In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American social media personality, Dominick "Dom Lucre" McGee (@dom_lucre). He's best-known for lying about absolutely everything, and for spreading QAnon-related conspiracy theories and disinformation on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/21
Based on Dom Lucre, Dom Lucre is a massively popular Renaissance Man, who's dabbled successfully in military, hip hop, financial advising, philanthropy, politics and of course "breaking narratives". Hell, he even wrote an (everybody)Wiki about himself!
2/21
In many ways, Dominick is the George Santos for the black community, as almost everything about his past has been either exaggerated or completely made-up. A Twitter user @CoffinItUp (they're great, follow them and check their substack!) has made a lot of research on Dom,..
3/21
...and I'll be referencing to his investigative work quite often. First of all, Dom claims to have graduated from college in 2017 from Penn State, but they couldn't verify any diplomas or degrees. Dom then back-pedaled and said he's missing his "internship".
4/21
He's actually been enrolled to Penn State since 2017, but hasn't graduated after 6½ years. They even kicked him out once. Dom's also claimed to have obtained a certificate from Wharton University,but there's absolutely no proof of any of this:
Mr McGee has also his own business, Credit Cadabra. The site's been referred to as the "Most Searched and Serviced Financial Advising Company", which doesn't really mean anything at all. Anyway, it appears that he wrote a bunch of 5-star reviews by himself.
6/21
McGee also joined the army in 2013. He had a 4-year contract, but was allegedly generally discharged. Dom's version is that he left in order to care for his half-brother. As usual, his story is full of holes and you can read more about it here:
As is tradition with pathological liars like Santos and McGee, the lies hardly stop there. Dom's also lied about owning a 150 000 USD watch (it's a cheap copy), buying a house at the age of 22 (he was/is renting it), and having a net worth of 1,2 million USD.
8/21
Dominick has built his brand around being a black conservative who supports Donald Trump. He was also involved in the "Stop the Steal" movement, and even orchestrated his own FB group around the event called "Win the Win".
9/21
Most of his followers on social media came from running the group, which was also filled with QAnon references like "the storm will come." The group was also used by far-right militias for recruiting members.
10/21
Dom has launched an NGO called The Citizen's Crusade, although there is no information of this organization outside of Dom's interviews, so it's probably just another made-up project of his.
11/21
Dom Lucre has over half a million followers on Twitter, and his "exposures" have relatively high engagement. These posts include ridiculous claims like saying that Tom Hanks is a pedophile and it was actually Trump that got Epstein locked up.
12/21
He's also promoted the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory, which claims that high-profile Hollywood stars and politicians are involved in a child sex trafficking ring. As an "evidence", he posted a segment from Ben Swann's "Reality Check" TV show from Fox. Swann has promoted...
13/21
...every conspiracy theory out there, and has made almost 7 million USD by the Russian government for his propaganda work for the South America, Indian and Chinese markets.
14/21
As most grifters often focus on what's trending, Dom has also written about Ukraine. In one of his hot takes, he stated that Putin is "fighting the deep state in Ukraine," and that QAnon is somehow connected to human trafficking in Ukraine.
15/21
He also shared a slideshow that was supposed to be proof that Ukraine is infested with Nazis - too bad most of the images were from Russia.
Mistreatment of children in Ukraine is probably a remnant from the Soviet times, read more here:
He's pushed the bioweapons lab conspiracy theory and also tried to connect Joe Biden's son, Hunter, into the production of "pandemic diseases that could be used as a bioweapons."
17/21
In addition, Dom's tweeted about the "genocide in Donbas". On 14 Jul 2023, one of Prigozhin's "trolls" revealed the "Donbas genocide" victims were actually paid actors. He also forgot to mention that a lot of the civilians died in Donbas came from the down shooting of MH17.
18/21
In Dom's view, the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a CIA-orchestrated coup. His source for this is a far-left fake news blog, MROnline. He's also suggested that Zelensky is a war criminal and that the US provoked the war with Russia.
You know, all the classics.
19/21
Dom is definitely trying to make his way into conservative politics, and in the current state of "post-truth politics" he could actually make it.
That's probably why he's a "black conservative" supporting Trump, as the truth is absolutely irrelevant within the MAGA gang.
20/21
To conclude: Dominick McGee is an opportunist, attention-seeking grifter who's trying to make money by spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories. He follows every "current thing" in order to garner to his "fans", while trying to make a quick buck.
21/21
Sources:
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Past soups:
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In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.
1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…
2/20
…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.
1/20
Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.
2/20
After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.
1/20
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.
2/20
As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.
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.
1/23
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.”
2/23
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.
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.
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”.
1/23
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.
2/23
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.