From Matt Taibbi:

“Russian Internet trolls are trying to gin up even more controversy over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem, a senator said Wednesday – warning that the United States should expect such divisive efforts to escalate in the next election…”

The Post cited Oklahoma Senator James Lankford, a toothy, humorless, young Republican who looks like an escapee from a teen zombie movie. Lankford shocked the world this week by revealing that “Russian Internet trolls” were stoking the NFL kneeling debate…

Senator Lankford initially didn’t offer any specifics backing up his claim. Later, however, a spokesperson for the Senator’s office directed reporters to the work of “a Russian Twitter account calling itself ‘Boston Antifa’ that gives its geolocation as Vladivostok, Russia.”..

In short, two young people goofing on the Internet.

From Moon of Alabama:

Everyone should be concerned when the Washington Post, Reuters and CNN all try to tie Black Lives Matters to “Russian influence”. “The Russians”, you know, bought ads promoting and disparaging that group:

“The ads reportedly centered around racial, political, and economic rifts in the U.S., with some promoting groups like Black Lives Matter and others describing the groups as a threat.”

Again – “the Russians” are taking both sides. What a wicked concept…

Looking from the outside the U.S. media have simply gone nuts.

From les7 in the comments:

After the narrative has been tentatively established it needs to be reinforced. This cannot be done immediately. Too much emphasis leads to suspicion and a kind of media ‘weariness’, it desensitizes the masses. This is why there was and will be a media pause between instalments – and yes I believe that this narrative (like the sanctions) are here to stay.

The best reinforcement is episodic and random. Initially not more than 6 months apart, and in the longer term never more than a year apart. The reinforcement itself is an intense focus on relatively insignificant things that echo the larger narrative, a focus that seeks to create a ‘meme’ reflective of one the larger themes in the newly created narrative. The most successful memes become the emotional locus around which society can be mobilized for future acts of aggression.

From Politico:

Russia might not have hacked American voting machines, but by selectively amplifying targeted disinformation and misinformation on social media—sometimes using materials acquired by hacking—and forging de facto information alliances with certain groups in the United States, it arguably won a significant battle without most Americans realizing it ever took place. The U.S. electoral system is the heart of the world’s most powerful democracy, and now—thanks to Russian actions—we’re locked in a national argument over its legitimacy. We’re at war with ourselves, and the enemy never fired a physical shot.

From the Guardian:

If the Blacktivist account is linked to Moscow, it will lend further credence to the findings of US intelligence officials that Russia was involved in influencing US politics.

From William Blum:

The anti-Russian/anti-Soviet bias in the American media appears to have no limit. You would think that they would have enough self-awareness and enough journalistic integrity -– just enough -– to be concerned about their image. But it keeps on coming, piled higher and deeper.

One of the latest cases in point is a review of a new biography of Mikhail Gorbachev in the New York Times Book Review (September 10). The review says that Gorbachev “was no hero to his own people” because he was “the destroyer of their empire.”

This is how the New York Times avoids having to say anything positive about life in the Soviet Union or about socialism. They would have readers believe that it was the loss of the likes of Czechoslovakia or Hungary et al. that upset the Russian people, not the loss, under Gorbachev’s perestroika, of a decent standard of living for all, a loss affecting people’s rent, employment, vacations, medical care, education, and many other aspects of the Soviet welfare state…

George Orwell comes to mind: “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”