#SeditionHunters and journalists: as Russia launches its attack on Ukraine we will hear - are hearing - U.S. public figures praising Putin. The same who also pushed the Jan 6 attack. Realize: the PR groundwork for today was laid over years. Here is Jack Posobiec last month. 1/
Posobiec, chief propagandist for the alt-right, is so obvious he's a guide to whatever op is current: election fraud, racial division, trucker convoys, war. Candace Owens is almost as reliable. Both ex-actors, 'platformed' in 2016-2017. Here's Candace & Jack last month. 2/
Last month was the signal to panic: Posobiec temporarily changed his Twitter name to "Jacek" in January and started posting about Ukrainian territorial integrity. He's a barometer for disinfo, a pure tool. But he represents many, not just 'influencers' but also politicians. 3/
As explosions rock Ukraine it is not the time for a big thread. Just let's not be surprised when many of our newscasters, our politicians, stand up for Russia now instead of for the US. The rot in America started early (see link) & was spread by design. 4/ docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
The 'VIP timeline' was made to trace the back-stories of the public figures who brought crowds to the Capitol on Jan 6. As an exercise, I also counted mentions of any foreign country. No surprise, but it helps to understand our long national nightmare. 5/ docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Right now Ukraine's national nightmare is worse than ours is. They are where our thoughts should be, but may we find a way out of it, somehow, together. 6/
In an article about Posobiec's OAN Network in June 2020, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul raised an alarm about the level of foreign disinfo in the US: “There’s never been a moment like this in American history..." 7/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
To put McFaul's quote about disinfo in context: June 2020 was just before the start of the crowd-gathering efforts & series of rallies that culminated in the Jan 6 Capitol attack. Posobiec watched it from OAN's rented rooftop, then strolled the Capitol grounds "reporting". 8/
McFaul has advice for our current moment too: "There is a time and place for hearing two sides of an issue. This tragic moment in European history is not one of them. Do not give false equivalency to voices of evil and voices of good." 9/
The techbro plot they talk of openly, to seize power by dominating the global weapons industry is luckily so far stymied by their products not working.
Peter Thiel's Stark drones flopped in trial. Big dreams are a start, but you have to execute too. 1/
Even if the techbros fail at their hoped-for military surveillance state, their bad products can still weaken the U.S. Trump and Hegseth are shoveling weapons contracts to Silicon Valley startups. Here's $642M for the Peter Thiel-backed Anduril. 2/ govconwire.com/articles/andur…
Sam Altman's OpenAI got $200 M this year to inject AI into military decision-making. This is a partnership with Anduril too, to make AI tools “for security missions”. 3/ theguardian.com/technology/202…
Reminder: Ed Martin, Trump's US Pardon attorney (R) and George Santos, whose sentence he just helped commute (L) were both speakers at the Stop the Steal rally the day before the Jan 6 Capitol attack. The next day, they both sat in the VIP section at Trump's Ellipse rally. 1/
On Jan 6, Ed Martin, as a founding member of Ali Alexander's Stop the Steal team, had a better seat than George Santos, a lesser figure. Brandon Straka, the man who first got Santos into politics, sat in the front row center; Ed two rows back; Santos deeper in the crowd. 2/
Santos, who rocketed from a minor part of Brandon Straka's WalkAway operation to a member of Congress, was sentenced to over 7 years in prison for wire fraud and identity theft. Today Trump let him out. Ed Martin says he was "honored" to help "make clemency great again". 3/
Trump's move this week revoking 6 visas for posting about Charlie Kirk is a wake-up call. These weren't random. They were all prominent people in the arts, with business visas. One is German filmmaker Mario Sixtus, whose new documentary criticizes AI and US tech firms. 1/
Sixtus' documentary examines how AI slop is infecting the internet, making it a "dumping ground for machine-generated nonsense". He's based in Berlin, but interviews famed US AI researcher Melanie Mitchell. Now he can't come to the US to promote it. 2/ arte.tv/de/videos/1221…
These six are not random. Another revokee, music exec Nota Baloyi from South Africa, has said he was targeted and wonders if South African right-wingers sent in a tip. US journalists need to ask how these six were chosen. Whose speech is being barred? 3/ news24.com/southafrica/ne…
A big caution here: we have to take seriously that GOP has coordinated talking points that No Kings will involve an act of terrorism. We have to ask seriously whether someone has planned such an act. It wouldn't be provoking people in frog costumes. It would be worse 1/
The last time we heard so much talk about "Antifa" as a terrorist threat was Jan 2021, just before the Capitol attack. The 200+ Proud Boys who kicked it off didn't wear "colors"; they came "dressed as Antifa". They talked about it repeatedly. That instruction came from above. 2/
Remember: in 1999, a month after he was made Prime Minister, Putin solidified his power using explosions that killed hundreds. He blamed Chechen terrorists as a pretext for a crackdown. Regardless of who planted the bombs, Putin found a use for them. 3/ henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/upl…
Jan 6 is in the news again as GOP Senators reveal that FBI searched their phone records in 2023. A totally reasonable action, but what's surprising is the list. The FBI left off Ted Cruz, by far the Senator with the most known ties to Jan 6! And they added some surprises 1/
The article by @etuckerAP & @stephengroves gives the basics, but not why this information was released now or why these Senators were chosen. Before Jan 6, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz were talked of as a team plotting something - so why isn't Cruz here? 2/ apnews.com/article/fbi-ja…
The FBI has private sources of information, but the list is still baffling. (Why Dan Sullivan of AK?) The Congressional Insurrection Scores rank lawmakers by publicly known actions around Jan 6. In this metric, Sens Cruz, Hawley, & Tuberville stand out. 3/ docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Just unbelievable stuff coming from independent journalists. Jack Posobiec, a Roger Stone protege, was one of the biggest spreaders of Russian disinfo in 2016. Of Pizzagate. Of election-fraud claims in 2020. And it took til now to show he was voting fraudulently himself? 1/
Slate picked up this article (kudos!) but both journos are independent.
Poso was one of the first people tapped for Ali Alexander's Stop the Steal. He pushed election-fraud claims to 1M followers, watched the J6 attack from Alex Jones' rented rooftop. 2/ slate.com/news-and-polit…
How is it that with all the resources of mainstream media his own voter fraud gets uncovered only now? How did CBS cover Poso, a major propagandist and a vector for foreign influence? They interviewed him about "the death of his friend Charlie Kirk". 3/