Fact-Checking The Ukrainian Revolution


In 2008, while covering the Republican Convention, I bumped into Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!, and I was star struck. When Russia Today announced that Julian Assange would get his own show, I thought that was brilliant and couldn’t wait to watch it. One of my more interesting email newsletter subscriptions comes from CounterPunch, a political website in Portland, Oregon—that lovable hipster Narnia. But now that my mainstays in alternative media are covering the revolution in Ukraine—a part of the world I have lived in and researched extensively for years—it’s left me heartbroken, and wondering: If Russia Today, DemocracyNow!, and Counter Punch are spreading misinformation about Ukraine, what else have they been wrong about? By sharing their articles in the past, have I helped them blur the truth?

Ukraine has a history of being the victim of media conspiracy. In 1933, the Western mainstream media deliberately covered-up Stalin’s genocide famine in Ukraine that starved to death many millions. Stalin, a great statistician himself, cited 10 million dead. Eugene Lyons, a reporter for UPI in Moscow, confessed to the cover-up in his tell-all memoir Assignment in Utopia. It was reviewed by Orwell and helped inspire ideas for 1984, namely the slogan: 2+2=5.

Before reading this article, had you heard of the famine? There’s a reason why most people still don’t know that many millions of Ukrainians were starved to death by their government in a single year; the Western media, confined to Moscow, was successful in ignoring “the rumors.” In one notorious instance some of the world’s most influential foreign reporters ganged up on a brave, young, independent journalist named Gareth Jones, by publishing articles full of lies that contradicted Jones’ fearless eye-witness reporting. The media’s silence or flat-out denials helped the Kremlin keep the truth of the famine locked behind the Iron Curtain. It eventually became reserved to the world of academia, where it was debated for generations.


Today the alternative media is the Kremlin’s little helper. Many Americans are infuriated with our government’s NSA spying and wars-for-profit, and obviously rightfully so. But their anger toward American neocons seems projected onto a revolution that would inspire free thinkers and freedom fighters. If only they could forgive The New York Times for Judith Miller, they would trust the incredible reporting the paper is doing on the ground in Ukraine. Yes, corporate media is fiercely generic and prefers covering shiny celebrity objects; but its ability to afford fact-checkers and travel budgets can lead to some damn good reporting.

Here’s what you need to be aware of as the situation in Ukraine develops:

Any article that links to Russia Today (RT) to cite a “fact” was written by a lazy journalist. It’s well-known that Russia Today was started by the Russian government, which has a history of imprisoning and killing investigative journalists.

Continues in link: http://thoughtcatalog.com/andrea-chalupa/2014/02/fact-checking-the-ukrainian-revolution/

Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has been widely documented but not thoroughly investigated. A congressional investigation of foreign interference is necessary, as is the declassification of what multiple Senators and intelligence officials have deemed “explosive information” concerning threats to the sovereignty and security of the United States. The public has a right to know whether the integrity of our electoral process has been compromised, whether Donald Trump is serving the American people or Russian interests, and whether the institutions that uphold our liberties will continue to do so.

I. Allegations of Russian interference. Elected officials have been calling for an investigation into Russian interference since the summer of 2016, but their calls were largely unheeded. In August, Senator Harry Reid requested that the FBI investigate Russian state interference as well as ties between Russia and members of Trump’s campaign team, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, a well-known political operative who had previously acted on Putin’s behalf in Ukraine. In October, Reid wrote again to FBI director James Comey and declared: “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information.”

After the election, political leaders from multiple parties have reiterated Reid’s call for an investigation. Green Party candidate Jill Stein backed a vote recount effort due to voting irregularities in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, while cybersecurity experts stressed the need for an audit due to the likelihood of Russian hacks. Republicans Lindsay Graham and John McCain have both called for a forceful investigation of Russian election interference as well as a general inquiry into Russian corruption. Democrats including Chuck Schumer, the future Democratic Senate Minority Leader, have reiterated this call, backed by a number of their Democratic colleagues. President Obama and the Clinton campaign have also stressed the need for an investigation.
Over the summer, 17 intelligence agencies concurred that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

As evidence that’s still classified but leaked to the media mounts, numerous intelligence specialists have confirmed Russian interference. NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers has stated that Putin intentionally directly meddled in U.S. democracy to achieve a specific desired outcome. CIA officials have also confirmed that Russia purposefully intervened in the election with the specific intent of bringing Trump to power. Former CIA official Michael Morrell, who had warned of Russia’s intentions over the summer, called their operation “the political equivalent of 9/11.” On December 14, two senior intelligence officials said with “a high level of confidence” that Russian president Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the operation, and that the intelligence showing this attack against our electoral system and the integrity of our nation was carried by Kremlin officials at the highest levels of power.

In summary, leaders from the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Green Party; intelligence officials from the CIA and the NSA; and the White House itself have stated that Russia interfered with the election. On November 10, Kremlin officials confirmed that it had indeed been in contact with the Trump campaign during the election. The only people involved in this situation who continue to maintain that Russia did not interfere with the election are Donald Trump and his backers.

II. The Motive. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has been covered less by the media and until recently ceased to be a political priority of the U.S. government. As a result, it is difficult for non-specialists to understand the goals of Kremlin interference in the election. This section outlines the rationale for Russia’s actions, including:

Continues here: https://medium.com/alexandrachalupa/russias-interference-americans-have-a-right-to-know-a2aabd922129#.sjljvo48o

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What's now called the alt-right actually began as a conservative resistance — against George W. Bush

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/08/how-the-alt-right-became-racist-a-short-history-of-hate-part-1/

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The GOP's endless battles over who is or isn't a "true conservative" created a movement it couldn't control

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/14/rise-of-the-alt-right-how-mainstream-conservatives-empowered-racism-and-engineered-their-own-destruction/