Slate - The Rise of the Liberal Conspiracy Theorist

The right has WND, Infowars, Breitbart and even Fox News. Don't we get to have our own Alex Jones?

https://redux.slate.com/cover-stories/2017/05/louise-mensch-and-the-rise-of-the-liberal-conspiracy-theorist.html

You may have heard on the internet last week that, according to “multiple sources close to the intelligence, justice, and law enforcement communities,” the marshal of the Supreme Court had commenced the sacred impeachment-notification rite—you know, the one you learned about in civics class, in which the marshal marches to the White House in a cool costume and tells the president that proceedings for his removal have begun. “The notification was given, as part of the formal process of the matter, in order that Mr. Trump knew he was not able to use his powers of pardon against other suspects in Trump-Russia cases,” Louise Mensch explained on her website Patribotics. She added, “Sources have confirmed that the Marshal of the Supreme Court spoke to Mr. Trump.”

Earlier this month, Mensch and Claude Taylor had reported for Patribotics that “separate sources with links to the intelligence and justice communities have stated that a sealed indictment has been granted against Donald Trump.” While the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution forestalled Trump’s immediate prosecution, Orrin Hatch—the federal government’s “designated survivor”—was already receiving copies of security briefings to ensure “a smooth transition of power.” Meanwhile, Paul Ryan awaited arrest for racketeering.

For those of us who haven’t yet found a great hiding spot behind the gold curtains in the Oval Office, it’s impossible to know with certainty what’s going on in the Trump administration. Mensch’s blog and Twitter feed, larded as they are with double secret indictments, SCOTUS marshals sounding the horn of impeachment, and Russian spies in every desk drawer, invite all of us into the White House through a side door, one that’s accessible only via the 11th dimension. Sources with links to the intelligence, justice, and literary communities tell me that Mensch’s overheated, conspiratorial prose is very easy to mock. After her Supreme Court marshal “scoop” started to crawl across the web, pundits ridiculed it as the “saddest fanfic ever” and “another hot scoop rooted in finely granular knowledge of how the U.S. government does not operate.”

But Louise Mensch shouldn’t be dismissed as a crank with a Wi-Fi connection. In March, she penned a widely publicized piece for the New York Times titled “What to Ask About Russian Hacking.” Her reporting—well, some of her reporting—has been confirmed by the Times and Washington Post, and she gets cited in tweets by celebrities, DNC staffers, and congresspeople. Last month, Keith Olbermann alluded to a bombshell she’d dropped claiming Carter Page had ferried a tape from Washington to Moscow—a recording that allegedly featured Trump reciting a series of promises to shift U.S. policy in a Putin-friendly manner in exchange for Russia’s helpful interference in the 2016 election.