Despite the fact that it’s been so thoroughly debunked that even the MSM now admit that Russiagate was a complete hoax, much of the low-information left still refuse to admit they were duped. Not content with having been caught out lying through their teeth (yet again), nor apparently content to rely on their incurious readers’ gullibility, the MSM are already ramping up Russiagate 2.0.
The claim is, as put by Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias, that “Big swathes of the GOP have just been mainlining Russian propaganda for a while now.” The argument, so far as it has any coherence, is that conservative pundits like Dave Rubin, Tim Pool and Lauren Southern have been pushing content similar to an alleged Russian propaganda outfit, and allegedly unwittingly received funding from an apparent American media outfit secretly run by two Russia Today employees.
The problem, though, is that all this is based on the say-so of the same people who told us that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”.
And the story is being amplified by the same media who took the payola from Communist China’s own propaganda machine. As journalist Natalie G Winters points out, the likes of Matthew Yglesias might just want to sit this one out.
You took a trip to China paid for by a Chinese Communist Party influence group in exchange for “favorable coverage.”
And then tweeted about advising them on “how to craft” better propaganda.
In 2010, Yglesias was just one of a slew of MSM journalists and networks who went on a junket to China, courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party. The China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) is part of the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The UFWD is a department of the Central Committee of the CCP and gathers intelligence on, manages relations with and attempts to gain influence over elite individuals and organisations as part of the CCP’s overseas propaganda machine. Not only does it seek to harvest favourable press for the CCP, it is also task with undermining and dividing opposition to the CCP.
Such as, conservative US media figures.
The story of the propaganda junket was covered by the National Pulse.
The National Pulse can reveal that a host of corporate media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC, have participated in private dinners and sponsored trips with the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Chinese Communist Party-funded group seeking to garner “favorable coverage” and “disseminate positive messages” regarding China. Other outlets involved in the propaganda operation include Forbes, the Financial Times, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Reuters, ABC News, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, AFP, TIME magazine, LA Times, The Hill, BBC, and The Atlantic.
It’s a veritable who’s who of the Russiagate hoax.
A 2011 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing shows that the CUSEF recruited American lobbying group BLJ.
In 2009 alone, CUSEF generated 28 media placements as a result of its four journalist visits and BLJ secured “the publication of 26 opinion articles and quotes within 103 separate articles” on behalf of CUSEF. Outlets included Newsweek, the National Journal, the Nation, Congressional Quarterly, US News, World Report, The Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Note.
“BLJ directly contributed to or influenced” an average of three articles “per week” […]
A filing dated January 1st, 2012, show outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN, and more participating in “private dinners” at the home of CUSEF’s American lobbying firm’s CEO.
The same filing reveals that outlets including National Public Radio (NPR), The Atlantic, MSNBC, and Reuters had journalists visit China to meet with CUSEF officials.
One of those journalists was none other than Matthew Yglesias. While Yglesias never registered the trip with FARA, a CUSEF brochure (since scrubbed from the internet, but screencapped for posterity) shows that the Foundation continued its ‘Visiting Journalist Program’ in the first half of 2010 by hosting two groups of prominent American journalists on tours of China... [including] Matthew Yglesias, a blogger from the Center for American Progress (CAP).
Curiously enough, Yglesias later tweeted (also scrubbed, but handily captured for posterity on archive.today):
Chinese propaganda always seems incredibly clumsy compared to some of the other big players in the propaganda space. I kept wanting to give the Party flunkies notes on how to craft better arguments when I went on a tour of China.
A simple Google search, not to mention the eagerness with which he’s promulgating Russiagate 2.0, suggests that little Matty has been true to his word.
