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

In this public News Brief, we break down the selling of an unpopular, disastrous war in record speed. 

News Brief: Pundits Speed-run 15 months of Iraq War Propaganda for Iran in Five Days

Black Panthers, Third World revolutionary movements, CIA surveillance and plane hijackings. Elaine Mokhtefi is a century of history in a person. We speak to her about her experiences as an activist ranging back to protesting segregation in 1944. Her book Algiers: Third World Capital is an enthralling testament to a life of involvement in the tangible fight for freedom and justice in colonized and exploited countries.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
https://patreon.com/qaa

Buy Elaine Mokhtefi’s book: https://www.versobooks.com/products/760-algiers-third-world-capital

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.

Elaine Mokhtefi (E330)

Comedy legend Larry Charles (Fridays, Seinfeld, Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm & much more) returns to the show to discuss his new book Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter. We have a wide ranging discussion of Larry’s life in comedy including post-war Brooklyn as a comedy incubator, grinding out avant-garde sketch comedy with Andy Kaufman, the prevalence of coke and other drugs in the comedy writing scene, getting tackled by the Secret Service trying to get a joint to Jimmy Carter’s sister, and the difficulties in comedic creative relationships. Larry also gets candid about his disappointment with the prevalence of zionism among his erstwhile comedy partners, and we talk about the humanizing force of humor in the face tragedy and despair.

Pick up Comedy Samurai here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/larry-charles/comedy-samurai/9781538771549/?lens=grand-central-publishing

AND: get your pre-order in for YEAR ZERO: A CHAPO TRAP HOUSE COMICS ANTHOLOGY starting today at www.badegg.co

947 - Laugh Now, Cry Later feat. Larry Charles (6/30/25)

In this News Brief we break down recent bad faith attacks on the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, the ADL's DO YOU CONDEMN extortion racket and the broader "antisemitism scandal" playbook to derail moderate social democratic politics and any criticism of Israel.

News Brief: ADL,Corporate Media, Dem Elites Manufacture "Antisemitism" Scandal to Discipline Mamdani

We read through the Jane Street-funded arms trafficking allegations made against a South Sudanese activist, talk Sudan and South Sudan, ask what the hell Gary Kasparov is up to, and give a classic coup review.

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

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 472: The Jane Street Coup

John Washington joins us to discuss his recent piece in the New York Review of Books, "The Roots of Bukele’s Gulag." 

Check out John's article here: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/06/01/the-roots-of-bukeles-gulag/

Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Deep Background on Bukele's Gulags in El Salvador / John Washington

Many Trump voters were under the naive impression that his administration would release information about Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirators in his child trafficking operation. So it came as a shock when the DOJ released a memo claiming that they couldn’t find any “client list,” there is no evidence of Epstein blackmail activities, and they did not find “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” 

Not even MAGA loyalists are buying this.

Jake, Julian, and Travis try to make sense of the DOJ’s blundering attempt to put an end to Epstein chatter, discuss how the memo contradicts previous statements by FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and explore whether this is scandalous enough to fracture Trump’s base for good.

Thanks for subscribing to QAA on patreon.

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

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa


///

We’ve launched a new podcast miniseries network: Cursed Media. The very first Cursed Media miniseries is Science in Transition. 

Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians.

Listen to the first two episodes of Science In Transition and the rest of the six episodes as they are released weekly by subscribing through this link.

www.cursedmedia.net/

Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!)

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REFERENCES

DOJ Epstein Memo
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline

Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified
https://www.wired.com/story/metadata-shows-the-dojs-raw-jeffrey-epstein-prison-video-was-likely-modified/

Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/investigation-and-review-federal-bureau-prisons-custody-care-and-supervision-jeffrey

Deputy FBI Director Bongino has told people he is considering resigning amid Epstein files fallout, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/politics/bongino-consider-resigning-epstein-files


The Great Epstein Backstab (E332)

"Facebook’s Zuckerberg backs online political ad regulations forwarded by Sen. Amy Klobuchar," reported the Associated Press in 2018. "CEO Sam Bankman-Fried says crypto needs to embrace regulation," announced Business Insider in 2021. "AI leaders: Please regulate us," read an Axios headline in 2023.

In recent years, major U.S. companies, especially in the tech industry, have given new life to a longstanding corporate PR strategy: self-regulation. It's a common tactic. After a scandal — say, revelations about pollution, rampant scams, or large-scale invasions of privacy — corporations rebrand as repentant and disciplined, ready to pay their debts to society and embrace the public good. "No need for oppressive and overly burdensome regulation", they insist, "we can handle it ourselves."

This, of course, isn't the real intention. Historically, this corporate voluntarism has generated little more than a few cosmetic reforms, if that, and allowed the continuation of business as usual in every industry from slavery to oil to tobacco to crypto, save for the occasional sacrificial lamb. So why, and how, do media keep assuring their audiences that, This Time, It's Different? That this time corporate America has learned its lesson and can be trusted to regulate itself?

