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“It is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton.”—“Secured Borders Facebook Group”, a fake US page run from St. Petersburg, Russia, 9.14.2016
“… (a) particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote for Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL.”—“Woke Blacks,” St. Petersburg, Russia, a fake Black Instagram account, 10.16.2016
“Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”—“Blacktivist”, St. Petersburg, Russia, a fake Black Instagram account, one of thousands of pro-Jill Stein messages posted by the Russian lie factory in the days before the election. Votes for Stein lost Hillary the election
“More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans. They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners… Over the 18 months that followed, Russia’s troll factories and its military intelligence service put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement…”—New York Times, 9.18.2022
"We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.”—Stephen Hawking, 2017
“All of this suggests (Biden’s) economy is very healthy. In order to somehow spur the society when the economy is obviously booming, it is necessary to create a perceivable threat.”—Russian dossier, Doppelganger affidavit
First, just breathe.
Let’s take a collective 30 seconds to just breathe.
It’s a lot. It’s important to acknowledge that.
It’s a bit easier for those of us who don’t have televisions. I can only imagine the anxiety spikes as the sludge of disinformation, obfuscation, normalization and/or panic gets pumped into one’s sphere.
Homes should be sacred spaces, and I have spoken with many people who have not turned on news since Tuesday two weeks ago. I read my news intake, but I do see the cable lowlights on social media, and I am currently seeing reality show kayfabe between Elon Musk and Trump. Do not engage. That’s a distraction, and distractions will not save us.
Truth and Unity
I learned two important lessons in 2016, in the aftermath of the greatest crime in US history, a crime still not properly investigated that led us to the precipice of a fascist takeover.
The first lesson came from a Romanian friend, who I met in the early days of the Resistance, when we were still meeting underground.
He told me: “It starts with the silencing of truth.”
He told me what it was like to grow up whispering in his own home, and how his family had a hidden radio where they listened to Voice of America.
The Second Lesson — Divided We Fall
The second lesson came from a friend who came of age in Manhattan during the Civil Rights era.
He said divide and conquer is an old trick, and divided we will fall. He is a Black man now in his ‘70s, and I have never forgotten his words.
I have tried to pour love through these typing fingers, even when I wanted to hate.
Hate is too great a burden to bear, and it’s unnaturally ginned up in times like these.
That is why I ask you to be leery when you see people/accounts/bots trying to divide us against one another.
This fight is not between right and left, or black and white, or insert religion here and here.
Our fight is between those who still understand reality and those who are living in alternate realities created for them by political technologists aligned with authoritarians in order to make foot soldiers for fascism.
The amount of money spent to twist people’s minds away from their own democratic governance is of Godzilla scale and global — billions of dollars on code delivered through humans who know what they’re doing and know who they serve.
What sounds weird to fact-based people are actually time-tested narratives, deployed for their efficacy in creating environments where people overthrow their own democratic governance.
Those of us who have been fighting for reality’s very survival are literally going up against the might of hostile foreign powers aligned with US oligarchs — foreign- and domestic-born, white and Christian supremacists, as well as fossil fuel-funded fascists.
We will not survive a world that is ruled by liars.
As I have told you many times, the criminals are still criminals. Despite what happened two weeks ago in the US, that fact has not changed. Trump is still a convicted felon aligned with a criminal network.
It is also important to understand that no one voted for Elon Musk and the majority of eligible voters did not vote for Trump/Vance — about 38 percent of eligible voters — 90 million people — didn’t bother to vote at all.
Trump received less than 32 percent of all eligible voters.
Please keep that in mind.
When I walk outside, I know that three of four people in my community voted for President Harris.
I do not see my neighbors as the enemy.
In addition, I have co-hosted and co-produced a show about disinformation for three years now, and I know that no one brainwashes themselves.
Blue-collar people voting for billionaires to deliver them austerity only makes sense in a brainwashed and traumatized world.
The amount of people willing to take small amounts of cash to traumatize journalists is just one small piece of this very large and complex assault on truth.
The best thing I can do is keep trying to pound the truth home.
And once you know the plays it makes it easier to help others see how false divisions are created.
So, I am sure you all are seeing a lot of social media intended to further racial division in America. So I need to remind you how our unhealed traumas enable hostile foreign powers to harm us by wedging us apart. We must be smarter and more vigilant this time around.
How Russians Destroyed the Women’s March
The good people of this world are ready to march, and when they do, they must understand the importance of solidarity.
I went to the Women’s March on January 21, 2017 — it was one of the most beautiful days in history. But we failed to protect its legacy. We allowed St. Petersburg desk yobs to destroy our sacred movement, and they did it in days.
“Linda Sarsour awoke on Jan. 23, 2017, logged onto the internet, and felt sick.
