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Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer

Gil Bang

By Gil Bang
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12 minutes ago, Bat Guano said:

I guess I should be used to it by now, but it still amazes me that anything Trump is even peripherally involved in, when you find out what's really going on, turns out to be sleazy and corrupt to a degree that goes beyond what a normal person would think is even possible. Every single thing. There is not a single facet of his life that is straight and above-board.

No way, he's gonna drain the swamp. He's not a politician Get on the MAGA train, prog.

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suddenly shaggy

suddenly shaggy 929

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3 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

What year did the enquirer becomes so overtly political. I’d be interested in that because that’s not how I remember it from my youth.

It started during the last presidential primaries and really got rolling before the general election. Every article benefited Trump. 

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

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4 minutes ago, suddenly shaggy said:

It started during the last presidential primaries and really got rolling before the general election. Every article benefited Trump. 

IMO, Trump himself was personally involved in the Bezos blackmail. I don’t have any personal knowledge of it and can’t prove it, but I can smell it. It smells like shit/trump, and he’s actually dumb and corrupt enough to be involved. 

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suddenly shaggy

suddenly shaggy 929

Posted
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10 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

IMO, Trump himself was personally involved in the Bezos blackmail. I don’t have any personal knowledge of it and can’t prove it, but I can smell it. It smells like shit/trump, and he’s actually dumb and corrupt enough to be involved. 

I'd be very surprised if he wasn't. Trump is both incredibly petty and a micro-manager of the highest order. He's been involved in everyone of the major stories with the National Enquirer, likely helped come up with storylines. 

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
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2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

OKC bombing.....Branch Dravidian stand-off...9/11....Bohemian Grove...

In the 90s, he had a hardon for the Clintons and Bushes...even interrupted a speech by then-Governor Bush. 

 

That’s what I’m talking about man. 

Alex went from being crackpot conspiracy dude against all things government,  keep Austin weird man, whether committed by republicans or dems, instead to all out trumpkin propogandist, who only disagrees with heir trumpf if he does something against Russian interest. 

The guy has been totally compromised. How much further does it go? 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

Posted
Posted

 

Was InfoWars always called InfoWars?  

Because that’s a very subtle ironic Russia type nomenclature.  I mean, a propaganda outlet with the name that is literally an abbreviation of Information Warfare.  It’s just so rooskie. 

I see InfoWars is owned by a company called Free Speech Systems LLC which formulated in 2007.  When did they acquire InfoWars? 

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Was InfoWars always called InfoWars?  

Because that’s a very subtle ironic Russia type nomenclature.  I mean, a propaganda outlet with the name that is literally an abbreviation of Information Warfare.  It’s just so rooskie. 

I see InfoWars is owned by a company called Free Speech Systems LLC which formulated in 2007.  When did they acquire InfoWars? 

It wasn’t always called infowars but its been called that for awhile. I can’t remember when it became that, mainly because I had no idea or a second thought that Alex wouldn’t just fade away like every other Austin cable access tv guy did. Because they were all just a bunch of crackpots and freaks taking advantage of free TV time to entertain late night austin potheads.  Even some very good friends of mine had a show. It was nothing more than a lark and an inconsequential privilege of youth. 

 It’s still to me the strangest thing I’ve ever seen what Alex has somehow become.

Edited by JimmyJames
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triplehorn

triplehorn 2664

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John Schindler: Inside the Spy Scandal at the Heart of Jeff Bezos’ War With the National Enquirer

 

"...A hint where this scandal is headed appeared last night when a Post reporter revealed on MSNBC that Gavin de Becker, the security guru to the stars whom Bezos hired to look into AMI, “told us that he does not believe that Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked, he thinks it’s possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages."

[...]

Suspicion inevitably falls on the National Security Agency, but that appears highly unlikely. In the first place, the NSA could only monitor Bezos’ private communications if they got federal judges to issue a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is granted solely in cases involving foreign espionage or terrorism. Which seem like things the Amazon CEO is awfully unlikely to be involved in.

[...]

Of course, de Becker’s assessment does not specify whose government entity was behind this. Longtime readers of this column know that technically savvy foreign intelligence services certainly have the capability to spy on Americans, and some of them are active inside the United States. The list of first-rate spy services that are known to target Americans, and which are operating here, is led by Russia, China and Israel.

[...]

