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Is Qatari Money Pushing Iran War Propaganda?! · Combat Veteran News

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A former right-wing influencer has
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exposed some of the largest accounts in
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the MAGA universe for being paid shills
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for foreign countries. Just how bad is
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it? And more importantly, can we
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actually see how foreign countries are
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buying influence, including your
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favorite influencer? Well, second
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favorite. I'm not for sale. Let's get
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into this one. Before we do, guys, check
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real quick and make sure that you are
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still subscribed. Uh, I've gotten a
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bunch of messages of people saying
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they've been sort of mysteriously
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unsubscribed and I've noticed it too in
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my own stats that bizarrely I'm seeing a
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bunch of magic automatic unsubscribes
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from people. So, just check and make
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sure you're still on there and let's get
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into it. So, this is Ashley Sinclair.
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Now, if that name feels familiar, it's
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because Miss Sinclair is a uh recipient
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of Elon Musk's
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um sperm donor. She had a baby with Elon
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Musk, not the regular way like human
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beings do, but in the kind of test tube
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way. And I want to point out that when
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it comes to exposing these sorts of
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underhanded enterprises, the people that
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do it are never going to be saints. And
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this just because she's someone who is
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obviously on the war path because she is
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very publicly said she was promised by
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Elon a huge payday in exchange for
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carrying his child. Instead, she has uh
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gotten shafted essentially and has had
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to file numerous lawsuits against Elon.
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And now, of course, she both is broke
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and likely trying to rise raise her star
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uh in the social media sphere, but also
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because she wants to prove that she has
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leverage and that she wants to burn back
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the right-wing ecosystem that has
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abandoned her and left her out to dry.
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Again, none of that though, just because
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she's self-interested doesn't mean she's
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wrong. And we're going to be breaking
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down in this video how we can use open-
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source information and reveal that
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everything she says is completely and
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100% correct. Let's take a listen.
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>> Mega Influencers, the official Trump war
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room, all of these people are within
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these group chats and being told exactly
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what to say. During the campaign, they
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also had campaign calls with influencers
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such as myself in which they said, "Hey,
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here's how we want to respond to things.
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Here's the messaging that we're going to
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stay on. Good work, soldiers.
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>> Was now this is one I will tell you from
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my own personal experience as an
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influencer. Uh I've never had a
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political campaign come to me or offer
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me anything in exchange for messaging.
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Some of these people just do it because
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they believe it and they are just
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diehard Republicans and they are like, I
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will say whatever the party wants me to.
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Uh that's not really how I do business,
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but some of these people are definitely
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like that. Uh but also I will tell you I
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have been approached by lobbying firms,
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contracted by large companies who want
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me to advocate particularly in my view
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against veterans best interests in in
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order to enable often health care
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companies to extract more money from the
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VA system. and they want me to advocate
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on behalf of some of these laws to stop
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veterans basically or trick veterans
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into thinking that these laws that will
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harm them are going to actually help
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them out. And I have told them in no
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uncertain terms where to shove their
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money, but I have a bunch of advantages.
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I run a cheap influencer operation. I'm
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out here working in my garage. Uh, I
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drive a an extremely not fancy Toyota.
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And all of that allows me to take this
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pretty lucrative money that these
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lobbying firms offer me and tell them to
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go stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
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Uh, but a lot of influencers, I can tell
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you from for certain, do not have that
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luxury. Some of them are like, "Yo, I'm
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have hungry kids." Some of them are
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like, "Hey, I live in a mansion and I
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drive a Lamborghini and uh those
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payments are expensive." Some of them
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are just and individuals with other
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vices that cost a lot of money. But a
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lot of more influencers are for sale
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than you realize. Is
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>> there ever anyone expressing behind the
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scenes? Ah, this feels a little bit
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weird.
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>> Not really.
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>> And then who's this? If there's paid
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campaigns, who is paying for those
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campaigns?
