MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Putin Finally Abandons Trump, Explicitly Rejecting the Insane Conspiracy Theory Trump Hoped Would Win Him Reelection and That the Kremlin Fed Him in the First Instance; Move Suggests Putin Believes Joe Biden Will Be Next U.S. President mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/id…

MORE 1/ "Putin also reacted with visible irritation when asked about comments Trump has made concerning Putin's ties to the former mayor of Moscow, and to an alleged payment made to Hunter Biden by the ex-mayor's widow. Putin said that he knew nothing... {continued in next tweet}

MORE 2/ "...about the existence of any commercial relationship between Hunter and the woman. Joe Biden says the accusation about his son is not true."

These comments represent the most significant break in the history of the Trump-Putin relationship, just nine days pre-election.

I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate Sturgill Simpson on METAMODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY MUSIC (2014) being certified as a gold album by the RIAA!

Sturgill has said that—among many influences on the album—one was my writing on metamodernism. I couldn't be happier about this news!

(MUSIC) "Living the Dream," Sturgill Simpson, METAMODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY MUSIC (2014).

"I don't need to change my strings / 'cause the dirt don't hurt / the way I sing."

What an album.

(MUSIC) "Pan Bowl," Sturgill Simpson, METAMODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY MUSIC (2014).

There are so many good songs on the album—standouts include "Turtles All the Way Down"; "The Promise"; and "It Ain't All Flowers"—but this might be my favorite one on the LP.

I can't locate anything "metamodern" in THE BOYS—if you want metamodern superhero fare, read Matt Fraction's HAWKEYE run, which follows Hawkeye as he does things like attend neighborhood cookouts and fix his home entertainment system—but I guess WIRED can? wired.com/story/amazon-t…

PS/ Oddly, @jkehe identifies GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and THOR: RAGNAROK—two metamodern films—as postmodern, and THE BOYS, which is hardcore late postmodernism, as "metamodern." I think the problem may be that the review is using a term whose usage the reviewer is unfamiliar with?

PS2/ THE BOYS is conventional flipped-script late-postmodern dialectics—"You mean the supers are the *villains*? But!"—with a hero class that's all anti-hero, and anti-villains (conflicted villains) thrown in for good measure, all of it then clarified by trite corporatist tropes.

(MUSIC) In Milwaukee many years ago Sturgill Simpson asked if I was in the crowd and cited my essays on metamodernism from the stage before singing this song, the sort of experience that'll never be repeated but stands as one of the best moments of my life

(PS) The only thing that approached that was this completely unexpected moment in an interview with one of my favorite artists, Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood)

(PS2) I tell these nice stories because the dark ones are really dark, like a far-right convicted cyberterrorist issuing a fatwa against me on the dark web because he believed (many years ago) metamodernism was a Jewish conspiracy I had personally developed to take over the world

I issued warnings re: these "peace deals" a year ago, based just on my research for Proof of Conspiracy (2019)—not based on me being prescient, omniscient, or in any way special. The warnings were ignored. Now we'll all pay the price—as media lauds Trump for deals made years ago.

A Saudi-Israeli scam is coming soon—a fake normalization deal between nations that secretly made peace before the 2016 election to collaborate to aid Trump. The scam will be Trump's big "October surprise." And media will fall for it—because they wouldn't read Proof of Conspiracy.

Some of you may think, who cares how it happened if it leads to *peace*? As we discuss in the coming Episode 8 of the new PROOF podcast, what's coming is not peace but war. And the cost of that war was illicit pre-election collusion between Trump and the nations in the news now.

(THREAD) One of the questions I get most frequently on this feed—if you can believe it—is about cultural theory. I discuss #metamodernism frequently, and people often ask, "What is it?" I'll do what I can to answer the question here, with links. I hope you'll read on and retweet.

1/ I usually try to avoid answering this question, for many reasons. Here are just a few:

1⃣ Metamodernism has caused people to go crazy.
2⃣ Metamodernism is so new there is little literature on it.
3⃣ Metamodernists are currently in a civil war.
4⃣ Metamodernism can be complex.

2/ Two more:

5⃣ Metamodernism is a "cultural paradigm," so it is such an encompassing term it really can't be adequately discussed in a character-limited social media platform.
6⃣ Metamodernism permanently changes the lives of those who study it, so it must be wielded carefully.

BREAKING NEWS: As Presaged on This Feed Six Weeks Ago, Trump Has Announced a New "October Surprise"—a Scam Saudi-Israeli Normalization Deal That Is Merely the Formalization of the Two Nations' 2016 Agreement to Covertly Offer Illegal Election Assistance to the Trump 2016 Campaign

https://twitter.com/TarekFatah/status/1319681424832778240

PS/ How did I know this was happening weeks ago? Because I wrote a book on Trump's dealings with the Saudis and Israelis in 2019 (Proof of Conspiracy). All the other conspirators in the "Red Sea Conspiracy" had already publicly normalized relations with Israel. Only MBS was left.