Moscow’s close and mysterious relationship with our president is no secret to readers of this column, so Russian covert involvement needs to be seriously considered here. Amazon has large-scale ambitions in China, and perhaps those led to concerns in Beijing, which conducts aggressive espionage operations inside the United States too. Israel has close connections to Team Trump, including questionable ties between members of the president’s inner circle and individuals known to have a tight relationship with Israeli intelligence.

Another suspect is Saudi Arabia, which incurred the wrath of The Washington Post by murdering and dismembering their columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last October. Bezos referenced that awful crime in his blog post, including the line, “Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government,” explaining that AMI is seeking Saudi funding. Bezos added, “Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is ‘apoplectic’ about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve.”

The Amazon CEO is more than hinting that Riyadh is mixed up in AMI activities in a nefarious way, something which Pecker is desperate to obscure. If Saudi intelligence possesses the ability to intercept text messages inside the United States, that may be the key to this mystery. Here the Kingdom’s close security relationship with Israel perhaps provides a clue. Israeli security firms sell cutting-edge espionage software and interception gear to countries all over the world, Saudi Arabia included.

In 2017, the Israeli firm NSO Group sold Riyadh a $55 million spy program termed Pegasus which hacks smartphones to obtain their contents. This capability was desired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to spy on his enemies abroad—including, it seems, the doomed Jamal Khashoggi. Since somebody appears to have hacked Jeff Bezos’ smartphone and passed its salacious contents to The National Enquirer, the Saudi angle is one which investigators are pursuing with vigor right now. If foreign intelligence services are collaborating with gossip merchants to smear private citizens and silence critics, that’s an alarming development which one expert recently termed super-doxxing, and it’s something which all Americans should be concerned about."

 

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Atx71

Atx71 146

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Posted
8 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

It wasn’t always called infowars but its been called that for awhile. I can’t remember when it became that, mainly because I had no idea or a second thought that Alex wouldn’t just fade away like every other Austin cable access tv guy did. Because they were all just a bunch of crackpots and freaks taking advantage of free TV time to entertain late night austin potheads.  Even some very good friends of mine had a show. It was nothing more than a lark and an inconsequential privilege of youth. 

 It’s still to me the strangest thing I’ve ever seen what Alex has somehow become.

He was a crackpot in 94 and 95 when I watched him, Wulf Zendik and the Cichlid dude on Austin Access. He played the same position on the OL at Anderson as one of my boys but earlier, so I watched. Batshit fucking crazy. 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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Posted
9 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

It’s still to me the strangest thing I’ve ever seen what Alex has somehow become.

There are some obvious Russia strings that run through InfoWars.  Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, and the NRA are all well connected to InfoWars. 

I cant put my finger on it but it feels like something might be there.  

I’d like to learn more about how InfoWars became as big as it did.  

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

There are some obvious Russia strings that run through InfoWars.  Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, and the NRA are all well connected to InfoWars. 

I cant put my finger on it but it feels like something might be there.  

I’d like to learn more about how InfoWars became as big as it did.  

Oh I agree with you. 

Personally I think his supplements are just a bunch of money laundering crap that comes from whoever is supporting him. 

His show has gotten way more sophisticated/Fox News/Russian TV looking over the years. Over the long years. Just look at the similarities in graphics and background. 

Nowadays his views align perfectly with Russia. As you’ve pointed out that was not close to being the case in the distant past. I can vouch for that.

When it all changed I don’t know. That’s would I would like to know. 

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

Posted
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2 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

How do they even make money? I've seen people look through them while they wait for the cashier, but I've never seen anyone actually buy a copy.

I'm not prepared to comment on the hacking part or how they got the pictures, but I will state something about the evil genius to use the front page of the National Enquirer as a political tool against Hillary (which is unquestionable regardless of the Trump Campaign's involvement). Across the country, at almost every grocery store in America and for months, customers/citizens, standing in line, could not avoid seeing the front cover of the tabloid and were exposed to negative rumors, lies, and innuendos about the Democratic presidential candidate. This undoubtedly had an effect on the public's attitudes toward her - even at a subliminal level - and all for free (maybe...). 

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

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5 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Oh I agree with you. 

Personally I think his supplements are just a bunch of money laundering crap that comes from whoever is supporting him. 

His show has gotten way more sophisticated/Fox News/Russian TV looking over the years. Over the long years. Just look at the similarities in graphics and background. 

