BeaverFever

Because obviously it’s a scam and a Trump slush fund. Kushner has zero investment experience and is Jewish yet got BILLIONS from the anti-semite Saudi government over the objections of Saudi advisors. Obvious influence peddling.

Just to recap. Back when Trump was still prez Saudis and friends gave Kushner BILLIONS of dollars to invest for them over the objections of their own financial advisors and despite the fact Kushner has ZERO investment experience. Exhibit A of Trump family influence peddling

Jared Kushner’s Shady Firm Exposed for the Saudi Scam It Is Jared Kushner’s Saudi-backed Affinity Partners is somehow still reporting zero profits, a new report reveals. According to an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, has yet to return even a cent of profit to its foreign investors. The shady firm has received billions from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and other foreign governments. In fact, 99 percent of the firm’s approximately $3 billion in funding came from overseas sources, according to a New York Times report that spurred the Senate investigation. Yet Trump’s son-in-law has returned no profit to the governments. All the while, it’s estimated his firm has pocketed an additional $112 million in fees from the governments since 2021, according to the findings. “Affinity’s investors may not be motivated by commercial considerations but rather the opportunity to funnel foreign government money to members of President Trump’s family, namely Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump,” wrote Senator Ron Wyden, head of the Finance Committee, in a letter to the company this week. Thus far, Kushner and Affinity have made seemingly innocuous investments in companies like Shlomo Group, an Israeli car-leasing company; Zamp, a UAE-backed fast-food company; and Dubizzle Group, a UAE-based classified websites operator. But if Trump were to win in November, Wyden warned, the financial conflict of interest could heighten. As it stands, “sovereign wealth fund investments and prospective real estate deals give foreign governments leverage over the Trump family,” wrote the senator. Further, “a potential future Trump administration will have financial motives to make foreign policy decisions that may be counter to the national interest in order to ensure Kushner and Ivanka Trump continue to collect millions of dollars in fees from foreign governments through Affinity.” … https://newrepublic.com/post/186380/jared-kushner-shady-firm-saudi-scam-zero-profits

Oh so shooting up an office building at night isn’t violence by MAGA standards?? And yeah democrats are known for their love of guns. 🙄 So far both attempted Trump assassins were republicans, the latest one even voted for Trump in 2016. Death threats against the Springfield OH for debunking right wing lies about immigrants eating dogs, Jan6, Gabby Giffords assassination attempt, Oklahoma City bombing, Atlanta Olympics bombing, countless bombings and shootings at abortion clinics…political violence has mostly been a right-wing activity I read it what’s your point?

Looks like 3 PPCLI out enjoying their new vehicle.

And not only that, we’re not even building it we’re buying it from a foreign builder.

You are only one of several people who draw me in to the long drawn out tit-for tat posts which I type on my phone when I’m just killing time somewhere but Ive decided it’s just a massive waste of my time and attention. Sorry the MAGA movement is famously fact immune. Even in those rare moments when MAGAs will actually admit that a Trump claim is false without screaming conspiracy (like immigrants eating dogs) they just say “so what,” getting fooled by lies and fake news doesn’t phase them because for MAGAs it’s not about facts and never was. Admit it, it would be impossible for you to drop your support of Trump in response to any facts that surfaced. You would either refuse to believe them or arbitrarily decree them irrelevant so you could dismiss them. Even your participation in this thread is an example, you refuse to acknowledge the thread topic which is about the latest Repervlicans getting busted as pervs

