It was the popcorn fart heard round the world. After two years of the vilest Russophobic hysteria seen since McCarthy was hauled off to a laughing academy in a straight-jacket, Robert Mueller, patron saint of butt-hurt Dems and indefinite Muslim detention, came to a conclusion on Russiagate only stunning to those of us who don’t live outside the bulletproof walls of stone blind denial. After 37 indictments for totally unrelated Beltway scumbaggery. After $26 million of the taxpayers pilfered dollars flushed down the fucking toilet. After five hundred thousand hours of unhinged sore losers like Rachel Maddow giving Alex Jones a run for his money screaming their bloody heads off about one grassy knoll after another. The results of the great Russian Inquisition of 2019 are bupkis, notta, zero, no collusion whatsoever between one Donald J. Trump and the Putin regime. You could have heard a pin-head drop at MSDNC.
A good article from Matt Taibbi, though I don’t really agree that the
Russiagate hoax is comparable to the WMD hoax (that Mueller was involved
in perpetrating as well). The WMD hoax started a war that possibly
killed over a million people, while Russiagate just makes the bulk of
the media and political class look like idiots (which most people
already know anyway).
By Matt Taibbi
Note
to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s
investigation is complete, I’m releasing this chapter of Hate Inc.
early, with a few new details added up top.
Nobody
wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is
headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the
reputation of the American news media.
As has long been rumored, the former FBI chief’s independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no “presidency-wrecking” conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman’s definition of “collusion” with Russia.
With
the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched,
the key detail in the many stories about the end of the Mueller
investigation was best expressed by the New York Times:
A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments.
Attorney General William Barr sent a letter to congress summarizing Mueller’s conclusions. The money line quoted the Mueller report:
[T]he
investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign
conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election
interference activities.
Over the weekend, the Times tried to soften the emotional blow for the millions of Americans trained in these years to place hopes for the overturn of the Trump presidency in Mueller. As with most press coverage, there was little pretense that the Mueller probe was supposed to be a neutral fact-finding mission, as apposed to religious allegory, with Mueller cast as the hero sent to slay the monster.
No single act of Donald Trump’s presidency has engendered more criticism than his performance at the Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. For declining to endorse US intelligence claims that the Kremlin meddled in our election and faulting both countries for the poor state of US-Russia relations, Trump was roundly accused of “shameful,” “disgraceful,” and “treasonous” behavior that has sparked a full-blown “national security crisis.”
But does the American public at large share the prevailing elite assessment? Save for a White House vigil led by two longtime Hillary Clinton staffers and a few scattered rallies—and in stark contrast to mass protests over Trump’s misogyny, Muslim ban, and zero-tolerance immigration policy—Americans have not poured into the streets to confront the “crisis.” A poll by The Hill and the HarrisX polling company found 54 percent support for Trump’s now-scuttled plan for a follow-up summit with Putin at the White House. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that Trump’s post-Helsinki approval rating slightly increased to 45 percent. While the uptick does not necessarily signal an embrace of Trump’s behavior, it is not difficult to see why his numbers did not plummet. In a recent Gallup poll on problems facing the country, the “Situation with Russia” was such a marginal concern that it did not even register. While an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 64 percent believe Trump has not been tough enough on Russia, it also saw a near-even split on whether Putin is a foe or an ally, and 59 percent support for better relations.
The gap between elite and public priorities highlights an endemic problem that long predates Trump. Since his election, however, the elite fixation on alleged Russian meddling and the president’s suspected collusion has exacerbated that divide.
Tom Woods hosts a debate on “Russiagate.” Listen here.
My take on Russiagate is that I couldn’t possibly care less if Russia “interferes” in domestic US politics or not. Israel and Saudi Arabia interfere in US politics to an infinitely greater degree than Russia, and it’s not even an issue. The US interferes in the politics of just about all other nations. Turnabout is fair play.
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David Pakman of the David Pakman Show, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, square off in a discussion of allegations of collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian officials and operatives.
