If You Question the Establishment You Are Guilty of Espionage, Says Corporate Media Because RussiaBy Claire Bernish Ordinarily, the complete dearth of proof this claim has even a shred of truth would cause a reflexive eye roll but in this case, the American exceptionalist machine behind the supposed analysis calls for FBI and Department of Justice to investigate possible violations of Espionage Act. Conflating legitimate journalism with espionage because it refutes a narrative acceptable to the establishment is categorically ludicrous. This irresponsible, criminal violation of ethics devoid of any journalistic integrity came from the Washington Post, which reported two teams of independent researchers discovered The Russians were behind fake news articles to help Donald Trump win the election and undermine faith in American democracy. It could be said you cant make this up but apparently thats exactly what these so-called expert researchers did. The flood of fake news this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation, the Post declared in its lede. However, as has been the highly-suspect tendency thus far in the corporate medias war on ostensible disinformation, literally no evidence accompanied the Posts report nor the analyses provided by these two putatively independent research groups making the article a prime example of libel. Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) November 25, 2016 In fact, the credibility of this reporting is so wet tissue paper-flimsy, even the mainstream outlet Fortune refuted the contents in an article appropriately titled, No, Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See, because the case starts to come apart at the seams the more you look at it. Fortune notes one of the two research groups, the Foreign Policy Institute, is 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. PropOrNot, the other group publishing the exhaustive List of even award-winning sites, tweets and retweets anti-Russian sentiments from a variety of sources, has only existed since August of this year, according to Fortune. And an article announcing the launch of the group on its website is dated last month. None of the supposedly multiple people responsible for the fledgling PropOrNot website are named, even by the Post. Its executive director, whom the Post quoted on the condition of anonymity to avoid being targeted by Russias legions of skilled hackers a laughable excuse worthy of its own tinfoil hat claims, The way that this propaganda apparatus supported Trump was equivalent to some massive amount of a media buy. It was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trumps campaign. . . . It worked. Once again, the Russia did it narrative belies the underlying establishment frustration and inability to come to terms with the loss of democratic election a loss alternative, independent media undoubtedly assisted, but not for the tiresome reasons corporate outlets repeat ad infinitum. Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 presidential election because some shady, Russian-government crafted cabal of non-mainstream outlets plotted her downfall for the benefit of Donald Trump. Indeed, most of the outlets listed including The Free Thought Project castigated both Clinton and Trump when pertinent information became available. No, Hillary Clinton lost because even faced with as contentious a character as megalomaniacal Trump the American populace has grown too weary of Washington politics-as-usual, foreign policy-as-usual, and corruption-as-usual. Independent media did a phenomenal job reporting on revelations published by WikiLeaks, and equally stellar slaying of U.S. government propaganda reported as legitimate news by irresponsible corporate media presstitutes, who some time ago abandoned journalism for establishment acceptance. Pointing fingers will never make this any less true and, in actuality, only deepens the shameful dereliction of journalistic duty. To wit, the Posts regurgitating this thinly veneered anti-Russian agenda as fact, when literally no investigation was undertaken no one contacted the outlets on this list to offer their side, for example is precisely the sort of fake news the establishment insists it needs to fight. Fortune points out: Once again, we have literally unverifiable information coughed up by unknown entities, who employed unknown methods to produce a blacklist of media sites which incidentally includes a disparate mishmash from Ron Paul and Chris Hedges, to the Drudge Report and Lew Rockwell that the public should deem verboten because they said so. That, and because Russia. As The Intercepts Glenn Greenwald tweeted: Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 25, 2016 Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 25, 2016 Again, though its difficult not to laugh at this altogether ironic travesty, the peril lies in these unknown entities at PropOrNot suggesting these outlets and the journalists behind them have violated the Espionage Act, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and other related laws, but determining that is up to the FBI and the DOJ. Just two paragraphs prior, PropOrNot paradoxically claims it fiercely believe in the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and have no interest in seeing anyone punished for exercising them. Although PropOrNot flatly claims its questionably researched and flagrantly unvetted list shouldnt be considered McCarthyistic, well, it is. So in other words, any and every one who is anything but a liberal drone is now a Russian plant? Zero Hedge, which also landed a spot on the Everyone the Establishment Dislikes Is a Russian Agent list, asked rhetorically. McCarthy would be proud. Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. Image Credit: TheAntiMedia.org da jooz they own them all Yah, all this spew about fake news is, well? fake news! Essentially. An aint that the friekin kicker! The swamp would have you believe that frogs wont boil. We can, with almost 100% certainty, agree that the US engages in the very same activity they accuse Russia ofthousands of botnets, teams of paid human trolls, and networks of websites and social-media accounts. This is how to combat the truth. Bugger I like them all but dont read the Washington Post. I had better look under my bed for a CIA plant I cant wait for January 20th, am so tired of all this bs about being PC on FB or Zuckerberg will delete my account. Stupid! I hope Trump will deal with MSM, also maybe he will start a Trump TV, news I could trust for a change. 