Yes we have the new type of capitalism which is called neoliberalism, we’ve been over this many times. Reagan and Thatcher were not it’s creators but the first to implement it and made many unprecedented reforms. Yes the economy grew and the mega-rich got even mega-richer as did corporations. But the middle class did not share in the prosperity and in fact working longer hours and both spouses working, lack of retirement savings became the norm as unions were busted and pension and retirement benefits disappeared. Consumer protections were rolled back, jobs were outsourced overseas, university tuitions skyrocketed, household debt skyrocketed and so on. And yes I am saying that Liberals and Democrats haven’t been able or willing to reverse neoliberalism, which for 40+ years and counting still remains the consensus of the business establishment and most mainstream politicians of either party. Only in very recent years has there been cracks showing in this establishment consensus and much of the debate is not about ending neoliberalism but rather about taking the harsher edges off it to make life slightly easier for the working and middle classes Every Republican president since Reagan including Trump has massively increased national debt with their massive tax cuts that’s just a fact, all spouting the same neoliberal trickle-down propaganda as Brownback and Truss. Funny how republicans are never opposed to debt when Republicans run it up worse than the Democrats do The thing is what’s considered “high taxes” is subjective and arbitrary. Many third world countries have low taxes nobody holds those places up as ideal. For example businesses that require educated workers would rather pay taxes in a jurisdiction with quality schools and universities than a place where there are none. Business also rely on law and order, functioning, non-corrupt legal systems where they can enforce contracts sue people including the government, and functioning non-corrupt financial systems so they can safeguard their money. They rely on a great number public services and utilities which they expect to be reliable and well-regulated, such as roads plowed in winter so they can ship their goods and workers are able to get to work. The list goes on. It’s ridiculous to suggest that having access to these services hurts the economy. Go take a look at any country that has few government services and regulations and tell me which ones have great economies. I will say again there is no example in history of any developed country running consistent balanced budgets over an extended period with the possible recent exception of petro-states in the Persian gulf and Norway where oil revenue is largely owned and controlled by the state. Other countries like Canada have run austerity regimes over 10 or so consecutive years but usually at great cost to citizens who had to suffer crowded and closed hospitals, schools, defunded military etc and ultimately it’s not sustainable. USA has not consistently balanced budgets since the 1800s and yet became the world’s unrivalled superpower, the more the government spent the wealthier it became. The same can be said of the British empire and most other nations.

Yet another Repervlican exposed. And Republican-only dating app turns out to be a pathetic sausage-fest just as I predicted Top Trump Aide Sexually Harassed Teenagers, Says Disturbing Report John McEntee reached out multiple times to young women, sending them sexually explicit messages online. A former aide in Donald Trump’s presidential administration and a senior adviser to Project 2025 is in trouble for sending creepy internet messages to teenagers. John McEntee, who also co-founded the conservative dating app The Right Stuff, sent messages to multiple young women offering in some cases to give them free trips to Los Angeles and making sexual advances, Wiredreports. The app’s sole investor is right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, and it has been criticized for its mostly male user base. … The publication spoke to one of those women, who asked to remain anonymous. Also aged 18, she said that McEntee reached out to her on The Right Stuff’s app before moving to text messages, using the same southern California phone number he sent to Carter. Over text, he sent her clearly identifiable selfies and began mentioning explicit sexual acts that made her uncomfortable, and encouraged her to come to California. “It was very sexual from day one,” she said. “He kept making comments about my age and how hot it would be to sleep with someone who was my age.” https://newrepublic.com/post/186335/top-trump-aide-john-mcentee-sexually-harassed-teenagers

Yeah I call out the Republicans in this thread because the pattern is that whenever there’s a thread about a Republican pervert or criminal in the news none of you will show up to comment then in other threads you’ll act as though these things never happen when in fact Republican perverts and criminals are far more common the Democrat ones. I honestly prefer not to spend the ungodly amount of time you do in long line-by/line rebuttals anymore especially against fact-immune ideologues.

Shots fired into Democratic campaign office in Arizona https://www.axios.com/2024/09/24/arizona-democrat-campaign-office-shot

Well we had 40 years of wealth redistribution under Reagan/Thatcher’s neoliberal economics that introduced a new form of predatory capitalism that never existed before. It still governs how our economies operate. Corporations and the ultra rich have seen their fortunes increase by orders of magnitude, all at the expense of the middle and working classes. Tax cuts aren’t the magic solution conservatives claim they are. Just look how Liz Truss and Sam Brownback devastated their respective economies with tax cuts that simply drove up public debt but didn’t bring in new business. Kansas literally had to close public schools on Fridays because Brownback’s tax cuts left the state too broke to even operate schools 5 days per week. In turn parents had to quit their jobs, switch to part-time or spend big bucks on day care making people’s financial situation worse. Liz Truss caused the British pound to drop like a rock and was forced to resign so quickly her 3-week term famously couldn’t even outlast a head of lettuce. Businesses aren’t gypsy hobos who will relocate at the drop of hat chasing whoever happens to have the lowest tax rate at any point in time. Relocation costs millions, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars up front and is often the result of extensive multi-year planning and corporate strategy, in which tax rates aren’t usually the primary consideration. Neoliberal austerity also gives you social and urban decay like streets that are gridlocked and public transit and airports that are unreliable and overcrowded. That drives businesses and talent away too.. It should be noted that both the poverty rate and child poverty rate drastically reduced under the Trudeau government. At last count, 2 million Canadians including 650,000 children were lifted out of poverty since 2016. And when stay at home parents are able to afford daycare and return to the workforce that is good for the economy too, conservatives talk about it like childcare money is simply shot into outer space or something. I posted this same article as the OP in the “economy” topic, the gist of the article is business and government alike notoriously squander resources amd advantages on non-innovative endeavours