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>> Everyone and anyone. And what's
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astonishing is some of these funding
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methods are hidden through various
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different companies or consulting firms.
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So you really don't know where a lot of
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the money is coming from. And these also
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have paid trips to Israel, paid trips to
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Russia. There's Qatari money flowing in
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and out. So much Qatari money in
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Republican politics that just you'll
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never find because it's laundered.
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So that is a really interesting take
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because she actually gives us something
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we can latch on to. She says, "Listen,
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there's a lot of Russian money and
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Russian money is going to be very hard
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to find and we found it. Remember the
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tenant media scandal in which large
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right-wing influencers, guys like Tim P
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and Benny Johnson, were receiving
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absolutely ghoullishly absurd paydays. I
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mean truly paydays probably 10 to 100
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times what they were making in a month
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uh from what was obviously a shell
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company for Russian the Russian
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government. But because of the
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sanctions, Russia is actually much
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harder to find and instead we can latch
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on to the Qataris because the Qataris
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have a lot of money and they're not
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particularly concerned with hiding it.
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So, let's break it down. Now, what I
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want to point out is that uh human
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influencers, that's a little p, right?
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That's very uh 2 years ago. Now, it's AI
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influencers. And as this New York Times
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article has found that there are dozens
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maybe even hundreds of generated AI
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accounts in which feature attractive men
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and women uh of various demographic
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groups uh boomer men, Asian women,
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older black women, all saying the exact
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same thing, including literally the
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typo. Uh the left say Republicans aren't
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united. That's not grammatically
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correct. It would be the left says
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Republicans aren't united, right? And
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you can see exact same caption, exact
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same look.
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It all racially. I mean, it's like a
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college brochure. And they, the New York
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Times was unable to find who was
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creating and amplifying these AI
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generated pro- MAGA accounts, but they
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found at least 304 of them using
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literally the exact same phrasings. And
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when you also see this same thing with
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maybe human maybe not accounts more
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recently you have for example the White
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House has become bizarrely fixated and
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has put on their website this idea of 47
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years i.e. we've been at war with Iran
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for 47 years now. Up until this point,
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almost nobody was using this strange
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framing because again, the Iranian
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revolution
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one, it doesn't actually have an exact
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start and stop date. It it spanned over
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nearly a year. So the idea that you can
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cut it off and say 47 years uh is
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something that again as we've talked
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about probably has to do with the
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president who loves kind of
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self-reerential stuff like this where
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he's the 47th president and is 47. And
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so but you can see that some of these
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talking points hit exactly where you'd
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think which is Republican congressmen
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who exist uh solely as mouthpieces for
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the administration. But you can also see
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that here's an account called Truth
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Inspired dropping other takes about 47
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years. 47 years. Here's a random MAGA
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account uh a prosecond amendment account
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saying also talking about 47 years.
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Somehow mysteriously all of these people
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are repeating this 47 years talking
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point. Very bizarre. Even people like uh
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Jamie Diamond. But you can see that the
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administration wants these points,
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right? Someone named Margie. Uh here is
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Muniman, right? There's a there's
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actually a uh you saw it briefly there a
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a only fans type of account uh co-opting
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this. Here's another congressman
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repeating 47 years. But here's just a
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random carrover.
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And again, Sky, all of a sudden, all
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these people simultaneously pulled out
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their calculator and found that they
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that the Iranians came to the
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independent conclusion that they had all
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been at war with Iran for 47 years. What
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a magic what a what an strange irony,
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right? Occasionally you get people
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referencing human beings who have turned
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47 years old, but almost all of these
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overwhelmingly are not 47y old people,
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but suddenly referencing it's been 47
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years. 47 years we've known. Very
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strange.
