In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss two events, Rescue the Republic and Rage Against the War Machine, that are being held during the last weekend of September 2024 in Washington DC. Both of these events promote pro-Kremlin viewpoints and platform many prominent vatniks.
1/11
Rage Against the War Machine is being organized for the 3rd time, although the 2nd installment, “Defeat the Deep State”, was cancelled, probably due to low interest. The event was organized by the Libertarian Party, a US political party that was recently hijacked by vatniks.
2/11
Both events are co-organized by craniosacral therapist/chair of the Libertarian National Committee, Angela McArdle, who was leading the Libertarian Party takeover in 2022 and turning it into an extension of Trump’s MAGA Republicans:
Out of the two, Rescue the Republic has much higher profile speakers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson and Tulsi Gabbard. Incidentally, each of these have their own entries on #vatniksoup:
In addition, there are some B-lister Trump operatives, like the failed actor Rob Schneider, urine inspector/Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec, and "comedian"/joke Jimmy Dore:
The event seems to be protesting against some sort of “industrial complex”, and it brings together Kremlin appeasers, COVID-19 vaccine/mandate opponents, “free speech” advocates and of course conspiracy theorists.
6/11
It’s easy to predict the contents of this rally - many will advocate for Trump and blame the Democrats & NATO for “warmongering”. Some will mention the “culture wars”. They’ll also call for “ending the war” in Ukraine, which basically means stopping the US aid to Ukraine.
7/11
Rage Against the War Machine has a much more pathetic lineup, and it seems that McArdle is scraping the bottom of the vatnik barrel.
There’s zero household names, and out of this sad bunch Douglas Macgregor is probably the best-known:
Out of the others, Daniel McAdams is a fervent supporter of both Putin and al-Assad, Garland Nixon is a former Sputnik journalist, Josie Glabach is Tim Pool’s co-host and strong supporter of Russian imperialism.
9/11
Rescue the Republic has a high chance of being a successful event, as it brings together MAGA Republicans, antivaxxers, conspiracy theorists and Christian nationalists. I’m sure both events will feature some Russian flags and members of CODEPINK propaganda group.
10/11
Ultimately, both events try to bolster Trump’s presidential campaign by supporting his policies and empty promises, and defaming and blaming the Democrats, Biden and Harris for everything negative going on in the United States.
11/11
My book titled “Vatnik Soup - The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” has been published, you can order it here:
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.