Adam Rawnsley Profile Banner
Adam Rawnsley Profile
Adam Rawnsley

@arawnsley

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Reporter for @rollingstone . Former Daily Beast/Foreign Policy/Wired. Occasional @bellingcat contributor. Talk to me: adam.rawnsley @gmail or protonmail dot com.

Joined October 2010
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Have you ever fucked up so badly that you made Sweden and Finland joint NATO?
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
For folks who weren't alive in the 80s when Republicans were actually rooting for HIV/AIDS, it looked a lot like this
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
This 60 Minutes special on the widows and orphans of COVID is crushing. 15 year old summoning the strength to smile on a FaceTime call with his mom because he realized it would be her last memory on earth. A 17 year old promising his sick dad he’d take over the family business.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
I don’t think I’m ready for the AI-generated “Muppets Take Fallujah” movie. I probably will never be.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Someone made a gag Lego Four Seasons Total Landscaping set
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Rioters admitting to the FBI that they didn't vote in November while also admitting to attacking the Capitol to overthrow other the votes of people who did is so on the nose it feels like screenwriting
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Twitter just suspended 16 Twitter accounts that were part of a network of fake personas. Together they spent the last year placing about 90 opeds in +40 different news outlets. Newsmax. Washington Examiner. Jerusalem Post. Real Clear Media.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
SCOOP from me and @swin24 : January 6th committee is planning to request Alex Jones' text messages and emails from the Sandy Hook attorneys after his lawyer accidentally sent years worth of comms to the plaintiffs.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
Big liberation of Paris energy
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
6-7 years ago, if you went around yelling at people “THE CIA MADE MY BEER GAY” you would be politely escorted to a social worker and a possible psych hold. Now it could probably get you a Daily Wire podcast.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
New from me: Prosecutors have charged an alleged Colorado militia member, Robert Gieswein, which The Daily Beast has been tracking since he appeared in photos of the riot at the Capitol.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
This is hilarious. Twitter shadowbans Bellingcat. Gets caught. Claims it was because they posted a video of the Texas shooting. Small problem: they didn't. Place your bets on what excuse number 2 is gonna be.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
Fake story based on forged documents published by shady pro Russian telegram channels. Of course the dumbest man alive fell for it
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
The FBI says Gieswein "appears to be affiliated with the radical militia group known as the Three Percenters." Working with @jsrailton , we found similar evidence. Here's a picture of Gieswein from his now-deleted Facebook page posing in front of CO Rep Lauren Boebert's bar
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
I dropped my iPhone in a pool once but this is a whole new level.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
11 months
Nephew 4 (7 years old) is very into geography. Has discovered the existence of Finland and loves the place. Answer on some schoolwork: “is am special because: I want to protect Finland” 🇫🇮
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
I too am very brave and principled on background
@jaketapper
Jake Tapper
4 years
Some senior US officials say they are deeply opposed to the idea of targeting cultural sites in Iran - CNNPolitics
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
This is such a wild inversion of roles from the previous rounds of fighting. In 2016, the GRU hacked an artillery calculator app to snag location data on Ukrainian troops trying to do targeting math. Now Russian generals are getting smoked by Ukrainians eavesdropping on them.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
I know you'll all be shocked to learn that Don Jr snaked his map from an alt-right 4chan orc
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
I’m about 40 percent convinced he thinks the phrase “mishandling classified information” means “keeping classified information in a messy pile” and not, you know, keeping it when you’re not supposed to. Would explain his outrage over the photo.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
@MollyJongFast I remember this scene from The Ten Commandments
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
New from me: Graphika and @stanfordio found a network of accounts linked to the Russian troll factory on Truth Social, Gettr, and Gab. Their most successful posts came from Kid Rock impersonators who got Donald Trump Jr. to repost their content.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
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@RALee85
Rob Lee
2 years
Russian soldier in Kherson having trouble opening a door to an electronics store.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
The power move at this point would be for Twitter to offer to buy Tesla.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Teeth are another sticking point. The algorithm seems to have glitched out on Joe, who wrote for pubs like The Post Millennial, when doing his teeth. Instead of two front teeth and two incisors, he has three (?) front teeth.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
Was making coffee and suddenly remembered the most ill thought out photo op that the IRGC’s most senior officer ever participated in
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
“Russian soldiers call it ‘quiet quitting’ and it’s the new zoomer trend that’s driving HR departments, commissars, and Sergei Shoigu crazy”
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
(In case you're wondering why I was asking for dentists to hit me up this week)
@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
This is a weird ask but are there any dentists who follow me and can answer a quick question via DM? It's work-related, I swear.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Pfizer declined to take Warp Speed money because, according to its CEO, they didn’t want their vaccine to be ransom to American politics. In hindsight that’s looking like a good call.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Air defense expert here. This is not funny. Air defense systems only do this when they're very stressed.
