As Israel's Netanyahu hysterically calls US campuses "horrific..German[y] in the 1930s", remember who took him to power: the divisive US operative Arthur Finkelstein, who also gave us autocrat Viktor Orban, antisemitic conspiracy theories, and indirectly, Donald Trump. 1/
From 1970, Finkelstein changed politics in the US and around the world with virulently negative campaigns that pushed fear & division ("rejectionist voting"), microtargeted messaging, 3rd party spoilers, and a complete disregard for truth and values. 2/ nytimes.com/2017/08/19/us/…
Finkelstein, who was both Jewish and gay, won races for homophobic candidates with antisemitic messaging. It's beyond twisted. He got Bibi elected in 1996; Bibi referred him to Viktor Orban - and to help Orban win he created the George Soros conspiracy. 2/ buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgra…
It was Finkelstein who pushed Trump to hire Paul Manafort, deep in Ukraine fuckery in 2016 and formerly in business with Finkelstein protege Roger Stone. Trump's campaign used Finkelstein's tactics: polarize the electorate, make people fear each other. As Bibi is doing now. 3/
Manafort had learned in Ukraine how to create violent, astroturfed protests, whose players looked enough like normal folks they stymied law enforcement. In 2006, he shut down the US Marines and NATO. On Jan 6 the Capitol attack used the same gameplan. 4/ taskandpurpose.com/news/manafort-…
For 5 decades Finkelstein's proteges ("Arthur's Boys", including Roger Stone, Terry Dolan, Frank Luntz) have helped make US politics divisive and deeply twisted. Dolan, secretly gay, co-founded the Moral Majority and helped elect anti-gay candidates. 5/ archive.harpers.org/1987/08/pdf/Ha…
Finkelstein and his gay proteges fanned anti-gay hate. He and his Jewish proteges built anti-Jewish conspiracies. What Netanyahu is doing tonight is straight from Finkelstein's playbook: stoke fear and division, no matter who it hurts. US reporters must call him on it. 6/
This account focuses on Jan 6 - but J6 is Finkelstein's legacy too. Roger Stone's Proud Boys led the attack. ESI, who'd worked with Paul Manafort, ran the rallies. And the QAnon conspiracies that inflamed the rioters were pushed by a staffer of Ron Paul - Terry Dolan's client. 7/
Today saw three red flags: Bibi's speech, and visits to Columbia by Mike Johnson (J6 organizer) and Gavin McInnes (Proud Boys founder). As in 2020, protests can be used to stoke fear and violence. The only way to fight back is with sanity and calm. 8/
Tony Perkins frets about "political disaster" from Trump's involvement with Epstein. Back in 2016, when Ted Cruz floundered at the polls, Perkins pushed religious-right leaders to switch to Trump, calling it a "calculated risk". How does that calculation look now, Tony? 1/
Tony Perkins was the mentor of a young Mike Johnson, an unmarried law student who had oddly taken in a young boy. Perkins knew what Johnson was, but pushed him into politics anyway. @tperkins: all this will be in the history books, as your legacy. 2/
@tperkins Before Mike Johnson ran for office, he was Dean of a new law school named for notorious pedophile Judge Paul Pressler, who preyed on young boys. Tony Perkins sat on its board. And also on the board was a relatively unknown Ted Cruz - who'd known Pressler since he was a teen. 3/
Each Epstein email has so many layers of slime people miss some. This is Ken Starr, fired for covering up sexual assault, offering to help former client Jeffrey Epstein's friend's sexual harassment case by introducing him to Jed Rubenfeld, put on leave for sexual misconduct. 1/
Epstein's elite world was VERY elite: Yale Law prof Jed Rubenfeld's wife Amy Chua, also a Yale Law prof, was the mentor of Yale Law student JD Vance. Ken Starr was the mentor of Yale Law grad Brett Kavanaugh, also accused of sexual assault but now seated on the Supreme Court. 2/
Ken Starr, despite his long trail of sexual grossness, cosplayed as a warrior for an also-gross sexual prudishness. He and Brett Kavanaugh went after Bill Clinton (a visitor to Epstein's island) for oral sex with an intern. Kavanaugh came up with the graphic sexual questions. 3/
One fascinating thing in the Epstein email drop is an exchange around Trump's election in 2016. It suggests a tense, ongoing relationship, and Epstein's power.
Part 1, Sept 23: Linda Stone jokes that Epstein will get a cabinet position if Trump wins. Like Trump owes him. 1/
Backing up: the exchange is with Linda Stone, a tech exec who'd known Epstein since the 1990s: she brokered his entrance into academia, linked him with scientists. In 2016 they were close enough to be chatty, far enough to go months between emails. 2/ politico.com/news/magazine/…
Part 2, Sept. 26: three days after Stone asked Epstein if Trump could win, he answers: "too soon to tell, we will know more come oct 15". He doesn't explain: what would he learn then? Meanwhile Stone isn't even sure if Epstein supports Trump: "Which team you pulling for?" 3/
This week in Trump-Epstein: first @JSweetLI IDs the 14-year-old girl Epstein brought to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump in 1994. Then the House Dems release an email where Epstein says Trump hung out at his house with underaged girls: "[VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him" 1/
in short: Trump spent so much time with Epstein and underaged girls that even Epstein couldn't figure out how it wasn't news!
"Jane", who testified she'd been abused by Epstein, was entered in Trump's pageants in the 1990s, long before Kirk and Halligan in 2009. Still, it's odd how so many women in Trump's circle had walked the stage in front of him as barely-clad teenagers. 3/
Realize: when Ed Martin drafted the pardon for the fake electors he was pardoning himself: he made it pre-emptive and general, covering "all United States citizens for conduct relating to ... efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 presidential election" 1/
Ed Martin was one of the first people who Ali Alexander drafted into Stop the Steal, on Nov. 4, the day after the election. He was a major player, and was deferential to Ali ("Orders, General Ali?"). Ali in turn said he leaned on Ed for advice and for contacts to lawmakers. 2/
The Jan 6 Capitol attack was astroturfed. It could not have happened without efforts from the top - filing bs election-fraud suits, whipping up crowds and getting media attention with Stop the Steal rallies, then pressuring lawmakers to comply. Ed Martin was deep in it. 3/
The techbro plot they talk of openly, to seize power by dominating the global weapons industry is luckily so far stymied by their products not working.
Peter Thiel's Stark drones flopped in trial. Big dreams are a start, but you have to execute too. 1/
Even if the techbros fail at their hoped-for military surveillance state, their bad products can still weaken the U.S. Trump and Hegseth are shoveling weapons contracts to Silicon Valley startups. Here's $642M for the Peter Thiel-backed Anduril. 2/ govconwire.com/articles/andur…
Sam Altman's OpenAI got $200 M this year to inject AI into military decision-making. This is a partnership with Anduril too, to make AI tools “for security missions”. 3/ theguardian.com/technology/202…