Hello and welcome to Useful Idiots. I'm Katie Halber.

And I'm Mary Matter. How are you Katie? I'm good you. I'm great. I received a new distinction this week.

According to a study put out by somebody at the University of Alberta, I am a Russian influenced account.

I'm a top Russian influenced account. Wow.

I'm a social media or just an influencer. I've finally achieved the status of influencer, which is what I've always wanted to be.

I've always wanted to say that I have an influencer and finally I've been bestowed the honor by this researcher at the University of Calibur of Alberta.

And that's especially sweet for you probably because it's a Canadian on Canadian award.

That's what I'm finally being honored in my country of origin. So it's very, very exciting.

Yeah, look, now this is some, well, this is another one of these studies by people claiming to be concerned about this information and it's basically they define this information as pretty much anything that goes against the NATO line about the crisis in Ukraine.

And there's other funny criteria to actually we can look at it.

So these are the criteria by which the study decided who is a Russian influenced account who was spreading Russian disinformation implying NATO expansionism legitimizes the Russian invasion.

Okay.

No one I know legitimizes the Russian invasion and we've talked about before Katie on the show how I think the Russian invasion is unjustified.

I'm just not going to pretend that the context in which it occurred doesn't exist. That's my whole thing portraying NATO as an aggressive alliance using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia.

Well, if that's a criteria for a Russian disinformation, then so are a number of top influential US political figures who have openly admitted that Ukraine is a proxy.

Like Lloyd Austin.

Exactly. And look at this one number three promoting a general mistrust in institutions and elites.

That's somehow now an act of Russian disinformation to promote mistrust in our rulers.

Wow, that's then a lot of people are.

I almost feel like this is a war doesn't fair because it should be given to so many more people.

Yeah, it should be given given to anyone who has basically critical faculties and isn't authoritarian who worships our leaders and thinks that they're the bees knees and suggesting Ukraine is a fascist state or has extensive fascist influences.

Again, guilty when you have a openly neo-Nazi paramilitary battalion the as of battalion incorporated in Jerome forces and a number of fascists who were instrumental in the 2014 coup.

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