Nowadays his views align perfectly with Russia. As you’ve pointed out that was not close to being the case in the distant past. I can vouch for that.

When it all changed I don’t know. That’s would I would like to know. 

I never watched his cable access show, but as an Austinite, I was aware of it. The first time that I noted anything partisan about InfoWars was when I started seeing its stickers inevitably sharing the same bumper as a Ron Paul one back in the mid-2000s. It seemed almost like a requirement that they had to be paired together.

I guess if you really wanted to go all in on the potential conspiracy, you could dig to see if there was some sort of nascent relationship between Alex Jones and Ron Paul, which then passed down to Rand, who also seems to puppet Putin propaganda.

Just to be clear, everything I just typed is baseless conjecture, and I was only trying to connect the dots (no matter how weakly) to stimulate discussion and potential links.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I never watched his cable access show, but as an Austinite, I was aware of it. The first time that I noted anything partisan about InfoWars was when I started seeing its stickers inevitably sharing the same bumper as a Ron Paul one back in the mid-2000s. It seemed almost like a requirement that they had to be paired together.

I guess if you really wanted to go all in on the potential conspiracy, you could dig to see if there was some sort of nascent relationship between Alex Jones and Ron Paul, which then passed down to Rand, who also seems to puppet Putin propaganda.

Just to be clear, everything I just typed is baseless conjecture, and I was only trying to connect the dots (no matter how weakly) to stimulate discussion and potential links.

Based on my very limited digging, sometime around 2005-2007 makes sense.

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I never watched his cable access show, but as an Austinite, I was aware of it. The first time that I noted anything partisan about InfoWars was when I started seeing its stickers inevitably sharing the same bumper as a Ron Paul one back in the mid-2000s. It seemed almost like a requirement that they had to be paired together.

I guess if you really wanted to go all in on the potential conspiracy, you could dig to see if there was some sort of nascent relationship between Alex Jones and Ron Paul, which then passed down to Rand, who also seems to puppet Putin propaganda.

Just to be clear, everything I just typed is baseless conjecture, and I was only trying to connect the dots (no matter how weakly) to stimulate discussion and potential links.

 

7 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I never watched his cable access show, but as an Austinite, I was aware of it. The first time that I noted anything partisan about InfoWars was when I started seeing its stickers inevitably sharing the same bumper as a Ron Paul one back in the mid-2000s. It seemed almost like a requirement that they had to be paired together.

I guess if you really wanted to go all in on the potential conspiracy, you could dig to see if there was some sort of nascent relationship between Alex Jones and Ron Paul, which then passed down to Rand, who also seems to puppet Putin propaganda.

Just to be clear, everything I just typed is baseless conjecture, and I was only trying to connect the dots (no matter how weakly) to stimulate discussion and potential links.

Both Rand and Alex seem to be possible Russian puppets. 

Not sure about Ron though. I see him as perhaps the initial gateway based on his anti war beliefs, that were later taken advantage of by others against others.  

I dont think Ron Paul was corrupt. 

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

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8 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

 

Both Rand and Alex seem to be possible Russian puppets. 

Not sure about Ron though. I see him as perhaps the initial gateway based on his anti war beliefs, that were later taken advantage of by others against others.  

I dont think Ron Paul was corrupt. 

Yeah, I wasn't trying to claim that but was just trying to make a connection between Jones and Rand, et al.

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

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Posted
4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Yeah, I wasn't trying to claim that but was just trying to make a connection between Jones and Rand, et al.

Although I have no real proof, I do think Rand might be corrupt when it comes to the Russians. Just a feeling though.

I’m actually more confident about Alex. 

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Bama Chick

Bama Chick 28596

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I'm not prepared to comment on the hacking part or how they got the pictures, but I will state something about the evil genius to use the front page of the National Enquirer as a political tool against Hillary (which is unquestionable regardless of the Trump Campaign's involvement). Across the country, at almost every grocery store in America and for months, customers/citizens, standing in line, could not avoid seeing the front cover of the tabloid and were exposed to negative rumors, lies, and innuendos about the Democratic presidential candidate. This undoubtedly had an effect on the public's attitudes toward her - even at a subliminal level - and all for free (maybe...). 


From the NYT back in December -

More Powerful Than a Russian Troll Army: The National Enquirer

The most powerful print publication in America might just be The National Enquirer. It functioned as a dirty-tricks shop for Donald J. Trump in 2016, which would have been the stuff of farce — the ultimate tabloid backs the ultimate tabloid candidate — if it hadn’t accomplished its goal.

