‘Paid Grifters’: Thomas Massie Criticizes Online Personalities, Calls For Transparency
'Paid grifters on X and other platforms should be required to disclose who’s paying them to influence elections'
How the CCP pays influencers to attack Falun Gong and Shen Yun
Tim Pool, the host of the wildly popular “TimCast” on YouTube, boasting over 4 million subscribers and 3 billion views on his three channels, exposed how the Chinese Communist Party pays off influencers to push its narrative, such as attacking the Falun Gong and Shen Yun.
During an episode of his show, Pool shared how the CCP unsuccessfully tried to recruit him — an explosive revelation that essentially went under the radar.
Every one of the 10 New York Times articles attacking Shen Yun has been artificially promoted by CCP bots.
Pool revealed that the CCP has a task force devoted to attacking the Falun Gong.
The Falun Gong people were handing out flyers and stuff, and it’s funny because China started hiring YouTubers. They offered — I’m pretty sure I got offered this at one point — they said they’d give me $200 to post a video to my YouTube channel.
It was a video of a white dude complaining about this group. And I’m thinking, "I’m not posting this to my channel." But a lot of people were like, "Two hundred bucks, I’m gonna take it."
New York Times and CCP collusion
Joshua Philipp, the host of “Crossroads,” had a similar story about how the CCP boosted the New York Times’ recent hit pieces on Shen Yun.
Since August 2024, the New York Times has ramped up attacks on Shen Yun Performing Arts, a renowned organization dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture before the Chinese Communist Party regime took over, uprooting traditional culture and violently silencing dissent. The frequency of the hit pieces borders on an obsession — publishing 10 hit pieces on the topic within the past six months alone.
These pieces, authored by the so-called investigative reporters Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfeld, allege mistreatment of performers and financial improprieties within Shen Yun. Over 60% of Hong’s articles since August have focused solely on discrediting Shen Yun. Performers quoted in these articles have since spoken out against the Times’ shoddy reporting, calling it misleading and inaccurate.
Interestingly, Hong’s father is a visiting professor at CCP-affiliated Zhejiang University and Jiangxi Normal University in China. The former is a public university affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, while the latter is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the communist Jiangxi Provincial Government.
It would be shocking if they didn’t have any pro-CCP bias.
Epoch Times investigative reporter Joshua Philipp explains:
A network of thousands of CCP-linked accounts — fake accounts, some of [which] may be operated by Chinese spies on the internet, were promoting the New York Times. The New York Times was writing hit pieces on Shen Yuan Performing Arts, which the CCP is targeting. As a result, Shen Yun got targeted with bomb threats and death threats, but the New York Times is not covering that. Instead, they're using these hit pieces targeting Shen Yun doing the exact thing the CCP wants, and then the Chinese Communist Party-linked accounts are promoting the New York Times articles. Thousands of these fake accounts tied to the CCP. Some of them have now been removed by X. This is confirmed, our investigation has shown.
— (@)
CCP ‘Twitter bots’
According to the report that Phillip is referring to, over the past month, X has removed thousands of accounts suspected of being linked to the CCP. These accounts primarily promoted articles from the New York Times critical of Shen Yun, which showcases traditional Chinese culture and exposes CCP human rights abuses. One Chinese-language article attacking Shen Yun became the most shared New York Times piece on X in over a year, amplified by these banned fake accounts.
Cybersecurity experts said the activity resembled a nation-state automated bot attack. X has confirmed it removes millions of accounts weekly for spam and manipulation violations, including these. CCP bots artificially promoted every one of the 10 Times articles attacking Shen Yun.
The CCP’s motivation is Shen Yun’s connection to Falun Gong, a group it has sought to “eradicate” since 1999 to maintain state atheism. China has detained Falun Gong practitioners for “re-education through labor,” tortured 2,000 to death as of 2009, and killed 65,000 to harvest their organs from 2000 to 2008 alone.
Xi’s propaganda escalation
Whistleblowers with ties to CCP security confirmed a 2022 campaign launched by Xi Jinping to discredit Falun Gong overseas, using Western media and social media platforms like X. The New York Times articles align with this effort.
Data analysis revealed that 80% of accounts sharing these articles had zero followers, indicating bot activity. Other signs of inauthenticity included repetitive posts across accounts and crude anti-Falun Gong content mirroring CCP propaganda. Some accounts, active since 2019, shifted to exclusively anti-Falun Gong posts over time, often using stolen or AI-generated profile images.
New bot accounts continue to emerge, leveraging AI to create believable profiles and amplify content efficiently. Even accounts with over 10,000 followers showed inauthentic behavior, often hijacked, purchased, or repurposed from older, dormant profiles. This operation reflects a bold escalation, with the CCP increasingly operating openly rather than in the shadows, raising significant concerns about foreign influence on American platforms.
Tim Pool BLASTS COVID lies
The New York Times was one of many publications that consistently called conservatives conspiracy theorists for pointing out that the narrative Americans were sold about the COVID-19 pandemic did not seem to be the truth.
