A piece I wrote last week, “A Brief List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus,” could have been much longer, but I was held back by time and format restraints. Appropriately, Substack does not want authors sending massive emails to customers, so there are some restraints on the length of certain posts. Also, putting together a comprehensive list of official Russia deceptions of the last five years would take an awesome amount of time.
However, I do want to create such a document, so I’ve hit on a solution, which is to regularly update and lengthen that article. It will not be mailed out, but it will live online and each update will be marked by date. Today, prompted by a letter from a friend, I added an entry that perhaps should have been at the top of the list. I’ll keep adding as time goes on. I think this is a necessary project, because it’s unlikely that academics or the commercial press will devote any energy to chronicling these particular deceptions.
Any suggestions of incidents I may have missed are welcome here. Thank you for your patience and indulgence. The updated article:
So, I've been tinkering with the list - I'm going to try to put it in at least rough alphabetical order, and add to it whenever I can. It will take a while, and because of its size, I won't be able to mail it. But I'll make sure to mark updates to the list. I added two new entries today, plus some more backup to the rest of the list.
This list will be endless, and every time you add something to it, a Twitter commenter or MSNBC analyst will wonder aloud whether you’re “on Putin’s payroll” or remind you that you used to be a good person and wonder when you “changed.”
Even the critical thinkers I know are in denial about the consequences and significance of the Russiagate years. (They also tell me to “stop spending so much time online” when, e.g., I express alarm about saber-rattling between nuclear powers, or about the endless drone bombing of Syria and Yemen.)
This last decade was the period during which the Rovian “we create our own truth” approach went explicitly bipartisan and was adopted by the media as well. Russiagate was only part of this change, but it was a huge part.
In 20 years, we’ve gone from Bush’s idiotic declaration that he had stared into Putin’s eyes and seen his kindly soul ... to Biden’s much, much worse public declaration that Biden is a demon who lacks a human soul. Media elites liked the first stupid thing, but they seem to LOVE that second, much worse thing.
The cynicism and success of liberal elites’ attempt to prevent political discussion and accountability is astonishing and terrifying. In my opinion, the expiration of the Russiagate narrative is the main reason for the sudden rise of woke racism and woke segregation; Russiagate and neoracism perform the same function: drowning out political thought and political speech, and preventing powerless people from effectively organizing.
I read Manufacturing Consent in high school and my dad was a reporter, so I was never too naive about the propaganda functions of journalism. But Russiagate (and the WMD/Iraq War scam) ushered in this new era, in which there is no objective truth or historical record to appeal to, and nobody is expected to hold consistent principles. Today, intelligent, literate people take for granted that both political parties and all news organizations knowingly lie to us regularly without shame or accountability. It isn’t just the institutions that encourage dishonesty; individual reporters have internalized the idea that it’s okay to deceive and defame others as a means to an end.
This is a fantastic idea and a real public service. Thank You! (One could seriously write an entire book just dealing with the Cult of Maddow that's sprung up around her months-long disinformation campaign. But surely there are better uses of time....)
Please include the Russia probe into Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. I had never seen such widespread hatred reserved and displayed for such a benevolent character in modern history. ‘’A Russian asset “ croaked the fossilized Goldwater Girl.
Oh yeah, Tulsi Gabbard was smeared with the Russian brush as well. It’s a great catch all campaign killer.
You are almost the last honest man in journalism. I hesitate to say this, because I don't want you to stop, but heedless truthtellers usually meet a sticky end.
Remember when, in December 2016, the Russians were accused of hacking into the U.S. electricity grid? What actually happened was malware code was found on one laptop not connected to the grid.
Things like this with real references to back them up are exactly what is needed, and what I believe everyday people are hungry for. Now for smart, industry knowledgeable people like yourself to network with colleagues to create a team, send a unified message and/or add to a new “channel”. I believe people will flock to it ultimately. That, and then doing the same (exposing) those who then (will) create the diversions/smoke screens should shed light on their deceptive behavior, further the trust in this endeavor, and bring us toward the truth. You’ve now won another subscription renewal and a big THANK YOU, for starters.