PS2/ I have consistently called out false claims by Trump's ODNI that Saudi Arabia isn't illegally tampering with the 2020 election—as they did so in 2016 and have more reason to do so now. A scam normalization deal is a gift MBS can give Trump to help aid his reelection in 2020.

BREAKING NEWS: CNN Post-Debate Poll Shows 53% Think Joe Biden Won the Third Presidential Debate; Only 39% Say Trump

MORE/ A staggering 62% of debate-watchers tell CNN that Joe Biden directly answered questions more frequently than Trump did. Only 31% say Trump was more direct—a jawdropping 31-point "doubling up" of Trump for Biden. You usually don't see numbers like this in a post-debate poll.

MORE/ 54% of debate-watchers concluded, after watching the Tennessee debate, that Democrat Joe Biden had "a better plan for solving the country's problems."

Only 42% said this of Trump.

My father passed away during the pandemic. We couldn't be with him when he died because of COVID-19 protocols in Massachusetts. He supported and encouraged me through the darkest days of my life. Trump attacking Biden for loving and supporting his troubled son makes me *see red*.

THE ATLANTIC 1/ "After 18 months of flogging the Hunter Biden story, what does President Donald Trump have to show for his efforts? His opposition research on former Vice President Joe Biden's son culminated in his own impeachment. Despite railing against the scion's alleged...

THE ATLANTIC 2/ "...swampiness at nearly every rally, Trump's convoluted narrative about Biden family corruption has taken root only on Fox News. At the very least, the accusation that Hunter leveraged his father's high office to enrich himself has failed to measurably move...

(INTERVIEW) In these last days of my 25-year career in political journalism, I'm grateful I get to close out this time in my life with a lengthy chat with @rustyrockets on the past, present, and—most importantly—the future. The interview drops on Saturday. luminarypodcasts.com/listen/russell…

(PS) For those who aren't Luminary (@hearluminary) subscribers, the site offers a three-month free trial subscription that you can use to hear my chat with Russell and much else. I'll also post YouTube clips of our 70-minute conversation as or when I'm able to do so next week.

(PS2) I began my work in political journalism writing op-eds for The Daily Dartmouth, the nation's oldest college newspaper, in 1995. In the aughts I ran The Nashua Advocate, a political website nominated for a Koufax Award. It got very big (and very quickly) during "Gannongate."

I'm not a fan of Dreyfuss, nor he of me, and his magazine has straight-up lied about me in its pages, but he's *certainly* no fan of Trump—so if he says the Giuliani-Bakalova scene is less sexual than the major-media outlets who saw it implied it was, I want readers here to know.

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/1319001450597396480

1/ Most of the reaction on Twitter came without the film having been seen by the authors—me included—though most of it *was* reacting to major-media reporters who'd seen the scene (or claimed to have done so). The scene is problematic whether or not Giuliani was touching himself.

2/ We're told Giuliani was flirting, drinking, asking for Bakalova's number/email, and—after agreeing to retire to a bedroom with her—touching her inappropriately (as Dreyfuss confirms). He believed her to be a foreign national from a former Soviet republic seeking info on Trump.

(THREAD) Be wary of Saudi election interference masquerading as Iranian interference. The Saudis blamed Iran for hacking *both* Netanyahu's phone *and* the phone of his less-threatening-to-Iran rival.

Iran confessed to the former, and *denied* the latter. jpost.com/arab-israeli-c…

1/ Even as Israelis tried to figure out why Iran would hack Netanyahu's rival, accusations flew that Netanyahu—Trump's friend, and currently under indictment—had not only orchestrated the revelation of the hack but was intent on *spreading its fruits*. haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…

2/ Moreover, instead of acting as you'd expect a prime minister to act if he thought a *sworn enemy* had hacked a top Israeli official, Netanyahu acted as though the hack—whoever had done it—was perfectly coordinated to aid his campaign. He called his rival weak on cybersecurity.

BREAKING (1 of 2): Giuliani's "tuck" claim is already collapsing. Per Vanity Fair, "Giuliani [and Bakalova] retire to the bedroom with drinks in hand. She helps him remove his mic through his shirt. Giuliani asks for her phone number and e-mail address before patting her lower...

BREAKING (2 of 2): "...back as she bends down before him. But Bakalova never wavers, and just as Giuliani lays back on the bed—stuffing his hands down his pants—Cohen barges into the room and stops the interaction before it goes any further." google.com/amp/s/www.vani…

PS: Apparently Rudy Giuliani tried to get out of the bedroom he'd had his hands down his pants in super quick, suggesting some consciousness of guilt. Cohen (in character) had yelled at him, "She's 15!" Vanity Fair reports that, on hearing this, Giuliani "quickly tries to leave."

This is why people are angry at media.

The Washington Post has now joined NBC in calling the Giuliani situation a mere "prank" that we can take *nothing whatsoever from* except that Rudy can be "duped."

