No, Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See

One of the themes that has emerged during the controversy over “fake news” and its role in the election of Donald Trump is the idea that Russian agents of various kinds helped hack the process by fueling this barrage of false news. But is that really true?

In a recent story, the Washington Post says that this is definitely the case, based on information provided by two groups of what the paper calls “independent researchers.” But the case starts to come apart at the seams the more you look at it.

One group is associated with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank funded and staffed by proponents of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, which says it has been researching Russian propaganda since 2014.

The second group is something called PropOrNot, about which very little is known. Its website doesn’t name anyone who is associated with it, including the researchers who worked on the report. And the Post doesn’t name the group’s executive director, whom it quotes, because it says he is afraid of “being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.”

PropOrNot’s Twitter TWTR -0.88% account, which tweets and retweets anti-Russian sentiments from a variety of sources, has only existed since August of this year. And an article announcing the launch of the group on its website is dated last month.

According to the description, PropOrNot includes an unidentified number of “concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs.”

The media slams Internet news services post election. There were indeed outrageous stories which were either outright lies or outrageously irrelevant. The media refuses to admit that they engaged in both. (I don’t even have to tell you who was the target!). What the media tries to label as “fake” was typically information that they were trying to bury.

While there was a spate of wild stories about Hillary on the Internet, I can’t think of a single one which had no basis in fact which was given any credence on the reputable conservative web sites or talk radio. In most cases there was more than enough “smoke” that any true journalist would have exhibited at least some curiosity. The silence of the mainstream media amply demonstrated their biases.

Here is a brief list of the news items which the media chose to ignore:

1) Hillary’s health - there are plenty of photos and videos showing problems with stairs, irregular upper body motions, and even falling down multiple times; you would think that the media would be curious, but nada; the only reason we had a video of her total collapse prior to being literally thrown into a van after a campaign appearance, was one of her supporters with a phone camera

2) Hillary’s email server - Hillary was portrayed as the “victim” of a politicized FBI. One of my liberal friends groused that very sentiment the morning after the election; on the other hand, various legal analysts from the right were baffled how Comey could have listed all the legal infractions by her and her staff in July and ended the conference by stating that there was no reason to indict. Comey inserted the idea that she had exhibited no “intent” to break the laws. However, the legal beagles on the right point out that “intent” is not required by the statutes covering the handling of secure documents that she had apparently broken. Indeed, a sailor went to federal prison for merely having a few pictures of a submarine on his personal phone when there was no contention that he “intended” any malfeasance.

The press showed zero interest about why:

A. Her lawyers, who did not have security clearances, were allowed to scrub the emails under subpoena before surrender

B. Five of her staff members were given immunity deals before being questioned by the FBI; at least one might be interested

in: “immunity from what?” if not that, then, why such leverage should be surrendered by a Federal investigation

C. The contractor who set up her server invoked his fifth amendment rights during questioning by the FBI

D. The State department was asked to manipulate the security level of emails located on her server after they were located

3) Pay for play - most of the media would only refer to this aspect of the email server in order to mock suggestions by her detractors. They showed NO original research. ALL the information came from those that the mainstream media dismissed as fake news sites.

4) Clinton Foundation - this foundation served as a conduit of foreign money into coffers controlled by the Clintons. It was ostensibly a charitable organization. However, people looking closer found that far less than 10% of the funds were expended on behalf of the purported recipients.

Hillary had promised to put the foundation on a different footing after she became Secretary of State, but she didn’t. She also promised to shut it down if she became President. (The media never put these two ideas together or asked why it needed to be shut down if it had been all right during her tenure as Secretary of State.)

It was so blatant that the former head of the Haitian Senate was very vocal that the Clinton’s had hijacked funds intended for Haitian rebuilding. Instead, Clinton crony’s got lucrative cell phone and building contracts in Haiti.

A substantial amount of the Clinton Foundation funds were solicited by a Canadian branch of the foundation. Conveniently, Canadian laws allow the names of donors to foundations to be kept secret. Imagine if a conservative had been running a money laundering network like this. Would the media have been silent?

Currently, the U.K. has announced that they will make no further “donations” and the Norwegian government announced that their “contributions” would be cut by roughly 90%.

4) Bob Creamer & Scott Foval - videos surfaced from James O’Keefe of both of these Democrat operatives talking about injecting violence into the Trump campaign events; The mainstream media played along by blaming all outbreaks of violence on Trump supporters; Foval even recounted plans for vote fraud by bringing voters from other states to take advantage of same-day voter registration; “crickets” from the mainstream media; the real journalists were the people on Reddit who noticed that both of these characters were frequent visitors to the White House! Creamer was on the visitor logs over 60 times. Between them they logged over 20 meetings with the President in attendance.; “crickets” from the mainstream media

5) Wikileaks - boatloads of emails hacked from James Podesta’s server were dropped on the internet. They showed massive collusion between the mainstream media and Clinton campaign even before her nomination; e.g., sharing of questions to be asked during debates; even asking for questions to be asked of opponents; heads up on stories prior to publication; They also divulged information which resulted in Wasserman-Schultz resigning as DNC head; The media totally ignored these emails. The story was that the Russians had hacked them. However, THAT was total conjecture and falls into the category of fake news in its own right. They conceded the veracity of the emails to the extent that two CNN reporters were essentially suspended from broadcast roles for the duration of the campaign. It remains to be seen whether their unethical collusion with the Clinton campaign will result in their departure from the network, but don’t hold your breath.

The media collusion revealed by these emails started during the nomination process. The media helped Clinton defeat Bernie Sanders. I think that the backstabbing shown by both the DNC and the media turned a lot of Sanders supporters against Hillary. I saw more Sanders bumper stickers than any of the other candidates. When the Sanders stickers were removed they were not replaced by Hillary stickers.

There has been little attempt to debunk the Wikileaks content. It has been tacitly accepted as legitimate by both sides. It even seemed to induce the Clinton campaign to release the damning “Access Hollywood” video of Trump’s excursion into locker room banter. The early release of this video in October, giving the Trump campaign time to recover, may have been the difference in the entire election.

6) George Soros - a multi-billionaire who purportedly cannot travel to all the countries of Europe because he ran afoul of trade restrictions with Iran (of course this is not an issue for the current U.S. administration). Soros supplied lots of indirect support for the Clinton campaign. I am unfamiliar with the money trail, but there is speculation that he supplied funding for Black Lives Matter, as well.; The American public was peppered with stories about the “evil” Koch brothers who were the money men behind the Republican candidates. This story was shelved when the Koch brothers decided to snub Trump and work on down ticket campaigns.; Exactly how much did anyone hear about Soros from the mainstream media? NOTHING.

The current scuttlebutt is that Jill Stein’s money raising for the recount campaign was invigorated by quite regular, small donations. Examination of the logs of the donations showed a fixed time between donations of a fairly substantial, slightly randomized, amounts. Thus, the legend has grown that some anonymous “donor” is behind the funding of the recount by using an automated “bot”. Such infusions of cash has been attributed, without substantiation, to Soros. This type of speculation does warrant the moniker of “fake news” when not identified as speculation. However, the mainstream media has yet to note that some form of money laundering does seem to be behind the recount.

_______________________________________________

The above is just the news that readily comes to my mind that the mainstream media chose to ignore or obscure. Bon mots has been posting a chart was on FreeRepublic to contrast the way that various news organizations refer to Fidel Castro at the announcement of his death. Very few employ the designation “dictator”. Good for the Washington Post and NBC!

Note that many of these same organizations are preparing to inform you of what constitutes “fake news”!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.