UPDATED below
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A while ago Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone warned: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media:
If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to be no conspiracy – Trump will be pre-inoculated against all criticism for the foreseeable future.
Sanity is finally winning over. After raising all kinds of shambolic rumors about "Russian interference" the "western" intelligence agencies are walking back their previous outrageous claims:
- Former DNI James Clapper admits (vid) that he has zero evidence for any Trump-Russia collusion;
- The British Foreign Secretary now says there is "no evidence" of any Russian interference with British democracy;
- The German secret services have no proof (in German) for any Russian disinformation campaign.
There is no evidence for any Russian interference in the U.S., or any other, election. No evidence has been show, despite many claims, that Russia or its proxies hacked John Podesta's emails or the DNC or collaborated with Wikileaks.
Even the Democrats now concede that the whole mountain of bullshit their anti-Trump and anti-Russian campaign created stinks to high heaven:
[S]ome Democrats on the Intelligence Committee now quietly admit, after several briefings and preliminary inquiries, they don’t expect to find evidence of active, informed collusion between the Trump campaign and known Russian intelligence operatives, though investigators have only just begun reviewing raw intelligence. Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank and file, there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called “wildly inflated” expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.
Ardent Russia critics like Masha Geesen and former ambassador Michael McFaul now warn of irreparable damage the irrational anti-Russian campaign may cause. A New York Times opinion piece points out that the reignited anti-Russian attitude goes back to the 19th century and was as wrong then as it is now. Claims that meetings between the incoming Trump administration and the Russian ambassador were nefarious are hard to hold up when members of the Clinton campaign also met him. Trump's National Security Advisor Flynn was accused of colluding with Russia when in fact he was paid by Turkey to lobby for Erdogan.
The disinformation campaign against Russia is falling apart for lack of any evidence. The media who ardently supported it have lost trust. As they obviously lied about Russia how much truth are they telling on other issue?
Tabbi's warning was late. The damage is done. "Western" relations with Russia have been hurt. But also hurt are the reputations of the media and of the Democratic party. Trump though has been justified with his rejection of that campaign. He now is, as Tabbi predicted, "pre-inoculated" against other accusations – at least with his followers and those sitting on the fence. Trump has now the space to develop his original grand strategic idea of seeking amiable relations with Russia before getting embroiled in any other international dispute. Those relations are now developing on the ground in Syria where cooperation between Russian and U.S. troops intensifies:
Moscow, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis added, has "kept us abreast of their operations" in Manbij, ..
Signs are that there is way more of that then the Pentagon admits. There have been several meetings at the highest levels of Russian and U.S. military and whoever commands U.S. forces in Syria will surely have a direct line to the Russian ground commander to coordinate their moves.
The Democrats failed in their anti-Trump, anti-Russia campaign.
UPDATE:
The belligerent dude Hillary Clinton's wanted as CIA boss now admits that the British Steele dossier is total bullshit. (We said so months ago.)
Clinton Ally Says Smoke, But No Fire: No Russia-Trump Collusion
Morell, who was in line to become CIA director if Clinton won, said he had seen no evidence that Trump associates cooperated with Russians.
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Morell said he had learned that the former officer, Christopher Steele, paid his key Russian sources, and interviewed them through intermediaries."On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said at an event sponsored by the Cipher Brief, an intelligence web site.
"There's no little campfire, there's no little candle, there's no spark. And there's a lot of people looking for it."
The Daily Beast, one of the sites that intensively peddled the false anti-Trump/anti-Russia claims, is now warning (somewhat) against doing such:
Trump’s critics last year were horrified at the rise of “fake news” and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.
Senator John McCain explained in Congress what he means when he accuses someone of "working for Putin":
Joe Gould @reporterjoe
.@RandPauI just blocked @SenJohnMcCain's UC request to add Montenegro to NATO & exited. McCain: "The sen from Ky is now working for Putin."
You see, anyone disagreeing with the neoconservative John McCain is by definition now "working for Putin". It is no wonder then that Washington DC is full of Russian agents …
A significant part of the electorate, the "millenials", are not as dump as the politicians believe. They wonder what all the fuzz is about:
Amid an avalanche of news raising alarm about Russian meddling in the U.S. election and ties between President Donald Trump’s administration and Moscow, many younger voters are questioning how big a threat the former Cold War foe really is.
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Interviews with more than 30 voters across the country show a major generational gap when it comes to views of Russia. According to younger voters, the view of Russia as an automatic threat that they hear from lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is an outdated relic of the Cold War.
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In interviews with McClatchy, many young adults said news accounts of U.S.-Russian relations in 2017, full of spies and secretive meetings with ambassadors, seemed like a Cold War thriller with no connection to modern reality.
End-Update