Thread by @dogemperor

Today's guide in how to spot a Russian origin disinfo campaign on Xitter:

a) Make claims that have already been debunked, including by the state agencies AND aid groups
b) Do this to @SecretaryPete being unaware the Department of Transportation doesn't coordinate rescue

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c) Promoters of Dunning-Krugerrands Made Of What Amount To An Electronic Ledger Based On Solutions Of Arbitrarily Complex Mathematics giving their inputs (when they've failed at all of the basic lessons of monetary systems in the past 150 or so years)

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d) Did we mention a fundamental lack of understanding of the roles of separation of civilian versus military branches of the government, and that *in general* the Department of Transporation does not deal in public safety issues?

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e) This general unawareness of "There are different divisions of government" extending to not realizing there is a whole-ass branch of government (the Office of Management and Budget) specifically dedicated to keeping receipts on government spending

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f) A common theme--and downright *guaranteed* Vatnik Sign--is that they are *terribly* concerned about how much money Ukraine got in a completely separate DoD spending bill.

So, so, terribly concerned.

Almost as much as Russia and Belarus, even.

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g) Did I mention they're REALLY bad at figuring out roles of government officials? (Kamala Harris is not yet POTUS. She is presently VPOTUS. The job of VPOTUS is basically to break ties in the Senate and wait for the President to die or be incapacitated.)

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h) And of course, the line also immediately goes to Casual Racism, something that Putinists have played since Dugin put pen to paper for "Foundations of Geopolitics". (Also, apparently, the new hotness for MAGAts, which was the Old Hotness when they were the Dixiecrats.)

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i) And, well, also homophobia (it worked so well for recruiting Christian Nationalists as a Fifth Column, after all).

And no, I'm not kidding about how Russians recruited Christian Nationalists via homophobia; now the far-right is recruiting TERFs the same way

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j) A trifecta of:
1) being unaware how disaster management & coordination of aid works,
2) being unaware that DOT Is Not FEMA,
3) trying to monkeywrench legit aid efforts to force people to get aid from Christian Nationalist prosyletizing "charities"

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And yes, that whole thread of "DOT confused for any number of other federal agencies that are *also* involved, or will be involved at some point, in disaster relief efforts in Appalachia" is, in and of itself, more than a bit of a tell.

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Unless your civics education functionally stopped at the Civil War, you should have learned (either if you grew up in the US, or became a naturalized citizen) that the President has a Cabinet of people who head various federal sub-agencies

11/xwhitehouse.gov/administration…

And MOST folks do at least have a clue that "the guy who manages road construction and planes, trains and automobiles" (@SecretaryPete) is NOT "the guy who sends soldiers in" (@SecDef) and is NOT "the guy who runs civil defense and emergency aid" (@SecMayorkas).

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas And literally NONE of these are "the person who helps out with long-term housing redevelopment" (@DepSecTodman), or "the person responsible for getting the TVA stuff working again" (@SecGranholm), or "the person working on healthcare" (@SecBecerra),

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas @DepSecTodman @SecGranholm @SecBecerra and literally NONE of these are "the person responsible for job assistance programs" (@ActSecJulieSu) or "The person helping out with agriculture aid programs longterm" (@SecVilsack) or "The person responsible for the national forests & parks" (@SecDebHaaland).

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas @DepSecTodman @SecGranholm @SecBecerra @ActSecJulieSu @SecVilsack @SecDebHaaland Meaning, the Secretary of Transportation can't do shit regarding FEMA or the National Guard (or even state police, which is typically via liasons with Department of Homeland Security).

But Vatniks, and their useful idiots, tend to not know or particularly *care*.

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas @DepSecTodman @SecGranholm @SecBecerra @ActSecJulieSu @SecVilsack @SecDebHaaland Also note that pretty much all of these likely socks on main are of the Eight-Buck Chucklefuck variety, and it's been widely speculated that the Bot And Sock Issue has been actually exacerbated by botfarms buying $8 accounts--or possibly the mismanagement providing them

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas @DepSecTodman @SecGranholm @SecBecerra @ActSecJulieSu @SecVilsack @SecDebHaaland Anyways, let's continue.

k) The rare "either fascbot or actively trying to play the far-left AND far-right simultaneously" sort, who's got enough of a history to be flagged in Shinigami Eyes (so very likely "Useful Idiot of the Fourteen Words Fan Club variety"):

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@SecretaryPete @SecDef @SecMayorkas @DepSecTodman @SecGranholm @SecBecerra @ActSecJulieSu @SecVilsack @SecDebHaaland l) Another racist (and likely botty) account, with an extremely poor grasp on which Cabinet member manages BICE and INS (Hint: It's not DOT, it's DHS)

Then again, these dolts also think it's *possible* to deport 15m ppl; logic is *not* the strong suit of the likely sock

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m) Socky account (targeting @NC_Governor posting an update on recovery efforts) whom is unaware that, when a government official is flying, that in general there ARE security precautions like restriction of airspace so some rando doesn't try to take a potshot

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@NC_Governor n) Also targeting @NC_Governor: a mix of blatant racism (it's been Ft. Liberty for a few years now), literal accusation of letting people die to steal land (a frequent theme since CA wildfires in 2018 among QAnonsense conspos), and targeting legit aid efforts

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@NC_Governor o) A REMARKABLE lack of knowledge of emergency management in the US, and of FEMA in particular, in an effort to (again) wreck a national-level civil defense and emergency management agency for both disaster relief AND disaster preparedness

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@NC_Governor For those unaware: FEMA has been around, at least in its *civilian* identity, since 1978. Before that, FEMA also still technically existed and has since World War II--as the Office of Civil Defense under the Department of Defense (War Department during WW II).