The Enquirer’s power was fueled by its covers. For the better part of the campaign season, Enquirer front pages blared sensational headlines about Mr. Trump’s rivals from eye-level racks at supermarket checkout lanes across America. This stroke-of-genius distribution apparatus was dreamed up by the man who made The Enquirer the nation’s biggest gossip rag: its previous owner, Generoso Pope Jr.

The Enquirer’s racks, under the current chief, David J. Pecker, were given over to the Trump campaign. This was a political gift even more valuable than the $150,000 that The Enquirer paid in a “catch-and-kill” deal with the former Playboy model Karen McDougal for her story of an affair with Mr. Trump.

Wondering what The Enquirer’s covers were worth to the Trump campaign, I called Regis Maher, a co-founder of Do It Outdoors, the national mobile and digital billboard company. He said a campaign with that level of national prominence would cost $2.5 million to $3 million a month.

“It’s such a powerful placement,” Mr. Maher said. “Everybody’s gotta go to the grocery store.”

With the news last week that The Enquirer had admitted to federal prosecutors that it made the catch-and-kill payment to influence the election, it’s worth stepping back and appreciating the unlikely role played by the supermarket tabloid and its parent company, American Media Inc., in electing the 45th president of the United States.

Now that federal prosecutors have cleared away some of the fog that shrouded the 2016 campaign, it’s easy to see that The Enquirer was more than just a publication that puffed up Mr. Trump while going after his rivals.

It was the real-world embodiment of the fantasy online world of trolls, Russian and domestic, who polluted the political discourse. From its perches at Publix and Safeway, it was often doing the same job as Alex Jones, of the conspiracy site Infowars, and the more strident Trump campaign surrogates on Twitter and Facebook.

The Enquirer spread false stories about Hillary Clinton — illnesses concealed, child prostitution, bribery, treason. Each cover trumpeting these tales was arguably more powerful than a tweet from an account with millions of followers.

It’s a shame it went this route, because The Enquirer was built to cover Mr. Trump’s wild ride. If it had only stuck with its original mission — digging up dirt on the rich and famous, without a care for the rules of traditional journalism — it would have had the tabloid story of a lifetime.

Instead, it refused to unlock its vault of Trump tips and stories as it promoted him as America’s savior. Actually, make that the world’s. As one Enquirer report in early 2016 had it — from “a source close to Donald’’ — even President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wanted him to win the White House.

“It was like a double whammy,” Jennifer Palmieri, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign communications director, told me. “They could have been covering all of Trump’s misdeeds. But, instead, not only were they not reporting on that, they were a pipeline from dark-net conspiracy theories to grocery-store lines.”

With its online cohorts, American Media Inc. helped build a distortion machine that so polluted election news cycles that, for its more receptive audiences, Mrs. Clinton not only deserved to lose the White House, she deserved time in the big house.

Before making her its main target, the machine chewed up Senator Ted Cruz. It ran unsubstantiated allegations of extramarital affairs against him at a time when he was proving himself Mr. Trump’s most stubborn Republican challenger.

The only person quoted by name in the affairs piece was Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, who was quoted as saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” (Mr. Stone, who communicated with top campaign officials through the election, is under investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.)

One passage in the Cruz story caught my eye. Citing a report in Radar Online — a gossip outlet also owned by A.M.I. — The Enquirer claimed that “an individual purporting to be a representative of the hacker group Anonymous posted a disturbing Twitter video that threatens to expose ‘very dirty secrets,’ including information about Ted ‘visiting prostitutes.’”

Here’s an odd thing. Radar attributed the provenance of this supposed Anonymous video to an obscure Twitter handle with only a few thousand followers that has since gone dormant. A review of the account’s activity found tweets and retweets of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant messages relating to Europe, as well as a critique of the United States policy on Libya linked to a video from RT, the Russian state-financed cable network.

It makes you wonder if the inquiring mind of Mr. Mueller would like to know more about The Enquirer than he has let on. (Federal prosecutors in New York have led the investigation of A.M.I.)

Once Mr. Cruz was out of the way, two people familiar with A.M.I.’s operation told me, the company pulled up files on the Clintons that it had collected over decades — some two dozen cardboard boxes filled with promising material.

