Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 23, 2023 21 tweets 12 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician and political commentator, Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard). She's best-known for blaming absolutely everything on the US Democrats and NATO, and for being a fan of totalitarian regimes like Russia and Syria.

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Tulsi was raised up in accordance with the teachings of the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), a religious group described as secretive and abusive cult. Former member has described SIF as "virulently homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynist" where its founder,...

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Chris Butler, is "considered to be akin to a God". Gabbard became politically active at a relatively young age, and she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives when she was 21. She was in a field medical unit and was deployed to Iraq between 2004 and 2005 and...

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...was stationed in Kuwait between 2008 and 2009 as a platoon leader. While in Congress, she was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) between 2013 and 2016. She later resigned to endorse Bernie Sanders' campaign for the 2016 US presidential election.

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While in Congress, she was a staunch critic of Barack Obama for refusing to admit that the real enemy of the US is actually radical Islam and Islamic extremism, often appearing on Fox News to comment on the issue. Since she started criticizing Obama and picking fights...

5/19
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...inside the Democratic Party, she's been praised more by the people like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson than the Democrats. Gabbard ran for US presidency in the 2020 election. Hillary Clinton described Tulsi as "the favorite of the Russians," and that she was being...

6/19
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..."groomed" by the Republicans for the candidacy. Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton, but dropped it five months later. Interestingly, Tulsi used the same law firm that represented Rudy Giuliani and George Papadopoulos during the investigation into the...

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...Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Gabbard was also endorsed by former KKK boss David Duke, and neo-Nazi and conspiracy theorist Richard B. Spencer. After dropping out of the race, she endorsed Joe Biden.

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Gabbard has criticized the "neoliberal/neoconservative war machine", stating that the money the US uses for wars should be used for other stuff, like war against (Islamic) terrorism. Some (well, me) have speculated that this harsh stance against Islam might stem from her...

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...upbringing in a anti-Islamic cult.

Tulsi visited Syria in 2017 in a "fact-finding mission". She had two "unplanned" meetings with Syrian totalitarian leader Bashar al-Assad. Later she expressed skepticism about the Khan Shaykhun chemical attacks, and voted against...

10/19
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...condemning the Syrian government for "war crimes and crimes against humanity". OPCW-led investigation later attributed the Khan Shaykhun attack to al-Assad's forces. She also refused to say who paid for her trip to Syria. Gabbard's trip to have a chat with al-Assad...

11/19

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..was later praised by our favorite weapons inspector/chatroom-enjoyer, Scott Ritter.

When it comes to Ukraine, Gabbard parrots the same Kremlin narrative: the US and NATO provoked Putin to attack Ukraine, peace negotiations are needed (after Putin got what he wanted, ...

12/19
...as is tradition) to prevent nuclear war, it's a "proxy war" between US and Russia, and sanctions are hurting the West and not Russia. She also blames the "elite cabal of warmongers" for the war. She's said that the war could've been prevented by declaring that Ukraine...
13/19

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...can't join NATO, but as those who have read Putin's 2022 essay, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", it was never about NATO but Putin's obsession over Ukraine being part of Russia. In a recent keynote speech, she also praised the Durham report, ....

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stating that the Russian collusion in the 2016 election was a "manufactured hoax".

She was also one of the speakers at the "antiwar" event Rage Against the War Machine in Feb 2023.

15/19

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Tulsi has been careful about commenting on the atrocities and the ongoing genocide, and I couldn't find any mention of Bucha, Izium, Kherson, Donbas, Crimea,etc. I guess she wants to be careful and just defame Biden & the Democrats and disregard the complexity of war crimes.16/19 Image
Gabbard left the Democratic Party in Oct 2022, blaming its leadership for "cowardly wokeness, anti-white racism, (being) hostile to people of faith and spirituality, and dragging us closer to nuclear war". After this, she signed a deal with Fox News and started working...

17/19


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...as a paid contributor for the network. She also endorsed several Republican candidates for Senate, including J.D. Vance who has said that he doesn't "care what happens to Ukraine".

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Some have speculated that she'd be a running mate for Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election. This would make sense, since these days Gabbard is speaking like any MAGA member would, condemning the "woke mind virus", and outright refusing to condemn Russia's war.

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Support my work:
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Past soups: buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi
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More from @P_Kallioniemi

May 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.

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Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”

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After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.

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Read 24 tweets
May 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

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Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

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Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

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Read 22 tweets
May 9
In today’s May 9th Vatnik Soup, we discuss the ambiguous relationship of the Kremlin with Nazism and explain why so many vatniks can be outright Nazis, and promote or excuse them while at the same time being so hysterical about alleged “Nazis in Ukraine”.

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Of course, Kremlin propaganda employs the Firehose of Falsehood and often lacks any consistent ideology other than spreading chaos and seeking power, so such contradictions can be commonplace. However in this case there is a certain cynical consistency there.

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To understand modern Russia, we need to go back a hundred years to the beginnings of Soviet Russia/Soviet Union — a genocidal terror regime under dictators Lenin and Stalin, whose totalitarian and imperialist legacy Putin’s Russia fully embraces.

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Read 24 tweets
May 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the state of X in May 2025. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, this platform has rapidly transformed into his personal political tool and a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation.

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Not everyone is following this shitshow as closely as I am, so I thought it would be good to write a summary of all the changes that have happened on this forum and outside of it. These changes have drastically changed how the platform operates and who gets “a voice” here.

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Elon’s team has been tweaking the algorithm many times after the takeover. One of these tweaks happened already around Nov 2022, when the platform heavily suppressed the visibility of pro-Ukraine accounts. This change was then noticed & reported by many pro-Ukraine accounts.
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Read 23 tweets
May 2
In today’s 350th Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American comedian and podcaster, Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith). He’s best-known for his numerous appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and for his unhinged takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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Smith has a massive megaphone - he’s a good friend of Joe Rogan, and he’s appeared on Joe’s podcast a whopping 16 times. Naturally, he’s also visited Lex Fridman’s podcast and frequently appears on Fox News’ Kennedy and The Greg Gutfeld Show.

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Dave is part of the Kremlintarian section of the Libertarian Party called Mises Caucus. They took control of the party in May 2022, and with the help of their new leader, Angela McArdle, turned it into an extension of the MAGA Republicans:

3/22

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Read 24 tweets
Apr 29
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian journalist, Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin). He’s best-known for posing as a Russian dissident, while at the same time sneakily promoting the Kremlin’s narratives about the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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On paper, Leonid doesn’t look like your typical Kremlin apologist - he’s written and worked for prestigious Western outlets like the BBC, the Guardian, and he’s even written some Lonely Planet guides for the Baltic countries!

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But Ragozin’s public commentary often seems to walk a fine line: condemning the war while pushing narratives that shift blame, dilute responsibility, or quietly carry the same old imperial baggage Russia - or its opposition - has never truly forgotten.

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Read 21 tweets

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