Remember the old 1970s horror flick? "It's coming from inside the house!"

Sen. Tom Cotton issued the same warning yesterday, and in fact he meant it literally. With the DoJ and Biden administration desperately trying to re-inflate the "Russia collusion" hoax of 2016, CNN's Dana Bash tried cornering Cotton on Moscow's weird $10 million project on stupid memes. Cotton agreed that American commentators shouldn't knowingly take money from Moscow, but then put that threat in perspective. 

Promoting "memes or videos on the internet is not exactly going to make a huge difference" in an election," Cotton said, But do you know what would make a big difference? Having the US intel community collude with American mainstream media to dismiss evidence of corruption as "Russian disinformation" -- and that included CNN, Cotton helpfully points out:

Sen. @TomCottonAR notes how the intel community colluding w/ corporate media to confuse Americans about Hunter’s laptop was a bigger threat to U.S. elections than Russia promoting “memes & videos”

CNN’s @DanaBashCNN: “It sounds to me like you‘re downplaying the fact that… pic.twitter.com/fCCYNqmFAi

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 8, 2024

BASH: I want to turn to a very different topic, and that is something that the Justice Department said this week. They detailed a Russian government effort to stoke divisions in the U.S. using front organizations and social media prominent right-wing influencers like Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, who have ties to Tenet Media. That's a company that the Justice Department says was being funded by Russian operatives. You sit on the Intelligence Committee. How worried are you that right-wing influencers, people who do have an impact on their constituents, are being funded, either directly or indirectly, by the Russian government in order to make an impact on this election?

COTTON: Well, first off, Dana, we haven't been in session, so I haven't seen any intelligence about this matter. I have only seen the allegations I have read in the newspaper. People should not knowingly take money from the government of Russia or Iran or China or any other adversarial nation to try to influence the election. But I also think it's fair to say that a few memes or videos in the vast sea of political commentary is not going to make much of a difference in this election, nor has it in past elections as well.

What did make a difference in the last election is the lies about Hunter Biden's laptop that more than four dozen former intelligence officials lied about in the middle of that campaign. And most networks, including this one, bought that lie hook, line and sinker. That did make a difference in the election.

Cotton identifies one of the main problems with the 2016 Russia-interference hysteria, too, although he doesn't explore it. Russian intel definitely spread propaganda in 2016, but Russia has spread propaganda in every election since the Cold War began (and before). So do China, Iran, and other malefactors. The quality of the propaganda, both in 2016 and this cycle, is almost laughable. In this recent instance, Russia spent $10 million funding unwitting podcasters who would have produced the exact same content anyway, and which likely had very little influence on electoral outcomes. In 2016, the hysteria focused on Facebook memes that had even less impact on electoral choices. 

The Russia-interference hysteria in 2016 intended to frighten voters away from Trump. In 2020, though, the purpose of the hysteria from the intel establishment was to distract voters away from the corrupt Biden family as well as to try to paint Trump as a security risk. It worked in 2020 too, which is why they're trying the same playbook in this cycle. 

Cotton puts an emphatic spike through that strategy. Hunter Biden's convictions prove that the laptop was real, and that either leaves the media as partners in that American intel propaganda effort or as dupes. Either way, Dana Bash and CNN are the last people who should attempt to lecture anyone on "election interference." The last except for all of the other MSM outlets, of course.