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Now the question though is who's paying
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for this? Well, this is where things get
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fun. And for this we got to turn to
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opensecs.org. This is actually a 501c3
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organization that takes FARA filings and
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other election filings and compiles them
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into a searchable database. So, we get
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to search for everyone. And in this
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case, we searched for FAR, the Foreign A
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uh Foreign Agents Registration Act. This
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is every time you take money from a
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foreign government, you're required to
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file a little piece of paper that anyone
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can search for that says, "Hey, I'm
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actually being paid by a foreign
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government." And lo and behold, Qatar
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has a nice big fat entry. In fact, a
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huge entry, right? As you can see, there
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are tons and tons of groups and
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companies, consulting firms, just like
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Miss Sinclair said, that have taken
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Qatari money and are laundering it to
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influencers. You can see that some of
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them are small. Navigators Global, the
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Aloft Group, they all have vague names.
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Nav Lighthouse Strategies. Huh, kind of
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weird. Navigators, Lighthouse, Green
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River Public Affair Affairs, Neil Creek,
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Pria Consultants, uh, Venerable LLP,
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Bop, Government Affairs, Third Circle,
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Inc., you can see these from the names.
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I mean, Third Circle Ink could be
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anything. Could be everything from a
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payments platform to an autoglass repair
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company, but some of them are more
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obvious, right? Where it's BGR,
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government affairs. But I did a little
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bit of research into the top recipients
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of Qatari money. All of these guys have
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received more than $700,000 of Qatari
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money. The first is, of course, Finn
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partners. Now, what does Finn partners
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do? Well, they actually wouldn't let me
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access their full set of case studies
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unless I gave them unless I enabled
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cookies, which is weird. If you want to
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watch them, they have to watch you. Okay
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guys, but one of their aspects is lo and
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behold, content marketing, i.e.
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marketing using content. Crafting
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content that commands attention. Their
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team of experts creates content and
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takes brands to successful new heights.
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Combine powerful tools. Hm, wonder what
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they are. They collaborate with client
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and media teams across the agency to
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spot opportunities, craft messaging that
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resonates, identify the right channels,
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and create attention getting content
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that brings a story to life. Huh,
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interesting.
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branded entertainment, landing page,
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website design, brand journalism. H
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interesting, interesting stuff. Now,
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this is one of their largest firms and
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you can see why. Again, what do we do?
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They do advertising, AI, brand strategy,
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content marketing, corporate
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communications, crisis communications,
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digital marketing, employee engagement,
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influencer marketing, investor
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relations, paid media, and more. So I
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again I am like fascinated
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by
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this idea and they literally brag about
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getting governments in front of
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influencers here. They say listen the
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government of Panama paid us to get some
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influencers
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to
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tourism. Now, I want to be clear that
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when you look at the FAR data, the
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biggest spenders are often these exact
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things, right? Australia is a large
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spender because the Australian Tourism
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Board spends a lot of money advertising
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Australia as a tourism destination.
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That's not a problem. and somewhat more
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problematic but more transparent are uh
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for example China's a large spender but
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it's because the government of China
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operates publications like the China
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Daily or the South China Morning Post
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that are English language or is
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oftentimes American focused Chinese
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language media outlets I don't like it I
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don't think it's good but at least
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you're upfront and being like yo if you
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tune in to China daily we're paid by the
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government of China it's this kind of
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thing where you go okay thear ies are
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out here partnering
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with governments in order to direct
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influencers
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without necessarily disclosing it,
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right? To do the bidding of foreign
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governments. Again, they say, "Listen,
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we enlisted influencers to tell the
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Panama story host and spotlighted on a
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landing page on visitpanama.com."
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Right? The campaign generated 250
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million impressions, 500,000 visitors,
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and 35,000 entries into some sort of
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contest. Now, if they're willing to do
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it to get people to go visit a beach in
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Panama, you can bet what do you think
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the Qataris are paying them $3 million
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to do? Now, let's look at the next
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highest. H pro, another digital
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influence operation. weird, but that
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isn't actually the most bizarre ones.