Oh lol I thought you were referring to the ship’s “moon pool” which is an opening in the bottom of the hull that allows direct access to the ocean from inside the ship.

Someone should held accountable. So far nobody in power is even admitting anyone has done anything wrong or that the lady should be let off rhe hook. So far they’re all saying she’ll get her day in court to prove her innocence. It’s ridiculous In Ontario nearly HALF of all criminal charges laid are eventually withdrawn or dismissed, that is nearly DOUBLE the North American average even in USA with its “tough on crime” policies. Why? Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America where police lay charges. Everywhere else it is the prosecutor who lays the charge after reviewing facts of the case. Police are not legal experts and they have an incentive to exaggerate and charge aggressively.

Im not defending or apologizing for anything. Clearly the cop failed in his duty. In fact im saying it’s worse than you think because thei stuff happens all the time it’s not just a random isolated incident. Its not just about the one cop doing the one dumb thing it’s also about how the system - the police dept and prosecutors - are still defending what happened. They’re proceeding woth the charges which teells you that the system is the problem not just theone officer

Overzealous and unnecessary arrests are nothing new, unfortunately but usually police reserve that for teenagers, street urchins and poor folk who don’t garner much public sympathy.

I don’t think they have swimming pools. But it’s really shocking that the drinking water systems in the first 2 or 3 ships of this class were built with metals containing dangerous levels of lead because that’s something they ought to know to do properly And even more shocking is they’re not responsible because we only discovered it after the 1-year warranty expired. A naval ship with a. 30-yr lifespan but only a 1-year warranty that expires before it’s even operational. Ridiculous!

Or crazy neighbour and overzealous cop

First submarine in new Canadian fleet won't be operational until 2037, navy confirms No details have been released about the budget for the project, but former naval officers estimate it could cost in the $100 billion range. Get the latest from David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen straight to your inbox Published Sep 23, 2024 • Last updated 10 hours ago • 3 minute read Canada’s proposed new submarines will be required to launch and recover underwater drones and patrol covertly for a minimum of 21 days, defence industry representatives have been told. But the first submarine won’t actually be operating with the Royal Canadian Navy until 2037, noted various Department of National Defence (DND) briefings obtained by the Ottawa Citizen. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Defence Minister Bill Blair’s office announced Sept. 16 that information will be requested from naval firms about their capabilities in building the new boats. But naval officers have already outlined to the companies what they need for the new submarines in a series of briefings presented over the last two years and obtained by the Ottawa Citizen. More details have also been added with the government’s recently issued request for information that was provided to companies. The new subs will have to be capable of operating undetected for a range of 7,000 nautical miles, as well as a minimum of 21 days of continuous dived operations. The briefings to industry stipulated that the subs be capable of no less than 60 days of self-sustained operations. On board communication systems must be compatible with the U.S. military. The submarines will be able to deploy and recover drones as well as smaller crewed underwater systems, industry officials have also been told. Even though Blair stated that information is now being gathered the project will take 13 years to actually deliver an operational submarine. Canada doesn’t expect to have initial operating capability for the first sub until 2037, according to the briefings. The Royal Canadian Navy does not have an idea at this time when the entire fleet will be available. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The boats will need to operate under the ice in the Arctic but only for limited periods of time. No details have been released about the budget for the project, but former naval officers who have examined the request for information told the Ottawa Citizen that the cost of the program will be in the $100 billion range. The documents presented to industry Sept. 16 requested information on the production cost for acquiring eight or 12 submarines. Canadian defence officials have already met with officials from South Korea, Spain, France and Sweden about conventional-powered subs. Norway and Germany have also pitched Canada about a program for such subs. The Conservative party has supported an immediate replacement program for the Victoria-class submarines. Canada currently operates four used Victoria-class submarines bought second hand from the British. Those were delivered between 2000 and 2004. DND spokeswoman Frédérica Dupuis noted the Victoria-class submarines service life comes to an end between 2034 through 2040, and Canada’s intent is to avoid a capability gap in that time period. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In April 2023, the Ottawa Citizen reported that the Royal Canadian Navy had made a pitch to the Liberal government for the purchase of as many as 12 new conventional-powered submarines at an initial cost of $60 billion. The navy had been pushing for the acquisition of those submarines to be included in the Liberal government’s Defence Policy Update, but that wasn’t done. But increasing pressure from Canada’s allies to spend more on defence put the submarine purchase back on the agenda. During the April 8, 2024 announcement of the government’s new defence policy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that nuclear submarines might also be considered by Canada. DND officials later confirmed that nuclear submarines are not being considered. Besides the multi-billion dollar price tag for the submarines there are other potential hurdles for the proposed purchase. In the past, the navy has had trouble training enough submariners to crew its current fleet of four boats, let alone eight or 12 new boats. In addition, while the Canadian Forces has suggested the time needed to complete the purchase could be quite long. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. “The procurement timeline from project establishment to contract award is highly specific to the project, but staff analysis has shown that the procurement of a new submarine class will take a minimum of 15 years total from project establishment to first delivery and could exceed 25 years depending on the adopted procurement strategy,” DND and military officials told then-Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in a briefing note on Jan. 6, 2021. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/first-submarine-in-new-canadian-fleet-wont-be-operational-until-2037-navy-confirms