A.M.I. began a painstaking effort to sort through the old clips and tips concerning “pay-for-play” deals, rumors of affairs and Vince Foster conspiracy theories. But as the campaign wore on, The Enquirer’s covers favored stories similar to those coursing through Infowars, Russian trolldom and, increasingly, your uncle’s Facebook feed.

According to one headline, Hillary was “Corrupt! Racist! Criminal!” In another, she was “Eating Herself To Death!”

The Enquirer also reported — make that “reported” — that she had suffered “three strokes,” had “liver damage from booze,” and was prone to “violent rages.”

A couple of weeks before Election Day, as Russian bots pushed a narrative into Facebook of a “Clinton body count,” an Enquirer cover line screamed: “Hillary Hitman Tells All.”

The false narratives built to a frenzy that included an appearance by the A.M.I. chief content officer Dylan Howard on Infowars and a cover promising that Mrs. Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin were “Going to Jail” for “Treason! Influence Peddling! Bribery!”

Inside were the unsubstantiated claims that Mrs. Clinton had “covered up a child sex scandal” — which echoed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy — and that her relationship with Ms. Abedin had “lesbian undercurrents.”

For those who were seeing the same bilge online, The Enquirer’s headlines and stories may have increased their doubts about the Democratic nominee. For those seeing such stuff for the first time, right next to the gum and candy, the false coverage may have been revelatory.

Placement on nationwide checkout lines was perhaps Mr. Pecker’s greatest gift to Mr. Trump, and it’s something that he inherited from Mr. Pope.

Watching his circulation plateau as his readers moved to the suburbs in the 1960s, Mr. Pope struck a deal with major grocery chains: He would build new racks to put magazines at eye level near the cash registers, arguing that more sales for him meant more profit for them, too.

“It gave us complete exposure, saturation, whatever you want to call it,” his son Paul David Pope told me on Friday.

As the younger Mr. Pope’s history of the family business, “The Deeds of My Fathers,” shows, The Enquirer was known to pull off an occasional “catch-and-kill” deal in the old days, including one involving Senator Edward M. Kennedy in a bid for access to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. But the tabloid usually raised hackles not because the stories it published were false, but because of its methods. This was a publication so hungry for celebrity dope that it sneaked a reporter — disguised as a priest — into Bing Crosby’s funeral.

“I am sure my father’s intention with his media empire was not to be used after his passing as an outlet for fake news,” the younger Mr. Pope said.


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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

Posted
Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

 

Both Rand and Alex seem to be possible Russian puppets. 

Not sure about Ron though. I see him as perhaps the initial gateway based on his anti war beliefs, that were later taken advantage of by others against others.  

I dont think Ron Paul was corrupt. 

I forgot about this but it’s a good overview of the evolution of Alex Jones and his relationship to Russia.

This was written in 2015.

https://ross-elder.com/2015/06/16/the-patriot-deception-introduction/

Think about that...2015 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 104610

Posted
Posted
 
That’s what I’m talking about man. 
Alex went from being crackpot conspiracy dude against all things government,  keep Austin weird man, whether committed by republicans or dems, instead to all out trumpkin propogandist, who only disagrees with heir trumpf if he does something against Russian interest. 
The guy has been totally compromised. How much further does it go? 

It’s gay frogs, all the way down, man.
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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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Posted
30 minutes ago, bolverk said:

huh

He’s basically saying Alex Jones started becoming informed by Russian propaganda and echoing their narratives because they had a similar crackpot worldview.  This came about because RT was echoing some of the Jones narratives.  (9/11 inside job, globalist Zionist cabal, America evil empire). RT and Jones have a symbiotic relationship, they both helped each other grow their platforms and audiences.

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

He’s basically saying Alex Jones started becoming informed by Russian propaganda and echoing their narratives because they had a similar crackpot worldview.  This came about because RT was echoing some of the Jones narratives.  (9/11 inside job, globalist Zionist cabal, America evil empire). RT and Jones have a symbiotic relationship, they both helped each other grow their platforms and audiences.

Yeah, I scrolled and skimmed the link. My "huh" wasn't an expression of skepticism but that of the sound you make when you learn something new and it suddenly becomes obvious. You know, "oh, huh."

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Llano Estacado

Llano Estacado 1257

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Posted

It’s gay frogs, all the way down, man.


