re: Official RT Indictment Thread -- Youtubers Lauren Chen, Dave Rubin, Tim Pool Linked

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ISIS claimed this attack

Russia has cracked down on Muslims associated with this ISIS cell

Iran warned Russia of this attack

There is no reason to think ISIS would ever team up with Ukraine

There is literally no logical reason to associate Ukraine with the terror attack

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Lauren Chen was doing shite over Discord.

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No, but we're all influenced by the media we consume and we tend to underestimate its effects on us.

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They weren't paid to to spread any claim. You're making shite up.

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They stated Ukraine assisted ISIS.

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I got in a shouting match last night on Cuomo with former FBI honcho Peter Strzok. I didn’t know he’d be on and the sight of his Cheshire grin as Chris described the new federal conspiracy indictment against former RT officials was a disorienting surprise; I was imagining feeding him his tie before dicussion started. When he said something about the case tying with with government fight against “misinformation,” I exploded:

There’s no allegation of misinformation! I yelled. Nor had there been in 2017, I stammered, when the “Intelligence Community Assessment” that triggered the Russiagate frenzy teed off at length about RT coverage. The ICA complained that RT “described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations,” discussed “widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use,” and even, no kidding, covered “alleged Wall Street greed.” The hardworking folk at the CIA, FBI, and NSA uncovered that RT “runs anti-fracking programming” and even claimed it “impacts public health.”

The yelping about RT encouraging “popular dissatisfaction with the US Government” was nearly the entire official argument that Russia conducted an “influence campaign” in 2016 to “help President-elect Trump’s chances” at the ballot. There was almost nothing else in that Assessment, apart from a classified annex of Steele dossier hokum about pee and “cultivation” that leaked days later, kicking off one of the longest actual disinformation campaigns this country has seen. The reported author of that ICA? The same Peter Strzok now plaintively wringing hands over “misinformation.”

America’s spook sector viewed reporting at odds with “US messaging” as illegitimate then, the kind of thing they’d ban if they could. Now, they’re doing it, or trying. Of course, if everything in the new indictment is true (a caveat too often forgotten across years of late-fizzling bombshells) a scheme in which sleazy foreigners funnel money to influencers like Tim Pool and Dave Rubin through shell companies would absolutely raise ugly questions. But I’ve watched this magic show too often not to see the palmed card in the story already.

“With charges and sanctions, US takes aim at Russian disinformation ahead of November election,” the AP blared this week. “Right-Wing Influencers Tied to Russian Disinfo Campaign Say They Are ‘Victims,’” countered Time. “Right-Wing Influencer Network Tenet Media Allegedly Spread Russian Disinformation,” chirped Wired.

Again, there’s no allegation that anyone in this case engaged in “disinformation.” The Justice Department has been tracking this case for nearly two years, almost certainly using tools like FISA, likely allowing spying on virtually every unorthodox media voice in America. Yet the most Attorney General Merrick Garland could say in annoucing the case was that videos of figures paid like Pool and Rubin were “consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.”

The government needs us to believe these figures must have engaged in “disinformation,” but there’s a big reason that’s not true. As was the case with RT in its pre-ban years, when it employed everyone from Thom Hartmann to Chris Hedges to Larry King, Russians didn’t need to issue guidelines to get American press figures to talk about “alleged greed” or “corruption.” RT’s American hosts “advertised third party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates,” not because they were induced, but because those parties have legitimate gripes and are massively undercovered.

The likes of Hedges and Hartmann and Tyrel Ventura were already attracted to these issues and found audience precisely because there were few opportunities to cover such topics in American media. Obviously it was a devil’s bargain: Russians wanted to highlight America’s warts. That never made coverage wrong. Icky at times, maybe, but not incorrect.

The Pool/Rubin/Tenet story was hinted at in a recent New York Times piece called “U.S. Investigating Americans Who Worked With Russian State Television,” describing FBI raids on homes of former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and ex-Soviet pundit Dimitry Simes. The Times called their takes “blunt attempts to influence November’s election” and said vaguely the government was “focused on individuals intentionally spreading disinformation.” There was no any explanation of why this should concern the FBI, since being wrong isn’t against the law. Simes told Sputnik that his bank accounts were frozen, which seemed odd, but nobody cared. “Pundit Raided” is not a story that requires a follow-up anymore.

We know the drill now. The next weeks will be filled with outpourings of disgust and demands for vigilance. Though I have frustrations about those who don’t practice safe sex in this media environment (the metaphor: if someone offers a grand for a massage, they want more than a massage), I’m keeping eyes on the endgame. It didn’t escape the attention of anyone on the non-bootlicking side of the media aisle that the Justice Department used the term “heterodox” in its indictment. Between that and Garland’s “divisions” comment, the state is saying it wants an information landscape peopled by orthodox promoters of unity, and will use any means to secure it.

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A distinction without a difference.

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