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I thought many times that perhaps Donald Trump would not exist if the cameras turned away.

Cameras are oxygen for propagandists, and in fact, Trump never met a camera he didn’t like. Except Robert Mueller’s. He demurred to show up for questioning during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia. That was one camera too far.

Media creatures know their best angles, and many prominent leaders came from a media background. Among the journalists: Benito Mussolini, Mobutu Sese Seko, Boris Johnson, Pete Hegseth. Among the media creatures: Javiar Milei, Donald Trump, and Silvio Berlusconi.

So if trained journalists and media creatures are constantly on television and social media playing victim, causing outrage, telling lies about immigrants, and using their camera skills to break your mind so to disable you from stopping their power grabs, then how do we find a way out of this evil matrix? They are performers in the theater of nihilism, and we need to leave the seats empty.

The Sound of Silence

Watching Trump’s odd small mouth pucker inaudibly at yesterday’s press conference, he looked as he should: like a used car salesman on public access television. His ongoing attacks on media resulted in no microphone or White House pool reporters. On Friday, he’d banned three media outlets — CNN, MS Now, and Politico — from the White House.

I’m just surprised it took so long.

In my “Unmusked” report four years ago, I predicted that media in the US would become like Hungary under Orbán, who consolidated media under the government, as well as like other autocratic countries.

Byline Times

Unmusked: How Elon Musk is Using Twitter to Destroy the Concept of Objective Truth

When Twitter owner Elon Musk Tweeted his support for returning Crimea to Russia, Russian analyst Fiona Hill accused Musk of actively transmitting a message on behalf of Putin…

Read more

4 years ago · 126 likes · 4 comments · Heidi Cuda and Byline Times

I wrote:

In 2018, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban encouraged owners of hundreds of Hungarian media properties to ‘donate’ them to a Government allied foundation. The Central European Press and Media Foundation (CEMPF) began absorbing cable news channels, internet platforms, newspapers, radio stations, and magazines. The result was a centralized right-wing Government-controlled media syndicate.

Freedom of the press has been on a steady decline in Hungary ever since.

Orban’s attacks on the rule of law ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he declared a state of emergency and began seizing unlimited power to rule by decree. Among the targeted groups were the LGBTQ+ community, women, journalists, academia, and asylum seekers.

Russia itself has a similar history. Two decades ago in Russia, as Vladimir Putin came to power, the media tycoon Vladimir Gusinksy said he was pressured to relinquish his empire to the Government.

He had formed a media consortium during perestroika and his organization’s coverage of the first Chechen war was critical of Russia. In addition, he refused to back down from an investigation into a series of apartment bombings that independent journalists claimed were the work of the Russian intelligence service, the FSB. The Kremlin blamed the bombings on Chechen rebels.

In the mid-‘90s, Gazprom, the state owned gas company, became a 30% shareholder of his media holdings, and this investment was later weaponized against Gusinsky, according to a human rights court. Gusinksy alleged Russian operatives declared ‘open warfare’ against him, as he was hit with repeated charges that prompted him to flee to Spain. The European Court of Human Rights determined the charges violated Gusinky’s rights.

In modern times, autocratic leaders are increasingly seeing the value of controlling social media. Former Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte had a rabid fan base online, with an army of bloggers who defended him, and who also went after journalists critical of his savage anti-drug policies, which often resulted in bloody public executions.

“If it’s drugs, you shoot and kill”, he famously said.

Before leaving office, Duterte used his presidential power to block the franchise extension of the country’s largest media conglomerate, ABS-CBN, silencing a network that had been critical of him and which he said refused to air his 2016 political ads.

Earlier this year, an ally of Duterte’s took control of the network, causing media watchdogs to decry the move as ‘shameless’ and ‘concerning’.—Heidi Siegmund Cuda for Byline Times, 11 December 2022

If any of this sounds familiar, it should.

Ellisons Seize Control

According to breaking news from the Media and Democracy Project, the “Ellisons to seize control of Warner Brothers, as Democratic AGs cave.”

The consumer watchdog group said in a statement:

“Today is a sad day for democracy, the rule of law, workers, consumers, creatives, diversity of voices in film and journalism, investors, journalism, personal freedom and safety (data/surveillance), national security and press freedom. At the same time as the President of the United States is actively thwarting the First Amendment by barring White House access to some news organizations because he doesn’t like their reporting, including CNN, we learn that the proposed takeover of Warner Brothers by Larry and David Ellisons’ Paramount-Skydance will go through.

A coalition of state attorneys general have settled the lawsuit they had brought to stop the merger. Here is the barely enforceable, ineffective failure of a “Consent Decree” of the settlement. This will bring two major broadcast news outlets -- CNN and CBS -- under ownership control of Larry and David Ellison, whose close relationship with President Trump is already demonstrably degrading CBS News coverage. The Trump DoJ, FTC and FCC under Brendan Carr have failed the American people and approved this takeover. There have been many warning signs, but now it couldn’t be more clear: Our country’s bedrock principle of a free press is crumbling before our eyes.”

The Block the Merger coalition added: “We are disappointed and angry that the interests of average Americans have been trampled to benefit oligarch billionaires.”

The thing is, corporate and billionaire media have never really had our backs. Decades were spent building the myth of Trump and the last 10 years, despite dire warnings and investigations from independent investigative journalists, normalizing him was newsroom policy.

The constant coverage of what I call Reality TV Fascism always takes us further away from reality and deeper into the murk.

I return to a quote from Jay Rosen often, because I think it best summarizes the predicament of how to cover a regime that sells illusion and plants narrative grenades.

Six months before the 2024 election, I asked the NYU Journalism professor:

Heidi: So I’m just gonna quote something that you wrote:

“Clown car hearings exploit a weakness in mainstream journalism’s source code, which gives no clear instructions for how to report truthfully on events that are themselves false, meaning they spring from a propagandistic intent and taking them seriously just furthers the scam.”

That brilliant tweet is something I return to all the time because it’s so incredibly accurate. And my question is, what do we do about that weakness in the source code? What’s the solution?

Jay Rosen: I wish I knew the answer. But you’re right — that is the big question, and it’s really hard to address because we don’t even have a language for it. We are losing reality. That’s accurate. But it’s also disempowering, because it’s so big and abstract and weird that it doesn’t lend itself to piecemeal reform.

I think one of the answers to that is a very interesting fact about the current crisis in the United States, which is that if the topic in the coffeehouse that you go to is national politics it’s going to be total culture war, from the first word to the last. But if the subject for conversation in real life is the bridge that was broken, or the quality of our schools or keeping kids safe in a world where we can see and hear and feel and touch reality, it doesn’t have the same divisiveness.

So the culture war works best when people are isolated and alone, and not in touch with their neighbors and where weak local journalism is also part of the picture.

An atomized crowd of people who are linked only at the national level through media are the best customers for creeping fascism, which we do see in the United States.

So that’s my only real answer is somehow reality is going to come back to us first in local life and local journalism. And we have to, even though it’s incredibly hard, start there.

I have been trying to solve this specific problem for a decade: how to cover the Trump clown car when the coverage of it furthers the regime’s objectives to demolish democracy, one live shot at a time, one presser at a time, one lie at a time, one staged photo op at time.

The 1976 film, Network, also tried to answer these questions. An anchorman cracks up and then gets his own nightly show where he rages against the TV machine:

“You’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell… We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal… This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! We are the illusion!”

He then pleads with the audience to turn off the TV.

Trump has many proxies, Vance, Patel, Hegseth, Miller, RFKjr, skilled at lying on camera, skilled at creating illusions and planting narrative bombs, skilled at the theater of nihilism. Do we mute them all, while still reporting on the actions of the regime?

Personally, I am celebrating 20 years without a television in my home this year, and I have always believed it’s my superpower.

“The Resistance Libs Were Right”

I will never forget how hard I sought answers to why cable news was so soft on Trump in the lead up to the 2016 election, when investigative reporters were bringing receipts on his Russia ties and criminality. Why did they parrot him, while obsessing about Hillary Clinton’s emails?

The answer was simple and can be told in one number: $4.6 billion.

The three major cable news networks — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — generated $4.6 billion in 2016.

It can also be told in one quote.

Ten years ago, disgraced former CBS honcho Les Moonves famously said, “(The Trump Campaign) may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

As I wrote in my report on Trump’s 2024 announcement speech - where I applied the lens of How Fascism Works to reveal the fascist playbook:

We’ve already seen the RT merger take place, as “reporters” who were paid millions of dollars by cutouts to Russia Today, which is directly linked to Russian military intelligence, have been granted access to the White House and Pentagon.

A few weeks ago, conservative writer and veteran Republican operative who worked to defeat Clinton’s heath care plan of 1993 and was a proponent of the Iraq war, Bill Kristol, tweeted:

I tweeted back: “Thank you.”

Krisol is now a Democrat.

Why Participate in Your Own Execution?'

Veteran reporter Bonnie Fuller asked a blunt question in her July report for The Media and Democracy Project’s newsletter: “Why participate in your own execution?”

The Media and Democracy Project Blog

Shame On the Journalists Still Attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Why participate in your own execution…

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2 months ago · 38 likes · 5 comments · Bonnie Fuller

In a scathing post, Fuller questioned every member of the White House press corps and their editors for their willingness to participate in the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24.

She noted of the original event:

“Donald Trump, who has viciously disparaged the press and has worked assiduously to destroy the credibility of fact-based American journalism ever since his presidential campaign in 2015, was the guest of honor at the black tie event.

He is openly at war with every concept embedded in the First Amendment - especially freedom of the press. Why he was being honored in the first place was questionable beyond belief.”

Trump, who was also honored at what she calls July’s rescheduled “masochistic dinner,” recently subpoenaed “reporters at the New York Times and…the phone records of their relatives” — what Fuller calls “a major escalation in Trump’s war on freedom of the press” and “straight out of the authoritarian playbook.” In addition to calling women reporters “piggy,” “stupid,” and “ugly,” he supported Pete Hegseth’s removal of “all fact-based media from the Pentagon” and labeled journalists as “enemies of the people” — a Stalin quote, she reminds us.

Fuller added:

“All in attendance should forever be stained with a red-scarlet letter ‘T’ for their compliance and inactions in defense of the Constitution… After all, they will be honoring an aspiring king and their would-be executioner…

“The biggest story today in American news - the biggest since the Civil War - is Trump’s plan to destroy democracy and replace it with his own brand of authoritarianism. The media who are members of the White House Correspondents’ Association have done an excellent job of not covering that story.”

In my comment on yesterday’s brief moment of Trump on mute, I wrote:

“Propaganda dies in silence.”

We desperately need more independent investigative reporting, not less.

As reporter Maria Ressa cautioned:

But corporate media hasn’t done much substantive reporting in a decade.

Perhaps no one will notice if they’re not in the room.

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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When Thom Hartmann began our last interview asking me about my career as both a Los Angeles Times nightlife columnist and investigative reporter in broadcast news, it gave me a moment to reflect back on a past life that in many ways prepared me to be useful in these times.

Always limited by either inch count in print or trt (total running time) in broadcast news, I discovered that brevity is queen and went with my best material right out the gate. And in being brief and punchy, I also learned to craft headlines or promos that would grab attention. Once I had that attention, it was imperative that I delivered the goods.

We are flooded with too much gobshite, I don’t see it easing, and I’m dancing as fast as I can.

As I noted in my review of American Overthrow, quoting Russia-watcher Ruth Deyermond, the second Trump administration is “looking like mid-late period Yeltsin.”

In other words, not a good look. Unless systemic corruption, violence, chaos, media control, and oligarchical rule is your thing.

Bette in the News

I had an opportunity to discuss the above in my recent interview with Thom Hartmann, host of the top progressive radio show in the country and bestselling substack author. He was interviewing me about my Sloptocracy report, where I note how the Trump regime uses AI slop as a primary tool of governance.

Thom and I covered myriad topics and even worked in some Roman history. As I noted, “Julius Cesar was a superb propagandist.” You can watch our interview here:

My Viper Room Reflections

In other news, I was interviewed on Saturday by ABC radio out of Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) for their Nightlife podcast. Its producers invited me to wax poetic about the World Famous Viper Room on the Sunset Strip. I immediately said yes, because I’m a big fan of ABC programming, particularly its 2018 series, “Russia, If You’re Listening.”

Here is the tease they wrote for the segment:

Rooms That Rocked: The Viper Room is a nightclub on the famous Sunset Strip in Los Angeles where Heidi Siegmund Cuda spent a lot of time at The Viper Room as the nightlife correspondent for the Los Angeles Times

And here is the interview:

Heidi on ABC's Nightlife

My interview begins at 3 hours and 30 minutes and lasts for a half hour. If you like the ‘90s, rock ‘n’ roll, and Hollywood, you might enjoy this ‘trip’ down memory lane.

For me, it was a nice break from the flood of gobshite.

Calendaring Bette — all events are at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK

We do not have a Happy Hour this Tuesday, but we’ll be back on Sunday, September 27 for Bette’s Speakeasy with Monique Camarra, who will be sorting out the associate member union between Canada and the EU. Monique predicted this development more than a year ago, and last week, the geopolitical analyst told me:

“I teared up a bit listening to the speech. It’s been a long time coming. I feel like I’m invested emotionally and culturally and politically. The relationship is a good fit.”

Mo’ will have details for us, and for those who missed it, here are political philosopher Dr. Michael MacKay’s initial thoughts:

And in Bette’s Book Club news, here are our upcoming authors:

• Craig Unger, Sunday, October 4 — discussing his “House of Trump, House of Putin” book

  • More about the New York Times-bestselling author and investigative reporter here:

Buy Craig Unger Books

• David Colon, Tuesday, October 13 — we’ll learn more about the work of this French historian, who has authored multiple books on information warfare, including the upcoming Infodemic. You can read more from Colon here (it’s easy to translate into English):

David Colon

Journalistes : apprenez à ignorer les attaques informationnelles de « Matrioshka »

Vendredi dernier, j’ai été pour la troisième fois la cible de Matrioshka, qui a usurpé mon identité et m’a attribué dans une vidéo truquée une fausse citation visant à dénigrer la CDU dans le contexte des élections locales allemandes. Comme les fois précédentes, j’ai pris soin de ne pas réagir publiquement, de ne pas faire état de cette usurpation d’ide…

Read more

17 days ago · 8 likes · David Colon

And here is one of his reports, which I cross-posted in Bette:

• Dr. Marci Shore, Tuesday, October 27 — for a master-class lecture on “Eichmann In Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” by Hannah Arendt. Marci, an intellectual historian whose own book, The Ukrainian Night, is a must-read, calls Arendt one of her first loves and has given many lectures on the profoundly important work of the German philosopher and historian.

I will be sending out more details in advance of each event, with registration links for the Bette subscribers who wish to attend. If you are not yet a paid member, and would like to join our community events, please take out a membership here:

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Follow Ups

I have reported on the important work of the International Criminal Court in The Hague since I began this substack.

Today, I am noting that the media continues to report on how the lawless Trump regime is trying to destroy the ICC, but for some reason, there’s a failure to note that a former head of state is sitting in detention awaiting trial for the SAME MURDEROUS CRIMES THAT TRUMP COMMITTED.