*Things you shouldn’t ask on Surl, but do anyways* *Is it weird that I just envisioned Atlas on the shoulders of JeanPaul Gaultier in a Breton striped shirt sitting on the shoulders of Gaultier stretching down into infinity?*

I know Alex has a thing for frogs turning gay due to fluoridation and what not , I’m just wondering if I completely misinterpreted...
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89430

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’d like to learn more about how InfoWars became as big as it did.  

I remember him in the public access days, and shilling his book around town.   He used to scream just as much in person 10 years ago at bookstores as he does on video now   

He got a helluva lot of attention with the Bohemian Grove stunt.   That seemed to have put him on the map in the conspiracy community in a big way.  And this was years after he became friends with people like Joe Rogan, and it was before 9/11. 

As @bolverk mentioned, when the InfoWars crowd embraced Ron Paul, or when Ron Paul embraced InfoWars (and Prison Planet), that seemed to be some kind of turning point where he got really big and grew out of the Bohemian Grove and 9/11 crowd.   It was like the perfect overlap for those two groups (who seemed to become one and the same).  He really tapped into the libertarian streak.

I know you want to find Russians everywhere, but if there was any Russian stuff, it happened much later in his career.  Much, much later, well after he got a prominent national following.  He was taking advantage of an audience who has always been there, and gave them a voice.  He also rode the prepper wave during Obama’s administration.   Lot of money there   

If you want to investigate conspiracy theories behind Jones, ask yourself why he went off the rails with Sandy Hook and went after the parents.  Out of all of the crazy shit in his career, that was a defining moment for me.  That’s when he put his little empire in legal and financial jeopardy.   People around him knew he was going to far.  Hell, Joe Rogan has talked about how it was a turning point and how somebody should have told Jones to knock it off. 

And even after it became clear that Jones was looking at legal/financial challenges after Sandy Hook, he would not back down, and in fact extended it with the Parkland nonsense.  He even physically confronted the twitter CEO in D.C. last year,, somebody who had been somewhat of a shield for him.  

It’s like Jones wanted the Sandy Hook lawsuits, wanted to get booted off of twitter, YouTube, etc.  

if he drops Sandy Hook when he started getting serious pushback, and if he never applies the Sandy Hook model to the Parkland teens (aka the “crisis actor” bullshit), his empire would be fully intact right now on all of his former platforms.  

You want something interesting to look at Hugo, figure out why Jones was willing to toss everything away over Sandy Hook and Parkland.  .  Nobody cared about all of his Clinton conspiracies, or his “9/11 was an inside job” nonsense, etc. etc.   Attacking the parents of dead little kids, and then going after the Parkland survivors was the final straw.  His Icarus moment.  

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

Posted
Posted (edited)
33 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 As @bolverk mentioned, when the InfoWars crowd embraced Ron Paul, or when Ron Paul embraced InfoWars (and Prison Planet), that seemed to be some kind of turning point where he got really big and grew out of the Bohemian Grove and 9/11 crowd.   It was like the perfect overlap for those two groups (who seemed to become one and the same).  He really tapped into the libertarian streak.

********

You want something interesting to look at Hugo, figure out why Jones was willing to toss everything away over Sandy Hook and Parkland.  .  Nobody cared about all of his Clinton conspiracies, or his “9/11 was an inside job” nonsense, etc. etc.   Attacking the parents of dead little kids, and then going after the Parkland survivors was the final straw.  His Icarus moment.  

3

This is where I think my hypothetical, off-the-cuff conjecture might actually have legs on tying him to Russia. Now, bear with me, because I'm making this up as I'm going.

As Tahoe was always wont to say, political parties are essentially coalitions of interest groups who find can find common ground and agree to work together for the good of them all.

With that in mind, I'm trying to think about the broad coalitions within the Republican Party that appear to be the most suspect of Russian influence and I don't really see the super-religious crowd in that group. Instead, I see the 1) libertarian isolationists and 2) the gun advocates. Now, just to be clear, this observation isn't meant to attack their respective political positions and readily admit that many who support "liberty" or "gun rights" are not in Putin's pocket. There's also a third, separate, group that I wouldn't necessarily connect to Jones and that's the Nationalists crowd, but again, admittedly, I've only seen clips of his show (maybe they're one and the same with the incels and gay frogs - I dunno).

I am, however, trying to draw ideological patterns that can maybe identify where the Kremlin was able to build connections and infect groups within the Republican Party. And, from my perspective, it seems to me that it's (broadly speaking) individuals from those groups.