End of March 2017, CNN does a 2 minute piece on a laptop bomb terror threat from ISIS. Within that video is a clip of a military official, I think from a DOD press conference months earlier. He says they are "trying to isolate Raqqa".
Mid-May 2017, Washington Post declares a national security emergency, because Trump told Russia about what city the laptop bomb threat came from. Washington Post would not post the name because they had sources saying revealing the name would put people in danger
So you have CNN giving direct source info months earlier, but then WaPo using anonymous sources saying this is dangerous.
I'd love you to do an analysis / debunking of Craig Unger's "American Kompromat." I'd also like to hear your own analysis of the Russia / U.S. propaganda war and its context, not as polemic or reaction to the disinfo machine, but as your own, considered appraisal of the overall situation and the various roles both (or more) sides play, especially with some historical context (to which many outraged Americans seem to be allergic).
Does a similar list exist for the Bush era WMD, etc., lies? Also the ones related to the Capitol riot? It would help to have them available too for the same reasons.
The lying about Syria, claiming chemical weapons and deliberate bombing of hospitals, acts actually undertaken by the Al Qaeda terrorists er "rebels" supported by U.S. tax dollars.
One of the big lies regarding events in Ukraine after Yanukovych was overthrown unconstitutionally (in a vote during which armed men were overseeing the process in the Rada) is that the war in Eastern Ukraine was primarily between Russia and Ukraine. Western media hardly ever referred to it as a civil war, which it was, albeit with foreign intervention/support, on both sides. The separatists were primarily locals, although their initial leaders were indeed from Russia.
It is also claimed that the so-called sniper's massacre that killed the "heavenly hundred" in Kiev in February 2014 was the work of either Russians or the SBU. But forensic evidence proves that shots were fired from buildings occupied by the protesters. Look up Ivan Katchanovski's writings on this.
I would like a real cataloguing of the voter fraud in the last election. Dead people. Unmarked ballots. All the fraud. An investigation into the Dominion system to insure its legit. Thanks.
Glad journalist like you going outside the norms to bring information that can be trusted. Other news outlets are mostly bias and don’t care about their credibility. Just concerned about digital customers who could care less about truth.
As an American writer in Bolivia, I've covered misinformation, and can say, apart, that the left, including Katie, got it wrong on Bolivia, for the same reason of believing clichés. For Matt's article, 3 suggestions:
(1) CONTEXT. Chile 1973, Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, etc., journalists should automatically not believe intelligence agencies until they provide verifiable evidence. The context of recidivist lying should be in the first paragraph.
(2) READ THE REPORT. In each intel report, which I read the versions available from NYT, it always says "assessment" and never says 100% reliable. Assumptions are reported to the people as fact.
Therefore, it's necessary to quote the reports where they themselves admit that it's conjecture and not factual.
(3) UNIVERSAL MEDDLING. USA is world's number 1 election meddler and purveyor of misinformation in foreign countries (I witnessed it in Bolivia), with grave results in places like Chile. It should be noted that most countries publish info that advance their own perceived interests, and whatever info that Russia has spread pales in comparison to what our intel orgs and state department spread.
These three points should be enough to alert every thinking citizen and every journalist to first assume that it is misinformation, and then investigate the facts.
Regardless of the specific claims by various parties over the last four years, how can anyone seriously doubt that Russia/Soviet Union has been engaged in serious espionage/propaganda operations aimed at the US and the West for the past 60 years?! Maybe it’s because I have recently read The Spy and The Traitor, The Red Notice and The Panama Papers, but come on! What? You think Putin is some nice, ethical guy? Since when did he graduate from the category of KGB thug? I know way too many Russian emigres who have come to the US specifically to get out from under the system that Putin has created in Russia. Can we agree that it is simply fallacious for the DNC and Hillary to blame Russia for the 2016 election (the Trump campaign, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica did a masterful job that needed no help from Russia), without denying 100% across the board that Russian state-sponsored hacking is going on against the US and Western Europe on a 24X7 basis? How nieve can you be to deny it?! You get all caught up in this “he said, she said” brouhaha over the Ukraine or Hunter Biden (if you want to see some real political nepotism, try George W. Bush - read House of Bush; House of Saud by Craig Unger for the details) and you come across like you are defending Putin. You might as well go on Hannity. Putin’s Russia remains a serious enemy of the US, as does China. They are playing for keeps while we twist ourselves in knots with our heads up our arses. Time to wake up people.... the days of American Exceptionalism (never really existed) are long gone. We are in a battle for the survival of Western Democracy (what little of it remains) with enemies who are out to prove that Democracy is a failed institution, which is ironic given the outcome of the USSR, and the fact that the CCP couldn’t remain in power for 24 hours without the overarching complete repression of self expression by the Chinese people.