To ignore Rodrigo Duterte’s upcoming ICC trial for crimes against humanity in his so-called war on drugs is to ignore Trump’s mass murders in the Caribbean. For starters.

Parroting is different than reporting.

Trump’s regime is ramping up attacks on the ICC — he and his loyalists say it’s due to Netanyahu’s arrest warrant.

Okay, but the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Putin, and they’re about to put Trump’s friend Rodrigo Duterte away for life. I always ask you to recall how Trump congratulated Duterte on his murderous rampage. On the record.

Once again, I ask you to recall that Trump’s murderous rampages already qualify him for permanent residency at The Hague.

And if the ICC isn’t equipped, then follow the dozens of countries that are in the process of creating a Special Tribunal for Putin and his war criminals.

I’ll leave you with this pearl of wisdom from Vesna Pusić, who documented the war trials of the former Yugoslavia.

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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The author performing at the Viper Room, Punk Rock Karaoke.

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In this brave new world we find ourselves living in, the ability to see things clearly is a survival skill.

While AI’s future kill threat blanketed the news, I feel it is important to remind my readers that the Trump regime is already engaged in mass killings, and that fact should not be ignored or memory holed.

Here is a link to my report, which was published in Byline Times and Byline Supplement on Sunday:

Byline Times

Hot Type: The Moral Strain of Reality

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3 days ago · 39 likes · 1 comment · Heidi Cuda

Below, I am crossposting the column. If you find it helpful, please share the original link from Byline with your networks. Liking and sharing a report helps us reach a wider audience.

Hot Type: The Moral Strain of Reality

While attention is being diverted to AI’s kill threat, the Trump regime is already engaging in mass killings reports Heidi Siegmund Cuda, urging people to not look away

Originally published in Byline Times and Byline Supplement 20 September 2026

This week, I celebrated my 10th anniversary of working as an independent investigative reporter during the Trumpocene. On 17 September 2016, I wrote my first public post, warning about the danger of electing Donald Trump, who I called a “pageant guy.” The thought of elevating someone who rated women on a numbers’ scale to the highest office was unfathomable.

Having elected him twice despite felony convictions, Russian mob ties, and a long history of criminal behaviors spelled doom for a once heralded country.

As I wrote in my column on the book “American Overthrow”, which documents the acceleration in Trump’s second term to remake America into West Russia, Trump is engaging in what author Keir Giles calls a “crash programme of state capture”.

But a torrent of headlines is causing terrible amnesia:

AI Could Kill All Humans!

Senator Kennedy Presses Kash Patel on Bestiality!

Melania Denies Link to Oligarch ‘Involved in Child Abductions!’

Trump Threatens to Demolish Kennedy Center if His Name Not Added!

The daily deluge will only increase as the upcoming midterm elections approach, and yet it masks the real horror already taking root in America.

As global attention is diverted to AI’s kill threat, the media has largely forgotten that the Trump regime is already engaged in mass murder.

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State-Sponsored Deaths

The US military killed at least 230 people in boat strikes, offering no public evidence of narcotics on the 79 boats hit, nor any evidence of any affiliation with drug cartels or any trials.

In its illegal war in Iran, the US-Israeli war is estimated to have killed between 9,000 to 18,000 people, including women and children.

At least 57 people have died in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration, according to ICE’s internal reporting. The January 2025 to January 2026 deaths is a 140 percent increase in the annual mortality rate compared to the prior year. That figure doesn’t include deaths upon release from ICE custody, which the agency said it would no longer report to the public.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s butchering of USAID funding has led to an estimated 700,000 deaths, as of mid-July.

Tracking food and disease-related deaths during Trump’s second term is difficult due to the downsizing of critical agencies: the FDA lost nearly 20% of its staff; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention faced a reduction of 25%, with the number of CDC scientists who tracked food parasites down from 11 to three. But the regime’s campaign against vaccines led by the US secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr, is linked to four recent deaths from measles.

“Donald Trump and RFK Jr. remain on a suicide mission to scare America families away from vaccines without cause or evidence,” said Brad Woodhouse, the president of Protect Our Care, a healthcare advocacy group. “What they’ve accomplished is a huge dip in vaccination rates and the worst measles crisis in 35 years.”

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Liar Liar World On Fire

“It’s hard to know where to start with Donald Trump,” said a man carrying a sign that read: “Liar Liar World On Fire.” We were at last Saturday’s anti-Trump protest in Dublin, Ireland, and he was responding to my question on why he chose to carry that particular message.

He said: “I suppose the Big Lie is one thing. And also the world is on fire because of the illegal and unjustified war in Iran. And the killing of fishermen in the Caribbean. Those are war crimes. He’s flouting international law.”

I was relieved to hear that someone remembered the extrajudicial boat murders in all the chaos, and how those murders parallel the killings that the former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte openly engaged in in his so-called war on drugs. Duterte is in detention in The Hague awaiting his November trial by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

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Overpaying and Offloading

I think it’s very dangerous to be distracted from the concentration camps being built in Trump’s second term and the fact that detention in ICE facilities saw a 75 percent increase since his return to power in January 2025.

In February, I reported that the US Department of Homeland Security overpaid by a hundred million dollars for a concentration camp shell to a Russian-based group, in the City of Social Circle, Georgia, about 45 miles from Atlanta.

Two years earlier, the same warehouse sold for $29 million. The DHS bought it from PNK, for $128.5 million, according to multiple reports. PNK is a Russian-based real estate developer that specializes in large-scale industrial, logistics, and data center projects, primarily in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk.

And in an all-cash deal, DHS paid $70 million for a large warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, according to Maricopa County records. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also named on the deed of the 418,000-square-foot property.

The recipient of the cash was the Rockefeller Group, a real estate developer owned by the Mitsubishi Group, which has a Russian-based LLC that deals in energy, chemicals, minerals, infrastructure and industrial projects, among other holdings.

ICE confirmed a $66 million purchase of another building in San Antonio, Texas, valued at $37 million; in January, ICE bought a facility in Upper Bern Township, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, for $87.4 million; In Williamsport, Maryland, ICE paid $102 million for a 54-acre plot — money coming from the $75 billion in funding from the Orwellian-named, ‘big, beautiful bill.’

In an interesting twist, after massively overpaying for warehouses, the agency is now trying to offload them, including the one they overpaid the Russian-based developer in Social Circle, Georgia, by nearly five times its assessed value. In total, the Government spent $1.074 billion on 11 warehouses, and are now planning to get rid of seven of them.

Multiple reports cite community and bi-partisan pushback as the reason, but the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it is “moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space.”

Reports coming in from the recently shuttered “Alligator Alcatraz” reveal inhumane conditions, where people were forced into cramped, chain-linked cages at the South Florida detention center, where fecal matter leaking from overflowing toilets to where people were sleeping was also reported.

These reports on how workers inside the US are being treated mirror how prisoners were tortured in open air-cages at Guantánamo Bay during the US “war on terror”.

Democrat-led states are now forced to fight for the right to inspect ICE facilities. Washington state is suing the Florida-based GEO Group, which operates detention facilities nationwide. State health inspectors have been repeatedly denied access to a Tacoma facility after thousands of reports of medical maltreatment, abuse, rotten food, and two working bathrooms per 100 people.

---

Ignoring Evil

Anyone who reads history knows about concentration camps, from Stalin’s Russia to Hitler’s Germany, which ran an elaborate network of death factories in occupied countries.

“This reminds me very much of the situation in the early years of the Nazi regime,” philosophy professor and author David Livingstone Smith told Byline Times. “Information about the first concentration camps was quite public, described in the media of the day and they enjoyed a great deal of public support as ways of dealing with criminals and other sorts of social outsiders.”

Smith, who has written multiple books on the subject of dehumanization, offered a quote from the book, What We Knew by Eric A Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband, which is based on interviews with Germans who were alive during the Nazi regime.

“One respondent said, ‘So people didn’t believe it, or didn’t know about it, or pretended not to know. As long as their lives were not touched by it, fine.’”

He said: “In a way it’s like here, with the people who don’t know about discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics. To them it doesn’t exist. They close their eyes to it.”

Smith cautioned: “Lots of Americans are behind the camps. Many of them have swallowed the ‘law and order’ propaganda describing undocumented immigrants as monstrous predators. Many others are not behind them, but close their eyes to reality, because reality exacts too great a moral strain. But in doing this, they are complicit.”

His words make me think of another sign I saw in the Dublin protest against Trump’s golf visit, held up by a young woman.

“To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It”

As always, I am grateful to my pool of incredible thinkers, and for this week’s column, I turned to David Livingstone Smith, whose work on the subject of dehumanization is groundbreaking.

Over the summer, I did three consecutive podcasts with Smith to better understand dehumanization.

Thank you as always for supporting my work.

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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Author’s note: I asked Dr. Michael MacKay, a political philosopher who lives in Canada and has worked as a lecturer and an election obsersvor in Ukraine, to offer the Bette Dangerous community his hot take on the historic developments between Canada and the EU. What follows is his response.”—hsc

‘Beyond the Savage World of the Hegemons’

By Dr. Michael MacKay

Prime Minister Mark Carney received a standing ovation in the European Parliament. Members listened attentively to every word of his speech, understanding they were witnesses to history and meeting the leader of the Free World.

From coast to coast, Canadians are feeling an exhilarating surge of national pride. There’s a palpable sense of hope and an upsurge in confidence as Canadians look to a promising future. The power of unity and identity has never been stronger than it is now in Canada.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Canada associate membership in the European Union. She made a joyful, aspirational statement. It marks the beginning of a mutually beneficial engagement between Canada and Europe that will involve every level of society and every field of endeavour.

Canadians and Europeans have shared values: decency, democracy, respect for the rule of law, and looking out for one another. We agree that we should try to live in a society that cherishes the dignity and worth of every human being.

Early this year, Mark Carney gave the clarion call for middle powers to build a new family of nations that takes us beyond the savage world of the hegemons. Now is the time for civilization to put the logical next steps into action. That is happening with the deep and comprehensive alignment of Canada and Europe. This is where the future lies.—Dr. Michael MacKay for Bette Dangerous

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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I wrote that poem, which I titled “the activist,” when I was still very fond of the lower case. It was an old habit adopted from ee cummings, and when I wrote those words, it was 2019, and America still had a year to go before (the collective) we deposed a dictator in the process of autocratic capture.

I had just finished watching “All the King’s Men” and had learned of the World War I sonnet, “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke, published posthumously in 1915.

On 23 September 2019, sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Alhambra, a dizzying array of K-pop videos playing on a loop, I wrote my response poem: “bury me in the future… when the inelegance of these times… a bitter memory fades.” I posted it directly on Twitter. Today, I am grateful that I was able to retrieve it for this reflection. Grateful that it wasn’t lost to the mists of time, to shadow bans and an unsearch engine, broken by a billionaire who likes to break things — truth, people, democracies.

Byline Times

Unmusked: How Elon Musk is Using Twitter to Destroy the Concept of Objective Truth

When Twitter owner Elon Musk Tweeted his support for returning Crimea to Russia, Russian analyst Fiona Hill accused Musk of actively transmitting a message on behalf of Putin…

Read more

4 years ago · 126 likes · 4 comments · Heidi Cuda and Byline Times

By 2019, I had spent three years raging against the Twitter machine, using my training as an investigative reporter in broadcast news to alert people to the criminality of Donald Trump and his associates. Having left a successful media career behind just in time to become an unpaid Twitter activist, I made the most of being unshackled by a corporation by posting thread after thread after thread. They can all still be found in my pinned Tweet - antiquities before the fall.

By September of 2019, we had copious evidence that Trump was working on behalf of Russia, which had used the power of its war machine to help elect him in 2016. Millions of Americans, easily duped by reality TV stars, already had buy-in. But for those clinging to a fact-based reality, it was important to document his criminality. I threaded the Mueller Report, I threaded the indictments of the Russian nationals who attacked our election, I threaded the NATO Handbook on Russian Information Warfare. I took my journalistic oath seriously.

I’ve been providing evidence on the dangers of Trump since I pressed send on my very first anti-Trump post, titled “DOOSHBAGGERY, and other things I’ve resigned from” at my Maewestside Tumblr.

That was exactly ten years ago — 17 September 2016. I knew him to be a Ponzi schemer, and I simply didn’t want someone who rated women on a number’s scale to rise to the highest office.

I wrote: “If we allow a Pageant Guy into our beloved White House, then ladies we’ve undone ourselves.”

I will never forget holding my daughter in my arms the morning after the 2016 election, promising her we’d get him out, never realizing it would take four years and that in another four years, we’d bear witness to Trump turning America into West Russia on the acceleration plan.

In mourning on 6 November 2024, I wrote an elegy for my country.

Byline Times

Hot Type: A Return to the Dark Ages

“There are men everywhere who would sell out humanity for their own personal profit. There are stupid and emotional masses everywhere who can be found to follow them, given a few slogans a…

Read more

2 years ago · 86 likes · 2 comments · Heidi Cuda

I believe America as we knew her fell on 5 November 2024.

In my elegy, I wrote:

I have spent the last eight years investigating the Trumpocene and Russian information warfare, and the last six months, deeply immersed in research on Weimar Germany.

The gravediggers didn’t have to triumph. In 1932, Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party was fracturing, haemorrhaging members, and many in his orbit were showing him only a “performance of solidarity, imposed devotion”, according to the authors of The Gravediggers: The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic.

But revenge-seeking men with a lust of power and greed saw in Hitler a tool to obtain both.

Despite knowing that it can happen ‘here’, in the last 72 hours, I allowed a flicker of hope into my heart. I allowed myself to believe that America was going to get it right this time, and we would celebrate our first woman president. We had already fired Donald Trump once, and his final campaign message to America was denying he was a Nazi and that he simulated a blow job.

As of this writing, Donald Trump is on television, declaring victory, and I can’t go through that again.

So now, I am a woman without a country writing an elegy for the once admired United States of America.

We just handed over our country to Vladimir Putin and US oligarchs, because not enough people could bring themselves to vote for a black woman.

As Nikita Khrushchev said in 1956: “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the US. We will destroy you from within”.

There were 50 bomb threats to polling locations in five swing states — with 32 in Georgia — according to the FBI, which stated that threats to four of the states came from Russia.

When Kamala Harris ran for President in 2020, I lined up behind her. When it became clear she was not getting enough traction and dropped out, I lined up behind Joe Biden.

After his poor debate showing in June, I was not among the people demanding he step aside. I thought it was the wrong move. I was aware that incumbents overseeing a strong economy are always re-elected, and he already beat Trump once.

But when he chose to step aside, after being pressured to do so, I lined up behind our party’s candidate, Vice President Harris. And the transition was seamless. Democrats came together and worked hard to get their ticket of Harris and Gov. Tim Walz into the White House. It was a powerful thing to witness — with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama returning to the stage with brilliant, inspirational speeches.

In contrast, Trump was telling dick jokes to thinning crowds.

