In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician, Jill Stein (@DrJillStein). She’s best-known for her visits to Moscow, bids for the US presidency, blaming of NATO for the war in Ukraine, and for her inability to condemn Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.
1/23
Stein’s background is in medicine, and she graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979. During the 90s Stein turned to activism and subsequently received various environmental awards for her work. Stein began her political career by running for governor of Massachusetts...
2/23
...in 2002, but only got 3,5% of the total vote. Her following campaigns were also massive failures, and the only election in which she managed to secure a seat was the local legislative body in Lexington. But that didn’t stop Jill, as in 2012 she decided to run for...
3/23
...president with the Green Party. Her campaign consisted of unrealistic promises of “putting 25 million people to work,” and she was endorsed by people like Russia-funded Chris Hedges, CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin and academic and genocide denier Noam Chomsky.
4/23
In 2012, Stein received 0,36% of the total vote, which is why she also decided to run again in 2016. This time she decided on a different strategy - in 2015, she travelled to Moscow to attend the RT 10th anniversary party. While there, she criticized US foreign policy...
5/23
...and human rights situation. She was seated together with Vladimir Putin, but somehow failed to remind him that Russian imperialism is bad and Russia should stop annexing and invading sovereign countries. For this, she blamed the language barrier (Putin speaks English).
6/23
Unlike Donald Trump, both Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein released their tax returns. Surprisingly, Stein had around 8,5 million USD invested in funds in industries she had harshly criticized, including energy, financial, tobacco, pharmaceutical and defense contractors.
7/23
Stein ultimately received 1% of the national vote in the 2016 election, but she played a significant role in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as Trump’s victory margin was smaller than Stein’s total votes in these key battleground states.
8/23
Following Trump’s victory, Stein spearheaded an effort to recount votes in three swing states. The recount was a lost cause, but Stein managed to fundraise 7,3 million USD for it. In May 2018, only 1 million of the money was spent and the rest is allegedly stashed somewhere.
9/23
Naturally, the Republicans and the Russians knew that a third-party candidate could help Trump grab the presidency. Trump-operative Roger Stone had previously used third-party candidates to grab votes from the Democrats, and according to a 2018 report, the Russians...
10/23
...had launched a pro-Stein online campaign promoting Stein and her policies. For example, the employees of Yevgeny Prigozhin-led troll factory Internet Research Agency tweeted the phrase “Jill Stein” over 1000 times during the elections.
11/23
During the 2020 elections Jill was hibernating, but she’s back in the race for the 2024 presidential elections. According to Stein, her main priorities are being “anti-war”, supporting universal healthcare and “pledging to stop genocide” in Palestine.
12/23
On 16 Sep 2024, Mehdi Hasan interviewed Stein over her policies and presidential bid. In one of the most absurd conversations ever, Hasan asked Stein whether Putin was a war criminal, but she failed to condemn him as one (like she did in case of Biden and Netanyahu).
13/23
In addition, Jill’s promoting the main Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine. She’s repeating the lie about NATO agreeing to “not move one inch to the east,” spread the lie about the US formeting a “coup” where “ultra-nationalists and ex-Nazis came to power”.
14/23
When asked about Crimea, Stein stated that “These are highly questionable situations,” and that “Russia used to own Ukraine.” In the same interview, she repeated her lie about a “US-orchestrated coup” in Ukraine. When asked whether Putin was a “incipient despot”,...
15/23
...she answered: “To some extent, yes, but there could be a whole lot worse,” again blaming NATO and the West for the crisis: “we needlessly provoke him and endanger him and surround him with war games,” neatly forgetting Putin’s invasions starting with Chechnya in 1999.
16/23
Stein was also a speaker at the “Rage Against the War Machine” event, where vatniks and tankies gathered around to call for the end of aid to Ukraine, bash the US and NATO and whitewash Russia’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
17/23
As is tradition, Jill also supports Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad. In 2016, she deleted a tweet saying that “The US should be working with Syria, Russia, and Iran to restore all of Syria to control by the [Assad] government.”
