Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on MSNBC (8/20/16).
On Saturday’s episode of AM Joy with Joy Ann Reid, guest Malcolm Nance, a former Naval intelligence officer, summed up MSNBC’s Russia panic with this quote:
Joy Ann Reid: Because from what I’ve seen, the only people not with Hillary Clinton at this point…are people in the Jill Stein camp. Jill Stein was sitting at Putin’s table right with General Flynn.
Malcolm Nance: Jill Stein has a show on Russia Today.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein doesn’t have a show at all, let alone on RT. She once attended a function hosted by RT, which, by our current standards of liberal discourse, makes her a Kremlin agent, but the fact that such a demonstrably false statement could be made on cable news to thousands of people without anyone bothering to correct it shows how easy Russia panic is to stoke.
Earlier in the segment, Nance made the claim that “someone” in Trump’s campaign “may” be an “agent of Russia,” citing a recent report in the Financial Times (8/19/16) alleging that Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s former translator “may” have “links” to Russian intelligence.
The irony, of course, is that Nance himself has far more recent and better documented ties to US intelligence, but MSNBC feels no need to convince viewers he is not a CIA plant spreading disinformation.
Nance had a hot tip, offered in smarmy “insider” tones: “Here’s a bit of strategic intelligence for you. Russia is doing a military massing of forces in Crimea in what appears to be an ‘October Surprise.’” That’s correct, an MSNBC contributor is openly speculating Russia will invade Ukraine for the express purposes of influencing the US elections.
Nance finished off his impressive run of innuendo and prognostication with this revealing statement:
And the fact that only Manafort’s money connections were enough to get him taken off the campaign–principally because they found documents. They don’t care about inference, they only care about evidence.
Yes, God forbid someone cared about evidence over vague insinuation.
Joy Ann Reid joined in on the saber-rattling:
Russia is not some friend the United States can make and partner with in the world. They are an adversarial, aggressive power that wants us to recognize their seizure of countries that are not theirs.
According to leading pro-Democratic media, the US cannot possibly work with Russia; they are fundamentally adversarial. This type of macho posturing, previously the domain of Fox News, has become increasingly commonplace as the Clinton camp drives home the talking point that Trump is a Kremlin agent.
The day before, in his segment “Does Putin Want Trump to Be President?,” Chris Matthews (8/19/16) allowed former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to assert that, without a doubt, Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and leaked the info to get Trump elected. Despite the fact that the head of US intelligence, James Clapper, has asked the media to pump the brakes on making these claims without qualification, McFaul has his “sources,” so it becomes a matter of fact.
McFaul, also referenced in the Joy Ann Reid segment, has become the go-to pundit on Putin/Trump theories. McFaul’s pro-NatSec messaging has gotten so goofy he even made the dubious claim in June that “all of America’s most enduring allies have been and remain democracies.” (Asked about, e.g., Saudi Arabia, McFaul waffled and changed the subject.)
Rachel Maddow (8/15/16) talking with former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
McFaul was Rachel Maddow’s source for her August 15 segment, “Trump Chairman’s Pro-Putin Past Remains Murky.” Maddow began the interview openly speculating that Trump presently employed Russian agents, asking McFaul if such an agreement were legal, despite the lack of evidence it was actually going on. The segment finished up with more idle speculation as to why Putin is backing Trump, with McFaul insisting Clinton represented the “opposite” of what the Russian president wanted.
Asking questions about Trump’s links to overseas money is entirely fair and above board (as are questions about Clinton’s ties to foreign funders). But to give the Trump charges more moral urgency, liberal pundits are dusting off old Cold War panic and playing up the reach, scope and sinister motives of Russia.