So I allowed myself to believe that the woman would prevail, because women bleeding out in parking lots would enrage enough people that enough millions would prevent the unthinkable from occurring.

“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.”—Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

The unthinkable has arrived.

Both predictable and shocking. For the past decade, Americans have been blanketed with digital poison served directly into the minds of our citizens by hostile foreign powers. It works particularly well on those who are already racist and misogynistic to begin with. And for the past five decades, the religious right in America has demonized Democrats.

But really, how we got here was one lie at a time. One amoral NBC producer at a time, producers who knew Trump was a bankrupt fraud but pretended he was an ubermensch for ratings. We got here one author at a time, willing to create a mythological ‘Art of the Deal’ character or authors who withhold important national security information to sell books.

In 2016, the New York mediasphere had a duty to warn us about their homegrown confidence man but instead, they burned the witch: screaming ‘Benghazi’ and ‘But Her Emails’ until the fake rich guy who laundered money for the Russian mob looked like a sensible choice.

We got here one access journalist at a time, one normalizing puffpiece at a time, one Vichy headline at a time, and one propagandist on nightly news shows at a time.

Lie after lie compounding to a complete annihilation of reality, aiming to encourage people to overthrow their own governments, to become foot soldiers for fascism under the guise of patriotism.

We got here because Ford pardoned Nixon. We got here because people don’t read history books anymore.

We got here because those history books they don’t read would have told them that Trump and his VP JD Vance were using a cruel and effective playbook, where people are ‘othered’ and called ‘vermin’ and dehumanized until those listening to the ravings of these mad men were out for blood.

We got here because America has collective amnesia. We forgot that Trump has a sentencing date coming up in three weeks, and that he led an insurrection.

Trump, who sells gold shoes, cheap watches, and bibles made in China, to foot soldiers of fascism, who think they’re patriots.

We got here because the churchy wanted to conquer mountains, and they chose an amoral man.

We got here because we didn’t listen to the smart woman who warned us in 2011 that Russia’s election was fraudulent, and that democracy was receding in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In 2013, that smart woman, Hillary Clinton, was the most popular politician in America. In 2016, after Putin ran his full-court ops, millions decided they didn’t like the smart woman, they didn’t like her voice, something about her emails. They’d been Benghazi’d by Fox.

But the Orange Man who grabbed pussies and didn’t pay his contractors, the one with the six bankruptcies, who ran a Russian dorm he called a Tower, he was just right. Smh. The smart woman still won the popular vote, but the Orange Man who grabbed pussies had Cambridge Analytica, and Jill Stein who sat with Putin, and Facebook, which scraped our data for Cambridge Analytica. And Peter Thiel, JD Vance’s funder, who was credited for the tech ground game.

Now, he has Elon Musk in a Mein Kampf-lettered MAGA hat, who brings all the trolls to the yard, boosting Russian-paid ops for Trump.

So, here we are — the death of a flawed but beautiful country, a country so divided from reality, we didn’t even know that President Joe Biden was doing a great job, quietly doing the labor of democracy, returning our economy to the top of the world.

We didn’t know because Russia and US oligarchs were targeting us on social media to deny us that reality. He was blamed for being one in a long history of presidents unable to affect peace in the Middle East.

And the Russians knew about his success as a President. But they didn’t want us to know.

In the 277-page Doppelganger affidavit, detailing the seizure of web domains run by the Russians to mimic Western news outlets, a translated dossier by the Russians revealed they knew Biden had saved the economy, and in their words “fed the rednecks.”

So the Russians looked for proxy wars they could start, kicking around a few ideas. They knew us better than we knew ourselves.

I spent election night with friends — one from Hungary, who told stories of door knocks, family businesses being seized, Russians raping ancestors — and another friend, a longtime activist who grew up with blacklisted families. We all understand reality. We know there is no announcement in advance when a country has had its last free election.

We all have our passports in order.

I am haunted by the words of Bertolt Brecht, a poet and playwright from Weimar Germany, who fled to Scandinavia when the Nazis came to power and later moved to Southern California.

In his poem ‘To Posterity’, he wrote:

I don’t know how to be silent about injustice. I do not know how to obey in advance.

I don’t want to think about the unthinkable, but I am forced to, in interviews by people who are watching America at this time, worried for Ukraine, worried for Europe.

For months, I have been asked about what it would mean if Trump gets back into power.

And for months I have answered:

“It means a thousand years of darkness.”

We can hope for a deus ex machina — a magical resolution to a seemingly unsolvable problem, like Trump being thrown in jail where he belongs — but hope is the thing with feathers.

RIP America. You had a good run.

And now, two years later, on the eve of my tenth anniversary of speaking truth to power as an independent investigative reporter, it’s no wonder I feel uneasy.

I see well-meaning people selling hopium to the masses once again, as if all these criminals will just evaporate after the midterm elections. If the upcoming elections in the US are held free and fair, there remains a massive amount of work ahead.

Byline Times

Hot Type: ‘Everyone Has to Realise They’re Going to Try to Steal the Elections’

Read more

a month ago · 64 likes · Heidi Cuda

“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.”

Expect the unthinkable.

Those paying attention to the Daily Awful surely notice the uptick in newsporn as the midterms approach:

AI could kill all humans!

Senator Kennedy Presses Kash Patel on Bestiality!

Melania Denies Link to Oligarch ‘Involved in Child Abductions!’

Trump threatens to keep Kennedy Center shut if his name not added!

And before I’ve even had my morning coffee, I’m reading a 17-page federal indictment charging five suspected Russian intelligence operatives for plotting attacks on Kremlin enemies, including a gig worker murder-for-hire scheme. This, while asking colleagues to stop sending messages about Kash Patel, because my troll radar is telling me not to be diverted by the perverse. On another device, I’m sending GIFs of Claude Rains in “Casablanca” “shocked” to learn gambling is taking place at Rick’s Café Américain, because is anyone really surprised that a member of the Trump Crime Family would mooch off a Russian oligarch for wedding favors? It’s 2026 ffs.

Watching global media respond to a doomer dweeb at face value — again and again — I crack my knuckles, and write on Twitter:

And then I note: “Little evidence of tech bros suddenly sprouting a conscience, so...”

While I wait to hear back from Prague technologist Josef Holy for his take on the AI narrative, I find a refreshing comment from a Twitter rando named Jeff:

“AI can do anything except make a buck for its investors.”

And then I hear back from Holy, who tells me:

“It’s all a psyop, which makes the fossil fuel industry’s climate change denial pale in comparison.”

Sounds about right.

It’s been a long decade. I no longer write in lower case, but I’m considering dropping all punctuation

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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Fresh from walking the streets of Dublin with thousands of people who protested Trump’s golf visit, I am reflecting on the goodness of people.

I heard from multiple Dubliners yesterday, who read my “Shaving Thorns Off Roses” report from the protest. Among them, our Dublin-born guest for this week, Paul Niland, a reporter based in Kyiv, who also founded Ukraine’s first suicide hotline, Lifeline Ukraine.

Bette Dangerous is setting out to become a Founder, by helping Lifeline Ukraine raise €10,000 so they can continue their very important work, which they have had to put on pause as grant funding ran out.

Here is a link if you wish to make a contribution to our goal:

Support Lifeline Ukraine

Your generous donations can help restart Lifeline Ukraine, which was founded in the aftermath of Russia’s initial invasion in 2014.

Its founder Paul Niland has been in Ukraine for 25 years, through two revolutions and two phases of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In his “spare time” he’s a journalist writing for Byline Times, among other outlets.

Here is his most recent contribution to Byline, the report “Ukraine’s Stolen Children.”

Byline Times

Ukraine’s Stolen Children

Read more

20 days ago · 43 likes · Paul Niland

His main job and what he calls his proudest professional accomplishment is running Ukraine’s national suicide prevention hotline.

Achievements

Since 2019, Lifeline Ukraine had provided 133,040 instances of support. Of those, roughly 15% were crisis cases where there was the real threat of an imminent loss of life. “That means 20,000 lives were saved, at a minimum, by this organisation,” Niland explained. “And 20,000 families were spared the grief of losing a loved one through suicide.”

Donation info

I have watched Niland and his team struggle to work from grant to grant, and now they are taking a different approach, crowdfunding to meet a goal that he hopes will sustain their efforts over the long term.

“We have a fundraising goal of €2.5 million,” Niland told Bette Dangerous. “We intend to get there in €10k chunks. Some individuals may be able to take a Founders’ spot themselves, some companies (mostly Ukrainian) will become a part of the Foundation, but many folks who feel this topic is important to them will have the means to contribute smaller amounts, that’s why we created the Communities. The Bette Dangerous community can come together with 100 or 340 or 722 donations (any amount is gratefully received) to collectively get to the €10k goal.”

Niland added: “The need for psychological support in Ukraine has never been greater than over the past four years, and it will remain critical for many years to come. Following the onset of the full-scale war, demand for Lifeline Ukraine’s support surged by 400% in 2022 alone. Ukrainians desperately need Lifeline Ukraine to resume operations. However, to effectively serve the nation, we must build a system impervious to future funding pauses or gaps in availability.”

I am hoping Bette members who can afford to will make a donation in any amount and become inaugural members of The Lifeline Ukraine Foundation.

Support Lifeline Ukraine

Together, we have helped finance a war film in Ukraine, provided relief for a displaced family in Gaza, provided support for a Ukrainian voluneteer who lost his home, and helped soldiers in the field with life-saving equipment.

I hope you can join us today to hear from Paul Niland directly and to share this fundraiser with your networks.

“The people who reach out to us are young and old, military and civilian, gay and straight, male and female,” said Niland. “The only common factors they share is that they are Ukrainians, and they are in deep distress when they call us.”

A heartfelt welcome to all new members, and a huge thank you to those who have been supporting my work with monthly, annual, and Founding Member subscriptions.

Bette Dangerous is now read in all 50 US states, 100 countries, and my Top 5 audience overlap includes:

• Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American

• Ruth Ben Ghiat’s Lucid

• Robert Reich

• Timothy Snyder’s Thinking About

• Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

I believe that democracy is dying behind paywalls and in 2024, I opened up all my new reporting on these pages to everyone who wishes to read it.

Keep scrolling to the very bottom of this post for registration information.

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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Fresh from walking the streets of Dublin with thousands of people who protested Trump’s golf visit, I am reflecting on the goodness of people.

I heard from multiple Dubliners this morning, who read my “Shaving Thorns Off Roses” report from the protest. Among them, our Dublin-born guest for this week, Paul Niland, a reporter based in Kyiv, who also founded Ukraine’s first suicide hotline, Lifeline Ukraine.

Bette Dangerous is setting out to become a Founder, by helping Lifeline Ukraine raise €10,000 so they can continue their very important work, which they have had to put on pause as grant funding ran out.

Here is a link if you wish to make a contribution to our goal:

Support Lifeline Ukraine

Your generous donations can help restart Lifeline Ukraine, which was founded in the aftermath of Russia’s initial invasion in 2014.

Its founder Paul Niland has been in Ukraine for 25 years, through two revolutions and two phases of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In his “spare time” he’s a journalist writing for Byline Times, among other outlets.

Here is his most recent contribution to Byline, the report “Ukraine’s Stolen Children.”

Byline Times

Ukraine’s Stolen Children

Read more

19 days ago · 43 likes · Paul Niland

His main job and what he calls his proudest professional accomplishment is running Ukraine’s national suicide prevention hotline.

Achievements

Since 2019, Lifeline Ukraine had provided 133,040 instances of support. Of those, roughly 15% were crisis cases where there was the real threat of an imminent loss of life. “That means 20,000 lives were saved, at a minimum, by this organisation,” Niland explained. “And 20,000 families were spared the grief of losing a loved one through suicide.”

Donation info

I have watched Niland and his team struggle to work from grant to grant, and now they are taking a different approach, crowdfunding to meet a goal that he hopes will sustain their efforts over the long term.

“We have a fundraising goal of €2.5 million,” Niland told Bette Dangerous. “We intend to get there in €10k chunks. Some individuals may be able to take a Founders’ spot themselves, some companies (mostly Ukrainian) will become a part of the Foundation, but many folks who feel this topic is important to them will have the means to contribute smaller amounts, that’s why we created the Communities. The Bette Dangerous community can come together with 100 or 340 or 722 donations (any amount is gratefully received) to collectively get to the €10k goal.”

Niland added: “The need for psychological support in Ukraine has never been greater than over the past four years, and it will remain critical for many years to come. Following the onset of the full-scale war, demand for Lifeline Ukraine’s support surged by 400% in 2022 alone. Ukrainians desperately need Lifeline Ukraine to resume operations. However, to effectively serve the nation, we must build a system impervious to future funding pauses or gaps in availability.”

I am hoping Bette members who can afford to will make a donation in any amount and become inaugural members of The Lifeline Ukraine Foundation.

Support Lifeline Ukraine

Together, we have helped finance a war film in Ukraine, provided relief for a displaced family in Gaza, provided support for a Ukrainian voluneteer who lost his home, and helped soldiers in the field with life-saving equipment.

I hope you can join us tomorrow to hear from Paul Niland directly and to share this fundraiser with your networks.

“The people who reach out to us are young and old, military and civilian, gay and straight, male and female,” said Niland. “The only common factors they share is that they are Ukrainians, and they are in deep distress when they call us.”

A heartfelt welcome to all new members, and a huge thank you to those who have been supporting my work with monthly, annual, and Founding Member subscriptions.

Bette Dangerous is now read in all 50 US states, 100 countries, and my Top 5 audience overlap includes:

• Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American

• Ruth Ben Ghiat’s Lucid

• Robert Reich

• Timothy Snyder’s Thinking About

• Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance

I believe that democracy is dying behind paywalls and in 2024, I opened up all my new reporting on these pages to everyone who wishes to read it.

Keep scrolling to the very bottom of this post for registration information.

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

Subscribe now

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists with support from your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous: This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and broadcast news veteran, as well as former music and nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executive produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism, arts, and culture reporting.

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BETTE MEMBERS: PLEASE REGISTER HERE

Read more

Subscribe now

Liar Liar World On Fire

“It’s hard to know where to start with Donald Trump,” said the man carrying a sign that read: “Liar Liar World On Fire.” He was responding to my question on why he chose to carry that particular message. He said: “I suppose the Big Lie is one thing. And also the world is on fire because of the illegal and unjustified war in Iran. And the killing of fishermen in the Caribbean. Those are war crimes. He’s flouting international law.”

He was among the thousands of people who showed up on Saturday in Dublin to protest against Donald Trump in Ireland. The Irish people, known for their hospitality and kindness to visitors, showed the world with their signs that they don’t suffer fools and criminals. And I marched beside them, handing out roses and chanting along to the refrain:

There were supposed to be pro-Trump supporters, but I didn’t see any. Just people of all ages carrying signs and banners, representing dozens of activist groups or simply their own conscience.

One Irish woman wanted me to pass along her message to America:

“Come On Proud America! You Can Do Better Than This!!

She wanted me to tell my readers that she is praying for America, and praying for people to get past their fear and into action to do whatever is necessary to remove the criminal regime that’s infecting the free world.

