In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russo-Serbian-American actor, martial artist and carrot-enjoyer, Steven Seagal. He's best-known for allegedly pooping his pants, for his praise of dictators around the world, for being a dick, and for his sexual harassment lawsuits.
1/19
Seagal's roots go back to Russia, and his paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish (actual Russian Jewish, not the Donbass Devushka kind) immigrants. In an interview by Dmitry Borisov, ...
2/19
...he stated that his paternal ancestry can be located to the Siberian city Vladivostok but also to Belarus and St. Petersburg.
Steven got into the movie business in 1987, when he cooperated in Above the Law with Andrew Davis. With zero acting skills and ...
3/19
...experience in martial arts, he became one of the action movie B-listers, appearing in movies like Hard to Kill and Marked for Death. His wider success came from his 1992 movie, Under Siege. Until the early 2000s, Steven was somewhat successful action star, but after...
4/19
...the relatively successful Exit Wounds (2001), most of his movies have been released as direct-to-video.
His success during the early 90s also landed him a spot as a host on Saturday Night Live. The series' Lorne Michaels, David Spade and Tim Meadows described Seagal...
5/19
...as "show's worst host ever". They called on his humorlessness and on his ill-treatment of the cast and writers. Seagal also refused to do a skit with characters that had previously claimed they could "beat up Steven Seagal".
6/19
Seagal has also been involved in various business endeavors, of which most have failed to make money. In 2005, his company Seagal Enterprises produced an energy drink, "Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt", but the product was quickly discontinued.
7/19
He's also launched an aftershave, "Scent of Action". In 2013, Seagal teamed up with Russian weapons manufacturer, ORSIS, to promote his signature rifle known as "ORSIS by Steven Seagal". He's also lobbyed for lifting off the US import restrictions on Russian firearms.
8/19
In addition to collecting sword, Seagal also collects sexual harassment lawsuits. He's been involved in various harassment cases since the early 90s, and for example Portia de Rossi has told that he'd unzipped ...
9/19
...his pants after saying "how important it was to have chemistry off-screen" during audition.
He also told then 16-year-old Katherine Heigl in 1994 that "he had girlfriends the same age". Seagal's also been accused of raping an 18-year-old.
10/19
As so many Russian shills,Seagal has been involved in cryptocurrencies. In 2020, after failing to disclose payments for the promotion of Bitcoiin2Gen & agreed to pay a total of 314 000 USD as penalty. He's also been blamed by various stuntmen for intentionally hitting them.
11/19
While filming the movie Out for Justice, Gene LeBell choked Seagal unconscious after Steven had claimed that his "immune" to such attacks. As a result, Seagal lost control of his bowels. This incident may be the reason why Putin likes him so much.
12/19
Steven Seagal is a huge Putin fan, once describing him as "one of the great living world leaders". He showed strong support for the annexation of Crimea, and even appeared there in Aug, 2014, at an event organized by the motor cycle gang, Night Wolves. At the event, he ...
13/19
...depicted Ukraine as a "country controlled by fascists". In 2016, Putin handed out a Russian passport to Seagal at an orchestrated event, but he had gotten his Russian citizenship already in Nov 2014, few months after appearing at the absurd event in Crimea.
14/19
In May 2021, the fake opposition party A Just Russia - Patriots - For Truth announced that they are giving Steven an official membership card to their party. In Mar 2022, Seagal celebrated his 70th birthday in Moscow, with many guests under Western sanctions as guests.
15/19
Later that year Steven visited Olenivka in Donetsk, with former Ponzi schemer and leader of the puppet state DPR, Denis Pushilin as his host. According to Pushilin, Seagal also interviewed Ukrainian POW's, thus breaking the Geneve convention.
16/19
In 2013, Seagal was invited as a guest at Ramzan Kadyrov's birthday party in Chechnya. Steven called him a "great leader", and Kadyrov referred to him as “almost a Chechen national.”
17/19
When visiting Belarussian dictator Lukashenko, Steven was given one carrot and one watermelon as a gift. After receiving the watermelon, he commented "Nice. Nice."
18/19
In Feb 2023,he was awarded with the Russian Order of Friendship for his "major contribution to the development of international cultural and humanitarian cooperation".Earlier this month,it was reported that Russia has recruited Steven to teach martial arts to its soldiers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, we’ll reintroduce Laura Loomer @LauraLoomer, an American political activist. Our first possible case of a former vatnik, she’s best known for her unhinged takes on Ukraine & for admitting those were the result of falling for Russian propaganda.
1/20
When we first souped Laura, she was just one of many influential right-wingers and conspiracy theorists spreading vatnik propaganda: the usual, stale Kremlin narratives intended to help Russia with its invasion of Ukraine.
But now, she’s clearly and publicly admitted she was wrong. Now of course, this doesn’t mean that we agree with her on everything now, or that we can guarantee that she won’t change her mind again. But: her previous stance on Ukraine was extremely superficial…
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a French far-left politician. He’s best known for founding the party La France Insoumise (“Unsubmissive France”), demanding submission from his own movement and advocating global submission to authoritarian dictators.
1/23
Mélenchon received his early political education in the Organisation communiste internationaliste, a Trotskyist-Lambertist communist group known for secrecy, rigid discipline and entryism. Lionel Jospin was also a member, and both later joined the Socialist Party.
2/23
Mélenchon was elected to the Senate and was a junior minister in Jospin’s government. He left the Socialist Party in 2008, co-founded the Left Party, then the Left Front alliance with the Communists & ran as its presidential candidate. He was also an MEP from 2009 to 2017.
In today’s Vatnik Soup and our “Degenerate Russia” series, we’ll discuss what kind of lowlifes sink low enough to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lie on Russia’s behalf, promote Russian BS, and even gather in Moscow or St. Petersburg to help the Kremlin wage its war.
1/21
For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeting right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying Russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional, family values.
Russia is also normalizing relations with the Taliban, doesn’t recognize Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist groups, and deepens its military partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime that legalized pedophilia through child marriage.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Vincent Bolloré, a French billionaire and media tycoon. He’s best known for building a powerful media empire and for reshaping editorial lines across French media and publishing, pushing them toward far-right and pro-Kremlin positions.
1/25
Born in 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a family of industrialists, Vincent studied law at Paris Nanterre University. He took over the family business and turned it into a sprawling conglomerate spanning logistics, port infrastructure in Africa, advertising, and media.
2/25
Bolloré’s African logistics empire also became the subject of a long-running corruption investigation in France. Legal proceedings against Vincent Bolloré personally are still ongoing, with a trial planned in December, after a judge refused to approve a plea deal.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, podcaster & antisemite, Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO). She’s best known for spreading conspiracy theories, attacking Ukraine, promoting pro-Kremlin BS, and becoming a favorite of Russian state media.
1/21
Candace started her career as an intern at Vogue magazine but later moved into political commentary. Her early career focused on criticizing Republicans, calling their antics “bat-shit crazy.” In 2016, her blog even published an article about Trump’s penis size.
2/21
That same year, she launched a doxxing website called SocialAutopsy. In response, people began posting Owens’s personal information online. During the controversy, she gained support from figures such as @Nero and @Cernovich. And just like that, she became a conservative.
In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.
1/20
Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.
The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.
2/20
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.