We have a MUCH bigger problem here in the US which you can learn about by reading Shoshana Dubroff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The surveillance capitalists are accomplishing the same ends as the CCP in a much more skillful manner which benefits them. In reality, we are under attack from Chinese, Russian and FaceBook “hackers” who are so far out in front of the rest of us, there is little time left to try to regain some of the rights which we once held dear. In my opinion, coming up with lists of Russiagate issues that turned out to be bogus is a waste of time and a red herring. We will probably never know about the hundreds of online attacks mounted by foreign agents that have been poisoning the domestic discourse in this country ever since the Netscape browser was available. In my opinion, FaceBook (and Google) may be the worst things that happened to the Internet and to society since the birth of the Internet. But don’t think for one minute that the Russians aren’t right there in the mix fu—king with us every chance they get. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Thank you Matt for picking up the mantle. The dwell time of the decepticon media is indeed short and the historical importance of chronicalling their malfeasance is something we owe to posterity
Create a public repository on Github. It shouldn't cost more than a few bucks per month. It's the closest thing to a 'blockchain' in terms of it being a 'paper of record' that is well-understood by hundreds of thousands of technically smart folks worldwide.
Great idea. A list of all major stories (not just Russiagate) msm has gotten wrong since, say, Iraq WMD would be great too! (Libya, Syria, Bolivia coup, Afghan bounties, Hillary2016 in a landslide, Cuomo the Messiah, Hunter Biden laptop etc etc...)
Consider making a website with a time line, video clips, etc. It would be such a useful resource. I was thinking about doing something of the kind myself.
I realize this is focused on U.S. lies about Russia, but I want to give a link to Radio Ecoshock and their discussion of the arctic methane issue being exaggerated as a promotion for nat-gas drilling. While the D' and R's have their corrupt reasons for villainizing Russia, the fossil fuel industry has its reasons for supporting certain propaganda stories. https://www.ecoshock.org/2021/02/arctic-methane-bomb.html.
More to the topic, https://covertactionmagazine.com/ has some apparently well researched stories on the special interests behind the Russia gate propaganda campaign.
Right the fuck on! I would devote some more time to the Carter Page incident. Really kicked this entire thing off and the language used against an American citizen for which no charges were brought in order to spy on them, and then via the press ruin their reputation, was nothing short of astonishing. Where was the ACLU on this? Any left supposed civil rights advocates on this? Outside of progressive voices like Greenwald and Mate, radio silence.
Hello Matt Taibbi, I very much appreciate your project to create sensible news for everyone. I also appreciate very very much that you went on the Meghan Murphy show on youtube, The Same Drugs. You are a badazz man that this world needs immediately, its blue anon and Q anon exception excluded. I am militant, I say that bullets in heads are not always a bad solution. I am in the permaculture wing of Deep Green resistance. I have not been vetted as I have been a low life in my past. I do think that industrial civilization must be immediately destroyed, dismantled non violently, let the chips fall where they may.
I respect that you, Matt Taibbi, have been given the credit for the blue anon ideation. Because you have taken on the project of normal mainstream news. The radical people ( idiots) on both sides should be left out in the cold. I very seriously think that the blue anon ideation should be pushed forward, please get permission from Aaron Mate to claim this as your own idea immediately.
Just documenting these people and institutions might serve as a road map for
ANYONE running for elective office or an elected official to expose and isolate these pernicious people and institutions. They have jeopardized national security, caused civil unrest and are in serious need of being CANCELLED from further participation in any national discussions or policy making positions. Congress should NEVER allow anyone pushing the lies and fairytales about Russia, China or Ukraine to be confirmed for any position within the federal Gov't. Major media outlets who pushed very obvious lies must be called out and/or ignored by any new administration worth its' salt. A few prosecutions of "leakers" would go a long way to stopping this political practice utilized by one Party against the other. Personal lawsuits against the publishers and the writers would result in more accurately sourced stories and less "unnamed sources" B.S.