Among the photocopied images on her husband’s sign was a butterfly with these words:

“The Only Orange Monarch We Need”

The old newsie in me had me running to the front of the march, so I could capture a banner that read:

“No Welcome For Trump”

Surrounding the main message were the words: “climate denier, warmonger, genocide enabler, Epstein class, racist.”

That about covers it.

I always bring flowers to protests, as they often help diffuse tense situations, and I gave a rose for best costume to the guy dressed like Rocky in Rocky Horror Picture Show, reimagined as a diapered Trump in golden cowboy boots and holding an angry Trump baby balloon.

His t-shirt read: Trump Not Welcome.

I handed out another rose to the woman wearing an Indictment Reunion Tour t-shirt, which listed in small print on the back all of Trump and his co-conspirators’ indictments and convictions.

Another rose went to a gentleman whose sharpied DIY t-shirt was epic.

It read:

“HERE TO SEE THE WATERCANNON … Thank you for your attention to this matter”

Look, I knew the signs would be clever. The Irish are inherently witty. But everywhere I looked was another magnificent message.

I had a chance to thank a young girl holding a sign that read:

“A Woman’s Place Is In the Resistance”

Seeing her reminded me of the powerful young girls I met at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017 singing about ‘girl power.’

And in my head, I heard the lyrics: “It’s times like these you learn to live again.”

Time and time again.

Refugees Welcome 🤍 Bigots Can Fuck Off

I was born in San Francisco in the ‘60s. Marching in support of civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, and against war is in my DNA, something I passed along to my children, who joined me in marching against W’s war in Iraq when they were very young.

My heart is warmed by community that comes together in compassion and collectively says, “This isn’t right.” We may have gotten here on different ideological ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.

To the man with the sign that read:

“Refugees Welcome 🤍 Bigots Can Fuck Off”

I say thank you.

Along with Irish flags and flags in support of Palestine - for Ireland, which was also colonized by the British, has always supported the Palestinian people - you could also find flags in support of Ukraine.

People carrying sticks with clever balloons of Trump in flagrante delicto with Musk, Netanyahu, Putin, and Epstein also earned the rose award.

As Long As You Go Back and Start a Revolution

I overheard a gentleman sitting on an electrical box earnestly telling a group of Americans: “As long as you go back and start a revolution.”

From his mouth…

Shaving Thorns Off Roses

In my rush to make it to the protest on time, I had forgotten to buy flowers, which I always bring unfailingly. Here is me at the first anti-Trump march, post-2016 US election, raising a flower toward riot police in downtown Los Angeles. That was ten years ago, 12 November 2016.

On Saturday, as I made my way into Dublin, I realized I needed to stop and grab some flowers, and I found two dozen fuchsia roses at a Tesco and only later realized they had thorns.

So in advance of the march, I shaved off each thorn one at a time, ensuring safe handoffs.

I had to turn away from the woman who told me she was praying for a proud America to find its courage.

Kind words always make me weep, so I excused myself to weep privately under a tree.

Overhead, fireworks began to light up the sky and as I saw the smoke and the sparkle I was reminded of advice I shared with my daughter a decade ago, when she and her teenage friends went to protest the 2016 election in the first days after the November election:

1. always hold flowers, and bring extra

2. most people are good and kind and hurting just like you. appreciate the courage of the men who show up. they are hurting too

3. make your chants good and kind, words of love not hate. we are from california and we do not hate. bring a bullhorn. spread a message of love

4. you must have an achievable goal, and if the goal is “electoral reform now” that is a chant and that is called Due Process, and due process is an attainable goal

5. when the police presence begins to make your skin crawl, leave. you are no good to this world as a leader if you can not continue to lead. plus, you are my daughter. i know you must march, but you must be streetwise.

It’s been a long decade, and a lot of marches.

I was happy to be in Dublin on Saturday.

I told my husband that he could be sure that the news in America would be of the one guy who got dropped on his head and lit a trashcan on fire, and that would then be how people perceived the March. I said that’s why are here, to bear witness and report the truth.

Sure enough, this morning, I saw news reports from the one group among ten thousand peaceful people that burned a US flag. Typical titushky.

I can tell you the day was beautiful.

Thousands of compassionate people walked side by side against what we all know is something evil.

So I’ll leave you with one more sign, from another young Dubliner speaking truth to power:

“To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It”

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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Author’s note: I was speaking with a friend from Finland yesterday who was sharing details about Russian influence operations in Europe, and he noted: “It is indeed difficult for people to grasp that the Kremlin is operating from many different political perspectives at the same time.” Having devoured every Peter Pomerantsev book, I see how the Theater of Chaos and Despair is crafted. For those new to these pages, here is a compilation of my reporting on Pomerantsev’s work:

In his book, “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible,” Pomerantsev writes:

“With no idea of the future left, facts become unnecessary. They are, after all, unpleasant things, reminders of one’s mortality and limitations… The process occurred in Russia harder and faster because cynicism and disillusionment set in earlier… everything turned into a dark carnival more rapidly. The Russian president turned politics into a reality show, remaking authoritarianism with the logic of twenty-first century entertainment.”

I begin here, because it’s difficult to grasp that media outlets such as Newsmax mask its torrent of conspiracies, Russian propaganda, and pro-Trump fealty with a backdrop of stars and stripes. This veneer of patriotism is designed to obfuscate links to Russian funding and encourage you to memory hole its $100 million payout to settle lawsuits brought by electronic voting systems firms for promoting Trump and his loyalists’ ‘Big Lie’ about the 2020 election. With those reminders now fresh in your mind, it’s maybe less surprising that Newsmax has chosen to offer a platform for disgraced and disbarred former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to spew racist venom on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

Longtime readers of Bette Dangerous are aware of Giuliani’s real history. As I wrote three years ago: American needs heroes. But a deep dive into Giuliani’s background reveals he was ‘a dictator in search of a balcony.’

Byline Times

Rudy Giuliani Was Never a Hero

On September 12, 2001, America needed a hero. The horror of the attacks the day before — terrorism on US soil — left a gaping hole in the soul of the country…

Read more

3 years ago · 15 likes · Heidi Cuda

Below is my original Byline report, which was published on 7 October 2023, another traumatic day in history.—hsc

‘Rudy Giuliani Was Never a Hero’

Heidi Siegmund Cuda investigates the spectacular fall of the former New York Mayor turned Trump associate

Originally published in Byline Times, 7 October 2023

On September 12, 2001, America needed a hero. The horror of the attacks the day before — terrorism on US soil — left a gaping hole in the soul of the country.

Nearly 3,000 people perished in the suicide attacks, carried out by 19 terrorists who had hijacked four planes. The first two planes flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, another crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted, preventing it from reaching its likely target — the nation’s capital.

Suddenly, the mayor of New York City was everywhere. Media appearances around the clock, a 79% approval rating that more than doubled from the 36% rating from the year before — seven years into his administration. Time magazine named him Person of the Year for 2001. It was Rudy Giuliani’s moment of glory.

Like Vladimir Putin, who went from faceless bureaucrat to national hero after multiple apartment bombings in Russia in 1999 killed hundreds of people, Giuliani had become a national figure. Putin, who was on TV vowing revenge each day, used the suspicious and conveniently timed bombings to boost his popularity and to launch the Second Chechen War. He became president just a few months after the bombings.

Giuliani, too, would use his newfound celebrity to attempt runs for higher office.

“Rudy became ‘America’s Mayor’ when the entire country adopted New York City as their own upon the demise of the World Trade Center at the hands of terrorists 22-years ago,” Martin Sheil told Byline Supplement. Sheil, a retired criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service, worked with Giuliani in the 1980s and recalled a very different man.

“Rudy was larger than life back then,” said Sheil. “His fall was nothing short of Shakespearian. Cognac and cigars became a go-to habit of Rudy’s when surrounded by folks who never let him buy his own.”

Sheil told Byline Supplement the consensus among former colleagues was that Giuliani began to believe his own myth.

“He took off in hot pursuit of the ultimate political ambition - the Presidency - and flew too close to the sun, and just like in mythology crashed and burned when the voting public did not share in his self-adulation.”

There’s a popular saying on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that ‘everything Trump touches dies’. And Giuliani, as Trump’s former personal lawyer, has seen such a spectacular flameout it must be some kind of record. Who can forget the hair dye dripping down his face while promoting election lies, or the press conference at the Four Seasons Landscape storefront, adjacent to an adult boutique. Or the image of him being caught on camera with his hand down his pants from Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm. In the film, a day-drinking Giuliani appears in a compromised position with an actress who is playing an underage girl. Giuliani did not know he was in a “Borat” film. He thought he was being interviewed.

It’s extra creepy in light of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s statements in a new book that Giuliani groped her “under my blazer, then my skirt” backstage at the rally that occurred before the January 6 Insurrection. Giuliani gave a speech that day where he encouraged the violent crowd to use “trial by combat”.

None of this becomes a ‘hero’.

As with the subjects of my recent Byline Supplement report The Cult of the Genius Tech Bro, closer scrutiny of Rudy Giuliani’s career reveals more myth than substance.

‘A Drop of 60 Points’

“Look at this — a drop of 60 points over the last 21 years,” CNN data reporter Harry Enten said in his analysis of Giuliani’s plunge.

During a news segment, he showed a graphic which revealed Giuliani’s favorability rating as he left the office of New York City mayor in 2002 (76%) beside his present day rating (16%).

Village Voice investigative reporter Wayne Barrett deflates Giuliani’s hero image in his book, The Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. He reported that Giuliani relocated the NYC Office of Emergency Management headquarters to the 23rd floor inside the World Trade Center in 1997, a decision that was widely criticized at the time due to the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.

In a 2007 New York Times article, World Trade Center firefighters said Giuliani cast himself as “a hero for political gain”.

The myth of ‘America’s Mayor’ was also very lucrative. In a previous investigation into Giuliani, I learned his post-9/11 career included earning millions in speaking fees. He took in $11 million dollars for speeches in 2006 and 2007, operated a security crisis management company, both far more lucrative gigs than his attorney career.

As Trump’s personal attorney — just like Paul Manafort when he was Trump’s campaign manager — Giuliani worked for free. Both Manafort and Giuliani may have used Trump as a loss leader because both did business in Ukraine paid for by associates of Vladimir Putin.

“Giuliani was never a hero,” said Joshua C. Fidel, my co-host of RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, an investigative show about disinformation. “The only power these hollow men have is the power of myth — they’ve all been elevated… Trump is a ‘successful businessman’, Rudy is ‘America’s Mayor’, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and Silicon Valley ‘will improve the world with their engineering and technological prowess’. It’s all lies. It’s all setups.”

Fidel said that when Giuliani was US Attorney for the Southern District of New York “he made his name off of breaking up the Italian mafia, with information fed to him by the Russian mafia, allowing the Russian mafia to establish a massive stronghold in New York.”

As documented in Craig Unger’s book, American Kompromat, Giuliani took $40,000 from an alleged Russian mob associate for his 1993 and 1997 mayoral campaigns. The spotter agent for the KGB, according to Unger’s sources, also raised millions of dollars for him at fundraising events. Giuliani later appointed the associate to serve on the New York City Economic Development Corporation, according to Unger.

Unger said Giuliani “invented the perp walk, playing the press brilliantly”. But he is not surprised that he is now taking the walk of shame himself.

“In working with Ukraine, Rudy was trying to drum up disinformation that would destroy Joe Biden, and obviously he failed at that,” said Unger. “It’s about time some real prosecutions happen.”

“Rudy’s darkest turn came when he took the job in Ukraine of passing on Russian disinformation to the American people while on the payroll of corrupt oligarchs,” Fidel told Byline Supplement.

And in fanning the Big Lie — promoting the phony narrative that Trump won the 2020 election — Giuliani not only had his law license suspended in both New York and Washington DC, he got his very own mugshot.

‘A Dictator Looking for a Balcony’

He is now one of 19 people facing RICO charges in a 98-page indictment in Georgia. Giuliani has been charged with 13 felony counts of racketeering, making false statements, and writings.

Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once called him “the antichrist.”

In a four-part series from TIME Studios and MSNBC Films, When Truth Isn’t Truth: The Rudy Giuliani Story — filmmaker Rebecca Gitlitz told People magazine that before 2001, Giuliani was a polarizing figure:

“He’s always been a deeply racist, deeply misogynistic, deeply opportunist and ego-driven person. Rudy’s journey has always been about opportunity and skirting the law and skirting the system.. My favorite line of the entire documentary is that Rudy ‘is a dictator looking for a balcony’.”

For a while, he had his ‘balcony’, appearing regularly on Fox News and other cable news networks. In 2018, on Meet the Press, he famously said: “Truth isn’t truth.”

It is clear in retrospect that those in Trump’s orbit were actively trying to create a post-truth America. It’s this unreality — this erosion of believing one’s ears and eyes — that grooms people for fascism, according to Jason Stanley, the author of How Fascism Works — The Politics of Us and Them.

When looking at the totality of his downward spiral, the list is staggering, and it’s all important but one thing stands out: his willingness to go to any length to keep Trump in power, even harming the lives of two women. He lied about two election workers, and a federal judge issued a default judgment, ordering Giuliani to pay sanctions of nearly $133,000 in a defamation and civil conspiracy lawsuit.

The women feared for their lives, and $133,000 seem a small price to pay considering the terror they endured.

Among the other memorable lowlights spurring his descent:

• Investigations into his longterm Russian ties

• An FBI raid for his role in the Ukraine disinformation plot to attempt to destroy Joe Biden

• Opportunistic use of the falsely imprisoned Central Park 5 as his mayoral springboard

• Leaks that Jack Smith is probing his drinking

• Release of audio transcripts as part of a lawsuit brought by a former staffer alleging he forced her to have oral sex and intercourse

• The staffer’s lawsuit also alleges Giuliani attempted to sell presidential pardons for $2 million

Like the Cult of the Genius Tech Bro, the myth created around Giuliani is not holding up under scrutiny — there’s a growing awareness that his legacy of being a hero was largely false.

‘The Unraveling’

“The unraveling has been a long time in the making,” Martin Sheil told Byline Supplement. “That Rudy got himself indicted for RICO charges he once made famous became the ultimate irony and led to the current sad state of affairs where he has to now beg for charity to pay for his own legal bills because he cannot even represent himself in court where he has been disbarred. But that ignominy might be the system doing a final favor for him. He won’t have a fool for a client.”

In a report last month, an FBI whistleblower said Giuliani may have been compromised by the Kremlin, and FBI leaders didn’t care. The agent, Jonathan Buma, said his leads tying Giuliani to Russian intelligence were dismissed by his supervisors.

According to Business Insider, the government of Ukraine asked the US to sanction Pavel Fuks, an oligarch who paid Giuliani’s company $300,000 to help improve the public image of Kharkiv. Fuks is the oligarch named by the FBI whistleblower who suspected Giuliani of being compromised by the Kremlin.

The Ukrainian oligarch has close ties to Moscow and according to the letter requesting to sanction him, he is accused of “corrupt economic practices, transnational crime, and adverse foreign influence”. He is now reported to be living in the UK, and has not, at the time of writing, been sanctioned in the US.

