Mother Jones: Tucker Carlson Is Russian Propaganda. Literally.

Prepare to pretend to be shocked.

It's not just your meemaw getting brain-poisoned by a slack-jawed TV dinner heir paid by an Australian billionaire to vomit bile onto the airways five nights a week. Turns out babushkas across Russia are getting regular doses of Tucker Carlson's particular brand of toxic waste, too, and with the official encouragement of the Russian government.

Mother Jones's David Corn broke the news yesterday that an agency called the Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, described as "part of the Russian security apparatus," sent out a memo entitled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)” just as the invasion of Ukraine was beginning, encouraging broadcasters to make maximum use of the very useful American idiot known as Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.

“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” the 12-page media guidance memo instructed.

Gosh, whatever could they mean. Oh, right, probably this .

Carlson's very experienced with defending the indefensiblepic.twitter.com/79PmzzOKkL

— Media Matters (@Media Matters) 1646421761 

Carlson regularly professes his love for Daddy Putin, calling Ukraine corrupt and a "client state" of the West, and expressing confusion why we would "take Ukraine's side and not Russia's side" in a Russian war against Ukraine. For the record, one of those is happening right now, and Putin is murdering people in maternity wards. He's pushed Russian propaganda that says Biden actually encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine, but he's also claimed to be shocked and chagrined at the suggestion that he's ever supported Putin.

Just this week Carlson gave airtime to the lie about Ukraine developing bioweapons with American support. This sounds a lot like an echo of another guidance memo from the same arm of the Kremlin, this one from March 10, referring to "biogenocide of the Eastern Slavs.'”

The memo lays out the details of this bizarre conspiracy theory: The United States was conducting “experiments with genetic material collected on the territory of Ukraine,” with the “main objective” being “to create unique strains of various kinds of viruses for targeted destruction of the population in Russia.” The United States even had a plan to transmit pathogens “by wild birds migrating between Ukraine, Russia and other neighboring countries.” This scheme included “studying the possibility of carrying African swine fever and anthrax.”

Holy bath salts, Batman.

That same memo approvingly cited Carlson's tortured logic against sanctioning Russia, which he has characterized as a deliberate attack on the American middle class by depriving them of tasty, cheap Russian oil. The memo quoted Tucker:

"If you want to get to the bottom of it, just think about who will suffer the most from sanctions? The answer is not on the surface. Middle-income Americans will suffer. The very people who were crushed by Covid restrictions for two years. Now they will suffer from cuts to energy sources… So, the Vladimir Putin who is being punished, is actually American citizens—yes, all of you."

This logic does not apply to Iranian oil, of course, because reasons.

So congratulations to the Kremlin's best little American stooge Tucker Carlson. You may never win a Pulitzer, or a Peabody, or a Polk, but you won a Poot, which many people are saying is even better.

PS: In 2018 Tucker won a prize for "American Citizenship" from the Heritage Foundation for "his work protecting and advancing American values." Do you know how hard it is to make jokes with these goons out here clowning like this?

[ Mother Jones ]

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