In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce the troll farm/paid shill talking points on the Carlson-Putin interview.
These are the most common arguments that pop up in the comment section when people criticize the upcoming interview.
1/11
"It's good to hear the story from both sides"
In this case, the other side is a genocidal warmonger who even killed hundreds of his own people to justify a war in Chechnya. Putin can provide his perspective at the Hague.
2/11
"Tucker is a journalist, let him do his job"
Tucker is a propagandist who is also extremely biased: In 2019, he said that "We should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine":
Lira was not a journalist, he was a dating coach who beat up his wife, kids and disabled nephew, who violated the Article 436-2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code and tried to flee the country while on bail:
Ukraine banned Medvedchuk's - a personal friend of Putin's - TV channels that spread pro-Kremlin propaganda. He also banned Serhiy Liovochkin's website that was even worse than Medvedchuk's channels.
Also, Russia invaded Ukraine.
7/11
"I want to hear what his [Putin's] interests are from his own mouth"
They're not a secret, you can read them from his 2021 revisionist and genocidal essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians".
8/11
"I've always wanted to see a Putin interview because it never happens"
Putin has been interviewed many times. For example, by Larry King in 2000, Barbara Walters in 2001, his lapdog Oliver Stone in 2015-2017, Megyn Kelly and @ArminWolf in 2018, and Keir Simmons in 2021.
9/11
In all of them, Putin evades the difficult questions, rewrites history to fit the Kremlin's narrative, and instead blames the West for everything. Wolf was one of the few who actually challenged him, see the interview with English captions below.
10/11
Finally, there is absolutely no media freedom in Russia and their World Press Freedom Index is one of the worst in the whole world.
In this first (and maybe last?) Basiji Soup, we’ll look at… the Islamic Republic of Iran, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, how it sells its atrocities as virtue and its repression as morality, how it serves the Kremlin, and the current protests against it.
1/20
Basijis are members of the most fanatical part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In a broader sense: Iranian regime loyalists & propagandists. They may be fewer than vatniks or wumaos, but the goal is the same: destabilize the West to protect a brutal regime.
2/20
The regime oppressing Iran is a “theocratic” authoritarian state around a “Supreme Leader” hiding behind religion to justify its crimes: censorship, repression, executions, torture and terror — similar to Russia and its “holy war” against Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce our first Czech vatnik, Tomio Okamura. He’s best known for building a political career on xenophobia while being of mixed origins himself, and for pushing Kremlin narratives in Czechia, a country otherwise very supportive of Ukraine.
1/19
Okamura was born in Tokyo in 1972 to a Japanese-Korean father and Czech mother. He spent part of his childhood in Japan, and part in a Czechoslovak foster home where he was heavily bullied. His mixed origins made it difficult for him to fit in either country.
2/19
Nonetheless, after working odd jobs in Japan, Tomio returned to Czechia and became a successful entrepreneur in Japanese tourism. He then rose in politics: Senator in 2012, MP in 2013, he founded two parties: Dawn of Direct Democracy and SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy).
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American billionaire, real estate developer, and wannabe diplomat, Steve Witkoff. He’s best known for trying to sell Ukraine to Putin and for helping Trump sell this treason and encouragement of genocidal war as “peace”.
1/20
Steve studied law and political science at Hofstra University in New York. After law school, he worked as a real estate attorney, which led him into property acquisitions and development. He first met Trump in the 1980s when Trump was a client of his real estate law firm.
2/20
In 1997, Witkoff founded the Witkoff Group, a New York–based real estate development and investment firm. The firm has owned and developed dozens of properties in New York and other major US cities, making Witkoff quite wealthy, with some interesting business connections.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, our first on a non-human vatnik, we’ll talk about… Grok @grok. It’s best known for turning into Mecha-Hitler and Mecha-Putler and for defending its vatnik master, Elon Musk, at all costs, up to being willing to sacrifice the rest of mankind for him.
1/24
Let’s start with an introduction into how Large Language Models (LLMs) work, and the new “arguing with your toaster” phenomenon. LLMs like Grok are Artificial Intelligence (AI) but not the way we had imagined — a new form of intelligence that would somehow think like us.
2/24
Instead, LLMs are basically “guessing engines” and search engines trained on a massive dataset to give you the output you expect: they are imitating intelligence rather than being an actual intelligence. They’re chatbots generating responses pretending to be a helpful AI.
Robert Amsterdam is also a registered (and well-paid!) agent of Maduro’s Venezuela, the socialist regime and ally of Russia which Tucker Carlson has recently defended for some reason, shocking many of his right-wing supporters.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll explain the context of the upcoming Budapest Blunder, and how it follows the infamous Alaska Fiasco from two months ago and Trump’s absurd delaying of serious aid to Ukraine and effective sanctions on Russia for the past nine months.
1/20
Two months ago, Trump embarrassed the United States by rolling out the red carpet for war criminal dictator Putin and overall acting like a pathetic servant eager to meet his master. Of course, the Alaska Fiasco didn’t bring peace any closer.
Worse, the main outcome of the humiliation was to delay serious sanctions, which the US Congress, in rare bipartisan unity against Russia, was on the verge of passing. Two weeks by two weeks, Trump Always Chickens Out, postponing any real pressure on Putin for 9 months now.