Although the US continues to slow-walk justice for foreign and domestic oligarchs, at least in the state of Georgia, there is great interest in seeing Giuliani prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

In Giuliani’s ungainly mugshot, there are no traces of myth, just a brittle resignation — the face of a man who flew too close to the sun.

There is something haunting, disturbing about that image. He looks like Jacob Marley in chains, but this is not a ghost story.

It’s a reminder that we need better heroes.

Byline Times, 7 October 2023

****

Coda: In the three years since that report, Giuliani has been permanently disbarred from practicing law in Washington DC, after his law license was stripped in New York state due to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Today, as we honor the fallen, I am also thinking of election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, who Giuliani tormented with false accusations of election fraud, forcing them to endure four years of a “living nightmare.” Both successfully sued Giuliani, and ultimately settled out of court, allowing him to keep his homes and belongings in exchange for “compensation and his promise not to ever defame us.”—hsc

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

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• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

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THIS EVENT BEGINS IN 3O MINUTES!

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I dedicated my “Hot Type” column in Byline Times this weekend to the Trump regime’s accelerating use of AI slop, and how it’s being used as primary tool of governance to push the regime’s political agenda.

I call this form of government a Sloptocracy, and unfortunately, it’s very serious.

As I wrote:

He and his loyalists are engaging in psychological warfare on a massive scale, for political and personal gains. Since my column was published on Saturday, Trump went on AI-generated rampage, posting content of himself as a superhero, more Iran slop and territorial manipulations, more targeting of perceived enemies, all in a ten-hour burst.

I’ll have updates on this topic today at our Happy Hour at 11 am Pacific.

Germany Update

We’ll also have updates on Germany’s regional elections — where anti-immigration, extremist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made gains but fell short of a majority.

Look for Vienna-based disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler to join us with updates, and hopefully, geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra will be able to hop on the zoom to offer her perspective.

As Dietmar notes:

“Much is rightly being discussed about the extremely high AfD result in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. In addition, it should be noted that the “successor to the successor” of the SED, “Die Linke,” crossed the finish line with over 8 percent, and the split-off from the Left, even better known for its Russia positions, with over 5 percent. If one knows the foreign and European policy ideas of all these parties, the question arises as to how securely Germany’s “Western alignment” is at least represented in this federal state.”

More about Dietmar:

Dietmar Pichler is a disinformation analyst, resilience strategist, and Editor-in-Chief of Inved Insights published by the Institute for the Defense of European Democracies. You’ll find his socials on X and Bluesky at “dietmarpichler1”.

To help support Dietmar’s work on exposing Russian and global disinformation strategies, please make a donation here:

Support Inved.Eu

Bette’s Book Club

In addition to the news updates, I’ll be making book recommendations based on our upcoming author events in October. Among our guests will be French historian, author, and information warfare expert, David Colon; investigative reporter and author Craig Unger; and intellectual historian and author Marci Shore. Look for invites in coming weeks.

Looking forward to seeing many of you as we continue to stay informed about world events, culture, and trends.

New members: I began the Tuesday Happy Hours three years ago as a way to keep people buoyed and into action during difficult times. We also meet periodically on Sundays for our Speakeasys, where we meet historians, authors, and cultural icons. Please keep scrolling all the way to the bottom of the post to find the zoom registration link for our Happy Hour.

Thankful to all of you who have stood beside me as I do this work.

Subscribe now

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American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

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Author’s note: I woke up this morning to two images — one of a young German supporter of the AfD giving a Nazi salute on livestream; the second was of an AfD politician with my same last name, clout chasing on X/Twitter by tweeting at Elon Musk, who cheerily responded. As much as I wanted to rage against the Twitter machine, instead, I am choosing to celebrate an avowed anti-fascist by offering this 2-minute history essay on Marlene Dietrich, who chose to oppose Nazis “out of decency.”—hsc

Bette’s 2-Minute History: Marlene Dietrich Anti-Fascist

‘Aus Andstand’ (Out of Decency)

During the rise of fascism in Germany, Marlene Dietrich was living in America, where she was already a celebrated film star. After her 1929 breakthrough in the Josef von Sternberg film, “Der Blaue Engel,” she earned a contract with Paramount Pictures. In 1930, she moved from Berlin to Hollywood where she made a series of hit films.

After the Nazis seized power, she received multiple offers from the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and other party leaders - including a personal plea from Hitler - to return to Germany. The Nazis promised her financial incentives, creative control, and guaranteed stardom as an icon of Third Reich, but Dietrich rebuked all their offers. She was passionately anti-fascist.

In 1937, she donated her salary from the British historical drama “Knight Without Armour” to help a relief fund that supported Jewish refugees and dissidents who were forced to flee Europe. In 1939, she renounced her German citizenship and became a US citizen.

During World War II, she recorded anti-Nazi songs for the US Office of Strategic Services’ Morale Operations Branch (OSS MO), which used her recorded albums as propaganda to demoralize German soldiers.

She was one of the first celebrities to sell war bonds, and according to the Library of Congress:

“Marlene Dietrich made two overseas USO tours. The first was to North Africa and Italy, where she became the first entertainer to reach rescued soldiers at Anzio. During her second tour, lasting 11 months, she entertained near the front in France and Germany.”

Ultimately, she travelled to Algeria, France, Italy, and Germany to sing for the Allied troops.

The National Women’s History Museum notes that “often these tours were made under difficult and dangerous conditions. In some instances, Dietrich performed without power, slept in tents, and worked very close to the frontline.”

When asked on a USO tour why she chose to endanger her life, she responded: “Aus Anstand.”

Out of decency.

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More from Bette’s 2-minute history series here:

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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It appears Trump is doing my work for me - proving he’s running a Sloptocracy as evidenced by his Sunday AI bender.

I dedicated my “Hot Type” column in Byline Times this weekend to the Trump regime’s accelerating use of AI slop, and how it’s being used as primary tool of governance to push the regime’s political agenda.

I call this form of government a Sloptocracy, and unfortunately, it’s very serious.

As I wrote:

He and his loyalists are engaging in psychological warfare on a massive scale, for political and personal gains. Since my column was published on Saturday, Trump went on AI-generated rampage, posting content of himself as a superhero, more Iran slop and territorial manipulations, more targeting of perceived enemies, all in a ten-hour burst.

Germany Update

We’ll discuss the ‘why’ of this, as well as updates on Germany’s regional elections — where anti-immigration, extremist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made gains but fell short of a majority.

Look for Vienna-based disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler to join us with updates, and hopefully, geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra will be able to hop on the zoom to offer her perspective.

Here is Elon Musk once again putting his finger on the scale for AfD.

But as Monique told me this morning:

“The region has 2 million inhabitants, and Germany’s overall population is 83 million (for perspective). Saxony is not Berlin or the other metropolises across Germany: totally landlocked and rural. It was part of the DDR, and like many Italians, its inhabitants haven’t caught on to what democracy means that much. They are riddled with patronage politics to begin with, and the idea that the State should take care of them. The parents have passed this on to their children, whose age group voted for them (35-55 yo). The only thing now that matters is that if they do end up forming the regional government (they have to find a coalition partner to do so), they will have access to information that they can pass along, and they will have more press coverage.

We had the same problem with Orban’s government. Whether Musk is bankrolling these people or not (other people are also interested in shaping GER politics), the Ulrich guy mentioned him to increase his visibility, and it’s a great way to trigger everyone on social media. Btw, Weidel doesn’t even live in Germany: she lives with her partner in Switzerland.”

She’s referring to the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, an anti-immigrant, opponent of gay marriage, who is a gay woman in a partnership with a Sri Lankan immigrant. Like UK’s Nigel Farage and France’s Marine Le Pen, Weidel is shadowed by investigations into illicit campaign donations.

As Dietmar notes:

“Much is rightly being discussed about the extremely high AfD result in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. In addition, it should be noted that the “successor to the successor” of the SED, “Die Linke,” crossed the finish line with over 8 percent, and the split-off from the Left, even better known for its Russia positions, with over 5 percent. If one knows the foreign and European policy ideas of all these parties, the question arises as to how securely Germany’s “Western alignment” is at least represented in this federal state.”

Bette’s Book Club

In addition to the news updates, I’ll be making book recommendations based on our upcoming author events in October. Among our guests will be French historian, author, and information warfare expert, David Colon; investigative reporter and author Craig Unger; and intellectual historian and author Marci Shore. Look for invites in coming weeks.

Looking forward to seeing many of you as we continue to stay informed about world events, culture, and trends.

New members: I began the Tuesday Happy Hours three years ago as a way to keep people buoyed and into action during difficult times. We also meet periodically on Sundays for our Speakeasys, where we meet historians, authors, and cultural icons. Please keep scrolling all the way to the bottom of the post to find the zoom registration link for our Happy Hour.

Thankful to all of you who have stood beside me as I do this work.

Subscribe now

****

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

🤍

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REGISTER HERE

Read more

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I am always on the hunt for better words, even if I have to invent them.

Twenty years in broadcast news and 15 years as an LA Times nightlife columnist, I learned to be clever. And in this most recent decade, fighting a war of words required wit and endurance.

In the early part of the Trumpocene, when I used my Maewestside Tumblr to report on the real fake news torrenting out of Trump’s mouth, I thought I could deploy a Mark Twainesque patois and win people over to the side of reality with humor. That’s before I understood the full gravity of the situation. The Russian military was attacking the US with words and memes, and we had no defenses. We were a target nation of memetic warfare, and choose not to fight back. And in fact, we had some sort of Manchurian candidate colluding with the Russians.

Sloptocracy

Now, in Trump’s second term, he and his loyalists are running what I call a Sloptocracy, using AI slop as a primary tool of governance.

Here is a link to my report, which was published in Byline Times and Byline Supplement on Saturday:

Byline Times

Hot Type: Sloptocracy

Read more

18 days ago · 39 likes · Heidi Cuda

As with everything Trump, pernicious strategy is often missed for the clown show. And that is a grave danger, to the US and the world. Think, “late-stage Yeltsin,” as we learned in my “American Overthrow” report.

As always, thank you to everyone who supports the Byline Times team. The independent UK newspaper’s relentless investigations into Boris Johnson’s lock-down breaking parties, known as Partygate, effectively ended his career. Years of investigative coverage about Nigel Farage and illegal donations preceded the Channel 4/Verbatim Media undercover report.

And it was at last year’s Byline Festival, I first got introduced to Andy Burnham, who gave a brilliant speech at the event, prompting whispers to grow louder that he’ll likely be the next PM, which proved accurate.

Speaking truth to power in a time of autocratic capture requires independence.

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Below, I am crossposting my “Sloptocracy” Hot Type column. If you find it helpful, please share the original link from Byline with your networks.

Hot Type: Sloptocracy

Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports on how the Trump regime is using AI slop as a primary tool of governance and how ‘free people everywhere must embrace hard reality’ to resist the manipulative fakery

Originally published in Byline Times and Byline Supplement 5 September 2026

I work hard in my writing to not re-deliver the emotional payload of the Trump regime’s AI slop, video content designed to viscerally and politically manipulate its viewers. I don’t believe in reposting the videos or quote-tweeting the content. I use words to describe what it is we are seeing and why we are seeing it, as I did when I was compelled to report on the White House aliens video. This stuff is toxic and dangerous and needs to be handled with care.

As I was pondering the latest deluge of AI videos released by the White House, a new portmanteau popped into my head — Sloptocracy. I define it as “an autocratic regime for whom AI slop is a primary tool of governance.”

The horror, of course, is that it is real.

Trump is using AI slop to paralyze and traumatize the population for political gains. Evidence that he is attempting to turn the US into a Sloptocracy has been available since his first term, when he shared manipulated and edited videos on social media, becoming the first president to earn a ‘manipulated media’ warning label on a tweet.

But over are the days of the occasional video release, often violent and cruel as Trump took aim at perceived political enemies. Now, his administration releases a constant stream of videos created with AI-technology.

This week, Trump’s AI fakes included “footage” of Iran’s Kharg Island oil storage tanks and refineries being bombed, an alarming move during a war; a fake of Trump kicking over a Lake Ontario sign; and an army of armed Trump-wigged ducks.

French historian and author David Colon, who specializes in media history and information manipulation, says the Trump administration uses AI to produce “‘slopaganda’ - low-quality content churned out quickly with the aim of manipulating emotions for political ends.”

Colon told Byline Times: “I’m not sure if its goal is to erode reality the way the Kremlin does. I get the impression that it’s more about creating an alternative reality that aligns with its beliefs and policies.”

That alternative reality also exhausts rational minds, who see it as a way to groom people into a daze so they’re ineffective when real-life threats require urgent action.

Political philosopher Dr. Michael MacKay told Byline Times: “AI-generated imagery is fake. People know it is fake, especially with the fantastical and grotesque output of the Trump regime.”

But he said our normal response mechanisms to these fakes are being altered by Trump’s infinite nihilism.

“Normally, we would expect rational human beings to reject false sensory inputs because they are contrary to the evolutionary imperative: our need to survive,” he explained. “We survive best by understanding primary reality, which is the one world we all share. But in the dystopian world of nihilism projected by Trump and the MAGA cult, AI slop is embraced as an excuse to put aside reason and embrace the negative emotions of hate, resentment and drive for domination. AI slop is directed at the id, not the ego or the superego.”

He said the US’s declining education standards and “culture of anti-intellectualism” has left much of American society unprepared to cope with “the complexity and nuance of the world” compared to other countries.

“Iran is an incredibly rich nation with a history going back to the beginning of human beings living in cities,” he said. “Canada is made up of First Nations, the descendents of French and British settlers, and ‘New Canadians’; it has a political culture that 250 years ago diverged radically from that in the United States.

“But MAGA cultists aren’t prepared to think about any of that. They are comfortable wallowing in the lies of Trump’s AI slop because it reaches them on a visceral level. Large numbers of people get a thrill watching a fake Trump kick over a Lake Ontario sign. They ignore the reality that Trump is a morbidly obese, terminally unfit 80-year-old who could not possibly do such a thing.”

David Colon, who teaches at Sciences Po Paris where he is also a researcher, said he’s less concerned about Trump’s “slopaganda than his systemic attack on epistemic authorities—whether the media, universities, or research institutions.”

Colon cited the example of Trump’s dismantling of the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. He said that “effectively interrupts the Keeling Curve—and the deactivation of NASA satellites tasked with monitoring the climate risk, depriving us of the very ability to agree on the facts regarding global warming.”

Investigative reporter and author Craig Unger, who has written multiple books on Trump’s ties to Russia, said the inability to come to a collective consensus on facts is all part of strategic attacks on reality to benefit autocratic – or Sloptocratic – goals.

“Trump and the Russians have created a world in which there is no shared reality,” he told Byline Times.

Stop the Slop

After Trump posted the AI fake about bombing Kharg Island, his vice president JD Vance excused the intended threat by telling reporters that Trump “likes to switch it up on social media a little bit”.

In a Sloptocracy, posting AI fakes during a real war is not switching it up, it’s muddying reality, which in effect serves as an act of war on his own people, as well as the target country.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put out a demand this week that “the Americans stop doing memes,” after the latest round of AI slop targeting Canada.