The effects of this, if and when Clinton takes the White House, will be hard to downplay. How can the US negotiate the end of the Syrian conflict or the Ukrainian crisis if the public, even MSNBC-watching liberals, views Russia as irredeemably aggressive and incapable of ever being a US “friend”? In the interest of short-term partisan gain, pundits on America’s nominally liberal cable network are damaging the prospects of normalizing relations with Russia for years to come.
h/t Sam Sacks
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
It is far from a short-term issue. Hillary wants to go to war with Russia in Syria. No joke. And all of these lies serve that purpose for THE LONG RUN, should she become president. Turkey has allowed Russia the use of Incirlik air base, which the US lost in that failed coup against Erdogan. So the main NATO base is in Russian hands, a strategic move by Putin when he supported Erdogan against the (Western-backed) coup plotters . And that incredibly dumb failed putsch was borne out of the stupidity of Clinton, herself (Gulen is a good friend of the US and the Clintons). She can’t play chess for Cheetos. She’s completely outmatched, but her war lust seems only to grow wildly.
The US wants war, and it will keep pushing for war until its genocidal ambitions are quenched. The corporate media are pied pipers to the Fall.
She is not outmatched at all by that stote of a man Putin or his bloodthirsty client Assad. Have you seen any evidence at all of Güllen’s involvement in the failed coup in Turkey? No. Because none has been presented. Incirlik is not in RUSSIAN hands.
It is. The Turks have given evidence to the US of that fact. Tens of thousands of Gulen supporters throughout Turkey have been rounded up and thrown in jail, or fired. Go look it up on Debka. Russian jets are now operating out of Incirlik, which was the base for the Western-backed coup plotters. Do try to keep up.
Updating red baiting is such a Russia
As I was putting my groceries into my car in the parking lot of my local Trader Joe’s, yesterday, I noticed the car next to me had a Bernie bumper sticker and a newer, Jill Stein for President, one. The driver was just getting out of her car as I was finishing my tasks, and I mentioned to her that I, too, was a Stein supporter, and we had a pleasant talk between Greens (she’s a member, too). I mentioned my fear that Hillary would start a war with Russia should she be elected, and that Putin and the Russians hadn’t been active anywhere, save Syria, in foreign adventures while the US is everywhere, killing indiscriminately.
She looked at me, with a smile, and said “But look what they did in Crimea!” I proceeded to expound about the history of Crimea, the majority Russian population who voted in the plebiscite to remain Russian and then threw in the promises made to Gorbachev regarding not expanding NATO to the east as a condition of his dismantling the Warsaw Pact. Her response was akin to that of a child who realizes that the Santa she saw at Macy’s isn’t the same one at Gimbles–and this woman was over 60, a Green, a progressive and, she said, a listener to Democracy Now! Pacifica radio and NPR…and that last source of news put her bemusement in perspective.
Even people whose instincts are toward peace and away from neo-liberal and neo-con politicians are hoodwinked by such “liberal” bastions of the “press” as MSNBC and NPR. Listen to either of those outlets for fifteen minutes and you’ll come away thinking Hillary’s The One and Putin is Hitler.
Like many another country before us, we have ceded our best instincts and, in a national panic attack, we ignorantly embrace militarism as the only-possible-response, led–in this spasm of death and destruction–by the propagandists paid by those running the show.
Peace is “off the table.”
The NPR listener thing is the problem, she probably listens to Pacifica once every few months.
NPR helped to sell the Iraq war, and never really recovered from that shame.
NPR acknowledged that it has — or least had for an extended period — an official policy of banning the term “torture” on air or in print in reference to US government and it’s “enhanced interrogation program™”.
Be it NPR which is 90% funded by the corporate rich, or NBC which is 100% owned by General Electric the world’s largest manufacturer of war materials, all of mainstream media has as a highest priority to keep us wealth worshiping and wars for plunder loving.
“Plebiscites” conducted under occupation are not valid. The proof is that only Vanuatu, Venezuela and Nicaragua recognize the Kremlin’s Anschluss with Crimea.
An occupation according to whom? If you are harboring any evidence that Crimeans did not welcome Russian intervention then you should publish it now.