@RALee85
Rob Lee
2 years
This is reportedly footage of a failed Russian air defense system missile launch from Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
“Apparently unaware that a public video admission to criminal conduct at the U.S. Capitol could strip him of the right to vote, Mr. Jackson oddly explains that he has “learned a lesson” from not voting in the 2020 presidential election (“because I thought my vote didn’t count”)..
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
I’m sorry
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
NEW: The pickup truck with a Three Percent militia decal parked at the Capitol on Jan 6. belonged to GOP. Rep. Mary Miller's husband Chris, a state rep in Illinois. Building off research by @capitolhunters .
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
11 months
“What’s going on?” “The president’s former caterer girlbossed a little too close to the sun”
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Cruz rn
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
It’s a docketed filing you fucking doorknob
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
When keeping it real goes wrong
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
First off: stolen photos. The accounts took photos of real people and passed them off as someone different—without the real people's knowledge or consent. We found about four of those. You can see side by side. They mirrored them, most likely to defeat reverse image searches.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Gieswein, kneeling with the rifle. is flashing the Three Percenter hand signs in front of Beobert's bar in this picture from November 2019.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
The vibe rn
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
How do we know they're fake? After The Daily Beast presented our findings to Twitter, the company suspended them for violating platform manipulation and spam policies. But there's a whole lot more evidence than that.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Is there a self help course that helps one summon the discipline to not buy new books when there’s a stack of unread ones next to one’s bed
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Here's a Maxar image of a mass grave in Bucha, where Russia has left behind the bound corpses of civilians shot execution-style among other horrors. The New Republic would like very much for you to believe this is "war propaganda."
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Historians are going to point to Trump’s incitement of the Michigan plot against Gov Whitmer as the key bit of 1/6 foreshadowing the way Nixon historians point to the White House plumbers attempts to go after the Pentagon Papers leakers as the beginning of Watergate
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
Meta found a Chinese troll network hiring anti-Soros protesters, setting up a fake company in London, and shitposting anti-immigrant takes in an apparent (lame) attempt to stir up division in the west. So naturally I applied. They're hiring, folks.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
This is your daily dose of bizarre
@AricToler
Aric Toler
3 years
This procedurally-generated video from the Facebook of Robert Gieswein, a Colorado 3% militia member who stormed the Capitol, is accidentally the most damning evidence you'll ever see that Facebook shouldn't exist.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
It’s noteworthy that the most worrisome public warning about possible Russian interference—the GRU’s targeting of 200 groups for hacking—was delivered by a private corporation, Microsoft. Not the federal govt.