It is amazing that journalists are being so obtuse. washingtonpost.com/arts-entertain…

Biden being unwilling to indulge a hypothetical about what he might do with SCOTUS if he wins—the sort of hypothetical no pol would indulge—gets a week of coverage, but Giuliani being caught in an actual sex sting while acting as Trump's intermediary to Kremlin agents is a prank.

You can't help but worry that some in American media want this to be a close election in order to maximize ratings, and for that to happen Biden must be *beaten down with abject nonsense* even as legitimate national security scandals involving Trump's circle are just laughed off.

Per the Proof series, Trump's Saudi ally, MBS, has in the past engaged in election interference operations that were calibrated to appear to be by his enemies in Iran. The most sensible explanation is that these pro-Trump calls in Florida were *Saudi* interference pinned on Iran.

The Saudis appear to have interfered when Trump pal Netanyahu was last up for re-election. At the time, they engaged in ambiguous actions that *aided Netanyahu* but could be *pinned* on Iran—because they could be falsely framed as benefitting Netanyahu's opponent. Sound familiar?

So it would be in keeping with pro-Trump Saudi intel operations to 1) threaten violence against Democratic voters, 2) leave signatures suggesting the interference was by the Iranians and 3) do so in a way that left Team Trump with plenty of room to frame the actions as pro-Biden.

Major U.S. media is now picking up on the subject of my recent thread. This is going to get very big very fast—*if* American journalists work through the dire, wide-ranging implications of what this story means. It's import goes *way* beyond a single comedy film.

*Way* beyond.

https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/1319001444008288256

PS/ So far I'm not optimistic, with NBC reporting the video as merely a "prank" multiple times in its first article on the subject—and exculpating Giuliani from any knowledge that the actress he thought was a journalist was in the context of the movie playing an underage girl.

PS2/ The problems with this are legion. The intention of the filmmaker was to establish that top Trump agents would readily fall into sexually compromising "bribe" situations with people they believed to be agents of former Soviet Republics. This wasn't set up to be a mere prank.

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani Caught in Compromising Sex Tape; if a Filmmaker Can Do This to Trump's Chief Agent Overseas—and This Easily—It Means Russian Intelligence Already Has, and Many Times Over theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/…

THE GUARDIAN (UK): "In the film, [Rudy Giuliani], the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of...[an actress] posing as a TV journalist."

THE GUARDIAN (UK): "In the film...the Kazakh government...presents a bribe to an ally of Donald Trump in order to ingratiate [itself] with the administration...[the lead character's] supposedly underage offspring becomes the...present [for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani]."

*Wow*.

BREAKING: Transcripts Discussing Longtime Trump Pal Jeffrey Epstein—Who Once Told a Forbes Reporter That He Helped Trump Buy Mar-a-Lago—Will Be Released on Thursday; Media Has Never Followed Up on Epstein Agent's Comment to Forbes That Trump Visited Epstein's Home in December '17

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1318985425604706311

(THREAD 1)

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1160190380056485889?s=19

(THREAD 2)

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1161006911560589319?s=19

NBC: "The jury is still out on whether this [Giuliani] operation is at all foreign influenced..."

Nope—jury not out. Bestselling book on the shelves proving it's a foreign intel operation. Called "Proof of Corruption." 5,000 citations. NBC should read it. msnbc.com/opinion/trump-…

(PS) Short version: the men Giuliani is working with—at Trump's direction—have Russian intelligence ties, and Giuliani knows it, and Trump knows it, and anyone who read Proof of Corruption knows it. It is *obscene* that anyone in media is saying maybe Rudy is just being "played."

(PS2) Giuliani, Trump, and Barr have literally had to *fight* to get these men into the United States *because* of their known ties to Russian intelligence. So why is NBC News saying that this doesn't appear to be a Russian intelligence operation? And that Giuliani is unwitting?

This is what happens when a bestselling book comprehensively documenting how what's happening is a Russian disinformation campaign using 5,000 major-media sources comes *this* close to getting reviewed by the NEW YORK TIMES but is finally ignored—we pay the price on the back end.

https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1318178020620967936

(PS) If Turley cared to read the proof that this is a Russian plot —detailed in Proof of Corruption via 5,000 major-media sources—he'd have his answer. The NYT would. All America would. But no—no—let"s pretend the book doesn't exist. Let's run around covering tweets in real time.

(PS2) There are *hundreds* of journalists who could be reviewing or unpacking Proof of Corruption right now—and *thousands* of social media accounts with many followers that know what's in the book and can recommend it. Instead we're watching a Kremlin plot unfold in slow motion.

South Africans would be stunned to learn the only purpose of their Truth and Reconciliation Commission was "vengeance." And I think the people of America would be stunned to learn career DOJ officials are now considered "partisans." This is a sad article. washingtonpost.com/outlook/truth-…

The argument for letting some people be above the law and not face justice for their actions is always a political one. And columnists like this dress up that political argument in all sorts of ways that fraudulently rest on "principle"—usually by misidentifying motives/actors.

Having rule of law means you investigate violations of the law no matter by whom they are committed—and you do so impartially and without regard for political considerations. Those who argue for a different way should have the courage to say that they are being nakedly political.