This is a good solution. The only thing I'd ask -- if it's possible -- is that you email an update just saying the article has been updated. If that's not a pain in the ass. Or add it as a mention to your other emails. I can see that this will be an evolving story; it certainly seems like the truth about it is being dribbled out (pee, ha ha) as it's discovered.
Taibbi pointed out in his first article that media mistakes about Russia don't mean Russians aren't doing bad things, e.g., their St Petersburg social media disinfo command center and harboring of cyber criminals, some of whom give a cut to FSB agents and banks (see former Washington Post writer Brian Krebs's blog, KrebsOnSecurity, and book, Spam Nation). Fun fact: many dark web crime forums are in Russian so he learned Russian to lurk and report. I think Krebs quit the Post in 2009 because they spiked some of his pieces. (Btw, Trump fired Christopher Krebs, no relation to Brian.)
Like all exaggerated and flat wrong claims, media errors aren't even necessary to convey real threats. When the truth comes out, widespread lies end up undermining legit concerns and might make fighting real threats more difficult, e.g., actor Jussie Smollett.
Russian hysteria is at the point where friends traveling in the Middle East and elsewhere sometimes panic when needing to use their computers while Russians occupy hotel rooms nearby. Some computer security people act a little nervous and ask more questions when I tell them I've been to Russia a few times.
So, I've been tinkering with the list - I'm going to try to put it in at least rough alphabetical order, and add to it whenever I can. It will take a while, and because of its size, I won't be able to mail it. But I'll make sure to mark updates to the list. I added two new entries today, plus some more backup to the rest of the list.
This list will be endless, and every time you add something to it, a Twitter commenter or MSNBC analyst will wonder aloud whether you’re “on Putin’s payroll” or remind you that you used to be a good person and wonder when you “changed.”
Even the critical thinkers I know are in denial about the consequences and significance of the Russiagate years. (They also tell me to “stop spending so much time online” when, e.g., I express alarm about saber-rattling between nuclear powers, or about the endless drone bombing of Syria and Yemen.)
This last decade was the period during which the Rovian “we create our own truth” approach went explicitly bipartisan and was adopted by the media as well. Russiagate was only part of this change, but it was a huge part.
In 20 years, we’ve gone from Bush’s idiotic declaration that he had stared into Putin’s eyes and seen his kindly soul ... to Biden’s much, much worse public declaration that Biden is a demon who lacks a human soul. Media elites liked the first stupid thing, but they seem to LOVE that second, much worse thing.
The cynicism and success of liberal elites’ attempt to prevent political discussion and accountability is astonishing and terrifying. In my opinion, the expiration of the Russiagate narrative is the main reason for the sudden rise of woke racism and woke segregation; Russiagate and neoracism perform the same function: drowning out political thought and political speech, and preventing powerless people from effectively organizing.
I read Manufacturing Consent in high school and my dad was a reporter, so I was never too naive about the propaganda functions of journalism. But Russiagate (and the WMD/Iraq War scam) ushered in this new era, in which there is no objective truth or historical record to appeal to, and nobody is expected to hold consistent principles. Today, intelligent, literate people take for granted that both political parties and all news organizations knowingly lie to us regularly without shame or accountability. It isn’t just the institutions that encourage dishonesty; individual reporters have internalized the idea that it’s okay to deceive and defame others as a means to an end.
This is a fantastic idea and a real public service. Thank You! (One could seriously write an entire book just dealing with the Cult of Maddow that's sprung up around her months-long disinformation campaign. But surely there are better uses of time....)
Please include the Russia probe into Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. I had never seen such widespread hatred reserved and displayed for such a benevolent character in modern history. ‘’A Russian asset “ croaked the fossilized Goldwater Girl.
Oh yeah, Tulsi Gabbard was smeared with the Russian brush as well. It’s a great catch all campaign killer.
Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald may actually save the fourth estate!
You are almost the last honest man in journalism. I hesitate to say this, because I don't want you to stop, but heedless truthtellers usually meet a sticky end.
Remember when, in December 2016, the Russians were accused of hacking into the U.S. electricity grid? What actually happened was malware code was found on one laptop not connected to the grid.
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-washpost-again-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/
Things like this with real references to back them up are exactly what is needed, and what I believe everyday people are hungry for. Now for smart, industry knowledgeable people like yourself to network with colleagues to create a team, send a unified message and/or add to a new “channel”. I believe people will flock to it ultimately. That, and then doing the same (exposing) those who then (will) create the diversions/smoke screens should shed light on their deceptive behavior, further the trust in this endeavor, and bring us toward the truth. You’ve now won another subscription renewal and a big THANK YOU, for starters.
I'll add one to the pile.
End of March 2017, CNN does a 2 minute piece on a laptop bomb terror threat from ISIS. Within that video is a clip of a military official, I think from a DOD press conference months earlier. He says they are "trying to isolate Raqqa".
Mid-May 2017, Washington Post declares a national security emergency, because Trump told Russia about what city the laptop bomb threat came from. Washington Post would not post the name because they had sources saying revealing the name would put people in danger
So you have CNN giving direct source info months earlier, but then WaPo using anonymous sources saying this is dangerous.
Bluebots won't read it. The progressive/Dem split is becoming as dramatic as the Dem/Rep rift.
Please keep paper back-up.
Thanks, Matt Taibbi. You help me from going insane during the word war.
I'd love you to do an analysis / debunking of Craig Unger's "American Kompromat." I'd also like to hear your own analysis of the Russia / U.S. propaganda war and its context, not as polemic or reaction to the disinfo machine, but as your own, considered appraisal of the overall situation and the various roles both (or more) sides play, especially with some historical context (to which many outraged Americans seem to be allergic).
This is awesome. Can you do one specifically for anti-Julian Assange disinfo too? I'd be happy to help.
I’m sure you thought about it but why not a book on the topic?
Does a similar list exist for the Bush era WMD, etc., lies? Also the ones related to the Capitol riot? It would help to have them available too for the same reasons.
The lying about Syria, claiming chemical weapons and deliberate bombing of hospitals, acts actually undertaken by the Al Qaeda terrorists er "rebels" supported by U.S. tax dollars.
A necessary and essential compilation
Perfect
Keep up the good fight for real reporting.
I would bet that Aaron Maté has an ongoing spreadsheet of such deceptions
One of the big lies regarding events in Ukraine after Yanukovych was overthrown unconstitutionally (in a vote during which armed men were overseeing the process in the Rada) is that the war in Eastern Ukraine was primarily between Russia and Ukraine. Western media hardly ever referred to it as a civil war, which it was, albeit with foreign intervention/support, on both sides. The separatists were primarily locals, although their initial leaders were indeed from Russia.
Keith Gessen gave a different perspective on this here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n17/keith-gessen/why-not-kill-them-all
It is also claimed that the so-called sniper's massacre that killed the "heavenly hundred" in Kiev in February 2014 was the work of either Russians or the SBU. But forensic evidence proves that shots were fired from buildings occupied by the protesters. Look up Ivan Katchanovski's writings on this.
I would like a real cataloguing of the voter fraud in the last election. Dead people. Unmarked ballots. All the fraud. An investigation into the Dominion system to insure its legit. Thanks.
Trump getting-off on golden showers in MOSCOW
Great idea, Matt! it keeps me from shelving and forgetting the info by constantly re-visiting it. Thanks for all your wonderful columns!
Glad journalist like you going outside the norms to bring information that can be trusted. Other news outlets are mostly bias and don’t care about their credibility. Just concerned about digital customers who could care less about truth.
Is it possible to mark whatever is added to the list so we can easily tell what is newly added?
Thanks
The Baseball Card format also lends itself to these “rogues’ gallery” database projects, imho.
