Bette’s Weekly Roundup - Buckle Up!
Fasten your seatbelts, loves…
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What a joy watching the traitors run out of plot lines. As Julia Davis informs us, now that Putin has been humiliated on the world stage by being called out for trafficking children, the Kremlin propagandists are defaulting to nuclear war-mongering.
As if.
Putin and the Pickled Oligarchs launder all their money in the West so unless they want to detonate bombs on their own stuff, good luck with that.
Besides, this is just the beginning of Putin’s craftily curated image being blown up in front of the world. As I wrote in today’s Byline Supplement investigation, which pinned much of the anti-science disinformation on the Russian Federation and Fifth Column traitors - people are waking up from their stupor and realizing the undue influence they’ve been under is why their beloveds are dead.
Before I jump into the Best of Bette roundup - the one email I recommend you read each week if you don’t have time to review my daily reporting - here are a couple of quick notes:
As the events of coming days unfold, I want you to remember Timothy Snyder’s lessons from On Tyranny:
No. 18 - Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives
‘Day Old McDonald’ Trump is trying to stir up more violence. Judging by his desperado ‘victim’ pleas for cash and the thin crowds at CPAC his cult has waned. Keep calm and carry on, regardless.
No. 20 - Be As Courageous As You Can
As Bette always says - stay kind, stay focused, stay loud. These brutes will go back behind the curtain and try all kinds of funny business, but thanks to communities like ours, we see them for who and what they are. Be among the loud and courageous.
A quick note about my attacks, and why I have to keep likes/comments turned off until Substack patches its vulnerabilities: I turned over files regarding domestic and foreign internet terrorists and contract workers that terrorize me and others to intelligence agents and a non-profit that takes legal action against criminal online hate. I am pleased to say investigations are under way.
Scheisseminelli, let’s roll!
The Best of Bette for this week:
How Russia Joined With Anti-Vaxxers to Wage Biological Warfare by Proxy Against the West
Just read it. Every word. Please share it with everyone you love - whether in the cult or not. I painstakingly pieced together the events of the last few years that reveal the plot to kill people by Putin, Trump, and the CNP. That is not hyperbole. Ruth Ben-Ghiat taught me not to ‘memory hole’ any of this, so I went back in time and pulled up all the evidence to reveal that the loss of lives during the pandemic due to the onslaught of disinformation and malinformation was just collateral damage to the fossilized set’s desire to not depress the price/sale of oil.
According to Brent Allpress:
“I would argue that the motivation for downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic and obstructing lockdown measures was driven by a concern that any reduction in mobility would lower the demand for petrol and diesel, depressing the crude oil price,” said Allpress, whose open source research revealed the members of the extremist dark money group, Council for National Policy.
“I sourced a letter from former Vice President Mike Pence to the Council for National Policy, dated March 30, 2020, and provided it to the Centre for Media and Democracy,” he said. “In the letter Pence thanked the CNP for their support and ‘for consistently amplifying the agenda of President Trump and our administration’ on the ‘coronavirus pandemic’. We know from Bob Woodward's interview with Trump on March 19, 2020, featured in his book Rage, that Trump's agenda at the time was to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic.”
The quote from Rage is as follows: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Coronavirus disinformation campaigns served vested US and Russian oil interests, Allpress told Byline Supplement.
As I wrote in the report: “It is as if the people of the West are merely experiments in devious plots by billionaires.”
Here’s another excerpt:
Western leaders must unite against disinformation, just like former leaders united people against long ago threats.
In 1946, President Harry Truman declared polio a threat to the United States and he called on Americans to do everything they could to unite to combat it:
"The fight against infantile paralysis cannot be a local war. It must be nationwide. It must be total war in every city, town and village throughout the land. For only with a united front can we ever hope to win any war."
The West needs that type of leadership once again if we ever hope to win any war – whether in our minds or on the battlefield.
Please read the full report at Byline Supplement, and please stop and take out a membership. You will be supporting a small team of vital investigative reporters, and we are reader-funded so your membership dollars really matter, as they do right here at Bette Dangerous.
Hopium for the Masses - And Mebbe a Perp Walk
I took the advice of Bette community member Lor and found an inexpensive way to pamper myself yesterday with a spa soak, and right in the middle of said pampering, I got a breaker from Marty. I found the last chair in the quiet room and whipped out the above piece on my phone.
Here’s an excerpt:
According to RadPod financial correspondent and retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil:
“Trump will not allow himself to be ‘Perp Walked’, although I would pay money to see that.”
Sheil is referring to the breaker that NYPD and federal agents are planning for possible Trump charges in Manhattan.
By now, you’ve heard the news that New York’s preparing charges, and ‘Day Old McDonald’ Trump is trying to stir up his second insurrection.
If we get a perp walk, I promised a party at my crib, with HiFi supplying the drinks. True story.
Paid members: Marty is our guest at the next ‘Speakeasy’ Zoom on 3/26. Your chance to meet the legend and ask him questions about Trump. If you are not yet a paid member, c’mon mang, now’s the time. Annual rate discount here.
