Revisiting

These chuds have been selling themselves as "the smart guys" - the clear-eyed pragmatists who just wanna tell us the real truth about the way things oughta be and blah blah blah.

But now that they've been caught out, they're scrambling to find ways to shift the blame so they can cover their bad behavior.

So what do they do? They shit on themselves, admitting they're stoopid enough to get bamboozled by a Kremlin disinformation operation that Helen Keller coulda seen comin' a mile away.

And of course, they do that simply to "appease the libs", knowing full well the rubes will shake it off and continue as directed.

I've harped on this one before, but I think it's important not to lose sight of this thing. And yes, I know, there's a thousand things we need to remember, and it's crazy stupid hard to keep it all in our heads. But that's the point of their exercise - we hit overload and it all starts to compact and congeal into a big ugly sticky gooey smelly mess that nobody wants to deal with.

But we're reasonable people, and that's what these bad faith actors play on. We want to be fair, and we don't want to condemn everybody of a certain stripe just because of unpleasant experiences with other guys of that particular stripe.

So let's establish a benchmark, which shouldn't be too hard here. If "they're" always:

• Yea MAGA
• yay Trump
• yay Putin

And always:

• boo Ukraine
• boo RINOs
• boo equal rights
• boo woke

... then they're probably not going to be acting in anything close to good faith, and they can be dismissed out of hand - with the caveat that maybe we could just put lots of salt on whatever they're trying to feed us.

Lots and lots and lots of salt.

US conservative influencers say they are ‘victims’ of Russian disinformation campaign

Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson addressed allegations that a company they were associated with had been paid to publish videos with messages in favour of Russia

A number of high-profile, conservative influencers in the US have said they are “victims” of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, after the Biden administration accused Moscow of carrying out a sustained campaign to influence the outcome of November’s presidential elections.

Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson published statements on Wednesday evening addressing allegations that a US content creation company they were associated with had been provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favour of Moscow’s interests and agenda, including over the war in Ukraine.

The justice department indictment does not name the company, but describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and with a website identifying itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on western political and cultural issues”.

That description exactly matches Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos made by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.

The Guardian has contacted Tenet for comment. The company has not released a statement or commented on the allegations, or responded to other media organisations’ requests for comment, including the New York Times and CBS, according to their reporting.

Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican US senate candidate Kari Lake.

“The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said. His department described Wednesday’s indictment as the most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.

The Tennessee-based company published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to the indictment.

Pool, a popular podcaster with more than 2 million followers on X, said “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.”

“Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show and the contents of the show are often apolitical.”

Johnson, who has 2.7 million followers on X, said he was “disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme”.

Rubin said on X that he “knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity” and that the allegations showed “that I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme.”

The justice department accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of covertly funding the Tennessee-based content company to publish videos in favour of Russia. The justice department says the company did not disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered as required by law as an agent of a foreign principal.

RT ceased operating in the US after major television distributors dropped it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. RT responded with ridicule to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections.”

Garland said: “The justice department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government.”

The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have received more than 16m views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said. The company paid $8.7m to the production companies of three of the online stars it recruited, according to the indictment.

The commentators, who were not named in the indictment, did not know they were paid by RT, the Justice Department said.

In one instance, the indictment said, one of the RT employees asked the company to produce a video that would blame Ukraine and the United States for a mass shooting at a Moscow music venue, the justice department said, even though Islamic State had claimed responsibility. A company founder responded that one of the commentators is “happy to cover it”, according to the indictment.

As part of the indictment, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in its most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.

The treasury department also sanctioned the RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees of the network over the campaign of disinformation around the elections. Simonyan is a “central figure in Russian government malign influence efforts” the department said.

There's A Body Count

Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Lauren Southern are Kremlin stooges.

And it doesn't excuse them if they didn't know what they'd gotten into - it makes it worse. They cared about the money and the power, and it never occurred to them what harm they were doing to people they claimed to care about.

This guy's a new one for me, and I haven't dug too deep into his resumé or whatever credentials he might have, except for the fact that he produced for 60 minutes and Voice Of America, and that he's based in Kyiv now.

Seems pretty understandable that he'd be a bit biased against Putin's Russia, seeing as how it's a regime that's doing some horrendous things to people - because he's a normal human, and being biased against assholes is a healthy thing for normal humans.

Philip Ittner

Today's Brando

DOJ Indicts Russian Nationals in $10 Million Scheme to Spread Covert Propaganda to U.S. Audiences

Two Russian nationals employed by state-controlled media outlet RT are charged with conspiring to violate U.S. laws by secretly funding and directing pro-Russian content on social media platforms.

The Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment charging two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, with conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering in a scheme to covertly influence U.S. audiences. Both Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva remain at large, according to the DOJ’s announcement today.

The indictment reveals that Kalashnikov, 31, and Afanasyeva, 27, who were employees of Russia's state-controlled media outlet RT, played pivotal roles in funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company, referred to in court documents as U.S. Company-1. The content company, unbeknownst to its viewers, was funded and directed by RT to produce pro-Russian videos aimed at American social media users. This company is believed to be TENET Media, who touts right-wing hosts Lauren Southern, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and others, as part of their roster.

The indictment remarks, "On its website, U.S. Company-I describes itself as a 'network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues'" This phrase matches with the TENET's slogan, which appears on their website.

The indictment further states: "KALASHNIKOV, AFANASYEVA, Founder-I, and Founder-2 also worked together to deceive two U.S. online commentators ("Commentator- I" and "Commentator-2"), who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers. Founder-I and Founder- 2 contracted with Commentator-I and Commentator-2 to produce videos , using Commentator-1's and Commentator-2's own names and leveraging their existing audiences, for license and publication by U.S. Company-I."

These subscriber counts mentioned in the indictment match the number of YouTube subscribers for the accounts of Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, respectively.

"Russia has long sought to exploit our free and open society by secretly influencing public opinion in the United States," said Attorney General Merrick Garland. "The Department of Justice will not tolerate these covert efforts by foreign adversaries to manipulate our democracy."

The DOJ alleges that between October 2023 and August 2024, RT transferred nearly $10 million to U.S. Company-1 through a network of shell companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Mauritius. The funds were allegedly used to produce and distribute content designed to sow discord among Americans, amplifying domestic divisions on issues like immigration, inflation, and U.S. foreign policy.

“Russia’s influence operations, as orchestrated by RT, are sophisticated and deceptive,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “The defendants in this case used fake personas, shell companies, and misleading information to push Russian propaganda to millions of Americans.”

Since its launch in November 2023, U.S. Company-1, believed to be TENET Media, has posted nearly 2,000 videos across platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X, garnering over 16 million views on YouTube alone. The DOJ notes that while the content appeared to offer commentary on domestic issues, it was aligned with the Russian government's goal of weakening U.S. opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The defendants are also accused of deceiving two U.S.-based online commentators with large followings into producing content for U.S. Company-1 without disclosing RT’s involvement. The DOJ alleges that RT used a fictional persona named “Eduard Grigoriann” to conceal its role as the company’s true financial backer.

Within the indictment lies a troubling sequence involving directives from Elena Afanasyeva, alias "Helena Shudra," to manipulate content creation at U.S. Company-1, aiming to tailor videos to specific agendas. Notably, in early 2024, Afanasyeva orchestrated the creation of tailored content that included a video featuring a "well-known U.S. political commentator," who MeidasTouch can identify as Tucker Carlson, during an bizarre visit to a Russian grocery store in which Carlson said he was "radicalized" by how low the prices were in Moscow.

This particular piece was strategically circulated within U.S. Company-1’s Producer Discord Channel, prompting internal concerns among the staff about the overtly promotional nature of the content. Producer-I, a staff member at U.S. Company-1, expressed reservations about posting the video, describing it as “overt shilling.” Despite these concerns, the directive from the higher-ups was clear, with Founder-2 instructing to proceed with publishing the video to align with the broader influence campaign, underscoring the depth of control exerted over the content output to serve specific propagandistic purposes. This episode exemplifies the sophisticated methods employed by RT’s operatives to exploit the credibility of well-known U.S. figures to further their propaganda efforts under the guise of regular social media content.

The indictment underscores RT's ongoing efforts to continue its influence operations in Western countries, despite formal bans and sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to the DOJ, RT’s editor-in-chief boasted about creating an "empire of covert projects" to shape public opinion in the West.

Both Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva face charges of conspiracy to violate FARA, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The FBI is leading the investigation into the case, and authorities are actively seeking the whereabouts of the defendants. This case is part of a broader effort by the U.S. government to counter foreign malign influence operations aimed at undermining American democracy.

Read the full indictment here.

We're All Suckers Eventually

Covert Israeli Disinfo Campaign Targeted Black Democrats

The Israeli government last year paid a firm to create fake “news” websites, and hundreds of fake American accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, which then urged Black Democrats to support funding Israel’s military, the New York Times reported this morning.