Clearly, Trump leans on memetic warfare to push his poisonous political agenda but also to push his criminal profiteering.

In a lawsuit filed three weeks ago in New York federal court by The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Trump and two of his White House aides, Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp - both of whom help Trump post on social media - are being sued to prevent him from charging up to $100,000 monthly for early access to his Truth Social posts. The lawsuit claims it violates the First Amendment right to the president’s public announcement. But another objective of the lawsuit is to force a federal judge to declare that the act of posting official government information exclusively on Truth Social is unconstitutional.

With reports that Trump’s much ballyhooed ballroom bunker may also contain a data center along with a drone port, it’s unlikely he’ll stop the slop without some kind of intervention.

“Even if millions of Americans choose to live in the empty, dead-end fantasy of Trump’s AI garbage, that would not be a problem if it didn’t affect anybody else,” Dr. Michael MacKay said. “But it is a problem for the whole world because US aggression is now fueled by artificial intelligence enlisted to the cause of evil. The lies of Trump, following from the lies of Putin, are an immediate threat to global peace and security. Free people everywhere must embrace hard reality, challenge the AI-generated fakery, and confront the bullies with every bit of strength, courage and intelligence we have.”

Here, again, is the link to the Byline Times column:

Byline Times

Hot Type: Sloptocracy

Read more

18 days ago · 40 likes · Heidi Cuda

Special thanks to political philosopher Dr. Michael MacKay, French historian and information warfare researcher/author David Colon, and investigative reporter and author Craig Unger, for their insights.

Bette Dangerous has always been a book club, but now it’s official. We launched last week with an interview with American Overthrow author Keir Giles, and in coming weeks we’ll have events featuring book talks with David Colon, Craig Unger, and our second annual Halloween hair-raiser with Dr. Marci Shore, who will be walking us through Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” the book that gave us the term: ‘the banality of evil.’

What could be more timely.

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Author’s note: Last night, I watched the undercover investigative report by Verbatim Media that ran on Channel 4 News in the UK, exposing Nigel Farage and members of his team knowingly receiving funding from the US, which is illegal.

Here is that video:

Two members of Farage’s team, Reform’s head of policy James Orr and Farage’s longtime aide Dan Jukes, have stepped down. The year-long undercover investigation comes while Farage is under investigation over a five million pound donation he received from crypto billionaire Chris Harbonne, which Farage failed to declare.

I cut my teeth working as an undercover investigative producer, which is how I got my start in broadcast news. Typically, we focused on consumer and internet scammers, and I often marveled at the sociopathic tendencies of the criminals we managed to nail. In 2006, I went undercover to expose a multi-level marketing scheme that duped people into buying obsolete desktop video phones during the era of Skype. The events to lure people into the scheme were cult-like and featured video promotions by Donald Trump, who also promoted the company on his NBC show. The victims I interviewed said they poured their life savings into the failed scheme because Trump said it was a good investment. Two decades and no accountability later, the US is now governed by a criminal gang. The undercover work done by the Verbatim Media team is offering UK voters a chance to rethink their support of Farage, another sleazy Russian subcontractor aiming for ultimate power.

I am reposting my report from 11 January 2026 below, “Ghosting In, and Ghosting Out,” because it begins with a revisit of the 2018 Channel 4 undercover investigation into Cambridge Analytica, exposing the US and Russian-linked data company’s illicit election activities. You will find a GIF I made of puppet leaders working in the Kremlin’s interests. The UK still has a chance of snipping Farage’s string before he enters the lineup.—hsc

GHOSTING IN, AND GHOSTING OUT: We can’t just move on from foreign influence campaigns

Democratic nations being ripped apart by foreign influence operations in lockstep with domestic traitors need to acknowledge they are at war and then fight back ffs

By Heidi Siegmund Cuda

Originally published in Bette Dangerous 11 January 2026

“We’ve just used a different organization to run a very, very successful project in an Eastern European country. No one even knew they were there. They were just ghosted in, did the work, and ghosted out.”—Cambridge Analytica’s executive Mark Turnbull, on the use of subcontractors in a 2018 Channel 4 undercover report

’Sex, Secrets, and Spies’

Channel 4’s four-month investigation into Cambridge Analytica that aired in March of 2018 — revealing sex, secrets, and spies at the heart of the now bankrupt, military-grade political consulting firm is worth a revisit.

Its former CEO, Alexander Nix, in a recorded phone conversation tells a Channel 4 undercover reporter:

“We are used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows… and I look forward to building, a very longterm and secretive relationship with you.”

Another memorable quote from former CA executive Mark Turnbull, captured in Channel 4’s undercover report:

“We just put information into the bloodstream of the internet and then watch it grow.”

Information being a euphemism for disinformation, like, how proud they were with when the created the ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign, boasting that “the OO of Crooked were a pair of handcuffs… and it was all about… she belongs behind bars,” Turnbull explained, in a Channel 4 follow up report.

‘No Branding… Unattributable, Untrackable’

And Nix told Channel 4’s undercover reporter, who was acting as a potential client from Sri Lanka, that their services also included staging compromising situations to entrap target candidates… “offer them a deal too good to be true… offer a large amount of money to finance their campaign”… or “bring in very beautiful Ukrainian girls” to set up honey pots on film.

Nix continued: “Often we set up… fake IDs, websites…”

Most of my readers know about the Facebook data illegally stolen by Cambridge Analytica — 87 million accounts, through the ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ personality quiz, where those who took the quiz were sent one or two dollars by mail, and in return, they gave up their location, and the privacy of all their friends. The Russian researcher who created the quiz, who also worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, had access to all those millions of likes, messages, personal data.

No one even knew they were there.

Cambridge Analytica, which was always just a shell for SCL, a British defense contractor, had meetings with Lukoil, the Russian oil giant, which also engages in targeted psychological operations.

I don’t feel a need to have to prove any of this anymore. The facts have already been vetted.

But it’s always good to be reminded that greed has poisoned men’s souls, and that the US and the Western world made a mistake when it went into business with Russia in the ‘90s.

And now, we can’t just move on from foreign interference in our elections.

We know the US was not unique. Russia engaged/engages in foreign elections attacks in dozens of countries, but because the West never admits its at war with Russia, the global war is still largely invisible.

But those of us who report on these attacks, we see it. We see the patterns, we see through the nationalist messaging of the pro-Russian leaders installed throughout the world.

And where Cambridge Analytica promised discretion, we now see Twitter as a fully operational overt Russian propaganda farm. It was used to throw the 2016 election in the US, still slightly opaquely, but now, it’s fully out in the open.

And while Twitter is not the real world, it has real world impacts. One of the current operations unfolding is the ‘Angry European,’ whose job it is to hate ‘All Americans.’

On its face, it’s understandable. Americans didn’t fight back when Russia helped install Trump in 2016. America didn’t support the incumbent who had already beat Trump once in 2024. We deserve some ire.

Women marched in 2017, but the march was infiltrated. Teams of four working around the clock in St. Petersburg, pretending to be angry Americans destroyed the Women’s March movement from within. On Putin’s birthday in 2023, Joe Biden was indirectly targeted, put in the crosshairs of a war he didn’t start but one that would annihilate his career, paving the way for the return of Trump. To not view Trump as a Russian active measure is to ignore the fact that the world is on fire and Putin is lighting the matches.

“I see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a war against the West, and I think it’s taken a long time, but more and more people see that’s what it is,” Dr. Michael MacKay told me. “That’s the context in which I always saw the Trump for President initiative — as a Russian active measure that exploited or poured gasoline on existing divisions in the United States.”

To think we can just move on from this is to deny reality.

America, and Americans, look further over the waves and see how not alone you truly are...

Russia targeted other countries first, installing puppet leaders with money stolen from the Russian people, using propaganda, cyberwar, and paid influencers. Trump’s presidency only begins to makes sense when you see that the same tactics were used to install other Kremlin puppet leaders.

We can’t just move on from Russian and foreign influence. War is being waged on our minds, our sovereignty, our rights, our freedom, and now, our allies.

As I documented in my report America, You Are Not Alone:

“Among the Russian-sponsored trickery: referendums, malinformation campaigns, third party spoiler candidates, misogyny targeting women candidates, oligarchs funding politicians, narrative warfare driven on virtual battlefields, well-funded domestic propagandists delivering pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine narratives, while wrapped in the flag of their respective countries to obfuscate intent. Poisoning the democratic wells to disengage voters leading to low voter turnout, which makes its easier to manipulate extremist results. Poisoning and defenestrating opponents of the regime. Assassinations and hacking…”

We see these active measures in so many countries, who are told they’re not great, and then pro-Russian leaders seduce the third-of the populace that is already authoritarian-leaning with promises of greatness, but really, they’re job is to systematically destroy hard-earned freedoms, like Andrei Babiš is doing in the Czech Republic, forcing the decline of Czech democracy, like Orbán did in Hungary, like Fico in Slovakia, Ivanishvili in Georgia, Lukashenko in Belarus, and of course, as Yanukovych did in Ukraine, before a revolution forced him to run to Moscow, after stealing billions from the Ukrainian people, and later being convicted of treason.

Estonia, Moldova, and Romania have lessons for us.

Estonia just convicted three pro-Russian politicians of high treason, with one receiving a 14-year prison sentence. Estonians know that not only is national security jeopardized when Russian propagandists enter the body politic, but their very democracy is at risk. Moldova beat the latest round of Russian interference with unity. It also helps that they convicted their version of Elon Musk — billionaire criminal election meddler, Ilan Shor — for fraud, forcing him to flee to Russia. Moldova even doubled his original sentence to 15 years, for good measure. Romania, too, managed to stop Russia’s TikTok candidate in its latest election. Perhaps enough Romanians still recall the brutality of Ceaușescu.

Elves

The Czech Resistance founded a unit of volunteers called Czech Elves, citizens with military training who monitor and analyze disinformation. They constantly measure the Czech infospace and report on disinformation campaigns. Here is one of their word clouds from December 1 - 15:

Green reflects a campaign’s ‘positive’ sentiment; red is ‘negative’…

It’s amazing that this unit exists, and other threatened countries should take inspiration from the elves. But it was never supposed to fall on the shoulders of reporters and pro-democracy activists to be the frontline defense against military grade psychological operations. Democracies are supposed to defend their populations from threats, within and without.

Instead, we handed over the keys and said, have at it. And people, with no inoculation against information warfare — their data illegally stolen for targeted attacks — were left defenseless.

As geopolitical analyst, Monique Camarra, reminds me, when domestic problems are left unresolved, it leaves the door wide open for foreign malign actors: “The Rust Belt in the US and Southern Italy, the rural areas outside of Prague, they become easy targets for info campaigns, and empty promises… the idea is, the problems domestically, if these issues are left unchecked, foreign malign actors, like Russia and China, through their proxies, can take advantage of them. In states where things are going well, disinformation and other forms of aggressive information campaigns or covert actions (such as election rigging), don’t take hold. They fail as in the case of the Romanian elections. Disinformation takes hold in countries that do not resolve their domestic issues and let them fester or do not present counternarratives or they do it too late. There is one recent case where the Russians simply put out pure disinformation: they just made up a ‘Lichtenstein is a full of Nazi gold’ narrative because the authorities in Lichtenstein refuse to unfreeze Russian assets deposited in the banks there.”

Because of these failings, criminals, felons, rapists, and thieves lead multiple countries in alignment with the objectives of Vladimir Putin, himself a criminal, and other foreign autocrats.

I will keep pushing to grow a movement to get Trump and Putin and their allied thugs to The Hague, where Duterte awaits his trial for crimes against humanity. Only then, will the world have any ability to begin the necessary purge of this transnational crime syndicate.

We made a mistake taking Russian money, and tethering the West to a state run by spies and mobsters. Be good if we admitted it.

You Were Already Great

Today, I am haunted by the words of my friend Matthew Pearce, a founding member of NAFO. On an episode of RadPod, he told America, we were already great:

“You didn’t need to do this to be made great again, because you were already pretty damn cool in the first place. You had awesome cars and amazing cocktails and roof bars on your hotels. And San Francisco is the most amazing place and New York is stunning, and it’s like, you’re great anyway.

“Everyone liked you pretty much. You did some daft things. Everyone does some daft things, right? But everyone liked you, you know... We thought you were cool. Your TV was cool. Your movies were great. And then all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘we need to be made great again.’ Huh?! You’re already great. It’s just nonsense. I call it the Restoration Bloc: these leaders who want to turn back the clock. They can’t, because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”

When I asked Pearce, who lives in the UK, why he’s not worried about their own pro-Russian proxy Nigel Farage taking his country down in the same way Trump is bulldozing America, he said: “Europe will be in a war with Russia before that happens.”

We’re already at war.

If European leaders would simply declare it, maybe that could prevent the worst from happening. If Russia’s maskirovka was exposed, all that would remain is a decrepit empire, whose ‘three-day special military operation’ has now lasted longer than World War II, as the crowd-funded Ukrainian military continues to defend all of us in the remaining free world.—Heidi Siegmund Cuda for Bette Dangerous, 11 January 2026

Author’s Coda: I hope UK authorities are haunted by the words of James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, now former.

In the undercover Verbatim video, he says:

“The Electoral Commission is also - which is the main kind of electoral officers for purposes of a lot of local election law - are completely useless. They’re just so dumb and ineffective. It’s not like it’s some sort of special fraud office. It’s not Scotland Yard. They’re just, pretty useless.”

We’ll see.

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

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• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

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• Share my reporting with allies

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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At our inaugural Bette’s Book Club event, I asked American Overthrow author Keir Giles what he thinks about the recent comments in the Telegraph made by Kaupo Rosin, the director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS).

Along with Rosin’s prediction that Putin’s reign may collapse quickly and imminently due to in part to battlefield losses in his increasingly unpopular war in Ukraine, Rosin believes we need to start calling Russia’s sabotage and subversion attacks on the West “state-sponsored terrorism” and stop hiding behind euphemisms.

I told Keir: “He, like me, agrees that we’ve hidden the type of warfare that has been inflicted on the West under euphemisms and weak words — ‘active measures, hybrid warfare, information warfare’ — all accurate but ineffective at relaying urgency and necessity to take action. What should we have been calling what is happening? You’ve written a handbook on this. What should we have called it?”

Keir responded: “Yes, you’re rolling in a hand grenade, because you know I’ve been arguing against this for the last decade. And now, finally, it seems to be making some headway. It should never have been described as hybrid warfare, grey zone warfare, liminal warfare, subthreshold, all of the other adjectives that were applied to what Russia was doing in order to avoid having to do anything about it. If you simply call it acts of war, or state terrorism, it’s very clear what needs to be done. Instead of the obfuscation of giving it these labels that allow you to pretend that something’s happening that we don’t really understand and can’t really deal with.”

Hybrid Schmybrid

A decade of pretending away acts of war has led to escalation, as Rosin noted in his interview with the Telegraph:

“It’s almost everywhere by now. It’s a campaign orchestrated by the Russian government through the GRU [Russian Military Intelligence] mainly. It is becoming more violent and dangerous. We see that the main targets, currently, are defence industry production sites, but also logistical sites.”

