In this News Brief we are joined by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of The Real News Network to discuss their new documentary, "Freddie Gray: A Decade of Struggle" about the lessons, pitfalls and genuine reforms stemming from the 2015 Baltimore Uprisings. 

You can watch the documentary here: https://therealnews.com/freddie-gray-the-baltimore-uprising-10-years-later

News Brief: Baltimore Uprising 10 Years on: PR Co-option vs Genuine Reform

“Jaw Clench Study Takes Tax Dollars,” United Press International cautioned in 1975. “‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: Rand Paul Mocks National Science Foundation Studies,” Forbes reported in 2021. “Gov't waste report finds $400K spent to give lonely rats cocaine: 'Absurd',” Fox News told viewers in 2024. 

According to these headlines, a wasteful, woke liberal government has been squandering taxpayer money on something wholly undeserving: frivolous scientific studies. Tens of thousands to millions of dollars, we’re told, are being handed out like candy so scientists can sit around watching monkeys clench their jaws, putting shrimp on treadmills, and give cocaine to rats. And who gets to choose which studies are funded? Wasteful ultra woke organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services. 

It’s true that some research doesn’t end up having much practical relevance––indeed this is the nature of scientific inquiry! There are sometimes cul-de-sacs and wrong paths. But the majority of the time, studies that are trivialized in media and on the Senate floor aren’t superfluous at all. 

While soundbites like “shrimp on a treadmill” might paint a ridiculous picture, they’re also taken out of context, obscuring the scientific merit and moral import of the research and researchers, who work for years on often obscure, tedious lines of inquiry only to have their lives’ work reduced to a cheap punchline by bad-faith demagogues playing to the public’s ignorance and lizard brain impulses. 

So, why is this media and political punchline so popular? And what’s the agenda of the lawmakers and media organizations that denigrate and misrepresent research and science more broadly, and the larger current of conspicuous anti-intellectualism that has always been present in American political culture, but in the last ten years has entirely taken over the modern American Right? 

On this episode, we discuss the decades-old, anti-intellectual gambit of mocking and attacking the “frivolous study,” examining how it warps and devalues science and international cooperation in a broader effort to defund public institutions, both scientific and otherwise.

Our guest is Brenda Ekwurzel, Senior Director of Scientific Excellence at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Ep 221: Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism

“Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won,” states The New York Times' Ezra Klein Show. “Democratic strategist issues ‘hard truth’ to party members after losing election,” CNN tells viewers. “This Is Why Kamala Harris Really Lost,” writes Eric Levitz for Vox.

Since the 2024 presidential election, elite Democrats and the pundits in their orbits have taken to newspapers, podcasts, and cable channels to attempt to explain why Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won. Chief among the explanations is this one: Democrats became controlled and overtaken by the "Wokes," becoming overly concerned with pronouns and political correctness, too soft on immigration and crime, while the electorate drifted to the right and that, to win the future, Democrats have to––alas, and with the putative heavy heart––go right with them.

Instead of contending with how the Democratic Party has abandoned a working class composed of all races and gender identities, chased big money and been overtaken by venal PR flacks and lawyers, Democratic party officials, big donor funded “pollsters,” “strategists,” and elite media have done what they’ve always done whenever there's an alleged “soul searching” in the Democratic party: scapegoated vulnerable people, insisted on a fixed, intrinsically conservative voting base and repackaging what is simply a newer version of corporate-friendly status quo liberalism.

On this episode, part one of a two-part series we’re calling "The Empire Strikes First,” we examine how party elites sought, before the election was even called on the night of November 5, 2024: to control the narrative and maintain their status and power within the party, blaming everyone but themselves, relying on tortured data and transparently self-serving conclusions which permit them to continue their longstanding process of justifying elite-serving, center-right policy, feigning Deep Concern for the preferences of Joe Six Pack, all while making sure their “consultant” gravy train chugs along unabated.

Our guest is UC-Berkeley professor Jake Grumbach.

The Empire Strikes First Part I: Party Elites Who Lost to Trump (Twice) Blame Everyone But Themselves

Ep 223: The Empire Strikes First, Part II — ‘Abundance’ Pablum as Counter to Left Populism

Hundreds of people have been arrested in Los Angeles after days of protests, which are in response to aggressive immigration raids ordered by President Trump. When people took to social media to make sense of the events, they were confronted with fake, AI-generated videos of the protests and real photos that were labelled as out-of-context by AI. Thus breaking new ground in worthless, deceitful slop.