It’s an occupation according to everyone in the world except the countries mentioned above.
But is it an occupation according to the Crimeans? Their opinion is the only on that matters, no one else’s,
Are you kidding me? The populations of Eastern and Western Europe never got even the sniff of a plebiscite BEFORE NATO barged into their nations at the behest of corrupt regimes. Thousands of Eastern Ukrainians died at the hands of Nuland’s pet Nazi horde, after the overthrow of a democratically-elected government that did not accept the terms of the EU. And that’s not even the starter course!
Tell me–where does the US get off bombing yet another sovereign nation without any authorization from anywhere, least of all its DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government. Which nation in the panoply of nations the US has attacked during the tenure of its Nobel Peace Prize-winning diktat am I referring to, you ask?
No other than Syria, whose president asked Russia to intervene before the Western-backed proxy terrorist army destroys Syria’s diversity, heritage, infrastructure, and cohesiveness.
Indeed. Check out a company called ROSTEC.
Indeed. Put Nuland and Pyatt and recorded call and Youtube in your search engine.
The governments of the countries that are now in NATO all rank in the top 50 of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Russia ranks 119. That’s up from 162.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, troll.
Really? So the Senate Committee on Black Sites was lying when it pointed out all those black site torture centers worked by the CIA in Eastern Europe? Where’s a vote for NATO expansion by the population in any Eastern European country?
No. It wasn’t lying. NATO allies cooperate in anti-terrorist efforts. Georgia D and Lithuanian soldiers fight alongside Americans in Afghanistan. It’s called an alliance.
I see you offer no refutation of my comment on corruption.
Classic Kremlin troll. They pay you guys well out at Olgino?
More importantly for the World, Ian, you present no evidence of a plebiscite for NATO expansion in any Eastern European country. Which means by your own definition NATO is an illegitimate occupying entity that is imposing its will on the populaces of Eastern Europe. Shades of the Warsaw Pact?
Mr Hauge, name calling does nothing to advance your argument. In fact, name-calling is the definition of a troll.
Russia is engaged in the same genocidal barrel-bombing campaign as the bloodthirsty Assad regime.
This from a Clinton shill, whose reputation for bloodthirsty genocide under the guise of “humanitarian intervention” is beyond legend. Apologize to Serbia yet?
You are a Kremlin troll. Bombing Belgrade was a righteous act.
That all you got? “Kremlin troll?” Did you hear Milosevic got exonerated? And American bombs killed more civilians than the actual supposed ‘war’ the West claimed Milosrvic was planning?
Come back when you get some facts, Ian.
Low-explosion barrow bombs of Assad, what are they compared to the high-explosion cluster bombs and super-high explosion bunker-busters of Empire USA?
The Crimea is predominantly Russian because Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars to Siberia. Many have returned but I’m sure they are keeping a low profile so as not to experience a return trip to Siberia. It is doubtful that Russia want’s a war but they do want to nibble away at areas that were conquered by the Russian Empire over the years. Similarly the Eastern Ukraine was emptied of Ukrainians by starvation in the early 1930’s and back filled by Russians so of course many living in the Eastern Ukraine are Russians. Lots of complications, lots of history but hopefully not the cause of a full blown world war.
Only if the US and the West acquiesce in this gross violation of the security order in Europe.
There was no Ukrainian language or history in Crimea pre 1957 !
MSNBC is despicable.
No. It is not liberals who are damaging the prospects for a rapprochement with Russia. It is Russian aggression that is doing that. The US cannot surrender its values in exchange for the very doubtful benefits of a better relationship with a militarized autocracy. In time, Russia will wake up from its nationalist dream and take the steps required to improve its relationship with the US and the West. until that time, Russia must be confronted.
What Russian aggression? Swooping into Crimea in response to an American backed coup on it’s border to protect it’s only warm water naval installation in the world?
