If Ron Paul never runs for president again, he can always get an anchor gig on RT. The patriotic American's latest "Texas Straight Talk" column is a Putin paean to all the ways in which the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was America's fault.

Of course, Paul and his conspiracy-minded cohorts have rushed to Russia's aid before, most recently in denying that there was anything untoward or undemocratic in Russia's invasion and annexation of Eastern Ukraine. But now he's onto some level one Alex Jones stuff.

"While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report," Paul wrote yesterday, before launching into a heartfelt tirade that mirrors Russian government propaganda quite nicely:

They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when EU and US-supported protesters plotted the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without US-sponsored "regime change," it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in the unrest that followed. Nor would the Malaysian Airlines crash have happened.

Well, Yanukovich—the Putin ally who lived in this manse and once poisoned a rival presidential candidate in another election he'd rigged and ultimately was forced to concede—was elected, in the sense that he staged an election. Which was the proximate cause of the popular rebellion in Kiev, which led to a regime change (which, yes, the U.S. and European Union let happen). Also, this did lead to the Malaysian Airlines "crash," in the sense that the 1815 Congress of Vienna led to a European partitioning that would ultimately result in World War I, whose conclusion would radicalize a young corporal named Adolf Hitler.

The media has reported that the plane must have been shot down by Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists, because the missile that reportedly brought down the plane was Russian made. But they will not report that the Ukrainian government also uses the exact same Russian-made weapons.

They won't? We did. We also explained why it's far-fetched that Ukraine shot down that plane and highly likely that pro-Russian separatists did shoot it down with a BUK launching system provided by the Russians or stolen from the Ukrainians. We explained it here, and here, and here, and here.

They will not report that the post-coup government in Kiev has, according to OSCE monitors, killed 250 people in the breakaway Lugansk region since June, including 20 killed as government forces bombed the city center the day after the plane crash! Most of these are civilians and together they roughly equal the number killed in the plane crash.

Nope. Nobody reports that. Except here's a gripping VICE interview with some victims of the bombing campaign aimed at separatist rebels, as well as some interviews with the rebels and pictures of Ukrainian troops they've killed... again, in Ukraine.

Everybody is killing people, and everybody is horrible. But Ron Paul apparently thinks that since the numbers of deaths of pro-Russian civilians and Amsterdam-based air passengers are roughly equivalent, what's the big deal now?

They will not report that neither Russia nor the separatists in eastern Ukraine have anything to gain but everything to lose by shooting down a passenger liner full of civilians.

Well, that's true. Which explains why all the Russians and separatists who discuss the shootdown on this now-authenticated tape (save for one scary Cossack) sound contrite and regretful about doing it. Nobody really has much to gain from killing 300 innocent air passengers. But it did happen. In the same vicinity where a bunch of Ukrainian warplanes were shot down in previous days, and where separatists bragged about downing another aircraft before realizing it was a passenger jet.

They will not report that the Ukrainian government has much to gain by pinning the attack on Russia, and that the Ukrainian prime minister has already expressed his pleasure that Russia is being blamed for the attack.

This is impeccable reasoning, which is probably why Holocaust, 9/11, and global warming deniers use it all the time.

They will not report that the separatists in eastern Ukraine have inflicted considerable losses on the Ukrainian government in the week before the plane was downed.

Well, yes, yes they will report on that. If by losses you mean "the separatists in eastern Ukraine had been shooting down a lot of planes in the week before this plane was downed."

At this point it would be unwise to say the Russians did it, the Ukrainian government did it, or the rebels did it. Is it so hard to simply demand a real investigation?

Good point! Why is it so hard to simply demand a real investigation?

They will not report how similar this is to last summer's US claim that the Assad government in Syria had used poison gas against civilians in Ghouta.

Oh, fuck me.

[Photo credit: AP Images]