The downside to selling hatred as a MAGA commodity Hatred consumes its host in the end I used to be a Republican. Right out of college, I worked for the legislature, then governor, of a conservative state. Governor Robert Orr, R-Ind., was disciplined and kind and his ethics were beyond reproach. Fast forward three decades and time spent among different cultures. After seeing trickle-down up close, and how it benefits wealthy donors but few others, my perspective changed. When I ran for Congress in 2020, it was as a Democrat. There’s a wide chasm between policy disagreements and hate, and although my viewpoint evolved over the years, I never hated conservatives. Indiana Republicans, back then, saw political disagreements as healthy conduits to better outcomes. I never heard Orr, or other Republican officials, express hatred for their opponents. They sometimes disparaged them, especially over plans that would leach money from their own pockets, but I never once heard the word "hate," even behind closed doors. Enter Donald Trump and JD Vance, who package and sell hatred as a national commodity. … From the beginning, Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric has been spiked with violence. Reciting a list is like shoveling the walk while it’s still snowing, but last week’s second Trump assassination attempt in as many months sparks a flashback. Trump offered to pay the legal bills of anyone who assaulted his hecklers; suggested peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square be shot; mused that “Second Amendment people” could take out Hillary Clinton; encouraged a violent mob who sought to hang Mike Pence, now calls them “patriots” and “hostages;” and laughed about the vicious hammer attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s elderly husband. Now we have bomb threats in hospitals and elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio after he and Vance falsely claimed that lawful immigrants there are eating their neighbors’ pets. From "stand back and stand by" to complimenting "very fine people on both sides" of a Nazi demonstration, Trump’s coded vitriol against judges, prosecutors, poll workers, critics, democrats and his own former staff has led to multiple death threats, and yet he persists. Trump habitually projects his own criminal impulses onto his opponents, so it’s not a leap that he’s now blaming Democrats’ rhetoric for the assassination attempts. It is apparently irrelevant that both would-be assassins were Republicans with mental health problems: Crooks was a registered Republican; Routh voted for Trump in 2016 then supported Ramaswamy in the last primary. Both had guns, while Trump himself revoked mental health checks for gun owners. Vance, who is young, has said that Republicans are “hating the right people,” as if hatred is a finite and targeted commodity. How old will he be when he learns that once hatred takes hold, it can’t be contained, directed or controlled? Hatred triggers the addiction center of the brain Hatred becomes a powerful addiction, and Trump’s followers are hooked. Hatred affects dopamine receptor binding such that addiction to hatred is as strong as an addiction to cocaine, except it’s more destructive. A shared addiction to hatred forms a strong social bond because listening to someone spew hatred triggers the same gratifying chemical hit, whereas watching someone else snort cocaine does not. Extreme hatred also creates motivational bias, which means adherents can only see evidence that supports their beliefs. At the addictive stage, they are blind to any information that challenges their narrative. That’s why reasoning with a hate-infected person won’t work…. https://www.salon.com/2024/09/23/the-downside-to-selling-hatred-as-a-maga-commodity/

