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Ahmed Baba Profile picture
Ahmed Baba
@AhmedBaba_
Journalist. Entrepreneur. Consultant. Columnist @Independent. Co-Founder @ranttmedia. Seen on MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc. Bookings: ahmed@rantt.com. Newsletter🔗👇🏾
4 subscribers
Jul 13 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
We’re lucky the Heritage Foundation was so shamelessly cocky about their extremism. They could’ve released a sanitized Project 2025 playbook—and hid their far-right agenda and training of loyalists. Their arrogance gave us a chance to warn voters of this looming authoritarianism. The fact Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” and Donald Trump’s Agenda 47 are laid out clear as day on their websites, makes it impossible for anyone to credibly deny the involvement of former Trump officials or the fact Trump’s agenda is identical to Project 2025 in key ways.
Dec 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Homicide numbers are poised to hit a record decline nationwide. But most Americans think violent crime is on the rise.

There’s a stark disconnect between how a lot of Americans feel and what’s actually happening. Disinformation is distorting our perception of reality. Image More details here: abcnews.go.com/US/homicide-nu…
Jul 28, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The audacity of Elon Musk always complaining about psyops, when he’s part of the biggest “psyop” this century.

Right-wing figures like Musk, Trump and DeSantis have tricked millions of people into believing they’re fighting for them.

Their fake populism is as clear as day 🧵 Fake elite “populists” are exploiting anti-elite messaging from real populist movements.

They are “elite” themselves but claim they’re fighting oppressive systems while perpetuating them. They do this by making their fake populism not about economic class, but ideological class.
Mar 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
This news got buried in the GPT-4 hype: One week after it was announced, Meta’s AI model LLaMA got leaked on 4chan - because of course it did.

While OpenAI has been more guarded about who gets access to its model, Meta has a more open application process.

It’s not going well... So this is what happened.

OpenAI has stricter control over who can access their GPT model and build AI tools with it

But Meta created an application process where any AI researchers can request access to their LLaMA AI model

There’s already been a leak. theverge.com/2023/3/8/23629…
Mar 13, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This is how Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, in a nutshell:

SVB over-invested in long-term mortgage-backed securities. As rates rose, value of those securities dropped—they sold at a $1.8B loss. SVB said it needed to raise $2.25B to offset the loss. Then VCs triggered a bank run… Peter Thiel & other VCs told their portfolio companies to withdraw cash. SVB customers withdrew $42B by the end of Thursday. SVB went cash negative as it tried to cover the withdrawals. By Friday morning, regulators shut down SVB and FDIC said it would insure $250k of deposits…
Dec 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Watch for yourself. In the same breath, Kanye West praises Hitler and attacks Jews. Kanye West is blaming the entire Jewish community for his bad business deals. That’s what’s happening. He is echoing centuries-old antisemitic tropes, straight up praising murderous Hitler, and targeting millions of people all because he’s unhappy with his contracts. Just sick.
Nov 29, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a massive deal. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, is guilty of seditious conspiracy. The Oath Keepers coordinated with Trump advisor Roger Stone ahead of January 6 The fact a jury convicted on seditious conspiracy charges is remarkable. This isn’t a guilty plea like the Proud Boys. A jury found seditious conspiracy charges to be viable in relation to January 6. This could have massive ramifications for how the DOJ approaches future J6 cases
Sep 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Graham once tearfully praised Biden's decency. Now he's threatening violence on behalf of Trump.

He traded his friendships with Biden & McCain for opportunistic Trump sycophancy.

He personifies the @GOP’s amoral pursuit of power.

My latest @Independent.
independent.co.uk/voices/biden-l… @GOP @Independent In 2019, Graham was asked about his transformation in loyalties.

Graham gave a clear explanation of both his friendship with McCain and his allyship with Trump. He said, ”If you know anything about me, it’d be odd for me not to do this... This is to try and be relevant.”
May 27, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Sir, the feral hog thing was a Twitter meme. It wasn’t real @SenBillCassidy. @SenBillCassidy Remarkable @ElizLanders kept a straight face during this interview
Oct 31, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Acosta is pointing out the truth about Tucker Carlson & Fox News.

You simply cannot separate the radicalizing right-wing rhetoric from the violence that has directly resulted from it.