Ian Hague. No doubt you’re playing Devil’s Advocate.
And doing a very good job of it, too!
He’s happy, I’m sure.
No doubt if s/he existed outside of the dog-eared pages of mythology s/he’d be beside herself with glee.
The overthrow of the corrupt, Russian-imposed regime of Viktor Yanukovich in Kyiv was an exercise of popular sovereignty. The US had nothing to do with it. You are spreading RUSSIAN propaganda by making that claim.
Bull. Victoria Nuland was caught ON TAPE planning the next Ukrainian fascist regime. You are Clintonite shill lying gratuitously as a bad habit. Luckily some of us are informed of the truth.
No she wasn’t. She was talking hypothetically about who was most likely to emerge as a leader in the new interim government.
Since then, they have had both parliamentary and presidential elections that were declared “free and fair” by international observers. How many international observers do you see in RUSSIAN “elections”?
“International Observers” from the nations that hosted the coup. Really reliable, Ian.
Not at all.
This article, and many respondents, often conflate Putin with Russia – do we use the word America when we write about Obama? It can be harmless, lazy, sensationalist, or lead to an incorrect representation of complex issues.
This article feels like a spurious bit of writing, worthy of MSNBC, Fox, NPR or any mainstream outlet, and fails to properly contextualize the issue for its reader.
I expected better, and will no longer financially support a site where snippet-scare-stories are the order of the day when there are a growing number of non-MSM news outlets available that take the time to present more well-thought out and developed articles.
The power base in Russia is not one man, by any means, even though it’s portrayed as such in western media.
Adam/FAIR: Such a piece is RARE via FAIR, in light of the near-daily torrent of preposterous Goebbels-like putrid propaganda hostile to especially Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Federation, published across editorial/opinion and news sections by THE WASHINGTON POST (the Dept. of State/CIA, NSA, Pentagon, Neo-Conservatives to Neo-Fascists within U.S. and Internationally [observe NATO] go-to journo
mercenaries). THE NEW YORK TIMES obsess and regress on the same narrative…
Where are the historians and researchers among these editors? The Fact-Checkers? The Professional
and Sane Journalists, eh?
Has anyone thought to research and write a truthful account of these peoples’ advising, consultancies,
other contracted or sub-contracted activities in Ukraine prior to 2004 and forward; in Georgia, and other
former Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet states that have been/are/remain in crises….?
Republicans have increasingly financed and sent thousands of neo-conservatives to Eastern Europe
for 20+ years to re-manufacture NATO toward their vision!!!
“Where are the historians and researchers among these editors? The Fact-Checkers? The Professional
and Sane Journalists, eh?”
Right here: http://www.salon.com/2016/08/18/war-in-the-media-age-hysteria-over-trumps-supposed-russian-ties-made-headlines-but-the-story-is-remarkably-flimsy/?source=newsletter#
…and here: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/08/21/us-hawks-advance-a-war-agenda-in-syria/
and of course at FAIR
The only Goebbels like information relating to US-RUSSIAN relations emanates from Putin’s Kremlin.
Really. Perhaps you should consider examining the plunging trendline of America’s global freedom of the press ranking, no longer even making the top 40, directly below Slovenia.
Now what were you saying about Goebbels?
https://rsf.org/en/ranking
You need to stop smoking Meth, ABE.
You are the one drinking NATO Koolaid !
Follow the money. The war industry must be fed as weapons makers/dealers sell to all sides.
i doubt they will want to downplay it. many politicians and most media types are from the post-draft proxy war generation and it might not occur to them that a war with russia (and china) won’t be doable without nukes and/or a draft. wahhabis in white toyotas are not going to storm the kremlin while these “people” type up their two minute hates at the artisan cupcake shoppe. if they had any clue of the potential damage it could do THEM personally they might stop suffering from Thomas Friedman Syndrome and telling russians to “suck on this”.
the “Crimea Surprise” thing is also hilarious given the recent incursion by ukrainians into crimea to blow stuff up real good (and possibly blame muslims).