TL;DR Version: Despite demanding Canadian workers have ever-higher academic qualifications, work ever-increainglonger hours and in some cases investing in fancier machines and computers for them to use, our businesses and government are misusing the talent and capital for non-innovative purposes. Canada is like a horse- buggy maker researching and developing the latest buggy-making technology, hiring the world’s most talented engineers, forcing them to work around the clock developing the latest buggies …all in the age of the Ford Model T. And whenever they do actually develop an innovative patent or design that could have actual long-term future value, they sell it off for a fraction of its worth. What I wish the article had touch on: - The extent to which foreign ownership of “Canadian” companies has discouraged innovation in Canada. Once you become just a another “branch office” of a foreign multinational you often lose your ability or desire to innovate and your focus becomes just routine run-rate activities. In this category I would also put foreign “capture” of Canadian companies where the Canadian owned business has become so dependent upon supplying foreign (usually American) customers with a basic good such as logs, oil etc. that they have no ability or desire to innovate or evolve - The impact of Canada’s small monopolistic and notoriously conservative financial sector. As I’ve read elsewhere, if you’re a new startup or an existing business with a revolutionary innovative product, it’s extremely hard to attract investment or lending compared to other peer countries as there are very few financiers in Canada relatively speaking and they tend be very risk- averse.

How Canada’s middle class got shafted Real median wages of Canadians have barely changed since 1976. Canadians need a two-income household and must work longer hours than international peers DAN BREZNITZ SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAILPUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 19, 2024 Dan Breznitz is the Munk Chair of Innovation Studies at the University of Toronto, as well as the co-director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s program on innovation, equity and the future of prosperity. He served as the Clifford Clarke Economist for the federal Department of Finance during 2021-22. If there is one thing Canadians are united about – it is the importance of the middle class. The middle class is our anchor, our measure for being a healthy society and our national aspiration is that each and every Canadian should be able to join and enjoy it. On almost every front that should ensure that Canada’s middle class is healthy and prosperous, we have been doing very well. Over the past 45 years we became the world’s most educated country. Unlike what some politicians like to claim, Canadians are hard-working, and participation in the labour force among 18- to 64-year-olds is higher than both the United States and the average for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. We have developed an impressive, extremely high-performing research and higher education infrastructure that continues to punch above its weight. Lastly, our businesses have enjoyed rising profits – rising faster in the past decade than profits among many global peers. But the reality is that our middle class is facing a serious problem, and the reasons for it are puzzling. The benefits of this educated work force, research-intensive higher education and highly profitable business sector are not translating into economic well-being for the middle class. Real median wages of Canadians have barely changed since 1976 (yes, that was 48 years, or two generations ago). As a result, Canadians need a two-income household and must work for longer hours than their international peers to achieve comparable standards of living. … If the foundations are so strong, why is the Canadian middle class getting shafted? The answer is our systematic failure in both innovation and engagement in new knowledge by both the private and public sector. Simply put, Canadian businesses and government could have used the publicly financed gift (enhanced by immigration) of a highly educated, highly skilled and highly motivated work force – and matched it with the best technology – to become the most innovative and productive economy in the world (and then shared that extra wealth with workers). Instead, both our government and our businesses have opted for a model in which they underpay overqualified Canadians to work with barely sufficient equipment and technology to avoid all risk associated with buying, using and developing new technologies and products. The result is stagnant wages, poor-quality jobs, skills mismatches, continuously declining-in-quality public services and 48 years of missed economic growth opportunities. This is what is known technically as a low-wage, low-innovation, high-skill equilibrium. The price of Canada getting stuck in it has been paid by the Canadian middle class. … To put it in sports terms, we had a team with more talent than my sorry Maple Leafs, and we managed to do even less with it than the Leafs did (yes, that amazingly managed hockey team that failed to win anything since 1967 while having the highest ticket prices in the NHL and getting any player they ever wanted). But this is just management. The most important thing for growth is innovation. Indeed, innovation is the only way for an advanced economy such as Canada to have sustained productivity and wage growth as well as improved welfare. …It is here that we truly and tragically fail in each and every facet of innovation, from research and development (R&D), where Canada won the all-time wooden spoon by becoming the only OECD economy in which its business-sector investment in R&D declined annually from 2001 until 2019, and is now standing at the developing-countries level of just above 1 per cent of GDP, far away from the world leaders at 5.3 per cent or the OECD average of 1.99 per cent. Even when we add all public R&D and measure gross domestic R&D, Canada still significantly lags the G7 and the OECD average, and the gap with the leaders only grows. … In short, the smarter Canadians become, the more relatively stupid our economy and public sector becomes. A trajectory that is reminiscent of another, once-very-rich, highly educated, immigration-based country, with vast natural resources – Argentina. Some have argued that this is just our culture. What can one do, so the theory goes, Canadians just have a sub-par achievement culture. Interestingly, both current affairs and history demonstrate the failure of this “lazy-bums, risk-haters are us” argument. After all, many Canadians that move after university to the United States somehow suddenly excel. But those moving to the United States have spent decades being deeply immersed with that bad Canadian culture. To blame the issue on culture forgets that. Additionally, this story of decline is a recent development. Until around 2000, Canada was clocking advances on all those measures. So, what happened in the second half of the 1990s that so effectively and systematically moved us down toward a slow decline? The first thing that might come to your mind is the North American free-trade agreement (NAFTA), and you would be correct. But it is not the actual trade agreement that we signed. NAFTA was just the embodiment of a series of decisions to commit ourselves to a very specific economic ideology. A naive view of global markets as a magical force that would mysteriously fix all of our woes without our government needing to do anything. The only thing Canada needs to do, according to this theory, is to truly believe in “The Market” and let it work its magic without any intervention or strategy. A sort of religious belief that happily led us to thoroughly dismantle our ability to govern, even of basic things such as ensuring competition. Worse, we fall asleep at the same time that all of our trading partners strategically built up their government capacities, specifically so they can they shape the global market and, even more importantly, their participation in it. … The result is that once we start a decline in every domain, from innovation to health and crime, our federal government finds itself time and time again unable to strategically and decisively act to counter it. Our very own action led us to become a country adrift without an ability to govern, any capacity and ability to develop and implement a strategy, or indeed even openly discuss what it wants to be in the future. Innovation is a perfect example of this. And who are the ones that pay for all of this? Our middle class. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-how-canadas-middle-class-got-shafted/

