In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American podcaster, RT columnist and former political aide, Tara Reade (@ReadeAlexandra). She's best-known for her allegation about Joe Biden sexually assaulting her, and for supporting Putin and Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine.
1/22
Reade rose to popularity in Mar 2020, when she alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her in 1993 while she was working as his staff assistant. After a thorough investigation by various journalists, it was discovered that her story was full of holes and she even...
2/22
...lied under oath. In addition, according to Associated Press, "Over the years, Reade spoke favorably about working for Biden." CNN reported that Reade had "praised Biden on social media on numerous occasions". Incidentally, these allegations came out just before...
3/22
...the 2020 US presidential election. Russia has been really pushing these allegations."Foundation to Battle Injustice",a propaganda organization ran by Prigozhin,is featuring Reade on their front page with a quote from Tara saying "Joe Biden raped me and ruined my career".
4/22
Eventually the story died down, but it had apparently left a strong mark on Reade. After she became "unhirable" in the political sphere in DC, she gradually drifted towards the "anti-establishment" movement and eventually started promoting outright Russian propaganda.
5/22
But some, including @gregzhouse, have suggested that she'd been influenced by the Russians already back in 2018. In 2019 she tweeted about the new Russian "foreign agents" law, that requires foreign journalists to register as foreign agents or face fines.
6/22
In May 2020, she published an article on Medium titled "Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin". In the article, she wrote that "President Putin brought a chaotic and failed nation to become a vibrant, creative, economic force within a decade,"...
7/22
...continuing "Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness."
Few weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine, Tara was interviewed on RT where she claimed that she was "threatened" for her views on Russia. She also repeated her...
8/22
...allegations against Biden, saying that her case was "more serious" than the others reported. She referred to herself as a "whistleblower".
Reade hosts a podcast called "The Politics of Survival with Tara Reade", in which she discusses the war with "neutral voices"...
9/22
...like former spy Maria Butina, who was sent to the US as a sleeper agent, slept with bunch of men, got caught, and was booted back to Russia. She's also had a chat with "independent journalists" like Wyatt Reed, Johnny Miller, Alina Lipp, and documentarist/propagandist...
10/22
...Igor Lopatonok, the director of the Ukraine on Fire documentary:
Her narratives are the same as all the others: inflation and price hikes in the West, "NATO expansion launched the proxy war", calls for peace after Putin annexed the four...
11/22
...Ukrainian Oblasts, "Ukrainian Nazis" and the "Kiev regime", and of course "genocide in Donbas" with 14 000 "Russian casualties". There is absolutely nothing new or original in Reade's propaganda.
12/22
She was also one of the speakers at the "antiwar" Rage Against the War Machine event, in which she blamed Biden's administration, among other things, for organizing a "money laundering scheme" in Ukraine.
13/22
She's written several op-eds for RT. In Feb 2021, Reade published an article for RT titled "I believe AOC when she says she is a survivor of sexual assault. Why could she not say the same about me?"
14/22
In Aug 2022, she was awarded an award for... something by The Center for Political Innovation, a pro-Russian and communist association ran by Caleb Maupin.
15/22
In Oct 2022, she discussed about the loss of "Western hegemony" and its "failed states", praising Putin and the new multipolar world rising in the East. According to her, "China and Russia are flourishing," while forecasting a "cold Winter" (that never came) for the West.
16/22
In Dec 2022, Semafor reported that Russian diplomats had attempted to bring Ms. Reade to a UN meeting on "weapons diversion". She's not any kind of weapons expert and was refused the platform, and the plan was probably to bring him there to defame Biden, anyway.
17/22
In the US politics, she has promoted the pro-Kremlin MAGA gang, including @RepMattGaetz and @RepMTG, who both have called to end the US military aid to Ukraine. The two had interviewed Reade, and wanted her to testify against Biden in Congress.
