moved on to other subjects -- according to the regular leaks from that office to the press.
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