Unlike you and many of your ilk I have a rewarding job, social and family life and have limited time for these never-ending line-by-line posts that take an hour to type out my phone… especially when all you do is repeat the same rebutted and debunked claims over and over. I only come on here briefly and try to make it no more frequent than every few days….once a day tops if there’s an actual interesting discussion…. Whenever I come on here your posts seem to be only be minutes old. So you can take pride in your internet lurking and getting the final word in on online arguments with strangers if you like…. it’s a little sad and pathetic if you ask me but we all have to settle for whatever we can get in life.

Yet Another example of how the MAGAverse and their propaganda networks are lousy with Russian operatives, sympathizers and the Kremlin’s useful id1ots spreading Putin’s disinformation. How many “isolated incidents” of Russian infiltration do the cultists need before they admit there’s a pattern?

Ex-Trump advisers help to grow pro-Russia website that spreads misinformation George Papadopoulos and others involved in Intelligencer, increasingly popular source of news in rightwing circles Amid the recent crackdown on Russian influence in American media, a group of former Trump advisers and operatives have quietly helped build a pro-Russian website that frequently spreads debunked conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, election fraud and vaccines. Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem. .. “Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has increasingly been forced to rely on networks of proxies and influencers whose conspiracist ‘brand’ generates income and audiences through social media monetization and some of whom Russia has now been caught covertly subsidizing,” Briant said. The website’s opaque ownership structure makes it difficult to understand its financial backing, and there is no direct evidence of Kremlin funding. There is no corporate entity listed anywhere on the website, just a business address in Los Angeles. Although much of the website’s content focuses on issues relating to American politics, the site actually began in Australia, with a little-known media outlet called TNT Radio, which launched in 2022. Show hosts and guests frequently deny climate change, discuss culture war issues in the US, espouse pro-Russian viewpoints on the war in Ukraine, and spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19. Jennifer Squires, one of the station’s owners, explained in an interview that Intelligencer began as a way for TNT Radio to have a written publication to complement its radio station. To develop the new site, Squires said she turned to George Eliason, an American journalist who has lived in eastern Ukraine for more than 10 years. Eliason, who already had a show on TNT Radio at the time, has formerly appeared on RT and blames Kyiv for the war in Ukraine. But Squires said she and co-owner Mike Ryan quickly grew disillusioned with the website’s planned appearance, and sought to disassociate themselves from it. However, Eliason continued to develop it, involving several others who had previously appeared on his radio show. The site appears to have launched at the end of 2023 – and nearly half of Intelligencer’s board members are either former aides, surrogates or fake electors for Trump’s previous two campaigns. .,.. Perhaps the most well-known ex-Trump official is Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy aide on Trump’s 2016 campaign. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Kremlin-linked professor who told him Russia had dirt on Hilary Clinton. Mangiante, his wife, has written several posts for the site about debunked conspiracy theories involving the Bidens and Ukraine. In January, she posted an interview with a former Ukrainian lawmaker, Andrii Derkach, who repeated false claims of bribery about the Biden family in Ukraine. In 2020, the US placed sanctions on Derkach, calling him an active Russian agent; Derkach, who now is running for political office in Russia, previously met with Rudy Giuliani and purported to offer evidence of corruption against the Bidens. “Intelligencer appears to be one of several [Russia-friendly] operations targeting the upcoming US elections, leveraging a network of far-right figures and disinformation tactics,” Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said. Mangiante, along with fellow board member Igor Lopatonok, appears to have parlayed this work into a new documentary about the Hunter Biden laptop saga called Hunter’s Laptop: Requiem for Ukraine. According to social media posts, the documentary premiered on 5 September at the Trump International hotel in Chicago. Eliason wrote the script, which was filmed by Lopatonok, who has frequently collaborated with Oliver Stone on prior anti-Ukrainian documentaries and fawning films of dictators. “Mr Lopatonok wanted fresh eyes from an investigative journalist and a different perspective for the story,” Eliason said. “Through the combined interviews, we were able to plumb deeper and raise questions that had not been asked before.” Eliason also said that the address listed on Intelligencer’s website was provided by Lopatonok. Lopatonok did not respond to requests for comment. However, he now appears to have implemented part of his business in Moscow. According to Russian corporate records, Lopatonok and his wife, Vera Tomilova, also an Intelligencer board member, registered a Global 3 Pictures LLC in Moscow in February. According to invitations for the Hunter Biden documentary premiere, the event was hosted by the Christian Orthodox Coalition, an organization which claims to educate Orthodox Christians on social and cultural issues. Four of the organization’s board members are also board members of Intelligencer, including Papadopoulos, Mangiante and Lopatonok. The fourth board member is Olga Ravasi, who was formerly the chairwoman of Serbs for Trump in 2020 and currently runs the Serbian American Voters Alliance political action committee. In March, Intelligencer posted about a Serbs for Trump kick-off event in Wisconsin with the state’s Republican senator Ron Johnson and former Trump acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell. Three other editorial board members also have close connections to the Trump campaigns. Leah Hoopes and Greg Stenstrom, both from Pennsylvania, have written a book falsely alleging the 2020 election was stolen. Both of them have been litigants in court cases challenging the results of the election in Pennsylvania, and Hoopes was one of Pennsylvania’s fake electors, who falsely signed paperwork saying that Trump had won the election. Tyler Nixon, Roger Stone’s personal attorney, also serves on the board and hosts his own show on TNT Radio. The former Radio Sputnik journalist Lee Stranahan is also involved. Nixon, Hoopes, Stenstrom and Stranahan did not respond to requests for comment. Most of the site’s content appears to be created by Eliason, and Trevor Fitzgibbon, who was the spokesperson for American Values 2024, a Super Pac that supported Robert F Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign. The website has several posts promoting Kennedy’s campaign. Eliason said that the website is funded out of pocket and the contributors contribute pieces because it “because it makes sense to them”. Many of the articles promote debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines and fraud in the 2020 presidential election, as well as stories that are aggressively anti-Ukrainian. In a May article, Eliason referred to those who voted for a $61bn aid package for Ukraine as “reprehensible”. However, the site has even more direct ties to Russia beyond its content. One of its board members is Anna Soroka, an adviser to Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic. In February 2023, the US sanctioned Pasechnik, calling him the “Putin-appointed interim head of the former so-called Luhansk People’s Republic”. In 2020, Bellingcat found that Soroka had emailed back and forth with Maj Gen Andrey Ilchenko, who has been linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GR….. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/19/intelligencer-pro-russia-website-trump