Back in August of 2016, which feels like millions of years ago in terms of everything that’s happened in American politics since that time, Glenn Greenwald published an article in The Intercept titled “Democrats’ Tactic of Accusing Critics of Kremlin Allegiance Has Long, Ugly History in U.S.”. I took note of the article because I look up to Greenwald, but because of my focus on the US presidential election I couldn’t really see the looming terror on the horizon that he was warning of at the time.

After the election I started getting comments on my anti-Democratic establishment articles accusing them of being “Kremlin propaganda”, and I had no idea how to respond to this. I’m an Australian mother who started doing political commentary last year because I fell in love with Bernie Sanders; I’ve never been to Russia, I’ve never been involved with Russia, and at that point my interest in Russia amounted to an affection for Regina Spektor, those cool fur hats and the movie Spies Like Us. I’d certainly never in my life been accused of writing propaganda.

Now these comments have become a daily occurrence. I make unapologetically frequent use of social media blocking features, but I still get accused of being a Kremlin propagandist multiple times a day for my skepticism of the Russiagate conspiracy theory and my criticism of the Democratic party.

And now pro-establishment outlets are starting to publish attack editorials full of outright lies about me. Rantt News ran a hit piece on me last month which reported completely falsely that I’m a Russian shill hired “to spread alternative facts and false equivalencies in order to divide leftists and ensure Trump, Ryan, their cabal of billionaires, and their newfound Russian friends all continue to enjoy power at the expense of your civil rights.” To substantiate his claim the author cited two articles of mine that I’d written for the Melbourne site Newslogue which were then republished without my permission by a website called Russia Insider, with whom I have never had contact apart from my recent request that they remove the articles.

As I pointed out in my response to the Rantt smear piece, Russia Insider very clearly labels those articles as copies that it took from elsewhere. Here is a screenshot from the first one, which very plainly labels the article as having come from Newslogue:

Here is a link to my original article from Newslogue. Here is a screenshot from that one:

Note the dates. Here is the second article Russia Insider published, again labeled as being from Newslogue:

And here is my original article.

It is common practice for websites to pick up blog pieces and publish them with attribution to the author. Here is one of mine that Mint Press News picked up. Here’s one from Global Research. Here’s one from Information Clearing House. None of these outlets ever contacted me, they just republished and attributed the article to me, which I’m fine with because I’m 100 percent reader-funded so I don’t need to be paid by publications, but increasing my audience size is helpful. Notice how Global Research’s attribution is identical to Russia Insider’s; the only difference is one has “Russia” in its name.

Here is my email to Russia Insider asking them to remove my articles, which used to have an even clearer attribution than they currently do, and their response confirming this:

Again, I laid this all out in my response to Rantt (still haven’t gotten a retraction, by the way), but The Daily Banter recently reprinted these same false allegations as fact in another hit piece, again saying that I have written for Russian propaganda outlets. The thing is, they also included my response to the Rantt piece, calling it “snarky” (and why in god’s name wouldn’t I be snarky with someone who’s lying about me?), which means the author, Jeremy Fassler, had read my response. Which means he knew I’d debunked Rantt’s accusation, which means he knowingly lied about me.

Rantt’s Jossif Ezekilov may have simply been incompetent, but Fassler knowingly lied.

As of this writing, Fassler’s Daily Banter piece has been shared approximately 4,400 times. At bare minimum, that’s 4,400 people who, because of the lies he told, now believe I’m a subversive Kremlin agent out to sabotage American democracy and harm the American people. 4,400 people who can swarm my social media pages, 4,400 people who feel threatened and under attack by me, 4,400 people any one of whom could be a total nut job tipped over the edge by the mainstream media’s constant references to Russian propaganda as “information warfare” and the election meddling as “an act of war”, and take things into their own hands. I have kids. These people are deliberately using dangerous lies and putting my life in danger because they disagree with my opinion about world politics.

These people do this because they feel confident that they can get away with it. There are so very, very many Americans swept up in the hysterical McCarthyist herd mentality that they don’t feel accountable as individuals for the harm that they are doing, in the exact same way that members of a lynch mob don’t feel accountable. They feel safe from consequences in the herd, and they feel their numbers are too great and their mob too feared for anyone to dare push back.

For this reason, I invite any lawyers out there to jump on this if you like. I’m not interested in the money; you can keep all the proceeds. Make yourself a millionaire if you can, just promise you’ll make the bastards hurt real bad and promise you’ll have fun doing it.

Last week I watched Greenwald’s prophecy came true for himself in a big way, as many high-profile establishment loyalists teamed up to circulate a blatant, easily-disprovable lie about him on Twitter. Greenwald has been under an increasing amount of fire for his skepticism of the Russiagate narrative, but things went absolutely insane that day. Here’s just a tiny sample of some of the lovely comments Greenwald received when he rightfully defended himself from these false accusations:

They just think this is a normal, acceptable thing to do now. They think it’s perfectly healthy and okay to publicly slander someone as a traitor and accuse them of conducting psy-ops for a foreign government for expressing ideas that they disagree with. They do this in an environment where Hillary Clinton is currently using scary phrases like “weaponized information” and congressional lawmakers are calling Russia’s alleged election meddling an “act of war.” All to shut people down and shut them up instead of having a sane, rational debate about our perspectives based on facts and evidence.

This doesn’t just impact high-profile speakers and writers, either. Almost every day I hear people’s horror stories about being confronted with accusations of being a Russian shill or a “bot” because they don’t buy into some establishment narrative or another.

This is not a legitimate thing to do. This is not a valid way of going about life. It is not okay to try and force someone’s conviction in the court of public opinion of attacking your nation’s democracy just because you can’t defend your position intelligibly. Do better.

I am not a Kremlin agent. I am not a propagandist. I am not a shill. I have never received any money from or done any work on behalf of the Russian government. I don’t disagree with the McCarthyists because I’ve been paid to by the Kremlin, I disagree with the McCarthyists because I think they’re crazy, stupid, dangerous, and wrong.

Here is a link to the Big Fat Compendium of Russiagate Debunkery, which I have broken down into Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for ease of loading.

Here’s my conversation with Zach Haller, who was also smeared in the lying Daily Banter piece:

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