Warrant for Putin’s Arrest - ‘The Execution Depends on International Cooperation’
I do love my double entendres.
So anyone following the plot knows that Putin and Fifth Column extremists generally project so the fact that the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin and his Orwellian cohort for child trafficking is both awful and brilliant. Awful because Putin is following in a long line of dictators who steal children from other countries, but brilliant, because Putin’s been exposed as being the worst kind of criminal - the kind that get shivved in prison.
Just a little comfort food for those of us who endure online terrorism. I document examples of foreign and domestic criminals who are in prison for harassment campaigns, as well as report on the stiffening of laws globally to address online abuse in a meaningful way.
And one correction: I updated the copy to identify Brenda Leyland as the Twitter abuser who took her own life rather than be exposed as the troll who stalked the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann.
‘The Cost of Lies’ - Deflating the Cult of Unreality
I feel like the proud den mother of a group of anti-fascists who are really getting it. I see you online proselytizing and synthesizing what we learn from Bette and the minds of the great historians, disinformation researchers, and philosophers who I report on in this fight. We are making a difference. Even if it’s just one person at a time, we are making a difference.
Part of what I do here is puncture their narratives. Peel away the flag and the propaganda, and you find a Kremlin stooge stooging.
An excerpt:
“What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.”-Chernobyl series, HBO
We were too accepting of the lies. We didn’t know in 2016 that lying was the message - a drip drip drip distortion of truth, a twisting of reality, drip drip drip. We never had a presidential candidate lie and lie and lie - as he was building a Cult of Unreality.
His only qualification was being on TV. For millions, that was enough.
We have to stiffen our spines against these stooges, and realize these lies are designed to destroy reality. It’s not our place to debunk, it’s our place to point out they are using lies to try to misshape reality to destroy democracy.
Together, we must show the true motivation.
As I wrote:
It is well past time to go on offense, and put the fascists on their back foot for a change.
If our Justice Department is going to lolligag and flifferfluff from making high level arrests, then it’s up to us to go straight Monkey Wrench Gang on these fascists, and throw sand in their metaphorical tanks.
We expose their techniques, punching up at all times, deflating the cult, and watching them fall.
Victimhood - The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel
This is where I am most proud of everybody. You all now see how ‘victimhood’ is their default.
I have been exposing the main big tent draw of the extremist carnies formerly known as the GOP - victimhood.
If we accomplish nothing else, letting folks in on this trick is absolutely devastating the fascists. They have nowhere to go without it. Keep up the great work. I see you. 💘
Love Thy Neighbor - It’s All Our Fight
The GOP is engaged in a massive criminal cover up. The GOP is anti-American.
In this excerpt, I wrote:
Consider the evidence: while Congress is staging theatre craft as distraction, bills are making their way through statehouses that are taking us back in time, in the wrong direction, to a world that the majority of Americans do not want.
There is a war against LGBTQ+ people in America, and my readers know that is a war on everybody. If we allow one group to be othered, then it’s lights out for democracy. Just as Putin won’t stop in Ukraine, domestic extremists won’t stop at one out group.
For America to survive, we must choose love. We must be willing to fight for love.
The Desperate Hours - The GOP Is a Criminal Organization
Some of the great mentors in my life were members of the Republican party. They each would be turning over in their graves if they saw it now.
I know I have inherited former conservatives who are now politically homeless. I ask you to please let go of the nostalgia for what was, and except the reality of what is.
“There is no more Republican party of the kind that once existed… and future historians will look back in horror at the moral failings.”-Nancy MacLean, professor and author, Democracy In Chains - Ep19 RadPod
We have an opportunity that we have never had before - a party that is splintering. The GOP doomed itself when it stood-by Trump. They deserve what they have coming.
The Party Formerly Known As the GOP wrote its own obituary when it chose a Russian stooge over country. Something about taxes and judges. F**k ‘em.
Daring Greatly - A Tribute to the Brave
I once touched the heart of my favorite punk guitarist, Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise. I was backstage at the Smoke Out, and the South Bay legends were about to perform. Fletcher said, ‘Touch my heart.’ And I did. It was beating a million miles a minute. I was confused. Guys like him make me big and strong, their words are my marching orders.
He told me, “I get scared every time.”
I said, “But Fletcher, it’s your songs that help me stay strong.”
He said, “Heidi, we write those songs for us - we get scared.”
And then he saddled up anyway, walked on stage and blew everyone’s mind.
Knowing that the guys that make me big and strong get scared too made me a better fighter. I am f**king scared of everything, but gaddam right I saddle up.
So I wrote this post for me, to keep myself walking through the fire.
Daring greatly, neither timid or cold, we continue.
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Alright, let Mavis Staples take us out.
We’ve got work to do, y’all.
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Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members. Thank you as well to all those who support my work with your generous coffee tips and who buy my ebooks. A private link to group activist discounts available upon request.
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. 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.
Save the date! The next Bette Dangerous ‘Speakeasy’ Zoom for paid members is Sunday, March 26, 4 pm PT. I have invited retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil, who will answer your questions about Trump. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining. You will receive invites, access to all archives, and author chat threads. Please subscribe here:
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“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, that can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member
