Knee-jerk anti-Resistance pulls twosiderism on Trump's Ukraine kerfuffle

I've got a longer blog post coming in a few weeks about alleged outside-the-box journos and the Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid.

But, seeing some stuff on Twitter in the last 36 hours, instead of appending what's below to the end of that, wanted to do a separate blog post.

Aaron Maté has been very good about challenging the Trump-Putin collusion line. I don't know where he stands on the whole issue of Russian meddling in US elections, but he probably wrongly throws the baby out with the bathwater by rejecting that, too.

I also know that, although he hasn't done a puff piece interview of Tulsi Gabbard, unlike Matt Taibbi, he has, by silence if nothing else, helped peddle the Tulsi Kool-Aid.

OK, on to the Trump-Ukraine issue.

On the parallel issue of McResistance, or being reflexively against it, we do need to mention another person by name with Maté — Benjamin Norton.

And, before we go too far, this word from old friend Idries Shah:

In case it's not yet clear, per the header and the one tag, yes, I think there's plenty of twosiderism going on.

On the Ukrainian kerfuffle, Aaron first started saying it was perhaps either a Trumpian trap game for Dems or else just more Mueller type stuff. So I tweeted him this from Silverstein. Then, a day later, he clearly pulled in his horns with this tweet:

.@BenjaminNorton joins @PushbackShow on the Ukraine scandal no one's talking about: a far-right US soldier arrested by the FBI for plotting domestic bomb attacks sought to join Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which was armed & advised by the US gov't. https://t.co/DUcHLcCIof

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) September 25, 2019

Overton Window movement isn't just left-to-right politically. It includes other things like this.

So, I Tweeted Aaron and Max this from Silverstein with the "ask" that they have him on the show.

(Also of note: Aaron deleted the tweet I first quote-tweeted.)

And, I guess we need to add Yasha Levine to the list, too. Aaron retweeted:

How does that work, exactly? How can you pressure someone by withholding money if they don‘t know you’re actually withholding that money? https://t.co/teC7GskwhU

— Yasha Levine (@yashalevine) September 25, 2019

Fact is, Yasha, that several people, including myself, asked Vogel how he was making this claim and others pointed out facts to undermine it.

And, of course, Michael Tracey is there:

The sudden, rapid coalescence of elite left/liberal opinion (with some neocons thrown in) has an extremely poor track record over the past several years, so you'll have to excuse me if I continue to be skeptical

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 26, 2019

Says the man with the extremely deliberately poor track record of peddling Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid lies and calling Lyin Ted, Booger Cruz, Rafael Cruz "charming" (and likely to be the Prez nominee in 2016) in 2014. That's Michael Tracey for you, folks!

Later on Thursday, Ken specifically called out Tracey, and one of his Tweets, by name. He's right in that this might be a dud, but, he's right on the main point. This isn't some extension of Russiagate.

Shit, Judge Napolitano SAID ON FOX that he thinks Trump committed a crime.

And Friday? Chris Wallace is now part of the reality-based community:

Chris Wallace: "...it is a serious allegation...the WB lays out a blueprint for talking to various officials in the WH... and to dismiss this...seems to me to be an effort by the president's defenders to try to make nothing out of something and there is something here." 2/ pic.twitter.com/VhtMPXKp4C

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) September 27, 2019

Well, there you have it.

Well, not yet you don't. Friday evening, Trump's diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, resigned amid reports he was in on the wheeling-dealing.

==

Update, Nov. 8: Aaron got kicked on his former news site, The Real News over his twosider-stanning. (Watch out, world, "stanning" is going to get attached to more!) Matt also got a bit of kicking. Ryan Cooper and William Rivers Pitt are pretty insightful themselves. So, contra this DSA Rose who's still part of the duopoly, and where I saw the link:

3 liberal journos on @TheRealNews bashing former correspondent @aaronjmate for refusing to parrot DP talking points on Russia/impeachment. Reminiscent of MSNBC requiring anti-war voices to be balanced by hawks. 4 to 1 for @MMFlint. For Chomsky, 1000 to 1. https://t.co/nTCSDBk8pY

— John Halle (@JGHalle) November 2, 2019

I'll take them first.