I have never heard Iran 9/11 conspiracy...I do remember the Iraq okc bombing theory

We placed all our bets on Juicero and all our money in the bank — this is the story of how TrueAnon lost everything in the SVB collapse. Plus we talk shit about VCs.

Episode 277: Unbank Yourself

We explore Tucker Carlson's attempts to rewrite what happened on January 6th by focusing on footage of Jacob Chansley AKA the QAnon Shaman. We also delve into the changing story about what led to Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick's death. We then spend some time with a twitter account basically LARPing as Jack Smith, the special counselor who's the new great hope for Muellerites.
 
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com

Music by Nick Sena. Editing by Corey Klotz.

Episode 224: The Battle to Frame J6 (Trump Arrested Edition)

We snap our 78s over our knees and examine some of the industry-shattering changes that music has undergone in the recent past: how we make it, listen to it, think about it, own it, and pay for it — and who gets the money.

Thanks to Sean Agnew from Union Transfer (utphilly.com), Noah Kohll from Color Green (colorgreen.bandcamp.com/album/color-green), John Dwyer from Oh Sees (theeohsees.com), Geoff Rickley from Thursday (rosebooks.co/store/p/someone-who-isnt-me-by-geoff-rickly-paperback-preorder), Jess Williamson (jesswilliamson.com/), and Zola Jesus (patreon.com/zolajesus).

(MOBY is not mentioned in this episode we just had to put a guy as the picture and he is funny looking)

Episode 279: Welcome To The Machine (Taylor's Version)

QAnon the musical, Baby Trump, poetry, charcuterie, a Frank Sinatra impersonator, "JFK Jr" AKA Juan O Savin and members of the -48 QAnon numerology cult — including rapper Pryme Minister. We headed to Texas to attend one of the most melted QAnon events yet. It did not disappoint.
 
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com

Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.

Episode 225: Undercover at Reckoning Fest in Frisco, Texas

In this public News Brief, we break down Johnson's "surprise" win and how it upends every lazy media trope involving local Democratic politics pushed over the last two years.

News Brief: How Brandon Johnson's Win Upends US Media's Patronizing, Simplistic "Crime" Narratives

The anti vaccine movement is still relatively fringe, despite exploding during the pandemic. But what happens when someone is too extreme even for the most dedicated antivaxers? That’s the tale of Christopher Key, aka Vaccine Police. In 2021 he made a name for himself by traveling from city to city while wearing a custom “Vaccine Police” shirt and fake badge in order to harass pharmacists, health executives, and city council members. We track his decades-long history of pushing disreputable health treatments — including what he euphemistically calls “urine therapy.” And we learn how his antics have led to multiple arrests and shunning by the anti vaccine community and even Donald Trump himself.
 
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like 'Manclan' and 'Trickle Down': http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

QAA's Website: https://qanonanonymous.com
Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.

References

Zachary Petrizzo
https://twitter.com/ZTPetrizzo

Sports Illustrated: The zany story of two self-ordained sports science entrepreneurs
https://www.si.com/nfl/2013/01/29/strange-lab-lured-numerous-athletes

Washington Post: Self-proclaimed ‘Vaccine Police’ tells Walmart pharmacists they ‘could be executed’ for administering shots
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/19/walmart-christopher-key-anti-vaccine/

Episode 228: The Piss Drinking Vaccine Police

In this live streamed News Brief from 4/26/23, we discuss the recent firing of Tucker Carlson and the meta-discourse around whether or not "the left" should see any utility in petty, racist demagogues.

News Brief Live: Tucker Carlson's Transparent 'Contrarian Left' Co-Option Strategy

We plan out what builds we’re going with using items from King Charles’ upcoming coronation. Then, we compare and contrast visions of masculinity within the Republican party using the models presented by Donald Trump and Josh Hawley, and start forecasting what the Trump v. Biden match-up might look like. Plus, we’ve got new Epstein revelations, and an update on a classic bit of William F. Buckley lore.

New merch now available here: https://represent.com/store/chapo-trap-house 

Hell on Earth: The Original Podcast Soundtrack now available here: https://chapotraphouse.bandcamp.com/album/hell-on-earth-original-podcast-soundtrack

Chapo Trap House

728 - Mighty Men (5/1/23)

"I Was A Teenage Conspiracy Theorist," The Atlantic magazine playfully titled a 2020 essay. "Choose your reality: Trust wanes, conspiracy theories rise," reported The Associated Press in 2022. "Do You Know Someone Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories? We Want to Hear About It," wrote The New York Times last year.

