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<p></p><h3><strong>Were Americans really this gullible? …</strong></h3><p><strong>Is that all? … </strong>In an all-too-familiar Friday afternoon news dump – before a long weekend, no less – Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals in a scheme to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the weekend progressed, it became clear that the total spent by these Russian actors on Facebook ads <em>before</em> the election was $46,000, according to Senate committee testimony of Facebook executives <a href="https://twitter.com/AriFleischer/status/965592246165889025">shared by Byron York</a>. Former George W. Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer had <a href="https://twitter.com/AriFleischer/status/965592246165889025">this to say on Twitter</a>:</p><p></p><div id="20c6d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3edc458cb60baaab13836542a2191548"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="965592246165889025" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Russians spent $46,000 on Facebook prior to the election. Hillary and Trump spent $81 million. We should punish Ru… https://t.co/o1gpVwQTKr</div> — Ari Fleischer (@Ari Fleischer)<a href="https://twitter.com/AriFleischer/statuses/965592246165889025">1519050105.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p><p>To be sure, the entire Russian operation was larger than that. But just how much larger? Andrey Zakharov, one of two Russian journalists who <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/magazine/2017/11/59e0c17d9a79470e05a9e6c1">wrote an extensive report</a> on Russian operations surrounding the 2016 elections, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/18/the-russian-journalist-who-helped-uncover-election-meddling-is-confounded-by-the-mueller-indictments/?utm_term=.7b7c276e1d65">told the Washington Post</a> that the entire “American department was like 90 people.” Zakharov added, “Russian conservatives were proud. They said: ‘Look at what Russians can do! Only 90 people with $2 million made America scared!’”</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><span class="ad-tag__inner"><div id="div-gpt-ad-In-Content_300x250_102"> </div></span></div>
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</script></p><p>Is that really what the nonstop media coverage over the last year has been about? Ninety Russian trolls with a $2 million budget have sent the American public into a frenzy and pitted neighbor against neighbor and family member against family member? That means $2 million in an election that saw a total of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/14/somebody-just-put-a-price-tag-on-the-2016-election-its-a-doozy/?utm_term=.6331a59cf48f">$2.4 billion spent on the presidential races</a> – 0.083 percent of the total – has caused all this and spawned a criminal investigation. If the Russians really wanted to sow discord, the cost of that discord was astonishingly low.</p><p><strong>The media has played along … </strong>Not only was the cost to sow discord miniscule, U.S. media networks like CNN and MSNBC have jumped right on board the Russian propaganda train. After the election, the Russian trolls set up a series of anti-Trump rallies across the United States. NewsBusters has the story of how <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2018/02/19/flashback-cnn-and-msnbcs-enthusiastic-coverage-russian-sponsored-anti?utm_source=conservativereview-WTFMSM-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=conservativereview-WTFMSM-newsletter&utm_content=conservativereview-WTFMSM-newsletter">CNN and MSNBC promoted these Russian propaganda efforts</a> with extensive coverage.</p><p><strong>Facebook exec blasts false “media narrative” … </strong>As the media circus around the Mueller indictments swirled, Facebook’s vice president of advertising tried to inject some truth into the discussion. Rob Goldman <a href="https://twitter.com/robjective/status/964680123885613056?ref_src=twcamp%5Eshare%7Ctwsrc%5Eios%7Ctwgr%5Ecom.tinyspeck.chatlyio.share%7Ctwcon%5E7100%7Ctwterm%5E0">tweeted</a>:</p><p></p><div id="2c1cb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f1193a2158c2032da0348690ba0fa20c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="964680123885613056" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have c… https://t.co/9PWtAJMeqQ</div> — Rob Goldman (@Rob Goldman)<a href="https://twitter.com/robjective/statuses/964680123885613056">1518832639.0</a></blockquote></div>.tinyspeck.chatlyio.share%7Ctwcon%5E7100%7Ctwterm%5E0<p></p><p>Wait! What? The media fixates on a narrative and then doesn’t present facts that may destroy that narrative? I’m shocked, I tell ya, shocked! Facebook has published an <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/10/hard-questions-russian-ads-delivered-to-congress/">extensive list of answers</a> to a lot of the questions surrounding the ad buys.</p><p><!-- Begin MailChimp Signup Form --></p><p></p>
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