Tucker’s new 1/6 revisionist history “documentary” is yet another example of this propaganda. We’ve seen how Trump’s rhetoric was echoed in white supremacist manifestos, like the El Paso terrorist who targeted Hispanics. rantt.com/how-the-el-pas…
Oct 29, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I finally just watched that Tucker Carlson documentary trailer and my god. I won't share it to add more views, but this might be the most dangerous piece of content dropped since the insurrection. Tucker and the Murdochs are tapping into the absolute worst of the American psyche. This headline is evergreen. rantt.com/tucker-carlson…
Oct 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Watching the anti-vax “movement” go from fringe minority to the mainstream position of the Republican Party has to be one of the most depraved political developments in our lifetime. Spreading lies that so directly lead to mass death is an unimaginable low. They were so desperate for a grievance after Biden won that they clung on to any conspiracy theory they could find. What's worse is their lies always find a way to manifest in our culture (Kyrie Irving, for example). That's how disinformation works. It's sneaky and pervasive.
Sep 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Been thinking about this Jonathan Swift quote when it comes to de-radicalizing people gaslit by disinfo:

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he never was reasoned into.”

These aren’t fact-based beliefs. They’re emotional. How can you debunk an emotion? Disinformation doesn’t necessarily convince people of new concepts through persuasive information—it simply exploits a person’s distraught emotional state and/or feeds into a pre-existing belief system.
Aug 19, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
This Mo Brooks statement would be dangerous and depraved alone, but unfortunately it is not alone. With the exception of a select few, fueling the fire of right-wing terrorism with dangerous lies and dubious defenses is the current stance of the modern @GOP and right-wing media. @GOP When the GOP continues to push the Big Lie and placates conspiracy theories like QAnon, they knowingly fuel this right-wing terrorism threat. rantt.com/post-insurrect…
Aug 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Since Twitter doesn’t have vaccine disinfo as a reporting category, I’m just reporting anti-vaxx lies as “encouraging self-harm” because that’s exactly what this is. If you’re unvaccinated, it’s very likely you will eventually get COVID, and as time passes and more variants mutate, you’ll be getting a more severe version of this disease. These anti-vaxx liars are encouraging mass death.
Aug 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Right-wing media continues to spread the same white supremacist garbage we’ve seen in countless terrorist manifestos.

Newt Gingrich says this 1 day after the 2 year anniversary of the El Paso terrorist attack, where a white supremacist targeted Latinos based on this BS rhetoric. We covered this in the great piece from @SaraKamali. This rhetoric is dangerous.
rantt.com/white-national…
Jul 15, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
We all saw what happened. We saw the Russian disinfo in 2016. We saw Trump ask Russia to find Clinton’s emails on live TV. We saw Trump capitulate to Putin throughout his presidency. We’ve seen GOP and right-wing media on message with Russia.

What’s public is damning enough. Regardless of the authenticity of the documents the Guardian received, or the potential motivation of the leakers, the facts of the Trump-Putin alliance remain unchanged:

Russia sought to undermine US democracy and Trump and his cronies cooperated, both indirectly and directly.
Jun 17, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I’ll never forget one of my college professors who tried to make it seem like slaves didn’t have it bad and then looked at me and the only other Black kid and said we should be proud our ancestors built this country.

That’s far more damaging than what the GOP is trying to ban. First off, my parents are immigrants, so it was racist to assume my ancestry. This professor was obsessed with trying to whitewash slavery. This happened in Northern Virginia. @_zakali was there. It was ridiculous.

This is the kind of ahistorical nonsense going on in the South.
May 26, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
One of Trump’s most profound impacts on our politics is that he made indecent people think they no longer had to pretend to be decent in order to be accepted in polite society.

Those who embraced depravity didn’t suddenly become that. They just stopped hiding their true nature. When Americans saw a corrupt bigot say whatever came to his mind and not only avoid consequences but go on to win the presidency, some felt they were granted a license to take off their decency masks.

There's a direct correlation with this and the surge in hate crimes.
May 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
You can’t separate the Big Lie from the hundreds of voter suppression bills the GOP is pushing.

These bills are solving for a problem that does not exist. They are based entirely on the Big Lie.

Condemning the lie but not the undemocratic outcome of the lie is a half-measure. So Republicans can erode democracy via legislation, but if they talk about it, that’s wrong?

What Liz Cheney is essentially saying by condemning the Big Lie but not condemning voter suppression is that she simply wants the GOP to return to not saying the quiet part out loud.
Apr 7, 2021 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Tonight, Tucker Carlson opened up his show with a full-throated defense of the insurrectionists.

He went on to act as if those being arrested were not committing real crimes and the arrests were somehow politically motivated.

@FoxNews is airing undemocratic gaslighting garbage. @FoxNews This is nauseating. Then @RealCandaceO went on to say that the insurrection wasn't that big a deal and said the Kavanaugh hearing protests were wild with "rabid feminists." I don't recall those women beating police officers or those protests resulting in any deaths.