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The next tier also who have received
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nearly a million dollars of Qatari money
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is BGR group, which is notable because
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these guys are, I mean, a who's who of
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some of the worst of the worst. One,
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they're all former elected officials,
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including notably former uh Mississippi
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Governor
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Haley Barber and former White House aid
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Ed Rogers.
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And these guys have been lobbying for a
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long time for some of the worst of the
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worst. For example, their three largest
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clients were the Republic of India,
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Chevron and um pre-Midon Ukraine, i.e.
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Ukraine when it was a dictatorship and
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of course the state of Kazakhstan.
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Now
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BGR has also worked for numerous Russian
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firms tied to Vladimir Putin and Russian
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oligarchs including Alphab Bank and
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Letter One. This is comical stuff here,
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right? So, these guys obviously are a
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literal conduit between Vladimir Putin
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and the Republican party. But what's
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even more brazen is the third or the
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fourth largest recipient is GVR
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Strategies. GVR strategies is one guy
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named Garrett Ventry who's the president
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and senior person who is the chief of
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staff, former chief of staff for
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Congressman Ken Buck, senior
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communications adviser for Chuck
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Grassley, senior adviser for Elise
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Stefonic. Right? These are people. This
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is someone who claims to have been a
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powerful insider.
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For example, the aid helping direct the
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strategy to steer Brett Kavanagh's
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Supreme Court nomination. Now, he claims
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to be able to do a bunch of valuable but
15:54
unclear things like political
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intelligence, story placement, roadmap
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for advocacy and public policy. But
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well, you would imagine based on what
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you just heard about what he does, where
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do you think his business is located?
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I'll give you two guesses, right? Logic
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tells you that if what you do, if you
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are a Capitol Hill insider, that you
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should be within driving distance of
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Capitol Hill, right? in order to do
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these things like help advocate for
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policies, place stories and
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communications with official channels,
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conduct political intelligence
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operations, right? Or shape public
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policy. Right. Right. Wrong. GVR
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Strategies, guys, is located in Palm
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Beach, Florida. In fact, he just moved
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offices. His old office was 9 minutes or
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2.9 miles from Mara Lago. Here is our
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boy. And here you can see he drives
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straight down Ocean Boulevard and ends
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up in Mara Lago. How bizarre given that
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the Washington DC area is again hundreds
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hundreds of miles away an entire flight.
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And here's his new location. Of course,
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guys, he's has to a sprawling 11 minutes
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from Mara Lago, right? So,
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if this isn't obviously
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a flood of money going into influencers
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and in some cases appearing to go right
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into the pocket of the president or his
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family, I I don't know what is.
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And I think the takeaway here is that
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you guys should be skeptical because the
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this is the right-wing side. And yeah,
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this person, this this Ashley Sinclair
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is absolutely outing these guys. She's
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on the war path. But I think it's more
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important to remember that we looked on
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this channel on a live stream at the DNC
17:44
2024 election autopsy. And one of the
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things that was explicitly stated
17:49
repeatedly was that the DNC also put
17:51
influencers on its payroll and that they
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did kind of a shitty job of managing
17:58
them. So the DNC isn't mad about using
18:01
subdu or underhanded tactics. They're
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just mad that the Republican right and
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of course the foreign countries that
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shill for their values uh did it better.
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So again, I am out here trying to do my
18:18
best for you guys, but the truth is
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the reality is the reality and I can't
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compete with 300 AI influencers doing my
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job, but they don't need to rest. They
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don't care about their kids. They don't
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really even care if a story is true or
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not. They just get talking points and
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push them and push them and push them.
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And I don't know what this means for the
18:42
larger country. But for as long as I can
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possibly do this, I'm going to keep
18:47
trying to tell you guys the truth about
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what's going on. And thanks to Shield,
18:52
Brent, Andreas, Jim, John, CBC, Leonus,
18:54
all of our lieutenant folks. We couldn't
18:56
do it without you guys. Really
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appreciate you. We'll see you in the
18:58
next one. Cheers.