Russia’s goal, he adds, is to “disrupt European supplies, European weapons equipment deliveries to Ukraine”.

Of the often used term, “hybrid warfare,” Rosin said: “Hybrid schmybrid,” which he called a “nice and cosy word” that “distorts from the reality.”

I have written much about Estonia on these pages, because the small Baltic country offers a blueprint on how to thwart Russian aggression.

No Rear Areas

In an interview with Keir from January 2023, I mentioned that he was the first person who taught me that there are not rear areas in the type of subversion operations America and the West were being targeted with, and he said:

“That phrase that you just used ‘no rear areas’ that actually comes from a quote that I pulled from Russia’s Chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. He was talking about the way in which there’s no front line and there’s no rear areas, about the effects that Russia can now deliver, being able to reach across the whole of an adversary’s territory. And that means that the United States is not insulated by distance from how Russia can reach out and do it harm. What we really need is key leader engagement in far more countries than we’ve seen so far.”

I will never forget his next comment, which triggered such urgency that me and my colleagues sent an open letter to Joe Biden on how he needs to handle these acts of war.

Keir said:

“As soon as the leadership of a country admits publicly that they are under attack by Russia, that triggers a whole load of other processes, which make defending against Russia a great deal easier, because it gets over that initial mindset of denial of ‘it’s not happening here,’ and government and media and institutions and businesses and ordinary people actually take those essential steps to protect themselves and to build up that societal resilience, which is the biggest tool in protecting yourself against Russia. So the first step anywhere is just admitting and recognizing the problem.”

And, of course, that acknowledgment never happened in the US.

All we had to do was look further over the waves to see what was working in other countries.

If We Called It Terrorism

In my “If We Called It Terrorism” post written on 20 October 2024, I cited Gabrielius Landsbergis, who was then Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Like Rosin, he annihilated the weak words we’ve been using to refer to Russia’s terrorism on the West, and demanded we take action to stop them.

In that post, I wrote: “We are in a war — it has always been a war, because it has always been terrorism.”

And then I quoted Landsbergis, who in a one minute and 24 seconds video clip said:

Why do we call it hybrid? Because if you call it hybrid, then basically you don’t need to do anything about it. You can just talk about it in the conference, and it solves the problem.

If you call it terrorism, then it implies reaction — that then there’s actually something needs to happen. In several countries, there have been incidents that we know that have been organized, financed by Russians, in order to burn down the buildings, harm people, destroy property. So how else can you call it? And this is where the danger — the biggest danger — comes from, that if we stay in this situation long enough, that sends a very clear message to Russia that basically, they are able to do whatever they want. They can walk around, they can harm people, they can burn down buildings. And we still will be talking about the hybrid, and this is the biggest, biggest problem.

And I usually say — I’m not afraid of Russia — I’m afraid of our fear of Russia. This is what really keeps me up at night. And if we don’t find a way how to stop Russians, how to send a message to them that this is a red line — you cannot cross it — they will continue.

In America, we called acts of war “meddling.”

It’s interesting to me that a decade into consistent state-sponsored terrorism from Russia, there finally seems to be an appetite to call it what it is.

Yesterday, German defense contractor Stefan Thumann told Politico that “Germany and Russia are at war” as he argued that “sabotage operations carried out by Moscow against his country are “acts of war… controlled and coordinated here by the Russian armed forces.”

Like Estonia’s Rosin, Thumann rejects the hybrid warfare label.

Thumann supplies combat drones to Ukraine and lives with full-time protection in an undisclosed location after German authorities uncovered a Russian intelligence plot to poison him, according to Politico.

As Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote today on Twitter/X:

“If ‘hybrid’ is now such a magic word - we should close the hybrid skies, put hybrid boots on the ground and ask Belgium to unfreeze some hybrid assets.”

And I couldn’t resist a quote tweet, when I saw Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain, repeatedly use the term hybrid warfare on X.

I wrote: “Today is a good day to stop using the word hybrid, which has made it possible for western leaders to do nothing about Russian aggression.”

Last year, when I asked former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele at the Byline Festival why we don’t call Russia’s attacks on the West “war” rather than hiding behind euphemisms, he said: “It’s important to keep the temperature down.”

That’s a luxury for people who haven’t lost their country.

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

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“‘It is hard for many Americans to discern the totality of what is happening’.”—Keir Giles, American Overthrow

Registration: Bette’s Book Club with “American Overthrow” author Keir Giles

Today, our Tuesday Happy Hour will be dedicated to our new book club series, Bette’s Book Club.

Our featured author for this month is Keir Giles, who I’m sure many of you read about in my multi-part series on his latest book, American Overthrow, the focus of today’s event.

Here are a few links to bring you up to speed, as well as links where you can buy the book.

To pre-order American Overthrow (Hurst Publishers), follow this link or click this button:

American Overthrow - Amazon Global

To order outside of Amazon, the book is also available from Bookshop:

Bookshop.org - UK/Europe

Bookshop.org - US

American Overthrow worldwide publishing dates:

• September 3, UK and Europe

• November 15; Available for purchase October 15, US

Since Bette Dangerous is now read in more than 100 countries, we will be interviewing the author, and then meeting again once everyone in the club has had a chance to read the book.

Among Keir’s other key books:

• Russia’s War On Everybody

• Who Will Defend Europe?

More on Keir Giles here:

KEIR GILES has advised governments worldwide on the Russian threat. A former senior fellow with Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, he regularly comments for the BBC and international media. His prescient books include Who Will Defend Europe?, a Financial Times Politics Book of the Year.

More about American Overthrow:

AMERICAN OVERTHROW — HAS RUSSIA BROUGHT ABOUT REGIME CHANGE IN THE USA? The maelstrom following Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the US presidency left many bemused and disoriented. But for Russia-watchers, what unfolded was grimly familiar. So many of the Trump administration’s destructive actions have precisely aligned with the Kremlin’s own objectives; and to a startling extent, Trump’s America is beginning to mimic Russia itself.

Abroad, Trump has demanded the annexation of neighbours, and embraced war crimes in Iran and the Caribbean. At home, the war on truth and history, purges and the weaponisation of justice, the deployment of masked federal paramilitaries to the streets of major cities and more all mirror Vladimir Putin’s own consolidation of power. Dismantling obstacles to Russia’s ambitions, whether they threaten Europe or America itself, is a defining feature of Trump’s second presidency. And just like Putin, Trump shows no intention of departing at the end of his presidential term. Keir Giles examines America’s transformation through the prism of Kremlinology. What he reveals should alarm us all.

Quotes on American Overthrow:

‘Keir Giles draws direct parallels between the Trump oligarchy’s consolidation of power in the United States and Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia. This is not a bizarre or far-fetched comparison, and it should make readers of all political persuasions think twice about American politics.’—ANNE APPLEBAUM, author of Autocracy, Inc.

‘As Keir Giles makes abundantly clear in this expertly written and insightful book, Donald Trump’s political template is Vladimir Putin’s.’—FIONA HILL, former US National Security Council advisor

‘Giles highlights Kremlin method in Trump’s madness. A must-read.’—EDWARD LUCAS, former senior editor, The Economist

‘A meticulous forensic examination of how the Trump administration’s objectives precisely match those of the Kremlin.’—TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES, former president of Estonia

‘For the last decade, I’ve chronicled how Moscow cultivated Donald Trump as an intelligence asset. In American Overthrow, Keir Giles—a Russia specialist at Chatham House—takes that story into the second Trump administration, where the payoff for Russia is finally revealed.

By assembling the scattered scandals of the Trump era into a single, coherent, and chilling whole, Giles does what the daily flood of headlines cannot: he shows how Trump doesn’t merely emulate Russia but often outdoes it—creating his own set of “alternative facts,” activating masked paramilitaries, threatening neighboring allies, and consolidating power in the hands of his billionaire friends.

The picture that emerges—a fractured Europe, a hobbled NATO, a White House at war with its own intelligence agencies—amounts to dividends beyond Putin’s wildest dreams. This is the rare book that says exactly what has happened: Russia has effected regime change in the United States with the active support of millions of Americans—and most of them still don’t even know it.’—CRAIG UNGER, author of House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat.

Looking forward to seeing many of you today as we discuss this very important and timely work.

New members: keep scrolling all the way to the bottom of the post to find our zoom registration link.

Thankful to all of you who have stood beside me as I do this work and continued your support since Bette’s launch nearly four years ago.

Subscribe now

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American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

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Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

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Author’s note: After our recent Sunday Speakeasy with Dr. Tetiana Boriak, part of our ongoing series with the Ukrainian historian, I sent her a letter to thank her for her lecture. I told her I wish there was more I could do. The lecture focused on Russia’s trafficking of Ukrainian children, as well as the brainwashing techniques being used in Russian occupied areas. Among them: identity transformation; militarization of consciousness; cadet camps — erasing identity and history. As I noted last week, it seems inconceivable that this is happening in the 21st century, and that we are not talking about a long ago history where facts were difficult to obtain. No, we have ICC arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for ‘children’s rights,’ for trafficking children. We have multiple UN reports, and a Human Rights Watch report. We have the film I co-executive produced, Kherson; Human Safari. And still, the war crimes continue. In response to my note to her, she sent the letter below. With her permission I am sharing it with you. Since the date of the original letter, she wants you to know “the alarm system is running in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast for the fifth day, almost with no breaks.” Below her letter, you will also find the compilation of print reports based on our interview series. Once again, I make a plea to share her words with your networks and continue your support of Ukraine.—hsc

29 August 2026

Dear Heidi,

Thank you for the chance to share this horror with a broader audience. And this is only part of everyday life during the war. The Kremlin has adjusted new tactics: it now bombs food and business logistic centers, freight cars, trains with passengers, trucks, gas stations, electricity producing stations, gas and water facilities - besides residence buildings and military objects. And Tolstoj (yes, a descendant of the “great” writer Lev Tolstoj), the deputy head of the Duma speaker, yesterday openly confessed that Russia will bomb Ukrainian cities non-stop to force Ukrainian population to surrender. Why recognition of Russia as a terrorist state does not follow after this statement? A rhetorical question. For 48 hours, air alarm was on in Kyiv almost non-stop, can you imagine? With drones flying and flying, and shootings against them. The authorities have already warned Kherson residents to leave the city for winter since there would be no electricity, heating and hot water during winter after the last Russian bombing of critical infrustructure. And Russia is definitely preparing this fate for other border cities - Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia, and my native Kyiv. And nobody cares... So thank you for your empathy. During the war, this feature is especially valuable.

Have a good weekend,

Tetiana

Dr. Tetiana Boriak

Doctor of Historical Sciences

Associate Professor, Researcher

History Faculty, Vilnius University

For those of you who are new to Bette Dangerous, here is a compilation I put together from our series with Tetiana. Missing from the list below is the latest one — on the trafficking of children. I have not been able to return to the interview transcripts just yet. But I will.

SLAVA UKRAINI: Exposing a Century of Russian Imperialism

Originally published in Bette Dangerous 19 January 2016

My most powerful reports enter the newsphere on little cat feet.

Their power builds slowly over time. This boutique magazine is small but mighty, read by former prime ministers, US Senators, Oscar-winning filmmakers, veteran actors, politicos, renowned historians, retired journalists, global activists, and you. I’ve boxed above my weight my entire career, which began in the dark ages when men in newsrooms behaved very badly and women like me learned to bob and weave.

I rarely ask for much anymore, because we are all dancing as fast as we can. But today I am asking all of you to share this compilation of reports from our series of interviews with Ukrainian historian Dr. Tetiana Boriak with those in your network.

Each day we wake up to the Kremlin-sponsored reality TV show starring that D-list actor Donald Trump, who pretends each day to vanquish imaginary enemies — All Clickbait Fascism! All the Time! Selling Fear and Despair!

And if we are stuck on that treasony channel, it takes us out of action — and we have so much work to do. That work will look different for each of us, but collectively it adds up.

So I am asking you to please share this post with embedded links below to understand what happened between the Russian imperialists and Ukrainians in the 20th century, so you can spot the repeating patterns today and how every single democratic nation still left on this earth is being targeted.

Everything comes down to what happens between Russia and Ukraine.

Yesterday, as I was writing my report on the Executed Renaissance, I realized that Ukraine should be judge and jury on whether or not Russia should be able to exist in its current form, a decrepit, predatory empire, bringing the free world to its knees through its traitor-proxies and internet tricks.

When you learn about the stunning works of art, literature, films, theater, poetry, and history produced by Ukrainians in just nine years from 1923 to 1932, and how the Russian state methodically and violently tried to erase all memory of these culture bearers, you might take a new interest in Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invaders.

When you learn that the man-made famine began the same year that Stalin canceled Ukraine’s brief period of cultural liberation, that too, will make sense. If people are starving and weak, they cannot resist.

I derive strength from knowing history, and I hope you do, too.

I don’t write these reports to read my own words or hold community meetings to hear my own voice. I write and host meetings with the hope that you will be informed and be able to then inform others.

Billionaires are trying to crush our ability to understand and defend reality.

When we know what came before, we are better able to see through their volcanic lies.

Sharing reports on Ukraine’s century old fight against Russian imperialism is action. Thank you in advance.—Heidi Siegmund Cuda for Bette Dangerous, 19 January 2026

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Bette Dangerous reporting to date with Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak, now a refugee in Lithuania:

****

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More on Tetiana Boriak: refugee from the Russian war, Ukrainian historian, and Doctor of Historical Sciences (Dr. habil.) (2024), PhD in History (2008), Associate Professor, Researcher at History Faculty, Vilnius University (Lithuania). Received her MA in History from Kansas University (Lawrence, KS, 2004–2006). She specializes in Holodomor, Soviet totalitarianism, memory studies and social history. Author of three books, two awards: “Oral History as a Source for Holodomor Studies: Formation of Eyewitness Testimony Collections and their Informative Value” (2024; Research Prize of the Rector of Vilnius University 2024 for “significant research work”); “1933: “Why Are You Still Alive?” (2016; the all-Ukrainian award “the Book of the Year” (2016, nomination “History”, category “Research/Documents”). MSCA4Ukraine (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions for Ukraine) Fellow (2025–2027). In 2013–2014 Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University (Ukrainian Research Institute, Boston, MA). Author of 90 articles of them about 40 articles on Holodomor. In 2010–2017 was an assistant of the journalist, researcher, columnist of the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum in the project of preparation of an English-language book about the Holodomor in Ukraine for a Western audience: “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” (2017; two awards). Host of the historical educational program “History with meat” (2017– February 2022) – about 70 episodes, available on YouTube. Editorial board member of several journals and a member of several historical professional associations. Participated in more than 70 conferences.

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

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A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Her Hot Type column appears in Byline Supplement. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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Registration: Bette’s Book Club with “American Overthrow” author Keir Giles

This week, our Tuesday Happy Hour will be dedicated to our new book club series, Bette’s Book Club.

Our featured author for this month is Keir Giles, who I’m sure many of you read about in my multi-part series on his latest book, American Overthrow, the focus of our Tuesday event.