@NatashaBertrand
Natasha Bertrand
4 years
NEW: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and intelligence experts are now concerned it may be too late to arm Americans with a clear and consistent assessment of the scale and nature of foreign election interference.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Had to do it.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
One of the ways we were able to identify Gieswein was from the distinctive "Woodland Wild Dogs" patch he wore on his chest. If you check website registrations, you can find that Gieswein registered websites for the group as well as "Rocky Mountain Oathkeepers"
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Meet The Arab Eye/Persia Now network.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Gieswein was easily trackable at the Capitol thanks to a series of distinctive patches other than the Woodland Wild Dogs one.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Some of them appear to have been AI-generated using the kind of artificial intelligence software you see in ThisPersonDoesNotExist. Take "Joseph Labba" here.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
The person who deserves the credit for uncovering this is @marcowenjones . Marc does great work uncovering disinformation networks and he was the first to spot something wrong with "Lin Nguyen" and "Raphael Badani." Do yourself a favor and follow Marc.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Unless you can specify a law that this leak supposedly broke, this a gross abuse of taxpayer funds and federal law enforcement. Your HR problems are not federal crimes.
@johnkruzel
John Kruzel
2 years
BREAKING: Chief Justice John Roberts has directed the marshal of the Supreme Court to launch an investigation into the source of the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, which Roberts verified as an authentic document
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
You can see him kneeling and looking injured on the night of Jan 5 after involvement in an apparent scuffle in this picture taken by Shannon Stapleton of Reuters
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
There was also an Instagram account (again, now deleted) in the name of the "Woodland Wild Dogs" that appeared to show Gieswein and associated camping, shooting, and doing tactical exercises
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
And to tie it in further, Gieswein also put the Woodland Wild Dogs logo on his FB page.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
New from me: Rob Minuta, the Oath Keeper ABC identified as doing security for Roger Stone on Jan. 6, was also seen escorting Michael Flynn at the 12/12 Trump rally and Alex Jones at the 11/14 rally.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
The network had about 17 different personas. Most on Twitter. Some not.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Fake faces generated by AI are fairly convincing but they do glitch out on some things, like ears and teeth. They seem to have trouble with the ear creases, like Joe here.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Buh bye now
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
He also joins the other rioters for that infamous confrontation with police inside the Capitol. Standing here again next to "Spazzo"
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
This photo by @Jacquelyn_M of AP was incredibly helpful in identifying him via his patch
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
...ensuring that he would “vote in future elections.”
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
We asked a dentist to review the pic and he said it looks off too: “This mouth looks either fake or has some sad dental story behind it...The third tooth from the center does not look real to me. If you compare it with the canine on the other side it is obvious."
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Needless to say, we don't hire ghostwriters and this person never wrote for us.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Most instructive tweets on this website today. "On the one hand, this lunatic was pushing lethal misinformation that could get people killed. But on the other hand, he increased traffic and helped make me money. So good dude, high five."
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
And then there's their bios. A few had LinkedIn pages. Most didn't. My favorite was the author page for "Amani Shah" at @GVS_News . Imagine my surprise when I found out she claimed to do "ghostwriting" for The Daily Beast
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
I’m sorry he’s the base commander now those are the rules
@Archer83Able
Status-6 (Military & Conflict News)
4 years
In the other news, a bear with a box on his head managed to sneak into one of the Turkish military bases and climb onto the tower. The animal is reported to be safe and managed to descend on its own.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
(Jackson is accused of beating Capitol police with a metal baseball bat on the West Terrace of the Capitol)
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
So what else makes them seem off? Well, it's a little weird that so many people who were contributors to two suspicious sites (more on those in a bit) all (except one) had account creation dates in March or April
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Most of these fake personas wrote for two websites, The Arab Eye and Persia Now. The sites don't say so but they're linked. Created on the same day. Share a google analytics account. Both at the same IP. Share SSL certs with the same group of other websites.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
And as the FBI affidavit notes, his helmet is once again visible at Dominic "Spazzo" Pezzola allegedly smashes through a Capitol window with a police shield
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
11 months
In case you weren't aware of how big a joke the Quincy Institute is.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
New from me: when the Jan 6 committee wanted to test TikTok’s potential for extremist content rabbitholes, they gave an account to a fictional 41 year old woman. It took 75 mins for the account to be served videos with Nazi content
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
“We’re up ten points in the polls and on the verge of taking the senate. What’s the next play, Joe?” “Only one thing we can do, bud. Minorly inconvenience a nobody and pray it works”
@GreggJarrett
Gregg Jarrett
4 years
I find it odd, if not curious, that the moment I hit “send” on my column that’s highly critical of Joe Biden my Wi-Fi service disconnected. Inexplicably, it will be out all day. Never happened before. Probably just a coincidence. I drove to the local store and sent the column .
