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Ukraine’s Propaganda War: International PR Firms, DC Lobbyists and CIA Cutouts

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Since the Russian offensive inside Ukraine commenced on February 24, the Ukrainian military has cultivated the image of a plucky little army standing up to the Russian Goliath. To bolster the perception of Ukrainian military mettle, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.

The campaign includes language guides, key messages, and hundreds of propaganda posters, some of which contain fascist imagery and even praise Neo-Nazi leaders.

Behind Ukraine’s public relations effort is an army of foreign political strategists, Washington DC lobbyists, and a network of intelligence-linked media outlets.

Ukraine’s propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, “They are really excellent in stratcom — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.” The Post ultimately conceded that “Western officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.”
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The Making of Lina Hidalgo: From Democratic Party Nursery to Omicron Hysteria Queen

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On the afternoon of December 20, Harris County, Texas’s top elected official, Judge Lina Hidalgo held a press conference to announce what she claimed was the county’s first death from the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It was a moment in the national spotlight for the 30-year-old Democrat, who, since her teenage years, has been rising through elite institutions and forging ties with the national security state. Those connections, and her close ties to a highly-sophisticated billionaire influence operation, revealed in detail in this investigation, would prove to be vital in shaping Hidalgo’s formulation of COVID-19 and other policies.

“We just had our first Omicron related death,” she announced as groans and gasps erupted from behind masks. Hidalgo then declared she was once again raising Harris County’s COVID Threat Level – a color-coded system borrowed from the Bush-era Terror Alert Warning System – to Orange, the second highest level of alarm. Despite Omicron’s mild symptoms, Hidalgo urged the public to get booster shots, portraying them as the only way to prevent a surge of hospitalizations that would break the back of the healthcare system. “We don’t know how many of those breakthrough cases will end up turning into hospitalizations. We do know that the vaccine and the booster will keep that number very low, and that is truly our solution,” she said.

Hours later, Hidalgo blasted out a tweet claiming that the dead man hadn’t merely died with Omicron, but that the recently discovered variant was the cause of his death.
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Top New York Times, WaPo Experts Affiliated With Pentagon-Funded CNAS Think Tank

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Imagine a country where there’s no separation between the government, the military, and the media. A lot of Americans would think of China, Russia or North Korea, but it’s a perfect description of the United States today. And here in Washington, the think tank inside this nondescript building – Center For A New American Security (CNAS) – is the clearest example of just that.

CNAS is a premier militarist think tank in the nation’s capital, especially for Democratic Party administrations. It is funded by the State Department and Pentagon and has taken more money from weapons companies over the last several years than any other think tank. On top of that, it’s funded by oil companies, big banks, and right wing governments – basically the most destructive forces on the planet.

For President Joe Biden, CNAS serves as a farm, from which key positions in his administration are cultivated. In fact, at least 16 CNAS alumni are now in key positions in the Biden Pentagon and State Department.
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Behind a Made-for-TV Hong Kong Protest Narrative, Washington is Backing Nativism and Mob Violence

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President Donald Trump tweeted on August 13 that he “can’t imagine why” the United States has been blamed for the chaotic protests that have gripped Hong Kong. 

Trump’s befuddlement might be understandable considering the carefully managed narrative of the US government and its unofficial media apparatus, which have portrayed the protests as an organic “pro-democracy” expression of grassroots youth. However, a look beneath the surface of this oversimplified, made-for-television script reveals that the ferociously anti-Chinese network behind the demonstrations has been cultivated with the help of millions of dollars from the US government, as well as a Washington-linked local media tycoon. 

Since March, raucous protests have gripped Hong Kong. In July and August, these demonstrations transformed into ugly displays of xenophobia and mob violence. 

The protests ostensibly began in opposition to a proposed amendment to the extradition law between Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and Macau, which would have allowed Taiwanese authorities to prosecute a Hong Kong man for murdering his pregnant girlfriend and dumping her body in the bushes during a vacation to Taiwan.
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From Coup Leaders to Con Artists: Juan Guaidó’s Gang Exposed for Massive Humanitarian Aid Fraud

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A new investigation has exposed members of Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó’s inner circle for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars designated for humanitarian aid and spending it on luxury goods and lavish accommodations for themselves. Guaidó had been aware of the fraud for weeks and stubbornly defended his cohorts until a leak from Colombian intelligence forced him to acknowledge the scandal.

The scandal unfolded this February, when Venezuelan opposition figures and their supporters descended upon the border town of Cúcuta, Colombia for what was billed as a Live Aid concert to raise millions of dollars for humanitarian aid for Venezuelans suffering the effects of an economic crisis.

The operation was supposed to have climaxed with a Live Aid concert hosted by billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson while trucks full of US aid blasted across the Venezuelan border. Instead, as Branson gathered his performers on stage for a cringeworthy rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” opposition hooligans set fire to the truckloads of aid with molotov cocktails as they failed to reach the border.
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The Making of Juan Guaido: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela's Coup Leader

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Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.
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Senate Report on Russian Interference Was Written by Information Warriors Behind Alabama 'False Flag' Operation

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On December 17, two reports detailing ongoing Russian interference operations commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee were made public. They generated a week’s worth of headlines and sent members of Congress and cable news pundits into a Cold War frenzy. According to the report, everything from the Green Party’s Jill Stein to Instagram to Pokemon Go to the African American population had been used and confused by the deceptive Facebook pages of a private Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency.

Never mind that 56 percent of the troll farm’s pages appeared after the election, that 25 percent of them were seen by no one, or that their miniscule online presence paled in comparison to the millions of dollars spent on social media by the two major presidential campaigns and their supporters to sway voters. This was an act of war that demanded immediate government action.

According to Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the reports were “a wake up call” and a “bombshell” that was certain to bring “long-overdue guardrails when it comes to social media.” His Republican counterpart on the committee, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, hailed the research papers as “proof positive that one of the most important things we can do is increase information sharing between the social media companies who can identify disinformation campaigns and the third-party experts who can analyze them.”
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