Fears of "conspiracy theories" are a common trope in the U.S. media, a worry that's grown more acute with the rise of QAnon, anti-vaxx sentiment, anti-semitism and a host of other dangerous theories that unduly rot brains throughout the country. To a great extent, this understandable: Many ideas that meet the definition of "conspiracy theories" are, indeed, baseless and dangerous and can direct people's political energy and resources into wasteful, racist, and downright stupid rabbit holes.

But that fact shouldn't delegitimize or foreclose all skepticism of those in power, but too often the term "conspiracy theory" is used to do just that. Repeatedly, media lump together so-called conspiracy theories, regardless of their accuracy, rationale, and ideology: at once, UFO chasers, QAnon, and the Black Panther Party being subject to FBI disruption are somehow placed in the same category of paranoid kooks. At the same time, unproven, and often debunked ideas advanced by media that also meet the definition of "conspiracy theories" — such as Saddam Hussein being behind 9/11 or so-called Havana syndrome — are treated as unassailable, meriting ongoing investigation, limitless resources, and of course, utmost solemnity.

On this episode, we detail the double standards applied to conspiracy theories inside and outside of the realm of U.S. corporate media. We’ll examine the development of the concept of conspiracy theories and the media's selective invocations of the term to discredit real grievances directed at American power and the U.S. government, and moreover, how power-friendly conspiracies — namely those focused on Enemy States like the Havana Syndrome narrative — are permitted to fester and grow without pushback because their red yarn dot connecting implicates the right lists of Acceptable Bad Guys.

Our guest is Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic.

Episode 180: Havana Syndrome and the Power of Mainstream, Acceptable Conspiracy Theories

"Charting a different course in the Vietnam War to fewer deaths and a better end," muses a book review in the Washington Post. "The Vietnam War was begun in good faith, by decent people," a Ken Burns PBS documentary tells us. "The Iraq War Reconsidered," reads a headline from The Atlantic.

Often, especially when an anniversary of a U.S. invasion or withdrawal rolls around, we're told that the devastation wrought by the US war machine was complicated, flawed, but ultimately necessary if not beneficial. Sure, the United States has killed millions, destabilized power structures, wrecked communities and economies, lied about the reasons for doing it all, and drawn the ire of people throughout the world. But, in hindsight, many in U.S. media insists, a horrible act of war from a world superpower wasn't an unequivocal, deliberate, and needless crime against humanity, but somewhere between a misunderstood righteous cause and a bumbling, good faith mistake motivated by humanitarian concerns.

An ideological system of reassurance therefore emerges. Once wars are broadly viewed as either wrong or a "failure" in the popular imagination — as in the case of Vietnam and Iraq — a cottage industry of punditry and pseudo-history emerges in the subsequent years designed to soothe the egos of elites and muddy the waters of both memory and reality for casual media consumers.

Put another way: we all see a dead body on the floor, no one can doubt this. No one can reasonably argue the destruction of Vietnam and Iraq didn't happen. So, this cottage industry springs into action, on behalf of those that caused the death, working to get the guilty party a charge of third degree manslaughter rather than murder. It was an accident, they were mistaken, they had bad intelligence, they were driven by concerns for freedom and human rights.

After all, those who destroyed Vietnam remained in power well into the 2000s. And those who destroyed Iraq currently run our major publications, universities, nonprofits, and think tanks. They still even run the country itself. So the incentive to make sure they all plead guilty to third degree manslaughter rather than first degree murder is tremendous, otherwise, we’re just a country led by war criminals — and this simply cannot be. We need absolution. We must remain, when all is said and done, innocent.

On this week's episode, we’ll explore the war revisionism industry, breaking down five ways in which media seek to sanitize and justify even the most notoriously unpopular and horrific U.S.-led and backed wars — namely Vietnam and Iraq — as unpleasant, imperfect, mistaken, but ultimately incidental byproducts of a noble and righteous empire that, above all, meant well.

Our guest is The Intercept's Jon Schwarz.

Episode 181: US Media's 5 Most Popular Revisionist Tropes About the Iraq and Vietnam Wars

On this Live Show Beg-a-Thon, recorded on May 17, we discuss the pop culture phenomenon and appeal of pseudoarchaeology in its many forms, from fraudulent alternative history books like Erich von Däniken's 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, to television series like "Ancient Aliens" and "Ancient Apocalypse."

Alongside guest Dr. David S. Anderson, we discuss how phony "what if?" theories often go beyond the goofy, guilty pleasure premises of extraterrestrial visitors and lost civilizations to promote Eurocentric, racist pap and a mindless distrust of "the scientific establishment" in the stupidest and least productive way possible.

Live Show Beg-A-Thon: The Very Real Social Brain Rot of Ancient Aliens and Ancient Apocalypse

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.

Episode 180: Havana Syndrome and the Power of Mainstream, Acceptable Conspiracy Theories

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