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 introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.
1/21
Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.
2/21
Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.
1/15
Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.
The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.
2/15
The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text:
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.
1/20
Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.
2/20
Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:
In today’s Vatnik Soup and the “Degenerate Russia” series, I’ll show you the brutal reality of Russian war crimes, in particular the horrific tortures and sexual abuses of children, women and men.
Buckle up, this one is not for the faint-hearted.
1/24
For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeted at right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional,family values.
In the previous “degenerate Russia” series we discussed Russia’s insanely high divorce rates, rampant domestic violence, high murder rates, thriving neo-Nazi culture, corruption of the Orthodox Church, and their massive demographic problem:
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explore how Russia is working with Iran, and how the recent Israel–US strikes on Iran could affect the war in Ukraine. Iran has been one of Russia’s key allies in their genocidal war, but in reality the partnership is deeply one-sided.
1/21
Historically, Russia/USSR has been involved in numerous wars in the Middle East, invading Afghanistan for nearly a decade and desperately trying to keep Syria’s authoritarian leader, al-Assad, in power before his eventual downfall.
2/21
While initially supportive of Israel, the Soviet Union quickly pivoted to backing its enemies, fueling antisemitism, terrorism, and chaos in an already tense region. At times, this meant near-open war, like when Soviet Air Force MiG-21s were shot down by Israel over Egypt.
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.
1/22
Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…
2/22
…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.