Now, they’re eating their words — but Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show” believes it’s too little, too late.
In a recently published article titled, “We Were Badly Mislead About the Event That Changes Our Lives,” the Times claims that those who dissented were portrayed as “kooks” and “cranks,” but that they may have been right all along.
“I read this and I thought, we weren’t portrayed as ‘kooks’ and ‘cranks,’ we were portrayed as dangerous and even as domestic terrorists,” Wheeler tells guest Tim Pool, adding, “I reject this op-ed as their peace offering.”
Not only does Wheeler reject the article on the grounds that it’s completely downplaying what dissenters went through, but the reason for the article is not to make amends.
“The reason that she seems mad about this, or slightly mad about this, is because these lies that she said we were willfully misled by the public health establishment as to the origin of this virus,” Wheeler explains, “it caused a significant decrease in public trust in public health officials.”
“The reason she’s mad about that is because now, it might cause you to question about whether you’re going to vaccinate your child or not,” she adds.
“They have the absurd narrative: Go wild, and then punish anybody who challenged the fact that their narrative made no sense and they didn’t want to abide by mandates or lockdowns,” Pool agrees.
“I don’t think we have ever seen, in our lifetime, a crackdown on voices like yours and voices like mine,” Wheeler adds.
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'That's f***ing fascist': Tim Pool blasts leftist into stunned silence for condemning Trump's promised Jan. 6 pardons
Podcaster Tim Pool tore into leftist political commentator Luke Beasley on the latest episode of the "Timcast IRL" podcast for making blanket condemnations of Jan. 6 protesters and for pre-emptively criticizing their pardoning by President-elect Donald Trump from a place of apparent ignorance about the specifics of their cases.
Early in the episode, Pool and Beasley discussed leftists' celebration of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione. When pressed for comment about his fellow leftists' apparent justifications for Thompson's killing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) recent remarks in particular, Beasley tried changing the subject.
"She's not advocating for Biden to pardon Luigi," said the former Harris booster. "You know who is going to pardon violent people? Did Trump say he was going to pardon violent [Jan. 6 protesters]?"
Beasley appeared desperate to equate efforts by leftists to excuse an alleged targeted murder with Trump's promised pardons for some of the roughly 1,500 individuals charged and hundreds convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the U.S. Capitol.
Blaze News previously reported that according to the Department of Justice, nearly 1,000 people have pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges, 68% for misdemeanors and 32% for felonies. Of those who pleaded guilty to felonies, 53% were for supposedly assaulting law enforcement officers.
'How long should they be in prison for?'
Trump suggested to "Meet the Press" in a Dec. 8 interview that whereas those involved in the deadly BLM riots, which inflicted billions of dollars of damage on the nation, largely got out legally unscathed, Jan. 6 protesters were alternatively rounded up and treated "unfair[ly]."
After Trump indicated that he would initiate pardons for Jan. 6 protesters on Day One, NBC News' Kristen Welker asked the president-elect whether he would consider also pardoning violent protesters. Trump insinuated that some of the convictions for violent crimes were bogus and said, "I'm going to look at everything. We're going to look at individual cases."
Pool seized upon Beasley's intimation that the pardons, particularly for supposedly violent Jan. 6 rioters, were necessarily condemnable, asking, "If someone attacks a cop, how long should they go to jail for?"
"I don't know," responded the leftist. "A while. ... Totally depends on the details of the assault."
Pool noted that some of the Jan. 6 protesters who Trump might pardon have been rotting in prison for roughly three years, then pressed the issue once again: "How long should they be in prison for?"
Beasley suggested that he would have to consider each of the cases one-by-one, prompting Pool to conclude that the need for such an individualized review should be grounds for avoiding a blanket condemnation of Trump's proposed pardons.
'You've taken a tribal position and people are suffering because of it.'
"No, because I think that the prosecutors who brought these cases then brought them in front of a jury and got convictions should be respected," said Beasley. "I think that those outcomes should be respected."
Pool became audibly frustrated after it became clear that Beasley's stance on the pardons hinged on a blind trust in the politically-charged prosecutions before juries drawn from an area where over 90% of voters cast ballots for the Democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections.
"If you've got someone on a misdemeanor charge who has been held without trial, a pardon makes perfect sense unless you're a fascist," said Pool. "You've taken the Otto Von Bismarck approach of it is better that 10 innocent people suffer than one guilty person escape."
"You don't know anything about these January 6 cases. You don't [know] why these people are in jail," continued Pool. "And when Donald Trump says these people have been held for too long, you say, 'No. Trump is wrong. Keep them locked up.' That's f***ing fascist, dude. You have been sitting here with no knowledge of the specifics of some of these cases."
Blaze News investigative reporter Joe Hanneman noted last week that Jalise and Mark Middleton of Forestburg, Texas, were among those convicted of assault, resisting, or impeding police officers. The couple, married for 34 years with no criminal history, claimed they were praying together when shoved into the police line on Jan. 6. Jalise Middleton alleged on X that her husband tried protecting her when police attacked her.