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
“I got lost on the way to the bathroom” is one heck of an explanation for one of the biggest civ-mil fouls in recent memory.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Genius behind this is a Reddit user,
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Entirely too cool. Making the other European leaders look bad. For shame.
@visegrad24
Visegrád 24
2 years
Finland’s Prime Minister @MarinSanna is in the headlines after a video of her partying was leaked today. She has previously been criticized for attending too many music festivals & spending too much on partying instead of ruling. The critics say it’s not fitting for a PM.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
This is from _defense_ motion arguing against pretrial detention.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
It’s a bit hard to have a democracy when one party is committed to celebrating and encouraging the assassination of its opponents.
@meridithmcgraw
Meridith McGraw
2 years
Trump calls Pelosi attack a "sad situation," shares conspiracy theory on Chris Stigall show: "Wow, it's -- weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks...The glass it seems was broken from the inside to the out so it wasn’t a break in, it was a break out."
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
10 months
@tobiaschneider Anti water. Anti AC. Euros are gonna be dropping like flies as summers get hotter.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
In this photo by @kentnish , his helmet is visible at rioters shove a barrier into Capitol police
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
1 year
152mm shell vs ballistic gel dummy. It’s easy to forget sometimes that we’re all basically water balloons filled with meat.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
I’m sorry I’m still stuck on the Four Seasons bit. Can we go back to that? I need closure on this.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Which one of you let the radioactive spider out, it bit a DShK
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Slack is down. Do crime and be free.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
2 years
Gonna be super weird when American HIMARS fired by Ukraine at a Russian base in Crimea end up killing IRGC advisors.
@JM_Szuba
Jared Szuba
2 years
JUST IN: White House NSC coordinator John Kirby says Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea assisting Russian pilots who bombarded Kyiv with Iranian drones on Monday. "Iran is now directly engaged on the ground," Kirby says.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Overlay the faces of those two personas, ratchet up the transparency, and they’re nigh on identical
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
3 years
Would totally watch an HBO show about a group of women who accidentally meet online when they realize their dipshit boyfriends and husbands went to the riot and then join forces to turn their exes and co conspirators in to the FBI
@ryanjreilly
Ryan J. Reilly
3 years
"If you can’t see the election was stolen you’re a moron,” Capitol defendant Richard Michetti texted his ex, who would soon be better known as FBI Witness 1.
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@arawnsley
Adam Rawnsley
4 years
Some of them, like "Lisa Moore" and "Joyce Toledano" here have the kind of eerily symmetrical faces you see in images generated by documented networks like this one busted by Graphika/DFR Lab
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Adam Rawnsley
4 years
They (mostly) presented themselves as living in European cities and had some fairly similar bios as "political analysts" and consultants.
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Adam Rawnsley
1 year
Ukraine is turning the tables on Russia and firing Iranian ammo at its tormentors after months of being struck by Iranian drones. Unclear where it’s coming from.
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Adam Rawnsley
7 years
Well that's a new one.
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Adam Rawnsley
3 years
The new Space Force uniforms, whew. I dunno.
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Adam Rawnsley
2 years
My favorite Philly fact is that Patriot Front showed up in their dopey Uhauls in a bunch of cities and got yelled at but they lasted about 5 minutes in the open before they had to run and hide
@ReadWryt
Disguised as a Nazi like Elon's friends
3 years
@Sydfish Here's footage of the good people of Philadelphia requesting that Patriot Front members kindly vacate the City Hall property...
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