“The weekend before, she had stood in Washington at the head of the Women’s March, a mobilization against President Donald J. Trump that surpassed all expectations. Crowds had begun forming before dawn, and by the time she climbed up onto the stage, they extended farther than the eye could see. More than four million people around the United States had taken part, experts later estimated. But then something shifted, seemingly overnight. What she saw on Twitter that Monday was a torrent of focused grievance that targeted her…
“More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.
“They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners…
“Over the 18 months that followed, Russia’s troll factories and its military intelligence service put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement…One hundred and fifty-two different Russian accounts produced material about Ms. Sarsour…
“Many people know the story about how the Women’s March movement fractured, leaving lasting scars on the American left…”
We were denied our historic movement — tainted by the lie factory, and we were too ready to believe the worst about women — always ready to shoot our own.
Allow me to repeat that:
We were denied our historic movement — tainted by the lie factory, and we were too ready to believe the worst about women — always ready to shoot our own.—Heidi Siegmund Cuda for Bette Dangerous
How Russians Destroyed Hillary Clinton
We did the same to Hillary Clinton, who was voted the most popular politician by the American people in 2013 — more popular than Obama, Biden, and McCain. But in 2011, as Secretary of State, she asked the international community to support an investigation into Putin’s fraudulent election.
In 2014, spies were sent to America to report back to the Kremlin our weaknesses — racism, misogyny, among them.
By 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first politician to be virtually assassinated in cyberspace.
Here is a report on the examples of how this was done.
“It is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton.”—Secured Borders Facebook Group, St. Petersburg, Russia, 9.14.2016
“… (a) particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote for Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL.”—“Woke Blacks,” a St. Petersburg, Russia, Instagram account, 10.16.2016
“Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”—“Blacktivist”, a St. Petersburg, Russia, Instagram account, one of thousands of pro-Jill Stein messages posted by the Russian lie factory in the days before the election. Votes for Stein lost Hillary the election
I put on my emotional hazmat suit and returned to the scene of the crime — social media 2016, as explained in granular detail in Robert Mueller’s indictment of Russian spies and the Internet Research Agency, the Russian influence operation that employed workers operating around the clock to impact the 2016 US presidential election. They butchered reality, hacking the minds of millions of unwitting Americans.
Among the Russian-organized protests identified by Mueller’s team: a march attended by thousands of people organized by the IRA in New York City.
Among the details of that march to Trump Tower on Nov. 12, 2016:
It was organized by the Facebook page — “BlackMattersUS” — created by the St. Petersburg, Russia, operatives to exploit racial tensions between black and white Americans.
The event was shared with 61,000 users.
The Mueller report exposed how Trump campaign officials and proxies pushed Russian intelligence messages on Twitter and Facebook, fanning the Kremlin-state sponsored lies in their hacking of American minds.
St. Petersburg, Russia, 2015 — ‘That feeling from the Soviet times’
They looked like young professionals — hip, tech savvy 20-somethings — punching a clock at 55 Savushkina Street, where they were paid to make up and promote lies.
“I immediately felt like a character in the book 1984 by George Orwell — a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white. Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line.”—a former lie factory worker told the Washington Post
Another lie factory worker described a middle manager, who ran around the office with his belly out loudly dangling keys. He said he knew he was in trouble when he was listening to a meeting where he was getting his lying instructions and realized that he no longer cared about truth.
One Russian internet activist — who spent two months working for the IRA — wants people to know that the Russian people are also casualties of information warfare:
"For the public, it is harmful because we are being brainwashed. We won't be able to understand what is really happening. We are put against one another, and we are sliding back into the old ways when we were searching for the enemy among us — our friends and colleagues. That feeling from the Soviet times — I can feel it everywhere."—Lyudmila Savchuk
For Lyudmila Savchuk, who sued the IRA over labor laws forcing documentation to prove it even existed, the reality distortion in Russia is omnipresent — every printed truth is scarred by paid liars.
"It's like half the country is trolls,” she said.
When she read the 37-page Mueller indictment, her response was dismay. She said there were hundreds of people working at the IRA — only 13 were indicted.
My response to the Mueller indictment was quite different. I watched the February 16, 2018 press conference and sobbed. Finally, all Americans would see what I’d been reporting was right — they’d been had.
Isn’t it pretty to think so…
Trump and the Kremlin worked to diffuse the seriousness of the Mueller indictment, but do recall it was a full-service lie factory, complete with Russian spies who traveled to the US illegally in 2014 to gather intel on our weaknesses and triggers — racism, misogyny, religious extremism, government distrust — and then targeted us with our own insecurities — aiming squarely at purple states and anywhere they could encourage us to destroy ourselves from within.
The lie factory had language instructors, polishing trolls.
The Translator Project
Although the lie factory also targeted Russians and Ukrainians, the ‘Translator Project’ was dedicated to attacking Americans.
