WHY DOES POLITICO EMPLOY LOBBYIST MOLLY MCKEW?

FOR THE PAST YEAR Politico has been publishing hysterical articles by Molly McKew of Fianna Strategies. The titles of the articles would make tabloids like the National Enquirer and Weekly World News blush:

“Putin’s Attack on the U.S. Is Our Pearl Harbor”

The articles are accompanied by tweets promoting those articles:

THE PROBLEM is that Molly McKee’s company Fianna Strategies is a registered foreign agent for the President of the Republic of Georgia. McKee is PAID to offer their viewpoint. (By one account, $320,000 over a 16-month period.)

Georgia– once part of the Soviet Union; sitting between Russia and Turkey– wants NATO membership. McKew is paid to expedite this.

THE QUESTION is why Politico presents as a credible journalist an individual paid to be biased?

BEYOND THIS, it’s irresponsible for anyone to casually make analogies to the attack on Pearl Harbor, where 2,403 American sailors and soldiers died in an actual military event. What does Molly McKee advocate? That the United States declare war on Russia? (Listed as co-author of the Pearl Harbor article is a retired U.S. General who was involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) (The last time we witnessed this level of war hysteria was in 2003, about Iraq.)

Russia has a crumbling economy smaller than California’s. They have a plummeting population, and are desperately trying to hang onto what remains of their shattered empire. BUT they also retain an enormous nuclear arsenal. Thoughtlessly promoting war with that country is insanity.

WHAT OF Molly McKew’s neoconservative thesis that Russia is promoting a “global imperialist insurgency”?

FACTS contradict this. The USA surrounds Russia with military bases to the immediate west, south, and east– Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, Kosovo, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Afghanistan, Indian Ocean, Philippines, S. Korea, Okinawa, Japan, etc. This doesn’t include NATO troops stationed in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which are on Russia’s border.

Russia meanwhile has ONE military base outside its immediate vicinity– in Syria. None in the western hemisphere.

WHICH nation is the insurgent global imperialist??

The Politico articles go beyond bias and slant into actual untruth.
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THE PREMISE behind the flood of articles from Politico and other news outlets is that Russia is engaged in some kind of massive propaganda assault. Yet when looking at which countries are more greatly influencing elections– which have the propaganda and cyber ability to influence elections– Russia, for all its machinations and duplicities, ranks far down the list. We’ll cover this with a follow-up sometime next week we’re tentatively calling “Propaganda USA.” Stay tuned.

(NOTE: We’ve gone outside the lines of our usual topics because we like this planet and don’t wish to see it wiped out because of bouts of war hysteria. We have follow-ups to the Junot Diaz matter, and coverage of other lit-world topics, COMING SOON.)

-Karl Wenclas for New Pop Lit News.