Pool got progressively angrier as he began reflecting on how leftists have alternatively been given a relative pass.
"On May 29, 2020, when thousands of far-leftists firebombed the White House grounds, and set fire to St. John's Church, and injured 100 police officers, how many f***ing people went to prison for three years? How many of them who never showed up on that day are in prison for 20 years?" said Pool. "You don't care what the facts are. You don't care if this is unjust. You only care that the machine state has decreed, 'You are now to be locked up.'"
Midway through Pool's over three-minute rant — during which Beasley sat in stunned silence — the host noted, "You don't know. You don't care. You've taken a tribal position, and people are suffering because of it. Now you say that Donald Trump saying the injustice that we've seen warrants commutatio[n] pardons, you say that means it's advocating for violence. This is the ultimate problem."
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Desperate Democrats Are Pushing Yet Another Version Of The Russia Collusion Hoax
The truth is, Russia isn’t interfering in the 2024 election nearly as much as Biden’s FBI and DOJ are right now.Don Lemon gets called out hard for still shilling for vaccines and COVID regulations
Don Lemon has stayed true to his colors and is still shilling for the media and the government — despite losing his coveted gig on CNN.
He made this clear in an interview on "The Full Send Podcast," where the Nelk boys confronted him with some basic facts about the government’s disastrous COVID policies.
“There’s a certain set of people that no matter what evidence is put in front of them as it pertains to COVID or as it pertains to the border or the economy or anything else — they will still run defense for the system,” Dave Rubin of "The Rubin Report" explains, before showing the embarrassing clip.
One of the Nelk boys accused Lemon of being like Cuomo, very pro- “take the thing, do it,” about vaccines.
“This whole argument about vaccines is a little weird to me because I think people are Monday-morning quarterbacking the idea of vaccines,” Lemon responded sheepishly, adding he thought that “instead of being selfish” people should have been “doing what was best for our fellow man.”
“So, I think that the people who are questioning the use of masks, even in the moment, were being a bit selfish,” Lemon said, before repeating the commonly heard line that “there was no medical evidence that ivermectin could help save people from getting COVID, or prevent them from getting COVID, or had any effect on the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“I believe in medicine, I believe in science, and I believe that my government is looking out for me and trying to do the best for me,” Lemon continued.
“Shouldn’t other people have the right to not take the vaccine and not forced to put something in their body that they didn’t want?” the other Nelk boy asks, adding, “It seemed at the time like media was really shaming people if you didn’t get a vaccine, like it’s your fault.”
“Well, I don’t know if the media was shaming people,” Lemon responded. “If you don’t get the vaccine, then don’t get the vaccine, but don’t expect to be able to do and go places,” he continued before being cut off.
“Like make a living, right?” one of the boys asked.
“I’ve watched that clip a couple of times, and it gets worse each time. I mean, he is on his knees blowing a system that literally fired him,” Rubin comments, shocked.
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'People are angry': Tim Pool sponsors stock car in NASCAR feeder league
Journalist and podcaster Tim Pool has sponsored the car of professional driver Cody Dennison, with the driver revealing that he's faced backlash over the deal from a few "tribal" voices.
Pool announced on X that he "did a thing," that being sponsoring driver Dennison ahead of an upcoming race, the Tide 150 at the Kansas Speedway. The race is in the ARCA Menards Series, which is one of the feeder leagues into the NASCAR racing system, for which there are three leagues in the ladder.
"The whole reason we're gonna be able to race all year is I met with Tim PooI ... and we talked about it, and he was super interested in just doing the whole year [of sponsorship]," Dennison said in an interview with Chrissie Mayr.
Dennison explained that the conversation about the sponsorship came up while he and Pool were playing a game of billiards.
"He was really interested," Dennison recalled. The driver said that Pool asked, "What does it feel like to go fast?" about the G-force at play, and, "What do you have to do when you have to p***?"
The conversation continued, and when Dennison noted that he'd been looking for a sponsorship, Pool cut him off and asked about the pricing.
"I just told him the rough estimate, and he was like, 'Yeah I'll do that, 100% let's do it.'"
Dennison also explained that some people in his life were angry to learn about the sponsorship.
"The people that are angry about this are always angry because they're tribal. So, they have sides of whatever conflict they think they're on, but they always end up on the side of people that are entirely self- serving, and they don't do stuff like this," he added.
WEEWWW BOI. We are looking SHARP for Kansas. Can't wait to take this thing to 185 mph. Saturday on FS1!! Thanks so much to @Timcast— (@)
Dennison has been in the public eye for some time as a YouTuber since 2013 and was eventually widely publicized in 2019 after his story about being fired from a GameStop went viral. Dennison spoke about the alleged mistreatment of employees and the company's dwindling stock prices at the time.
In a statement to the Post Millennial regarding why he chose to sponsor Dennison, Pool stated that "Cody is a friend" and that he "wanted to support his efforts and thought it would be a cool thing to do."
The Tide 150 takes place on May 4, 2024, at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas.
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