Synergistic article at PopularResistance dot org today:
Are People Of United States Being Propagandized For War With Syria
https://www.popularresistance.org/are-people-of-united-states-being-propagandized-for-war-with-syria/
Prepare for the next stimulus to the MIC being Hillary’s new hot war in Syria…
Imagine if instead of providing the arms and conflicts to blow them up in the ME we use that immense treasure to provide material and supplies of Restorative Justice for the tens of millions of people whose family members USAmerican policies (O.I.L.) have killed and/or who’ve been rendered internal and global refugees…
I’ve made comments on this site, from time to time, over the years, but I’ve seldom seen such aggressive vitriol, childish posturing and overall meanness of spirit. I could very well be mistaken, but I sense a coordinated attack from the Hillary Clinton campaign. If I’m right, it’s sadly amusing that this type of activity could be coming from a woman who has complained, for decades, of vast right wing conspiracies out to get her….and her vegan husband, too. Aren’t elections fun?
In wealth driven Empire USA, we really need the 51% least greedy being the voting majority and running government. Problem is, the lower-half of society has since 1776 been kept so impoverished and so terrorized by a police state, that they are not about to waste time voting for their next set of dictators.
So, with only the upper-half of society going to the polls, our voting majority is the 26% most wealthy, surely the most god-ego pride driven and war-loving greedy.
How can the US negotiate the end of the Syrian conflict or the Ukrainian crisis if the public, even MSNBC-watching liberals, views Russia as irredeemably aggressive and incapable of ever being a US “friend”?
—
Well, MSNBC liberals hardly matter. What matters is the big bourgeoisie that is making deals for joint exploration of oil fields with Gazprom. The red carpet was put down for Exxon-Mobil even as the bullets were flying in Ukraine. Not only that, Russian oligarchs continue to buy $20 million condos in NY and London–business as usual. In terms of the Syrian conflict, the Rand Corporation advised the Pentagon that the removal of Assad would be the worst possible outcome for American interests in Syria. It is highly regrettable that Johnson has no idea of the underlying class relationships. He should find the time to read Karl Marx instead of Global Research and Moon of Alabama.
Orwellian Double Speak has, at long last, been totally absorbed by the masses as “Double Think”. We read above that the same outlets claim Trump is a virtual Russian “fellow traveler-provocateur” and want him elected, yet in classic double speak, also claim an “October Surprise” of a Russian invasion that would, of course, favor HRC and her anti-Russian diatribes over Trumps “appeasement” policy. So, Russia wants Trump, but is willing to help HRC win by their aggression? And, the masses are now capable of believing both “unbiased media source” statements to be true at the same time ! HRC = “War Is Peace” Trump = “Goldman” is now “Radical Islam”. HRC + TRUMP = “Freedom Is Slavery” Like weather, why read the book when you can simply look out the window? Just for fun, throw in Huxley’s “Brave New World” with everyone on “Soma” to keep 50% of the US population on continuous medications – Escape to your cell phone, quick!
Agree with you on this
But I just have one more caveat to add:
We should always differntiTe between war : like what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam
And saving civilians from massacres and genocide like what happened in Bosnia and now is ongoing in Syria and Palestine
Differentiate
Typo
Have you ever considered writing an e-book or guest authoring on other sites?
I have a blog based upon on the same topics you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my viewers would enjoy your work.
If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to send me an email.
If only you had listened or been aware… your blind ignorance will be your downfall of not only yourselves, but America as we know it.
It is time to take back the nation from this Godless, unAmerican administration.
They are full of nothing but hate & lies. Not a word they utter is truth or the least bit unifying.
Temporary 45th president of the USA. I hope the history books never mention his name.
Subtract Agent Orange from the picture and you’ve got Mike Pence, who’ll deliver you more godfullness than you can shake a staff at.