Does this mean … second look at Any Given Sunday? Give Oliver Stone credit — he doesn’t like the CIA or American intel under any circumstances, even when it might benefit his own politics. Stone went beyond the usual media-bias/narrative journalism accusations usually lobbed by his political opponents at the mainstream media, though:

(1/3) This crucial story from @thefloutist 1st reported in 2017 – in it lies the foundation for #Russiagate narrative. It’s clear the Democratic #MSM continue to promote false narrative. This is the primary reason @ggreenwald resigned from @TheIntercept. https://t.co/SKCZVUq9Rj

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) November 1, 2020

(3/3) Glad to be back in #USA in this crazy energy at this crazy moment when the world seems to be topsy turvy but really isn’t. We live in exciting times, & Tuesday, Election Day, will be one of those times. Here we go! Another spin of the wheel. We’re all gamblers in this life.

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) November 1, 2020

I certainly didn’t have “Oliver Stone accuses media of conspiracy with US intel and Democrats” on my election-week bingo card. If you did, be sure to collect your winnings at the front desk.

Stone’s not the only one ripping the media today for its collaboration with intel leakers to take down Trump, either. In his subscriber-only Substack blog, Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi rips the media for its attempts to cook the election for Joe Biden while demagoguing Trump for all the wrong reasons. Calling tomorrow’s election “the worst choice ever,” Taibbi says that’s in large part because the media is only interested in covering Trump and covering for Biden, and Taibbi also accuses the intelligence community of manipulating the coverage:

Joe Biden is a corpse with hair plugs whose idea of “empathy” is to jam fingers in the sternums of people who ask the wrong questions, or call them “fat” or “full of shit,” or dare them to “try me” — and that’s if he remembers what state he’s in. Is he a better human than Donald Trump? Probably, but his mental decline has hit Lloyd Bridges-in-Hot-Shots! levels and he shares troubling characteristics with the president, beginning with a pathological struggle with truth.

Biden spent much of 2020 lying about everything from his Iraq War vote to his educational history to a fantasy about being arrested in South Africa with Nelson Mandela. The same press that killed him for this behavior in the past let it all slide this time. Same with the growing ledger of handsy-uncle incidents that had adolescent girls and campaigning politicians alike wondering why a Vice President needs to smell their hair or plant lingering kisses on their heads while cameras flash. …

Trump entered the White House buried in scandals that had been foisted upon him by officials in his own government who were openly betraying him, illegally leaking intelligence about his administration to the press on a weekly if not daily basis. Not to say it would have been a good idea, but he could have hauled every last one of these leakers off to jail, legally, and in a few cases could even have done what Barack Obama did, and used secrecy laws to go after press antagonists as well. …

While TV channels increasingly filled their on-air ranks with former CIA and FBI officials, another telltale sign of authoritarian drift, a whole range of private press interests were accused of treasonous collaboration and threatened with new forms of suppression. This turned out not to be necessary, as most private news companies voluntarily accepted the logic of denouncing news adverse to the Democratic Party cause as foreign subversion.

I don’t want to excerpt any more of Taibbi’s caustic look at this situation, with one more sentence as an exception. If you find this excerpt interesting, go subscribe to his service and read the rest. Taibbi can’t stand Trump for reasons of both character and policy, but he’s just as disgusted by Biden, Democrats, and the media establishment. This should not be missed:

But his opponents are lying, witch-hunting scum in their own right, a club of censorious bureaucrats whose instincts for democracy and free speech hover somewhere between the mid-seventies GDR and the Church of Scientology.

Taibbi provides an excellent pox-on-all-houses take, some of which I agree with and some I’d contest, but it’s no conspiracy theory to see how intel has been weaponized over the last four-plus years. This still leaves us with the choice to make tomorrow (or already made in early voting). Who do you pick? Vote on policy, as the character considerations more or less cancel each other out — and demand better four years from now.