18/23
Some (including me!) consider her to be a “spoiler candidate” - a candidate who knows they have no chance of winning, but who can still affect the vote in battleground states and help the other candidate win. I mean, she did the same thing during the 2016 elections.
19/23
In 2016, the Stein campaign - with the help of the Russians - targeted heavily the African-American population. This time they seem to be focusing on the Muslim vote in the swing states, and a recent CAIR survey indicates that this strategy has been fairly successful.
20/23
While Stein is considered to be a general laughing stock over here on X, her supporters and promoters are running a relatively successful campaign on platforms with younger audiences, like TikTok, where she targets mostly Democrat voters.
21/23
Jill Stein has absolutely no path to win the presidency, but just like she did in 2016, she can help Donald Trump to win. Trump has relatively low support among the US Muslim community, which is why using Stein to get those votes is a brilliant and cunning strategy.
22/23
The New Republic’s Peter Rothpletz has claimed that “Jill Stein is killing the Green Party”, and that they should “ditch the malignant narcissist” responsible for its decline. And when you look at her “achievements” throughout the years, it’s hard to disagree.
23/23
My book titled “Vatnik Soup - The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” has been published, you can order it here:
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the agenda-setting and flood of disinformation that spread on X and other platforms right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s far from the first or last time a tragedy has been weaponized for political purposes.
1/18
Every major political event, especially those involving violence, attracts massive attention. In the immediate aftermath, reliable information is scarce, making it highly vulnerable to both coordinated and improvised disinformation campaigns.
2/18
As I’ve mentioned in my previous soups and lectures, in disinformation campaigns, being first with a narrative is crucial, as people often remember the first version best — psychology studies show it sets the mental schema, and later updates rarely overwrite it.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American social media personality David Freeman, AKA Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman). He’s best known for spreading political disinformation on X and shamelessly sucking up to Trump, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders.
1/22
David is a textbook example of someone profiting from MAGA grievance politics. He uses extreme, provocative language to farm engagement on X and never hesitates to flatter anyone who might give him more exposure — or money.
2/22
But David wasn’t always like this. At some point, in his mid-40s, he even tried a real job: he trained to become a cop. He spent three years with the Metro Transit PD, but after that he either got fired or quit, and never looked back.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian-Estonian businessman, Oleg Ossinovski. He is best-known for his deep ties to Russian rail and energy networks, shady cross-border dealings, and for channeling his wealth into Estonian politics.
1/14
Oleg made his fortune via Spacecom Trans & Skinest Rail, both deeply tied to Russia’s rail system. Most of this is through Globaltrans Investments PLC, a Cyprus-based firm with 62% held via Spacecom and tens of millions in yearly profits.
2/14
Ossinovski’s Russian-linked ventures made him Estonia’s richest man in 2014, with an estimated fortune of ~€300M. His business empire stretched across railways, oil via Alexela shares, and Russian bitumen imports from Help-Oil, a supplier to the Defense Ministry.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Swiss/French writer, Alain Bonnet, aka Alain Soral (@officielsoral). He’s best known for his rabid antisemitism and for his pathetic support for all the worst authoritarian regimes from Russia to North Korea.
1/22
Alain’s childhood was problematic, as his father has been characterized as a “narcissistic pervert” who beat his children and did jail time for fraud. Alain himself has said he was “programmed to be a monster.” Born Alain Bonnet, he took the stage name of his sister,…
2/22
… actress Agnès Soral. She wasn’t too happy about this, commenting “How would you like to be called Agnès Hitler?”. Like many grifters, he became a pick-up/seduction artist writer, à la late Gonzalo Lira, writing books and even making a B-movie, “Confessions d’un dragueur”.
3/22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.
1/24
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.
2/24
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.
1/23
Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.
2/23
One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.