Russia Russia Redux

The Department of Justice pulled out the big guns this week to announce yet another Russian government-sponsored effort to influence the 2024 election.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared side by side with FBI Director Christopher Wray to beat the drums of a dire “foreign malign influence campaign” aimed of course at supporting Donald Trump and maligning Democrats.

If it sounds familiar, of course it is. The Democrats are already setting up their “insurance policy” in the increasingly likely event that Comrade Kamala loses the November election.

So what actually happened? The DoJ on Wednesday released a a warrant for the seizure of 32 Internet domains used by Russian-government sponsored actors, and indicted Putin advisor Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko and a series of Russian social media companies for their role in the scheme.

Kiriyenko allegedly directed an operation to set up a phony Internet broker in Tennessee that then hired “right-wing” bloggers to spread Russian propaganda, in particular as regards the Ukraine war but also the U.S. elections.

One influencer was allegedly paid $1 million for his services. When contacted by the media he said he had no knowledge of the Russians or of Russian involvement with the Tennessee media company. Another posted on X that he was the victim, not the perpetrator, of the alleged influence campaign.

In total, the DoJ claimed the Russians spent $10 million on this nefarious campaign to trick unwitting American voters into voting for Donald Trump with videos about our porous Southern border and other hot-button topics.

You may recall that in 2020, Mark Zuckerberg spent over $400 million with left-wing “voters advocacy” groups to set up drop boxes and otherwise increase voter turnout in Democrat areas. But that wouldn’t be election interference in the eyes of the DoJ.

Nor would the pathetic lionization of Kamala Harris by the formerly mainstream media we’ve been inundated with since Biden withdrew from the race.

It is truly astonishing how the media pundits can with a straight face gush over Comrade Kamala, who just months earlier was widely considered the dumbest person to have achieved high political office in the United States. Ever.

President Trump is calling this another Russia Russia hoax. I prefer to think of it as a Russia Russia feint.

Instead of wondering why the Russians are trying to influence a U.S. election, something they’ve been doing since the Comintern was established in 1919, we should be looking in the mirror at our own willingness to demonize our political opponents.

The Russians are sowing confusion and inciting division among Americans? That is precisely what social media has been doing since Facebook first came on the scene in 2004.

The radicalization and hyper-ventilating generated by social media makes us vulnerable to the type of media manipulation we are now seeing (on a VERY small scale) from Russia and Iran. Our enemies are merely taking advantage of our vulnerabilities — and why wouldn’t they?

Sure, the FBI should be chasing Russian spies and influencers. But the rest of us ought to be looking in the mirror, too. And try spending less time on social media.

I discuss this as well as the new French prime minister, Turkey joining BRICS, and a new strategy for defeating the Islamist regime in Iran on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, or listen to the podcast later.

Yours in freedom.

©2024. Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.