Senator James Inhofe STILL says 'climategate' is proof that global warming is a hoax. Is 'Calexit' next for Putin/Limbaugh?
The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding an open hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election this morning. The Democrats on that panel should be thinking about talk radio in the same way they’re thinking about social media, the internet, and other ‘fake news’ and propaganda sources.
In an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN yesterday 3/29/17, senator James Inhofe (R- genocidal flat-earther) suggested ‘Climategate’ was proof that global warming is a hoax.
‘Climategate’ was the hoax. It was a fake news operation that depended primarily on talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, before social media. It was initiated by a Russian hack.
‘Climategate’ started with a Russian email hack of scientists at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia Nov 17, 2009. Websites got the material Nov 20, and on Monday Nov 22, about 2 weeks before the start of the Dec 7 Copenhagen climate summit, Limbaugh used a few emails taken out of context to create ‘proof’ that global warming was a hoax. In an unusual (paid?) break from habit he dedicated most of a week to one task — creating ‘Climategate’.
In the first few days there was little reaction in the MSM but by the end of the week Republican radio had done its job and flat earthers like Inhofe were getting equal time in prime time to discuss Obama’s part in going to Copenhagen to “kill jobs and destroy capitalism”.
Every year that humans wait on global warming guys like Putin and the Koch brothers make billions more on fossil fuels and every year it gets easier for them to sell emergency centralized solutions like nuclear.
‘Climategate’ is still ammunition for enabling deniers like Trump and Inhofe.
Here’s President George Bush on May 24, 2005:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
The only major medium in the US capable capable of the kind of unchallenged repetition that can create something like ‘climategate’ is talk radio. Russians would be more likely than Americans to recognize it as a classic military style propaganda operation.
When did Putin figure out how to start feeding talk radio?
Trump 2014? Debt default in 2011. 'Climategate' '09?
Donald Trump is Putin’s talk radio president. “I listened to thousands of hours of talk radio, and he (Trump) was getting reports from me.”
Are the Putin bunch using talk radio in other countries?
Will Calexit be a new propaganda operation for Putin?
Wednesday 3/29/17 Rachel Maddow noted that the effort to get California to secede, called Calexit, was started by a Russian! Calexit is a bigger stretch than Brexit but why not try?
Coincidentally, in the last few days (yesterday?) I also heard Rush Limbaugh reference Calexit. He said that since Democrats need all those electoral votes they would never allow it. The teabag talk radio base would see that as his endorsement of Calexit, calling for their support for it. Does this start a longer term effort by Limbaugh and a few hundred other Trump/Putin tools on 1200 radio stations to make Calexit a real thing, using a standard assortment of unchallenged distortions, exaggerations, and lies?
All Putin’s guys have to do is feed Breitbart and Drudge and the talk radio gods a Calexit story once in a while. The talk radio part is practically free, paid for by an assortment of national and local advertisers.
Maybe Putin figured this out: if he was going to pay $1000/hour for a talk radio infomercial to sell an anti-democratic anti-American toxic fake news soup of ‘climategate’, Calexit, Trump, economic chaos, racism, misogyny, and irrational fear, 1200 radio stations are worth about $5BIL/year! ($1000 x15hrs/day x 5 days/week).
And unless he paid a few key fake news operators it would basically all be free for Putin. Like it is for the Koch brothers, the Mercers, and the GOP.
That is why it is so irresponsible not to monitor talk radio. Being able to search the transcripts or podcasts of a few dozen major talk radio hosts would be invaluable for detecting the repetition necessary to “catapult the propaganda” before the damage is done.
Luckily that whole talk radio propaganda operation has a weakness — it would probably fall apart if our universities and pro sports teams would stop broadcasting sports on them. Maybe the new Democratic Party leadership and the progressive groups will try that.