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@NC_Governor FEMA was "civilianized" in part to *not* just prepare for civil defense emergencies (like nuclear war) but peacetime emergencies like tornadoes/floods/hurricanes. It also involved combining certain sub-agencies from other Cabinet divisions as well.

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For example, one part that went under FEMA involved the emergency housing and disaster aid programs that were previously part of HUD from 1973-1979, another involved emergency road efforts of the Bureau of Public Roads (within the DOT, now the FHWA).

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So FEMA existed as an independent agency and also included Federal Insurance Administration (flood insurance programs), National Fire Prevention and Control Administration (wildfire prevention/mitigation), and other preparedness branches of federal departments.

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And shortly after 9/11 happened, FEMA (because of its civil defense functions) was brought under the Department of Homeland Security along with INS and BICE, the US Secret Service, the US Coast Guard, and many other "security"/"civil defense" focused federal agencies)

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And the fact that I've already got apparently some chuddy accounts trying to buzz around (which I also have already blocked, hilariously enough) is a sign in and of itself that a lot of this IS bot-mediated, and based on botnets and sockfarms triggering on keywords.

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And there have been plenty of attempts by official accounts to debunk this Active Measures Bullshit, including Georgia governor Brian Kemp:

This has, to date, not kept the (Russian) leopards from eating faces. He, too, is getting targeted:

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https://x.com/GovKemp/status/1841865233872114046

Including, of note, someone with a username that of *course* has a subtle white-supremacist dogwhistle embedded also pushing a narrative of "everything will be done with our fascist and fundie aid groups (that will deny assistance to anyone brown)":

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Glenn "Kane" Jacobs (yes, the former WWE wrestler and present mayor of Knoxville, TN) has historically been pretty MAGAt, but when he tried to tell people to not push disinfo he found the face-eating leopards going after HIS face



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https://x.com/GlennJacobsTN/status/1842119315572601173

There were...a *remarkable* number of face-eating leopards in that thread going after Kane based on him having the temerity to ask people to NOT be spreading conspiracy theories on main.

(The hardest part of riding a bull is getting *off* the bull.)

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This even literally extended to almost *immediately* accusing anyone in authority (yes, even those who've been "on the ground") of lying when anything resembling a fact-check was done.

This is an *extremely* common theme in this disinfo campaign.

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This is, in part, a *Christian Nationalist* disinfo campaign, because--again--sectarian "prosyletizing" charities are also promoted, including Samaritan's Purse (which has a history of requiring attendance at altar calls and/or viewing religious films to get aid)

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Of course, it's also a Problem when the actual owner and mismanager of this site (who has not found a neo-Nazi account he *didn't* like and actively try to boost) is an *active participant* in spreading disinformation.

(I'm also on Bsky, for my peeps following!)

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More evidence that at least *some* of the goal for this disinfo campaign is to cause a complete lack of trust in legitimate aid groups and to promote--and ultimately force people towards--Christian Nationalist agencies that require "altar calls for aid":

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As an aside: It is also worth noting that Samaritan's Purse leader Franklin Graham IS remarkably close to the Putinist government, and was in fact probably among the first *in* Russia among Christian Nationalists.
religionnews.com/2018/08/07/the…
motherjones.com/politics/2014/…

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The links between Christian Nationalists--including Franklin Graham, the World Congress of Families as an international group uniting Christian Nationalist and neofascist groups, and Putin's regime & allies is a whole discussion in itself:

37/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1463907…

It also should be considered just a *minor* bit of an issue that one of the voices that is in fact amplifying this disinfo campaign is one of the candidates for President, who has also amplified other "active measures" campaigns targeting refugees

38/xnbcnews.com/politics/donal…

It's also worth noting that Project 2025--which at this point is a GOP-wide policy, which is obvious if you look at state party platforms and compare--also effectively calls for winding down all civil assistance agencies and forcing people to prosyletizing "charities".

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So yeah, this is really part of a textbook disinfo campaign that's straight out of Dugin's "Foundations of Geopolitics" (which, I'll note, is basically Putin's Little Black Book for foreign policy)

The goal for the US? Destabilize it



40/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1841159…

And attempts to wreck aid efforts? Trying to foment a literal "hot" civil war? Would do a *great* job at that.

Right now, you are in an information war, with hostile foreign actors AND their Fifth Columns involved.

Vote accordingly and act accordingly. Resist.

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@threadreaderapp unroll