18/22
Reade also appeared on Tucker Carlson, where she repeated the allegations against Joe Biden. According to Tara, Joe Biden took her "future", but I'm pretty sure it was Ms. Reade herself who took it by making things up.
19/22
On 30 May 2023, Reade gave an interview to the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik. With the help of her friend, Maria Butina, she had defected to Russia. Apparently Butina is trying to fast track Tara's citizenship request, comparing her "whistleblowing" to Edward Snowden.
20/22
The propaganda event they referred to as "press conference" lasts only 9 and half hours, so I suggest you give it a listen.
Now that she's in "Snowden land" and out of reach from US authorities, we will probably see an uptick in "Joe Biden raped me" BS from Ms. Reade.
21/22
She might even do a collab with an actual convicted sex criminal, Scott Ritter! Meanwhile, she can have hot girl summer in Moscow with the failed spy Maria Butina and convicted drug trafficker Oksana "Mira Terada" Vovk:
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a British musician and activist, Roger Waters (@rogerwaters). He's best-known for his involvement in Pink Floyd, and for his love for the totalitarian regimes and their lies around the world.
1/26
It actually pains me to brew this soup, as Waters' music, especially the album titled Animals, has been among my favorites for a very long time.
But one should never meet their heroes, they say, so here goes.
2/26
As with many pro-Kremlin propagandists, Waters has been heavily involved in support of Palestine in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He's supported an international campaign, BDS, that boycotts Israel. He visited the Israeli West Bank barrier for the first time in 2006.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Malaysian conspiracy theorist, journalist and social media addict, Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray). He's best-known for his online attention-seeking activities, for his anti-Ukraine stance, and for simping @elonmusk and other techbros.
1/24
Ian's online history goes way back. During the early 2010s, he was a moderator on Reddit, moderating some of its biggest subreddits. He was eventually banned for paid promotions he hadn't disclosed to the site. He was also working as a games journalist, working for sites...
2/24
...like Gameranx, The Guardian and Ars Technica. When some of his older chat logs were leaked, they showed his edgelord-y behavior where he praised one Adolf Hitler. He apologized but blamed everything on the "toxic gaming community."
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian propagandist and blogger, Nina "Nina Byzantina" Kouprianova (@NinaByzantina). She's best-known for her full support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for marrying neo-Nazis, and for translating fascist philosophers.
1/20
Kouprianova was born in Moscow in the late 80s, when the collapse of the USSR was just around the corner. She's blamed Jeffrey Sachs, Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton for ruining Russia in the 90s,neatly forgetting the involvement of oligarchs & various criminal organizations.
2/20
Nina met Richard Spencer, an American neo-Nazi, conspiracy theorist and general clown, back in 2009. He outright refuses to talk about Richard's tendencies to drift towards far-right policies. Richard was already at this point at the deep end - he was fired from...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Portuguese Major General and TV commentator, Agostinho Costa. He's best-known for his terrible, pro-Kremlin analysis on the Russo-Ukrainian War on @cnnportugal.
1/22
Costa joined the Military Academy in 1977 and finished his training in 1982. His work history in the Portuguese Army is remarkable, and before retiring in 2021, he worked as a EUROFOR Chief of Staff, head of the GNR, and as vice president of Eurodefense Portugal.
2/22
Like so many generals after retiring, he became an analyst and was invited by CNN Portugal to comment on the Russo-Ukrainian War. But his analysis had two big problems: he was 1) biased towards Russia, and 2) almost always wrong in his predictions.
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.
1/19
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,...
2/19
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...
The film depicts the "crazy 1990s", where the opportunistic oligarchs became extremely wealthy whereas the common folk had to struggle to get food, in a realistic way, but again fails to mention that the same happened in Russia and in most of the old Soviet countries.
6/22
The filmmakers forget to tell that many of the Ukrainian oligarchs, including Viktor Medvedchuk who is featured in the film, had and have pro-Russian stances and got lucrative business deals from Russia. Many of them also came from the Eastern parts of Ukraine.