Israel, it’s worth noting, is a U.S. ally and already receives billions of dollars in support from the U.S.

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs paid a Tel Aviv marketing firm $2 million to use the fake accounts to pressure more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers, “particularly ones who are Black and Democrats,” the Times says. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) are specifically named. So is Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY).

The accounts not only pushed pro-Israeli messages, but also sought to stoke concerns about alleged campus antisemitism.

Scholars of social-media bullshit told the Times this is the first confirmed case of the Israeli government using such campaigns to influence U.S. lawmakers. Ooookay.

The Israeli ministry denies its involvement, which unnamed Israeli officials told the Times was a naughty, naughty lie, even though hundreds of “Americans” agreed with it on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The Times says that the influence campaign had several aspects in common with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza:

• It used artificial intelligence
• It hit the wrong targets (drawing 40,000 followers, many of them fellow bots)
• It was executed poorly (profile pics didn’t match bios)
• It didn’t work

Some of the examples of incompetence are kinda hilarious, notwithstanding the actual human suffering of two million human beings, obvi. At least twice, accounts with profile pics of Black men posted messages about what things are like for them, as a “middle-aged Jewish woman.” And 118 posts passed on pro-Israeli articles with the following, totally human, hear-it-all-the-time phrasing: “I gotta reevaluate my opinions due to this new information.”

The Times didn’t immediately get reaction from U.S. lawmakers, but presumably they gotta reevaluate their opinions due to this new information.

On Being A Trouper

Heather McDonald was on stage talking about COVID shots and other vaccination stuff, when she passed out and immediately became a told-ya-so bugbear for the anti-vax idiots.

Heather McDonald’s on-stage collapse became anti-vaccine fodder, but she’s alive and joking

McDonald, like a half-dozen other people whose medical events are shown in the trailer for the anti-vaccine film "Died Suddenly," did not die as a result of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Three minutes into the trailer for the widely debunked anti-vaccine film “Died Suddenly,” comedian Heather McDonald is shown collapsing on stage.

In the background, a voiceover from people identified as “whistleblowers” lays out the film’s mission statement.

“It’s the new bullet. It’s the new form of warfare,” the voice of a man in a darkened room says about the Covid vaccine.

“The dead can’t speak for themselves, so therefore, I have to speak for them,” says another.

The idea that she can’t speak for herself comes as a surprise to McDonald, who recently sat in her studio in Woodland Hills, California, prepping for her weekly podcast. She has published it every week since she passed out on stage in February 2022 at the Tempe Improv in Arizona.

Since then, videos of her collapse have been viewed millions of times on social media. Joe Rogan talked about it on his podcast. Fox News published an article about her collapse and tweeted: “Comedian collapses on stage, fractures skull after declaring she’s triple vaxxed.”

McDonald, 52, said she’s getting used to getting recognized as a piece of propaganda.

“Sometimes there’ll be people who say, ‘Oh my God, I just saw you on something,’” McDonald said in an interview from her bright pink podcast studio. “And I’m like, ‘Sadly, I know what it is. It’s me fainting.’”

McDonald, like a half-dozen other people whose medical events are shown in the trailer for the anti-vaccine conspiracy theory film, did not die as a result of the Covid-19 vaccine. Many of them now live their lives with a strange internet notoriety, the kind that didn’t exist even just a few years ago.

The film has since been widely debunked, including by Reuters and FactCheck.org. Its issues even sparked concern from people within the anti-vaccine movement who worried it made them look bad. The person featured immediately after McDonald in the trailer, Keyontae Johnson, collapsed on Dec. 12, 2020, days before Covid vaccines were available or widely administered in the U.S. This month, Johnson made it to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament with the rest of the Kansas State Wildcats and is a projected NBA Draft pick. (Johnson was eventually diagnosed with a heart condition unrelated to the Covid vaccine.)

That has done little to stymie the success of “Died Suddenly,” which has evolved from the title of a film into something of a rallying cry in the anti-vaccine world. The hashtag “#DiedSuddenly” trended on Twitter after the film’s release and has become a consistent internet trope, reappearing when high-profile medical events occur on television or in public.

Recounting the night she collapsed, McDonald said she felt dizzy at the start of her set and, had she not been on stage in front of friends and family for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, would have simply sat back down instead of trying to fight through it. Afterward, McDonald received a battery of tests from doctors, who said that she had no underlying condition and that the fainting spell was not linked to the vaccine. McDonald suffered a fractured skull and a concussion, and still checks in with doctors but has had no lingering issues.