Thank you Matt
As an American writer in Bolivia, I've covered misinformation, and can say, apart, that the left, including Katie, got it wrong on Bolivia, for the same reason of believing clichés. For Matt's article, 3 suggestions:
(1) CONTEXT. Chile 1973, Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, etc., journalists should automatically not believe intelligence agencies until they provide verifiable evidence. The context of recidivist lying should be in the first paragraph.
(2) READ THE REPORT. In each intel report, which I read the versions available from NYT, it always says "assessment" and never says 100% reliable. Assumptions are reported to the people as fact.
Therefore, it's necessary to quote the reports where they themselves admit that it's conjecture and not factual.
(3) UNIVERSAL MEDDLING. USA is world's number 1 election meddler and purveyor of misinformation in foreign countries (I witnessed it in Bolivia), with grave results in places like Chile. It should be noted that most countries publish info that advance their own perceived interests, and whatever info that Russia has spread pales in comparison to what our intel orgs and state department spread.
These three points should be enough to alert every thinking citizen and every journalist to first assume that it is misinformation, and then investigate the facts.
Regardless of the specific claims by various parties over the last four years, how can anyone seriously doubt that Russia/Soviet Union has been engaged in serious espionage/propaganda operations aimed at the US and the West for the past 60 years?! Maybe it’s because I have recently read The Spy and The Traitor, The Red Notice and The Panama Papers, but come on! What? You think Putin is some nice, ethical guy? Since when did he graduate from the category of KGB thug? I know way too many Russian emigres who have come to the US specifically to get out from under the system that Putin has created in Russia. Can we agree that it is simply fallacious for the DNC and Hillary to blame Russia for the 2016 election (the Trump campaign, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica did a masterful job that needed no help from Russia), without denying 100% across the board that Russian state-sponsored hacking is going on against the US and Western Europe on a 24X7 basis? How nieve can you be to deny it?! You get all caught up in this “he said, she said” brouhaha over the Ukraine or Hunter Biden (if you want to see some real political nepotism, try George W. Bush - read House of Bush; House of Saud by Craig Unger for the details) and you come across like you are defending Putin. You might as well go on Hannity. Putin’s Russia remains a serious enemy of the US, as does China. They are playing for keeps while we twist ourselves in knots with our heads up our arses. Time to wake up people.... the days of American Exceptionalism (never really existed) are long gone. We are in a battle for the survival of Western Democracy (what little of it remains) with enemies who are out to prove that Democracy is a failed institution, which is ironic given the outcome of the USSR, and the fact that the CCP couldn’t remain in power for 24 hours without the overarching complete repression of self expression by the Chinese people.
We have a MUCH bigger problem here in the US which you can learn about by reading Shoshana Dubroff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The surveillance capitalists are accomplishing the same ends as the CCP in a much more skillful manner which benefits them. In reality, we are under attack from Chinese, Russian and FaceBook “hackers” who are so far out in front of the rest of us, there is little time left to try to regain some of the rights which we once held dear. In my opinion, coming up with lists of Russiagate issues that turned out to be bogus is a waste of time and a red herring. We will probably never know about the hundreds of online attacks mounted by foreign agents that have been poisoning the domestic discourse in this country ever since the Netscape browser was available. In my opinion, FaceBook (and Google) may be the worst things that happened to the Internet and to society since the birth of the Internet. But don’t think for one minute that the Russians aren’t right there in the mix fu—king with us every chance they get. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Thank you Matt for picking up the mantle. The dwell time of the decepticon media is indeed short and the historical importance of chronicalling their malfeasance is something we owe to posterity
Create a public repository on Github. It shouldn't cost more than a few bucks per month. It's the closest thing to a 'blockchain' in terms of it being a 'paper of record' that is well-understood by hundreds of thousands of technically smart folks worldwide.
Great idea. A list of all major stories (not just Russiagate) msm has gotten wrong since, say, Iraq WMD would be great too! (Libya, Syria, Bolivia coup, Afghan bounties, Hillary2016 in a landslide, Cuomo the Messiah, Hunter Biden laptop etc etc...)
Well done. I suspect that it will take at least one generation before historians can record this time period accurately and without bias.
Growing up in the 60’s, I took to heart the constant refrain of “be skeptical of everything.” Now my retort is “prove it!”