On this episode, we examine the centuries-old damage-control strategy of industry self-regulation, looking at how corporate claims of self-policing, aided by news media, buy time and goodwill while concealing an agenda of weakening pre-existing regulations, manipulating new laws to the benefit of the private sector, or, often, preventing regulation altogether. Our guest is the Revolving Door Project's assistant director Timi Iwayemi.

Episode 224: Corporate Self-Regulation and the Fine Art of 'Preempting" Public Outrage

Episode 225: How US Media Frames Democracy that Actually Helps People as "Buying Votes"

Crime, Ozzy & Hulk Hogan, Rerun, Drake & Kendrick, Paranormal beliefs, Eddington, how we need a new separation of church & witchcraft, the new trad pop song burning up the streets, we live in hell

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

Episode 402: The Secret Wisdom Of The Ages

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

There isn’t yet a tariff on conspiracist narratives. So former Daily Wire podcaster Candace Owens imported one from France. Which is why she now finds herself the subject of a serious lawsuit filed by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the First Lady Brigitte Macron. 

Owens used Instagram influencer aesthetics to recycle a 2021 theory for American audiences that was originally promoted by a French spiritual medium and spread through “Yellow Vest” and antivax networks. For some reason, Owens wasn’t satisfied with the genuinely odd history of the Macrons’ relationship (they met when Brigitte was married with children and Emmanuel was just 14, despite most American sources claiming they met when he was 15.) Instead she picked up the convoluted conspiracy theory that Brigitte is really her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux who became a trans woman and proceeded to assist with turning Emmanuel into an MKULTRA-controlled “Manchurian Candidate.” In Owen’s ludicrous tale, the Macrons then killed anyone who started asking questions about Brigitte’s past, Clinton-body-count style. But since this nonsense is powered by crude bigotry rather than any investigatory impulse, the evidence is unsurprisingly weak. Owens’ method of argumentation involves ignoring the fact that Jean-Michel Trogneux is clearly alive and a separate person, looking at real photos and declaring them fake, and birthday numerology. 

Travis, Jake, and Julian unpack Owens’ past, the history of the conspiracy theory, how she promoted it through the 8-part series “Becoming Brigitte,” and the lawsuit that now threatens her independent media empire.


Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa


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.

///

We’ve launched a new podcast miniseries network: Cursed Media. The very first Cursed Media miniseries is Science in Transition. 

Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians.

Binge all six episodes of Science In Transition by subscribing through this link.

www.cursedmedia.net/

Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!)

////


Becoming Candace (E335)

"Exclusive Look at Life in War-Ravaged Gaza," reads the title for a CNN interview with correspondent Clarissa Ward. "'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid," report Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg for Ha'aretz. "I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It," argues Omer Bartov in The New York Times.

These stories have something in common: they’re vital pieces of journalism about Gaza, or Palestine more broadly, published in Western and Western-aligned outlets. This is, obviously, important. Reporting like this keeps Western audiences informed about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, fortifies sympathetic Westerners’ solidarity with Palestine, and serves as an essential counter to the pro-Israel PR machine powering so much other Western media coverage.

But while these pieces have made a splash among their audiences, in many cases, they’re building upon points that Palestinian journalists, writers, and activists had been making weeks, months, even years before. So why is the reporting of Palestinian journalists–especially their reporting on what’s happening within their own country and cities–so often ignored, only to be heeded after it gets the Western stamp of approval?

On this episode — our Season 8 finale and also the second part of our two-part series on “The Importance of Seriousness, or Why Palestinians Can’t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide” — we explore the discrepancies in the alleged credibility between Western and Israeli journalists and Palestinian and other Arab journalists, especially when it comes to reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We’ll look at how, by Western standards, journalists don’t build legitimacy by being correct, so much as by being in close proximity to the political and media establishments.

Our guest is writer and organizer Kaleem Hawa.

Ep 227: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part II)

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
---------
Brace and Don from Fourth Reich Archaeology talk about the Horseman of the Fourth Reich, Gerald Ford, the Nixon Pardon, investigations, commissions, the Imperial Presidency, and how it connects back to today.

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

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 484: Ford's Foundation (trailer)

In 1998, the world was ruled by Rayman. You could not go anywhere without seeing Rayman street art. Thousands of children died attempting to cut their own limbs off and suspend them from midair. All that changed when Solid Snake was brought into the third dimension.

Brendan and Felix kick off their journey through the greatest story ever told by surfacing onto Shadow Moses. This is where Solid Snake realized he could be more than just a paid killer, Meryl Silverburgh witnessed the ugly reality of war, Roy Campbell was promoted from uncle to father, and Liquid Snake didn’t actually achieve much of anything besides scoring some sunglasses off of a former member of his dad’s love triangle.

Put on your sneaking suit, let some strange woman shoot some crap into your arm, and soak your cardboard boxes in urine. It’s time to fight your brother through various states of undress.

The Players Club Episode 1: Metal Gear Solid (1998) - Am I My Brother’s Streaker?

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 225: How US Media Frames Democracy that Actually Helps People as "Buying Votes"

Citations Needed Podcast

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