During the 2020 campaign, the New York Times, quoting their famous unnamed sources, claimed that Russia was paying bounties on the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Since President Trump had just announced plans to pull our troops out of Afghanistan, the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) used this as a weapon to accuse Trump of being afraid of or in cahoots with Vladimir Putin, with some demanding military retaliation. This unsourced story was reason enough to them to replace our President and start a war with Russia.

This week, we learned that an investigation found no reliable evidence to back up that story, and that it was most likely made up by a detainee to win release. But at least partly because of that fake news, we replaced our President with one who appears poised to blunder into a war with Russia, or at least a new Cold War.

You would think that after running wild with the “Russian collusion” fake news for over two years, they have been more skeptical, but that would have required them to care more about the truth than about harming Trump. But with Trump now out, what is the current excuse for the media and the Democrats not caring at all about the truth?

Biden press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if Biden regretted attacking Trump on such a flimsy allegation. No, of course not, and she even implied that the discredited allegation might still be true.

Glenn Greenwald, who with Matt Taibbi is one of the dying breed of honest liberal journalists, has a deep dive into this story, reminding us of who flogged it endlessly and called reporters like Greenwald “conspiracy theorists” for questioning it, even though there were obvious hints from the start that it wasn’t reliable.

As Greenwald points out, these people never get tired of acting as conduits for unsourced shaky accusations. Even as they were being forced to admit they’d been had by an “intelligence source” on one fake Russia story, they were trumpeting a new one: a claim by the Biden Treasury Department that Russian-Ukrainian political consultant Konstantin Kilimnik “provided the Russia intelligence services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” that he received from then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. As Greenwald points out, once again, “This is nothing more than a U.S. Government assertion that lacks any evidence.”

I hope you’ll read the entire thing, and to encourage you, let me just quote from Greenwald’s summation:

“Any journalist who treats unverified stories from the CIA or other government agencies as true, without needing any evidence or applying any skepticism, is worthless. Actually, they are worse than worthless: they are toxic influences who deserve pure contempt…

These are not journalists. They are obsequious spokespeople for the CIA and other official authorities. Even when they learn that they deceived millions of people by uncritically repeating a story that the CIA told them was true, they will — on the very same day that they learn they did this — do exactly the same thing…These are agents of disinformation: state media. And when they speak, you should listen to them with the knowledge of what they really are, and treat them accordingly.”

I’ll bet you want to read the entire thing now, don’t you?