New York Times tries to revive Russiagate for midterms

At the Times, Jim Rutenberg and assignment editors apparently think that readers, or perhaps rather, the target audience of Team Blue and .Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, haven't heard of the Minsk Accords, or else, like Blue Anon and Democratic national leaders / apparatchiks, think they can pretend Minsk away just like inflation, even as they try to revive Russiagate, and to revive purplish prose at the same time, in writing about a summer 2016 meeting between Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik in summer 2016.

On the former? This:

Known loosely as the Mariupol plan, after the strategically vital port city, it called for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded and -directed “separatists” were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead. The new republic’s leader would be none other than Yanukovych. The trade-off: “peace” for a broken and subservient Ukraine.

Gee, that sounds like the Minsk Accords, as I told them on Twitter. Initial version passed in 2014, final version in 2015. Well before 2016. I noted in another tweet that I blogged about Minsk at the start of the war. Seriously, this is like the Harvards at the start of the war (and the West-embedded Gorby, too), claiming that James Baker never told Gorbachev that NATO would expand not one inch further east.

Rutenberg eventually gets to Minsk, but not until halfway through a 10,000 word piece, and then tying it back to the original "theory," that Putin wanted to break off the Donbas fully and give it to Yanukovych. And, Rutenberg won't tell you (which I do) that Ukraine and Russia both broke them. (As for Russia and Ukraine having different interpretations of Minsk, that cuts both ways, with both countries breaking Minsk.)

Now, on to the second item of concern right off the top of the bat, the "pandering purplish prose"? This:

Shortly after the appointed hour, Kilimnik walked onto a perfectly put-up stage set for a caricature drama of furtive figures hatching covert schemes with questionable intent — a dark-lit cigar bar with mahogany-paneled walls and floor-to-ceiling windows columned in thick velvet drapes, its leather club chairs typically filled by large men with open collars sipping Scotch and drawing on parejos and figurados. Men, that is, like Paul Manafort, with his dyed-black pompadour and penchant for pinstripes. There, with the skyline shimmering though the cigar-smoke haze, Kilimnik shared a secret plan whose significance would only become clear six years later, as Vladimir V. Putin’s invading Russian Army pushed into Ukraine.

Talk about godawful. But, it's not just godawful. It's pandering to Democratic stereotypes of all things Trump, and Rutenberg and/or editors know that. It's probably also pandering to Dem stereotypes of all things Russian oligarchy, even though Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected with the help of oligarchs in that country (more below). And, although too late for much of early voting, it's "interesting" that this is coming out right before midterms. And, yes, I do think that's part of what's driving this. But, just like with Hillary Clinton's too-late oppo research on Jill Stein in 2016, the Times would, in this case, have forgotten about early voting.

Now, do I think Manafort deserves blank checks? Of course not.

But, between the lies by omission about Minsk and the pandering purplish prose, both the paper and Rutenberg individually chucked their credibility out the door 10 percent of the way in.

But, let's retranslate, starting with the reality of Minsk.

For the unaware, the US was never a part of the work that led to the Minsk agreements. (The US is part of the OSCE, but it was never actively involved within it on Minsk I, even before the Normandy Group took the lead.) Ergo, the idea behind them was not part of US foreign policy. And, Kilimnik wanted that to change, and believed that it would under a President Donald Trump. There is nothing illegal about this. Or nefarious.

But, let's go to the outright lies under "Russiagate." Start here:

In the weeks that followed, operatives in Moscow and St. Petersburg would intensify their hacking and disinformation campaign to damage Clinton and help turn the election toward Trump, which would form the core of the scandal known as Russiagate

Reality is that the Internet Research Agency meddled. Period. Full stop. It did NOT meddle on behalf of Trump. Things such as pro-Clintonesque as well as pro-Trump-like Facebook groups, and people here in Amerikkka joining both, and in the same city, squaring off against each other, were part of that. I noted that in this blog post which also has GOP Congresscritter Mike McCaul admitting that RNC as well as DNC computers were attacked, and notes that FBI head James Comey discussed this. I've longly and loudly cited the attacks on RNC as well as DNC computers against BOTH #BlueAnon (and their mainstream media fellow travelers) AND #MAGAts (and their wingnut media fellow travelers), as proof both that Russia was targeting the US, including with Guccifer 2.0, but that Putin was NOT colluding with Trump.

Even their Guccifer 2.0 work on the Assange emails has no quid pro quo. (I believe that Assange likely knew early on where the emails were coming from, per my long-form discussion of the issue.) And, it also ignores that Hillary Clinton was getting help from Ukrainian sources, as discussed here. (It totally ignores the reality of Hunter Biden's laptop.)

Then, there's lying about 2016 Ukraine:

Thrumming beneath the whole election saga was another story — about Ukraine’s efforts to establish a modern democracy and, as a result, its position as a hot zone of the new Cold War between Russia and the West, autocracy and democracy.

Zelenskky himself was elected in part with the help of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs and is personally corrupt. Before the invasion, he shuttered both print and broadcast media.

And a mix of lies and half-truths about the Maidan. I stopped reading at that point.

I mean, Rutenberg is clearly in the world of PR now. And, it gets worse from there. Rutenberg's bio notes that, after graduating college, he went to work for the NY Daily News as a gossip stringer. Sounds like he never left off.

How long before the Congressional Progressive Caucus continues its craven groveling to Team Blue and signs off on this lock, stock and barrel.

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Meanwhile, Fauxgressives like Thom Hartmann are drinking the Kool-Aid. A friend of Mark Ames on Twitter said even Saint Ralph of Nader was. Well, he's not "peddling" the Kool-Aid, but by his silence, he's not calling it out.