[rad-green] Establishment Pundits Go Nuts Over New Russian Hacking Conspiracy

*https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/14/establishment-pundits-go-nuts-over-new-russian-hacking-conspiracy/
<https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/14/establishment-pundits-go-nuts-over-new-russian-hacking-conspiracy/>*


*Consortium News          January 14, 2020*

Establishment Pundits Go Nuts Over New Russian Hacking Conspiracy*Since the
story concerns Russia, all journalistic standards have, as usual, gone out
the window. *

*The New York Times reports <http://archive.is/vBOjc> that GRU operatives
launched a successful “phishing attack” on the Ukrainian gas company at the
heart of scandalous allegations about Joe Biden, and establishment pundits
are falling all over themselves to tweet the hottest take on this exciting
new Russia conspiracy.*

The story itself fails the smell test on a number of fronts. It falsely
claims <http://archive.is/vBOjc#selection-947.153-947.321> that allegations
of Biden’s corrupt dealings with Ukrainian officials as vice president have
been “discredited,” and its only named source is a cybersecurity firm
with foundational
ties <https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1216919979318112256> to the NSA and
to Crowdstrike <https://www.area1security.com/about/>, which you may
remember as the extremely shady Atlantic Council-tied
<https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/13/propaganda-is-the-root-of-all-our-problems/>
company at the heart of the plot hole-riddled
<https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/07/05/crowdstrikeout_muellers_own_report_undercuts_its_core_russia-meddling_claims.html>
2016
Russia hacking narrative (whose CEO is now a billionaire
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2019/06/12/as-crowdstrike-shares-soar-on-its-ipo-day-ceo-george-kurtz-joins-the-billionaire-ranks/>
).

The article also lacks any hard evidence for its claims, and is of course
completely silent on any details as to how the security firm knows that the
alleged hackers were both (A) Russian and (B) tied to the Russian
government. This is par for course with mass media news reporting on
anything negative about Russia, where all journalistic standards have gone
out the window and nobody suffers any professional consequences for even the
most egregious misreporting
<https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/>
on
that nation.

And, naturally, liberal pundits are guzzling it down like Mike Pompeo left
alone at the table with the gravy boat.

“I hope my fellow editors will think hard — really hard, a lot harder than
they did in 2016 — before publishing any material hacked by the Russians,”
tweeted <https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1216877389160034304>
editor-in-chief
of *The Daily Beast* Noah Shachtman in response to the NYT report.

It is very revealing that the head of a major mainstream publication
believes news outlets should sit on a story exposing the corruption of a
leading presidential candidate – no matter how newsworthy – if it’s
believed to have come from “the Russians.” How many major stories are being
spiked for no other reason than a loyalty to the US government’s
geopolitical agendas against noncompliant nations, exactly?

Yet sentiments identical to Shachtman’s are currently being bleated by
like-minded pundits throughout the Twitterverse right now.

“Me and Oliver Darcy took at look at this a year ago… newsrooms hadn’t a
lot to say about it. Not a lot of self-reflection, it seems,” tweeted
<https://twitter.com/donie/status/1216929796040601602?s=20> CNN’s Donie
O’Sullivan in response to Shachtman’s post. “Hackers could target the 2020
election. How will newsrooms respond if they release stolen data?”

“Russians working hard for President Trump’s reelection: mainstream media
do not need to collaborate with the Russians again and breathlessly promote
their non-newsworthy findings, as they did in 2016,” economist David
Rothschild tweeted
<https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/1216879537885274113?s=20>, without
specifying his peculiar definition of “non-newsworthy”.

“Will the media run info from national security hacks as blockbuster
stories like in 2016? That’s the million-dollar question,” tweeted
<https://twitter.com/sjdemas/status/1216885758386151424?s=20> *Michigan
Advance* editor-in-chief Susan Demas.

A CNN reporter took it up even further, preemptively speculating based
on *literally
nothing* that any evidence of Biden’s corruption which emerges from the
phishing campaign will have been “doctored” by Russia.

“Russia could leak Burisma emails, and slip in some doctored emails, to
harm Biden later on, if he is the Democratic nominee,” tweeted
<https://twitter.com/MarshallCohen/status/1216871234174095366?s=20> CNN’s
Marshall Cohen. “The 2016 playbook all over again.”

This insanity was seconded and then ratcheted up even further by MSNBC’s
Malcolm Nance, whose main job seems to be to push the Overton window of
Russia hysteria toward the craziest end of the spectrum.

“DNC 2.0,” Nance wrote
<https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1216886760627752960>. “To protect
Trump the GRU will manufacture and insert Black propaganda, fake emails in
a data base Burisma emails to implicate Biden and support Trump. They don’t
care if you believe it … it’s all to get Trump to believe it. He’ll destroy
America to win.”

MSNBC analyst and former Obama administration official Richard Stengel, who has
openly stated <https://youtu.be/xOPmx1LCzwY> that he endorses the U.S.
government propagandizing its citizens, seized on the opportunity offered
by this lawless feeding frenzy to advance a completely baseless Russiagate
theory, because why the hell not?

“‘Russia, if you’re listening, hack Burisma.’ GRU has done same thing to
this Ukrainian firm that they did to DNC,” tweeted
<https://twitter.com/stengel/status/1216882025652723712> Stengel. “If Trump
asked Zelensky on a public call to investigate the Bidens, what do you
suppose he asked Putin on a private call? Vlad, do me a favor.”

“More evidence that Putin fears Biden and is actively trying to help
Trump,” added <https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1216925069466730497?s=20> the
Obama administration’s Michael McFaul. “Not good. All who believe in
American sovereignty should denounce, Democrats and Republicans alike.”

“I’ll say it now: I don’t care WHAT the emails say. If he’s the guy, he’s
got my vote. PERIOD,” tweeted
<https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1216899604530241541?s=20> popular
#Resistance pundit Brooklyn Dad Defiant in what could generously be
described as a very odd confession.

There is at this time no legitimate reason to believe that the GRU was
involved in any kind of cyberattack on Burisma, let alone that it found
anything worth publishing. At the moment the only information we’ve gleaned
from this incident is more insight into the fact that the news media
environment of the most powerful nation on earth is deeply, profoundly
unhealthy, and so are the individuals operating within it.

These are the people who shape the dominant narrative. These are the
thought leaders, who really do lead the way a very large sector of the
population thinks. We need to bring more consciousness to how wildly
dysfunctional this is.

2020 has been wild already. And all signs indicate that it’s only going to
get a whole lot crazier.

*Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who
publishes regularly **at Medium* <https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone>*.
Follow her work on **Facebook* <https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/>
*, **Twitter* <https://twitter.com/caitoz>*, or her **website*
<http://caitlinjohnstone.com/>*. **She has a **podcast*
<https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue>* and a new book **“**Woke: A Field
Guide for Utopia Preppers*
<https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Field-Guide-Utopia-Preppers/dp/064823455X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8>
*.”*

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