There are always mutiple ways to skin a cat
Consider making a website with a time line, video clips, etc. It would be such a useful resource. I was thinking about doing something of the kind myself.
Regarding point 5, is it pertinent to also add a mention that Julian Assange did state the "source of the 2016 releases was not a state party"?
https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/07/25/russiagate-smears-against-wikileaks/
I realize this is focused on U.S. lies about Russia, but I want to give a link to Radio Ecoshock and their discussion of the arctic methane issue being exaggerated as a promotion for nat-gas drilling. While the D' and R's have their corrupt reasons for villainizing Russia, the fossil fuel industry has its reasons for supporting certain propaganda stories. https://www.ecoshock.org/2021/02/arctic-methane-bomb.html.
More to the topic, https://covertactionmagazine.com/ has some apparently well researched stories on the special interests behind the Russia gate propaganda campaign.
Right the fuck on! I would devote some more time to the Carter Page incident. Really kicked this entire thing off and the language used against an American citizen for which no charges were brought in order to spy on them, and then via the press ruin their reputation, was nothing short of astonishing. Where was the ACLU on this? Any left supposed civil rights advocates on this? Outside of progressive voices like Greenwald and Mate, radio silence.
Hello Matt Taibbi, I very much appreciate your project to create sensible news for everyone. I also appreciate very very much that you went on the Meghan Murphy show on youtube, The Same Drugs. You are a badazz man that this world needs immediately, its blue anon and Q anon exception excluded. I am militant, I say that bullets in heads are not always a bad solution. I am in the permaculture wing of Deep Green resistance. I have not been vetted as I have been a low life in my past. I do think that industrial civilization must be immediately destroyed, dismantled non violently, let the chips fall where they may.
I respect that you, Matt Taibbi, have been given the credit for the blue anon ideation. Because you have taken on the project of normal mainstream news. The radical people ( idiots) on both sides should be left out in the cold. I very seriously think that the blue anon ideation should be pushed forward, please get permission from Aaron Mate to claim this as your own idea immediately.
Historians will thank you (and curse you) for the comprehensive collection.
Terrific work Matt.
Just documenting these people and institutions might serve as a road map for
ANYONE running for elective office or an elected official to expose and isolate these pernicious people and institutions. They have jeopardized national security, caused civil unrest and are in serious need of being CANCELLED from further participation in any national discussions or policy making positions. Congress should NEVER allow anyone pushing the lies and fairytales about Russia, China or Ukraine to be confirmed for any position within the federal Gov't. Major media outlets who pushed very obvious lies must be called out and/or ignored by any new administration worth its' salt. A few prosecutions of "leakers" would go a long way to stopping this political practice utilized by one Party against the other. Personal lawsuits against the publishers and the writers would result in more accurately sourced stories and less "unnamed sources" B.S.
This is a good solution. The only thing I'd ask -- if it's possible -- is that you email an update just saying the article has been updated. If that's not a pain in the ass. Or add it as a mention to your other emails. I can see that this will be an evolving story; it certainly seems like the truth about it is being dribbled out (pee, ha ha) as it's discovered.
Taibbi pointed out in his first article that media mistakes about Russia don't mean Russians aren't doing bad things, e.g., their St Petersburg social media disinfo command center and harboring of cyber criminals, some of whom give a cut to FSB agents and banks (see former Washington Post writer Brian Krebs's blog, KrebsOnSecurity, and book, Spam Nation). Fun fact: many dark web crime forums are in Russian so he learned Russian to lurk and report. I think Krebs quit the Post in 2009 because they spiked some of his pieces. (Btw, Trump fired Christopher Krebs, no relation to Brian.)
Like all exaggerated and flat wrong claims, media errors aren't even necessary to convey real threats. When the truth comes out, widespread lies end up undermining legit concerns and might make fighting real threats more difficult, e.g., actor Jussie Smollett.
Russian hysteria is at the point where friends traveling in the Middle East and elsewhere sometimes panic when needing to use their computers while Russians occupy hotel rooms nearby. Some computer security people act a little nervous and ask more questions when I tell them I've been to Russia a few times.
Great job Matt keep it coming.
Some people have a problem with your take on truth, but not me. Keep on Keeping on!!