Plus, we speak to Anna Merlan at Mother Jones about her recent reporting on the RFK Jr.-connected “MAHA Institute.” That organization’s head, Leland Lehrman, has pushed extremist ideas for decades, including endorsing the conspiracist fraudulent text "Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” RFK Jr. himself is evidently embracing a genuinely anti-vax agenda in his role as Health Secretary by firing and replacing the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP).
We've seen the future. And the future is an AI chatbot telling you to treat your latest typhus infection with apple cider vinegar.

We've seen the future. And the future is an AI chatbot telling you to treat your latest typhus infection with apple cider vinegar.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:

https://patreon.com/qaa

///

Anna Merlan on Bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/annamerlan.bsky.social

The Head of a New RFK-Backing Group Promoted 9/11 Conspiracy Theories and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/leland-lehrman-make-america-healthy-again-institute-antisemitism-september-11/

Flaming Hydra

https://flaminghydra.com/



//


Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.


REFERENCES

Bricks from Malaysia and New Jersey misrepresented amid LA unrest
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.49XW2T2

FACT FOCUS: A Craigslist ad is not proof of paid protesters in LA. It was posted as a prank
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-los-angeles-paid-protesters-prank-48792aa47dcc2d8eeb9547d79d530037

Fake videos and conspiracies fuel falsehoods about Los Angeles protests
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fake-videos-conspiracies-falsehoods-los-angeles-protests/

Los Angeles protests: How AI and chatbots are feeding fake news
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20250610-meet-bob-the-ai-generated-national-guard-soldier-sparking-misinformation

AI Chatbots Are Making LA Protest Disinformation Worse
https://www.wired.com/story/grok-chatgpt-ai-los-angeles-protest-disinformation/



New Disinformation and Old Diseases feat. Anna Merlan (E328)

Covering everything from the Big Beautiful Bill, to Ted Cruz's interview with Tucker Carlson, to Israel's latest attempts to pull the United States into another war(s), to Trump's potential nuking of Iran

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 397: You Did Not Seek This Moment, This Moment Sought You

This week we're joined by returning guest Tracy Rosenthal to discuss the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign: how it was shaped, how it won the Democratic Primary, what it may look like going forward, and how the rest of the media and political class is reacting to it. But first, we catch up on some housekeeping re: Israel and the U.S.'s war against Iran, and talk very briefly about Peter Thiel's fixation on the Antichrist.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 398: If You Don't Fight, You Lose (w/ special guest Tracy Rosenthal)

We talk to investigative journalist Jack Poulson (https://jackpoulson.substack.com/) about the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's roots in private equity, mercenary firms, private intelligence outfits, and intelligence agents in the US & Israel.

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 475: GHF

We start off this week with some light discussion regarding a few items in the news lately, then pivot to a more serious discussion expanding on Monday's Patreon episode about the ongoing catastrophe and genocide in Gaza. We end with a lighthearted but still somewhat concerning article about a new AI school in Texas.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 403: War Boy Academy

Will welcomes comedian Eddie Pepitone to the show for a bonus interview. They rap on keeping comedy political, celebrity sell-outs, veganism, Bill Maher vs. Billy Joel, trying to calm the rage, and of course, being Just Kids From New York. 

Check out Eddie’s new special at: https://veeps.com/eddiepepitone

It is your last day to pre-order YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1!


BONUS - The Bitter Buddha feat. Eddie Pepitone

Osita Nwanevu stops by to discuss his new book The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. Osita leads us through his case that American “democracy” as it currently stands isn’t that democratic at all. We discuss the real intentions of the founders, the actual American revolution of the Civil War, and the stalled re-founding of reconstruction. We also look at the potential for economic democracy, the political reforms needed to re-found the country, the problem of the judiciary, and the challenges of a new media environment to democratizing movements. Yes, today the wacky morning DJ actually does say democracy’s a joke.

Pick up Osita’s book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704686/the-right-of-the-people-by-osita-nwanevu/

AND, we’ve secured ONE MORE WEEK to get your pre-order in for YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1

957 - Democracy Soon! feat. Osita Nwanevu (8/4/25)

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 223: The Empire Strikes First, Part II — ‘Abundance’ Pablum as Counter to Left Populism

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