In 1964 a virulent anti-Communist named John Stormer wrote None Dare Call it Treason. Today, the man who bought Trump and the United States government for a 1/3rd of a billion dollars dared to call something that isn’t treason treason.
This country’s founders knew that “treason” was a claim so vulnerable to abuse that they took the trouble to define it narrowly in the constitution: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” /1
— Domestic Enemy Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 7:12 PM
/2 So Elon’s claim of treason necessarily means that (1) levying war against Russia (by being invaded) is the same as levying war against the United States, or (2) Ukraine is America’s enemy.
Or it could be that he’s a persistently ignorant amoral shit-talker.
— Domestic Enemy Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 7:13 PM
I think that Popehat/Ken White and Radley Balko are both correct and incorrect in their takes on Musk’s tweet. I think the better answer is that Musk, like his employee Trump, believe that anything that is said or done in opposition to him, his wants, desires, or interests is treason. Regardless of the constitutional or legal definitions. Musk, like his employee Trump, has gone all in not just on neo-NAZIism and fascism, but also on Putin and Putinism. Largely because he, like Trump, has willingly marinated himself in Russian misinformation, disinformation, and agitprop. (emphasis mine)
In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.
In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.
On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.
“Today’s announcement exposes the scope of the Russian government’s influence operations and their reliance on cutting-edge AI to sow disinformation,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “Companies operating at the direction of the Russian government created websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”
The Treasury Department had previously sanctioned SDA and Gambashidze in March for its part in the Doppelganger campaign. But the court documents unsealed on Wednesday contain a treasure trove of documents and meeting notes from Gambashidze and his colleagues, outlining in unprecedented detail the goals and tactics that the Kremlin has been deploying in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US election.
The records also reveal the plan was discussed at the highest levels of the Russian government, with Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential executive office, playing a key role. The notes appear to show that President Vladimir Putin may have been updated on the campaign; in one meeting with Russian government officials, Gambashidze wrote that government officials told him they had “reported to the President about the project,” which the FBI agent who authored the affidavit said he took to refer to Putin.
The documents show that the orchestrators of the campaign targeted existing divisions within US society, using racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former president Donald Trump.
”They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” Gambashidze writes in one document outlining his “guerrilla media” plan. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.”
The same document is full of racist and conspiratorial claims, including that Republicans are “victims of discrimination of people of color.” It adds that white middle-class people are being discriminated against with high inflation and rising prices, while “unemployed people of color end up being privileged groups of the population.”
And the goal of the campaign, from the beginning, was crystal clear: “To secure victory for [Donald Trump],” Gambashidze wrote in the Good Old USA Project planning document.
The Good Old USA plan openly admits that “none of the significant American politicians can be considered pro-Russian or pro-Putin,” and so rather than focus its efforts on trying to convince people that Russia is great, the plan called for promoting the idea that the US should be focusing its resources less on Ukraine and more on domestic issues, such as rising inflation and high gas prices.
Much more at the link.
Here is the link to the court filing if you want to see all the details.
We go now to this clip from Fox News’s Junkie Versus Junkie segment:
Constantly linking everything back to Ukraine and Ukrainians reminds me of a political platform that once rose to prominence in a powerful European state. Fueled by conspiracy theories, it found an easy scapegoat for the country’s setbacks. It did not end well
— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Musk is too stupid to realize that if the HUR had decided to take him down, it wouldn’t have just been a DDOS attack on X where the IP addresses are all, conveniently, coming from Ukraine. I wonder who has the ability to spoof IP addresses at scale and has a really strong desire to see Ukraine get blamed?
Eez a puzzlement.
President Zelenskyy travelled to Saudi Arabia today so there is no address today.
Momentum
— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Zelensky in Saudi Arabia.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 12:49 PM
From The Kyiv Independent:
President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on March 10, ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, the Presidential Office reported.
Zelensky’s team will remain in Jeddah to meet U.S. delegates and discuss the framework for a potential peace agreement with Russia on March 11. Zelensky is not expected to participate in the negotiations.
The two leaders discussed Saudi Arabia’s potential role in mediating the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) as well as the return of Ukrainian children who were illegally deported to Russia, the Presidential Office said.
The Gulf countries have traditionally played the role of mediators between Russia and Ukraine, particularly in regard to prisoner exchanges.
Zelensky and bin Salman also discussed possible security guarantees for Ukraine and strategies for bringing about “a just and lasting peace.” Zelensky spoke to the prince about Ukraine’s plans to bolster defense production and the potential for cooperation with Saudi Arabia in this sector.
Ukraine is interested in further developing cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the areas of trade and energy, the Presidential Office said. The leaders discussed the potential for future Saudi investments in Ukraine and Riyadh’s contributions to Kyiv’s reconstruction efforts.
Zelensky initially intended to visit Saudi Arabia as part of a Middle East tour in February but delayed the trip due to bilateral U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh on Feb. 18. The Saudi crown prince reportedly wanted Ukraine represented at that meeting, but was overruled by U.S. and Russian officials.
The March 11 U.S.-Ukraine talks mark the first high-level meeting between the two nations since Zelensky’s disastrous visit to the White House on Feb. 28. Following the meeting — during which U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky and accused him of being ungrateful — Washington froze military aid and paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 10 that a successful meeting in Jeddah could lead to Washington resuming military aid deliveries. Rubio also said that Ukraine would need to agree to territorial concessions as part of a peace deal.
Rubio will take part in the Jeddah talks alongside Trump’s Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, and U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. They will meet with Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, and Zelensky’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Pavlo Palisa.
War for Ukraine Day 1,110: One Dare Calls It TreasonPost + Comments (37)