Video of her collapse quickly spread online. Hoping to clear up any confusion, McDonald released the video along with an update from doctors to her own social media accounts days after her collapse. While she joked at first that she didn’t mind the attention, releasing the video had the opposite effect, and she became overwhelmed by conspiracy theories about her health.

McDonald said she was quickly able to clarify her health status with her own listeners, and wondered what it’s like for people “who can’t go on their podcast and say ‘I’m fine.’”

Even with McDonald’s platform, the video of her collapse continues to circulate online. Videos tagged with “Heather McDonald collapse” have over 17 million views on TikTok, frequently outnumbering her own recently posted content in search results that she posts to her 370,000 followers.

“That’s what really made me sad: I thought I was a little bit better known than that,” joked McDonald.

McDonald has had problems counteracting the viral misinformation about her even among people she knows.

Joe Rogan, who she knew from backstage conversations at comedy sets in Los Angeles, played the video of McDonald’s collapse on his podcast and alluded to links to the vaccine.

“I DM’d him and I’m like, ‘Joe, do you not know who I am?’” McDonald said.

McDonald said Rogan did not respond to her direct message. Rogan and Spotify, his exclusive podcast distributor, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

McDonald, who is vaccinated, said she has gone to great lengths to stay apolitical, not mentioning politics on her podcast — which focuses on reality TV gossip — since the 2016 election.

“I’m nonpolitical, and I get thrown into this thing just for doing my job and working,” she said.

Despite immediate and repeated debunking, the film has had a lasting impact in the anti-vaccine community even as the film’s producer, Stew Peters, has had to come up with increasingly bizarre ways to explain its inaccuracies.

Peters pushed the conspiracy theory that Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin, who collapsed on Jan. 2 after being hit in the chest on “Monday Night Football,” was dead or being hidden away as part of a global conspiracy theory to protect vaccine makers.

When Hamlin reappeared and gave public interviews, Peters repeatedly insisted that Hamlin had been replaced by a “body double.”

As the documentary’s main thesis — that the vaccine is causing mass death to young people — fails to bear out statistically, Peters has pivoted to new conspiracy theories about other maladies he attributes to the vaccine.

Earlier this month, Peters tweeted that men who received the MRNA vaccine “are essentially infertile and their penises are rotting off.”

Peters did not respond to a request for comment.

Still, Peters and the “Died Suddenly” crew maintain an audience with lawmakers. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., appeared on Peters’ video podcast on March 14, above a scroll imploring viewers to watch “Died Suddenly.”

Interest in the film was renewed in the last month when an Idaho state senator and a representative introduced a bill that would make the administration of MRNA vaccines (the type used against Covid-19) a misdemeanor in the state.

One of the bill’s co-authors, state Sen. Tammy Nichols, has repeatedly implored her constituents and followers on Facebook to watch “Died Suddenly.”

“Everyone is talking about Died Suddenly on Rumble. Powerful!” she wrote on Nov. 22. “Watch Died Suddenly and stand up to this garbage,” she added the next day. Nichols, who did not respond to a request for comment, used the hashtag #DiedSuddenly as recently as Feb. 19.

Dr. Eric Burnett, an internal medicine doctor at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has recorded several videos on TikTok attempting to combat the lies in “Died Suddenly.”

Burnett said that he now sees people conflating disinformation about the potential harm from vaccines with the actual threat of Covid-related illnesses.

“Anti-vaxxers and these myth-spreaders, they operate in this bubble that doesn’t require evidence, that doesn’t require any burden of proof. They could say whatever they want, and it’s consequence-free for them,” Burnett said.

Despite repeated debunking of “Died Suddenly,” the lies about the videos featured in it won’t die — and even morph into new ones.

McDonald said the release of “Died Suddenly” coincided with a second wave of attention and abuse. People began posting that McDonald, who is a practicing Catholic, was spited and “flicked” by God for the joke she tried to deliver right before her collapse, in which she said Jesus loved her because she hadn’t yet gotten Covid-19.

“They say something mean, like, ‘You shouldn’t be alive because you got the vaccine.’ Or they’ll say, ‘You shouldn’t be alive because you joked about Jesus,’” McDonald said.

Despite millions of views across social media platforms, McDonald said she was simply left with people questioning her faith, part of an ever-evolving conspiracy theory in which it’s unclear if she’s even alive.

“I am in this business. I’d like to be known,” she said. “But this was just not any bonus for me at all.”