Set up in 2014 to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, the employees used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to wage information warfare against the US.
Object of the Conspiracy: “Defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 presidential election.”
Defendants tracked and studied us.
“Specialists” working day and night shifts, created 100s of social media accounts.
To mask fraud, Defendants used stolen identities to open Paypal accounts.
The employees were told to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary.”
It’s important to note the IT department purchased server space inside the US to set up VPNs.
Among the hashtags started by the Russian operation: #Hillary4Prison, and the Facebook group Secured Borders was admonished for having too few Hillary hate posts and it’s administrator was told “it is imperative to intensity criticizing Hillary Clinton.”
On page 18 of the indictment we learn that a St. Petersburg-operated Instagram account called “Woke Blacks” posted this message on October 16, 2016:
“… (a) particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote for Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils. Then we’d surely be better off without voting AT ALL.”
We also learn that the Russians purchased an ad on an Instagram account called “Blacktivist” that read:“Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”
Trust me smh. Celebrities ranging from Sarah Silverman to Trevor Noah retweeted fake Black accounts from Russia.
I know it’s hard to revisit this stuff, but if we don’t, how can we ever psychologically prepare ourselves for the onslaught of lies to come?
We, who have not lost touch with reality, have to hold the line, and it is our duty to find the strength of character to not abandon people who’ve succumbed to alternate realities — many have been coerced to live in alternate realities due to their internal trauma being targeted to their exact specifications. These digital trails people leave throughout cyberspace are being then weaponized to mind hack them.
How Russians Destroyed Joe Biden
I ask you to join me in revisiting what the Russians did to us to deny our reality of Joe Biden’s successful economy, as I reported here:
The saddest page came toward the end of the Russian dossier — when it became clear the Russians knew how America was thriving under Biden, how he’d saved the economy and in their words, “fed the rednecks.” So the Russians looked for proxy wars that could fool us into disparaging the best president in my lifetime, metaphorically kicking him to the curb. They denied us our own success story. And for that, I will continue to rage against the Russian machine until all that is left of the Kremlin is a crater and a lone wooden signpost bearing these words:
“For Crimes Against Humanity.”
See the screenshot I included above:
“… all of this suggests that the economy is very healthy.
In order to somehow spur the society when the economy is obviously booming, it is necessary to create a perceivable threat. The missiles in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela are a bit ridiculous because they bump against the Americans' technological disregard for Russia. The statement about the owner of a gas station with a nuclear bomb is very telling, and, in fact, very close to reality. The regime in Nicaragua very shortly could become a victim of either a military coup or a special operation by American commandos. In any case, these are the territories where we play on someone else's field. But does it make sense to play on someone else's field when there is a partner who is ready to play himself? A partner who needs to win the election and to fit in the concept of the current national and historical development.”
Do you notice that unusual silence? What we no longer hear or see in the news?
Yes, so do I. Tragic and more tragic.
Global Warming Reality
"We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.”—Stephen Hawking, 2017
I’m a fan of physics. I believe in science.
This new axis of evil that has formed is centered around petrol states. This, in a time of global warming, when renewables should be every nation’s priority.
So I ask you to see beyond the cruelty and distraction, the bread and circus, to the urgency of the crisis of billionaires running politicians and the dangers that poses to not only civilians in these countries but to humanity as a whole.
The fight ahead is greater than us. It’s about the very survival of our planet and all living things.
We need a united front. We need solidarity. We are going to need what is left of the Republican party to join us to defeat the MAGA fascist-Putin alliance.
The first thing you must avoid is self-cyborgization — do not get lost in the code. As Timothy Snyder says, there is nothing more lonely or sad than real people reacting to code.
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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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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Reality: Women’s March January 21, 2017, photo Wikipedia
Bill Barr has so much to answer for, his criminal misrepresentation of the Mueller Report is still reverberating as the other clowns amplified it- and now pretend it's a dead issue and said the opposite of what it did. What Frank LaRose did with twisting our OH anti gerrymandering amendment was probably inspired by this. The lies keep getting bolder and a third of our country either doesn't know or doesn't care 💔
Heidi, I am in awe of you- the amount of work you have put into exposing these corrupt networks should inspire everyone. Proud to support Bette Dangerous.
Bill Barr has so much to answer for, his criminal misrepresentation of the Mueller Report is still reverberating as the other clowns amplified it- and now pretend it's a dead issue and said the opposite of what it did. What Frank LaRose did with twisting our OH anti gerrymandering amendment was probably inspired by this. The lies keep getting bolder and a third of our country either doesn't know or doesn't care 💔
Heidi, I am in awe of you- the amount of work you have put into exposing these corrupt networks should inspire everyone. Proud to support Bette Dangerous.