Nearly two years into the #Russiagate scandal, accusing people of being in league with Putin has become an almost daily feature of news coverage. Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: The New Blacklist
Russiagate may have been aimed at Trump to start, but it's become a way of targeting all dissent.
Putin loves you; therefore, you love Putin. The enemy re-tweets you, therefore, you're in league with the enemy. We're at war with them, therefore we're at war with you.
One of the first rules of a shunning campaign is that it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to be what everyone's saying. Since most Americans went to high school, we tend to be instinctively familiar with the concept.
The crazy inverse logic of the new national blacklist was on full display after special prosecutor Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian "troll farm" operatives in February. In the wake of this foreign meddling charge, CNN reporter Drew Griffin banged on the door of an elderly female Trump supporter named Florine Goldfarb and accused her of being a Russia-collaborator.
Goldfarb had attended a pro-Trump rally allegedly promoted on Facebook by Russian trolls. There were no Russians at the rally. The group didn't meet to discuss the subjugation of Abkhazia. They were plain, ordinary, Floridian Trump supporters – idiots, maybe, but not traitors.
Not according to CNN.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: When I read that former Trump aide Sam Nunberg (if he is to be believed) remarked that the FBI wanted to know if Russian was spoken at the Trump Tower .... I could only say to myself .... is this where we are now at? According to the above Rolling Stone article .... apparently we are.