Here are a few links to bring you up to speed, as well as links where you can buy the book.

To pre-order American Overthrow (Hurst Publishers), follow this link or click this button:

American Overthrow - Amazon Global

To order outside of Amazon, the book is also available from Bookshop:

Bookshop.org - UK/Europe

Bookshop.org - US

American Overthrow worldwide publishing dates:

• September 3, UK and Europe

• November 15; Available for purchase October 15, US

Since Bette Dangerous is now read in more than 100 countries, we will be interviewing the author, and then meeting again once everyone in the club has had a chance to read the book.

Among Keir’s other key books:

• Russia’s War On Everybody

• Who Will Defend Europe?

More on Keir Giles here:

KEIR GILES has advised governments worldwide on the Russian threat. A former senior fellow with Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, he regularly comments for the BBC and international media. His prescient books include Who Will Defend Europe?, a Financial Times Politics Book of the Year.

More about American Overthrow:

AMERICAN OVERTHROW — HAS RUSSIA BROUGHT ABOUT REGIME CHANGE IN THE USA? The maelstrom following Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the US presidency left many bemused and disoriented. But for Russia-watchers, what unfolded was grimly familiar. So many of the Trump administration’s destructive actions have precisely aligned with the Kremlin’s own objectives; and to a startling extent, Trump’s America is beginning to mimic Russia itself.

Abroad, Trump has demanded the annexation of neighbours, and embraced war crimes in Iran and the Caribbean. At home, the war on truth and history, purges and the weaponisation of justice, the deployment of masked federal paramilitaries to the streets of major cities and more all mirror Vladimir Putin’s own consolidation of power. Dismantling obstacles to Russia’s ambitions, whether they threaten Europe or America itself, is a defining feature of Trump’s second presidency. And just like Putin, Trump shows no intention of departing at the end of his presidential term. Keir Giles examines America’s transformation through the prism of Kremlinology. What he reveals should alarm us all.

Quotes on American Overthrow:

‘Keir Giles draws direct parallels between the Trump oligarchy’s consolidation of power in the United States and Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia. This is not a bizarre or far-fetched comparison, and it should make readers of all political persuasions think twice about American politics.’—ANNE APPLEBAUM, author of Autocracy, Inc.

‘As Keir Giles makes abundantly clear in this expertly written and insightful book, Donald Trump’s political template is Vladimir Putin’s.’—FIONA HILL, former US National Security Council advisor

‘Giles highlights Kremlin method in Trump’s madness. A must-read.’—EDWARD LUCAS, former senior editor, The Economist

‘A meticulous forensic examination of how the Trump administration’s objectives precisely match those of the Kremlin.’—TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES, former president of Estonia

‘For the last decade, I’ve chronicled how Moscow cultivated Donald Trump as an intelligence asset. In American Overthrow, Keir Giles—a Russia specialist at Chatham House—takes that story into the second Trump administration, where the payoff for Russia is finally revealed.

By assembling the scattered scandals of the Trump era into a single, coherent, and chilling whole, Giles does what the daily flood of headlines cannot: he shows how Trump doesn’t merely emulate Russia but often outdoes it—creating his own set of “alternative facts,” activating masked paramilitaries, threatening neighboring allies, and consolidating power in the hands of his billionaire friends.

The picture that emerges—a fractured Europe, a hobbled NATO, a White House at war with its own intelligence agencies—amounts to dividends beyond Putin’s wildest dreams. This is the rare book that says exactly what has happened: Russia has effected regime change in the United States with the active support of millions of Americans—and most of them still don’t even know it.’—CRAIG UNGER, author of House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat.

Looking forward to seeing many of you on Tuesday as we discuss this very important and timely work.

New members: keep scrolling all the way to the bottom of the post to find our zoom registration link.

Thankful to all of you who have stood beside me as I do this work and continued your support since Bette’s launch nearly four years ago.

Subscribe now

****

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while being supported by your memberships.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with your networks

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. A No. 1 Amazon best-selling author and award-winning film director, Cuda writes the Hot Type column in Byline Times, an independent UK-newspaper. She executed produced the film Kherson: Human Safari. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism and culture reporting.

🤍

🤍

REGISTER HERE FOR BETTE’S BOOK CLUB WITH KEIR GILES

Read more

Subscribe now

Author’s note: I am honored to introduce the Bette Dangerous community to David Colon, a French historian, researcher, author, and specialist in the fight against interference and manipulation of information (FIMI). I often report on the frontline states that successfully pushback on Russian interference and Colon is allowing me to crosspost his recent Substack post inspired by what Lithuania is doing to combat information interference. Bette Dangerous pages are filled with reports on fighting active measures from Estonia, Georgia, Romania, Croatia, and Lithuania, including an interview with Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former foreign affairs minister of Lithuania and former member of European Parliament, whose family has a history of battling Russian aggression.

In today’s guest post, Colon offers inspiration from what he calls the Lithuanian model, which features a ‘whole of society’ approach to thwarting interference. It should be noted that Tetiana Boriak, the Ukrainian historian leading our series on a century of Russian imperialism, now lives in Lithuania as a refugee. Although Colon wrote his post as an instructive essay on how Lithuania can inform France, I am crossposting his words today here in Bette, because I believe his assessment of Lithuania’s model can help to inform the remaining free world.—hsc

France should draw inspiration from the Lithuanian model for combating information interference

The land of the “elves” and “sprites” has made the fight against Kremlin “trolls” a national priority involving the entirety of civil society

Guest post by David Colon, originally published 30 August 2026, translated from French to English

David Colon Substack

I travelled to Vilnius this weekend at the invitation of the Institut Français to participate in a round table on disinformation with Michael Butter, a German specialist on conspiracy theories. It was my first visit to Lithuania, a country that has been under constant informational pressure from Russia since its independence in 1991, and finds itself more than ever on the front line in the fight against the disinformation and propaganda of the Kremlin and its Belarusian ally.

In their recent threat assessment, the two Lithuanian services, the AOTD (Intelligence of Defence Intelligence and Security) and the VSD (State Security Department), report an intensification of threats, ranging from the violation of airspace by Russian drones and information operations to cyberattacks and the activities of hostile intelligence services^[1].

On the very day I left, rumours of an imminent Russian attack on Lithuania were swirling on X-Twitter and on the LCI set. Yet, upon my arrival, I felt no particular stress from my Lithuanian counterparts, who were surprised and even amused by the sudden anxiety of those very people who for a decade had ignored their warnings about the Russian and Belarusian threat. The explanation for this discrepancy in perception can be summed up in one word, which I heard constantly in Vilnius and read in reports on the Lithuanian model. That word is resilience, in other words, the physical and mental robustness of a society in the face of a crisis. Lithuania has indeed acquired a level of resilience that France, from my point of view, does not have, so much so that the slightest bit of fake content from Matryoshka is enough to agitate our media-political bubble for entire days.

France, it is true, suffers from many structural factors known to hinder resilience, namely societal polarisation, the predominance of populist discourse, low trust in the media, the fragility of public service media, and the intensive and uncritical use of social networks^[2]. By contrast, Lithuania, while experiencing some of these factors – it is a “Facebook country” – has long and successfully pursued the only known strategy to strengthen resilience, namely the adoption of a comprehensive response involving the whole of society (Whole of Society Approach). In recent years, France has devised a highly effective state strategy to combat information manipulation, but it still struggles to mobilise companies, NGOs, and citizens to join its efforts. This is why it remains useful, if not essential, to turn our eyes towards Vilnius.

The first thing that struck me in Lithuania is how well ‘Russian trolling’ is known there, and has been for a long time. In the Bernardine Garden, I met up with Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė, the director-general of the public broadcaster LRT, which organises and broadcasts the round table as part of the ‘Būtent! Festival’. In 2016, while a journalist for the Baltic media outlet Delfi, she was already teaching her readers how to spot an Internet troll^[3].

Since then, the campaigns to educate people on how to detect disinformation led by Delfi have not ceased. Its director, Viktoras Daukšas, founded the NGO Debunk.org in 2019, focused on applied research to combat disinformation. Debunk offers a course on civic resilience, InfoShield, designed to help citizens ‘discern credible sources, evaluate content and understand the impact of context’, as well as an in-depth online course for analysts and disinformation experts.

Recently, it partnered with the channel LRT to investigate disinformation actors on Facebook. The organisation produces more than 100 reports and articles per year thanks to its team of analysts and more than 200 active volunteers. Among them, those known as the “elves” specialise in fact-checking. However, more than by the elves, it is by the “elves” that the Lithuanian model is most distinguished.

Created in 2014 by Ričardas Savukynas, this vast network of volunteers, which is said to number 5,000 members today, is dedicated to “hunting Russian trolls”, unmasking them, refuting narratives hostile to Lithuania and thus contributing to their country’s counter-interference capabilities as well as to society’s resilience by developing citizens’ ability to detect trolls.

France has experienced something comparable with the Katiba des Narvalos, a collective of citizens that has been fighting against jihadist activities on social media since 2015, but it must be noted that we are currently sorely lacking an army of volunteer elves on X to flush out and counter foreign trolls as the presidential elections approach. And that it would not be useless to develop the ability of internet users to identify them, for example by adapting the excellent online quiz into French — https://spotthetroll.org/ — from Clemson University.

In Lithuania, as in Ukraine or Taiwan, the action of civil society has preceded that of the State, which consequently does not hesitate to rely on it without necessarily seeking to control it. It also does not hesitate to support it with grants aimed at strengthening citizen resilience: in 2024, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence allocated 600,000 euros to fund projects led by NGOs^[4].

The Lithuanian community engaged in the fight against interference is therefore particularly robust and plays an important role in raising public awareness and immunising it against malicious informational attacks. For example, the Civic Resilience Initiative (CRI), founded in 2018 by experts in media literacy, disinformation and civic engagement, offers workshops, conferences and training. In 2021, this NGO contributed significantly to the analysis of the instrumentalisation of illegal migrants by the Belarusian regime. Since then, it has precisely mapped the disinformation landscape in the Baltic states, published media monitoring reports, organised workshops for journalists and teachers, while using games as part of a prebunking.

Where France seems to rely primarily on media and information literacy in the classroom, the initiatives of Lithuanian NGOs make it possible to reach audiences that are often difficult to reach, such as the elderly. In 2022, for example, the DIGIRES project was launched by universities, media outlets, and independent journalists; it develops methodologies and media literacy courses to enable citizens to learn for themselves how to identify and analyse disinformation. Finally, in 2024, the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University created the Centre for Research on Communicational Influences and Propaganda, which produces expertise and analyses on disinformation for a wide audience.

Nothing illustrates the close cooperation between the Lithuanian state and civil society better than the fact that NGOs and universities take part every week in the Strategic Communications Coordination Working Group, convened by the National Crisis Management Centre created in 2023 under the authority of the Prime Minister. The group coordinates monitoring, relying on the DISARM matrix (https://alliance4europe.eu/project/disarm-framework), evaluates the severity of information threats, and determines appropriate responses. It is capable of mobilising NGOs and volunteers at any time to relay strategic communication because, as the excellent Lithuanian expert writes, Nerijus Maliukevičius, the StratCom community “ was formed spontaneously and brings together people from state bodies, NGOs and academia”^[5]. It promotes, he adds, “the exchange of knowledge, experience and personnel, allowing a “more agile, rapid and effective response to crises”. Finally, as in the other Baltic countries, the fight against disinformation has been established in Lithuania as a national priority, and as a major strategic issue, to the point of integrating disinformation into its crisis exercises.

Lithuania is undoubtedly emerging as a leader in the fight against the information interference of the Kremlin and its allies. Since 2014, it has successfully developed innovative response strategies based on a global and multidimensional societal approach and citizen engagement, whereas for the time being, France relies mainly on state action.

In 2023, Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland published the “Disinformation Resilience” report within the framework of the Lublin Triangle. Written by civil society organisations, it highlights the need for international collaboration to counter Russian propaganda and preserve democratic values^[6].

In my view, this collaboration should primarily be one of civil society, NGOs, journalists, and researchers, and it is more urgent than ever to build a StratCom community on an international scale to coordinate the fight against the interference campaigns of the Kremlin and its allies. Here again, we can count on the pioneering role of Baltic NGOs: Debunk.org is currently developing FIMI STREAM, an artificial intelligence-based risk management platform for information-related threats, which will automate the collection, analysis and structuring of research on FIMI and disinformation, by producing and structuring data that can be integrated into the threat analysis systems commonly used by institutions^[7].

The strength of the Lithuanian model lies in reinforcing democratic systems in the face of hybrid threats, in line with what Finnish expert Mikael Wigell called “democratic deterrence” in 2021^[8]. The Kremlin’s only real strength is having learned how to exploit our democratic weaknesses. If we manage to strengthen the robustness and resilience of our societies, our democratic and liberal values will once again become assets and tools to deter hybrid aggressors.—David Colon, 30 August 2026

^[1] Defense intelligence and security service under the ministry of national defense, State security department of the Republic of Lithuania, 2026 National Threat Assesment

^[2] Edda Humprecht, Frank Esser and Peter Van Aelst, “Resilience to Online Disinformation: A Framework for Cross-National Comparative Research,” The International Journal of Press/Politics 25, No. 3 (July 2020)

^[3] M. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė, « Atpažink Kremliaus trolį », Delfi, 30 June 2016

^[4] Johannes Lindgren, James Pamment, Angela Palmer, Sanda Svetoka, Elīna Lange-Ionatamišvili, Countering Information Influence Operations in the Nordic-Baltic Region, Nato StratCom COE, Riga, January 2026, p. 38

^[5] Nerijus Maliukevičius, “Fortifying Democracies: Lithuania’s Comprehensive Approach to Counter Disinformation and Propaganda”, Expert Grup, 2024, p. 4

^[6] https://ukraineun.org/mail-sub/en/press-center/627-the-presentation-of-the-joint-report-resilience-to-disinformation-lublin-triangle-perspective-press-release/

^[7] https://www.debunk.org/projects/fimi-stream

^[8] Wigell, M. (2021). Democratic Deterrence : How to Dissuade Hybrid Interference. The Washington Quaterly, 44(1), 49-67.

DAVID COLON is a teacher and researcher at Sciences Po Paris. A specialist in the history of media and mass communication, he is the author of two award-winning books, Propagande (Flammarion, 2021) and La Guerre de information (Texto, 2025). Strongly committed to the fight against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), he is a member of the steering committee of Reporters Without Border’s Propaganda Monitor, and of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Information Integrity.

David Colon Substack

****

2016 Election Attack — The Book!

American Monsters — The Book — Buy Here!

Donations Welcome

****

Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members.

I expose the corruption of billionaire fascists, while relying on memberships for support.

Thank you in advance for considering the following:

• Upgrade to Paid Member

• Upgrade to Founding Member

• Gifting memberships

• Share my reporting with allies

• Buying my ebooks

• Donating to the ko-fi fund or directly to venmo

Heidi’s Ko-Fi Fund

Heidi’s Venmo

A private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹

More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

🤍

🤍

Subscribe now

Read more