From what I'm seeing, it's the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party that seems to be the most isolationist and is most opposed to international regimes, such as NATO, the EU, NAFTA, etc. We also have evidence of the Kremlin wooing the NRA in the years leading up to 2016. Then, we have the Nationalist, America First, crowd that at least partially overlaps with the Libertarian isolationists and the pro-gun group.

If you accept the all of the above, then we can begin to see the outlines of Russian influence on our media landscape through (a) conspiracy mongering (pizza gate etc) via RT<=>InfoWars => National Enquirer => Fox, and (b) the NRA with $$$ and honeypots, both of which corrupted the GOP. 

Anyway, Stewart, I like you.

Edited by bolverk
Had to throw in a Milkmen reference
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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I forgot about this but it’s a good overview of the evolution of Alex Jones and his relationship to Russia.

This was written in 2015.

https://ross-elder.com/2015/06/16/the-patriot-deception-introduction/

Think about that...2015 

Rather be Russian than democrat.

Fuck your feelings.

Maga!

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Also the rise of the Alt-Right

I kinda want to lump the Nationalists, the Alt-Right, the incels, and "what the queers are doing to our soil" / pizzagate crowd all in one deplorable basket. That's probably wrong but I do think they're somewhere along a spectrum.

Edited by bolverk
How could I forget QAnon?
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achooloco

achooloco 1066

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

What year did the enquirer becomes so overtly political. I’d be interested in that because that’s not how I remember it from my youth.

I miss the batboy, Jesus seen on a cracker day’s...

but maybe they went all in after the John Edwards stuff? They definitely did the nation a service on that. 

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F250

F250 28682

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, bolverk said:

This is where I think my hypothetical, off-the-cuff conjecture might actually have legs on tying him to Russia. Now, bear with me, because I'm making this up as I'm going.

As Tahoe was always wont to say, political parties are essentially coalitions of interest groups who find can find common ground and agree to work together for the good of them all.

With that in mind, I'm trying to think about the broad coalitions within the Republican Party that appear to be the most suspect of Russian influence and I don't really see the super-religious crowd in that group. Instead, I see the 1) libertarian isolationists and 2) the gun advocates. Now, just to be clear, this observation isn't meant to attack their respective political positions and readily admit that many who support "liberty" or "gun rights" are not in Putin's pocket. There's also a third, separate, group that I wouldn't necessarily connect to Jones and that's the Nationalists crowd, but again, admittedly, I've only seen clips of his show (maybe they're one and the same with the incels and gay frogs - I dunno).

I am, however, trying to draw ideological patterns that can maybe identify where the Kremlin was able to build connections and infect groups within the Republican Party. And, from my perspective, it seems to me that it's (broadly speaking) individuals from those groups.

From what I'm seeing, it's the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party that seems to be the most isolationist and is most opposed to international regimes, such as NATO, the EU, NAFTA, etc. We also have evidence of the Kremlin wooing the NRA in the years leading up to 2016. Then, we have the Nationalist, America First, crowd that at least partially overlaps with the Libertarian isolationists and the pro-gun group.

If you accept the all of the above, then we can begin to see the outlines of Russian influence on our media landscape through (a) conspiracy mongering (pizza gate etc) via RT<=>InfoWars => National Enquirer => Fox, and (b) the NRA with $$$ and honeypots, both of which corrupted the GOP. 

Anyway, Stewart, I like you.

I've been a libertarian since my sophomore year in college. I also smoked a shit ton of weed while watching public access and I also remember the early days of Alex Jones.

You post reminds me of the time my sisters kid discovered punk music.

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bolverk

bolverk 29399

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, F250 said:

I've been a libertarian since my sophomore year in college. I also smoked a shit ton of weed while watching public access and I also remember the early days of Alex Jones.

You post reminds me of the time my sisters kid discovered punk music.

Yeah, well, I was listening to Black Flag in the mid-80s (after they "sorta" went mainstream) while I was on the cusp of high school and thought they were still cutting edge.

Look, the entire point was to establish a Gedankenexperiment that could build a scenario in which Jones could be tied in with other, broad-sweeping theories for discussion. And, as I tried to clearly state, those hypotheticals were not meant to be criticisms of Libertarianism per se but how the thought leaders of the modern political movement may have been influenced (albeit based on speculation and flimsy evidence) by Russian "active measures." 

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