In a wide ranging interview, based on his December 4th article in Consortium News, âHow Russia-gate Rationalizes Censorship, Joe Lauria learned from two people who had appealed to FAIR and the ACLU that senior officials of both organizations dedicated to protecting press freedom, declined to support him because they personally believed in Russia-gate which goes against the organizations' principles. They joined with the liberal media, such as HuffPost, to suppress and instill fear in anyone who challenges the widely accepted liberal narrative that the Russian interference in last Decemberâs elections was responsible for Trumpâs victory.
Unable or unwilling to accept that their candidate Hillary Clintonâs flaws, checkered history, and questionable campaign decisions were responsible for her loss, they are determined to pin the responsibility on Vladimir Putin whose only crime is for resurrecting Russia and not allowing it to be plundered by Wall Street and US corporate capital as it was under Washingtonâs puppet, Boris Yeltsin.
He points out that it was the Democrats who ended up paying for and trying to use the Christopher Steele hit piece on Trumpâs alleged Russia connections which he sees as being the basis for the flawed January 6, 2016, âintelligence assessmentâ which was not backed by 17 intelligence agencies as Democratic politicians and the liberal media repeats but by representatives of three agencies who were hand picked by Intelligence Chief James Clapper to produce the desired outcome.
Lauria begins by describing his own experience when, as a long time contributor to Huffington Post before Ariana Huffington stepped down as editor and it became HuffPost under former NY Times writer, Lydia Polgreen, he uploaded an article to the site that contained a devastating critique of Russia-gate. When the article was removed from the site without him being informed, he appealed to FAIR and to the ACLU, neither offered him support since, apparently, they had also swallowed the Russia-gate narrative to the point that made them abandon their founding principles.
The same almost happened to Vanessa Beeley who had been covering the Syrian conflict and had made an expose of the White Helmets, the Westâs âheroesâ in Syria, connecting them to Al Qaeda, and who Reporters Without Borders tried to stop from appearing on a panel in Switzerland. The Swiss hosts refused to bow to this attempt at censorship but found it cost them financially.
There is much more in this interview which is informed not only by Lauriaâs knowledge of the subject but the passion for justice he brings to the interview.
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