Ford Fischer of Racket News partner News2Share usually films large protests that include chants and confrontations with law enforcement. This edition of “Activism, Uncensored” is different. It’s a one-man protest with a 168-foot view. Guido Reichstadter scaled Washington, D.C.’s, Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, where he says he plans to stay through the weekend to protest the war in Iran and AI.

- Managing Editor Greg Collard

Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/28/26:

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Both Matt and Michael agree that the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over his “8647” Instagram post is a weak case. The conversation then takes an unexpected and somewhat heated turn, shifting into a debate over prosecuting Russiagate and the role of the criminal justice system.

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Former FBI Director James Comey is facing charges again, this time over his May 2025 Instagram post that showed seashells arranged to show “8647.” Matt and Michael will weigh in on that, and what looms for former “Covid czar” Anthony Fauci with the indictment of his former aide, David Morens. There are calls for Fauci to be next, perhaps none louder than U.S. Senator Rand Paul.

Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that a black-majority congressional district in Louisiana is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Several states are moving to draw news maps, while Florida already has.

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/27/26:

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“When things are going bad, and there’s people you need to confront, just be sure it doesn’t turn into a witch pursuit thing.” — Randy Marsh

Americans love a good scandal. Or, more accurately, we love to throw our shit at the shadows of leering boogeymen while the real scandals go mostly unnoticed.

From the Covid vaccine’s Mark of the Beast to the Moloch-worshipping Epstein class, from ritual preschool murders to commies in the state department, the AMERICAN HYSTERIA has always had a special touch of insanity. Descending from those Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Americans inherited a predilection for moral mania and “witch pursuit things” that seem all but baked into the country’s genetic code.

While the manic tendrils of outrage and suspicion creep into every nook of political and social life, a brief history of nine American hysterical episodes, from Epstein to Salem, where we first discovered our love of hunting the satanic cabal.

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The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner over the weekend was disturbed, deranged, twisted. In obligatory 2026 style, the fallout might have been weirder still.

Ostensibly perpetrated by 31-year-old California teacher and self-styled “Friendly Federal Assassin” Cole Thomas Allen, the incident in the public consciousness quickly descended into false-flag, time-traveling, Mossad-agent bizarro land. A few conspiratorial theories already flying about the WHCA shooting:

The Timeline War

Cole Allen traveled through time. Yes, you read that right: an instantly viral theory described an elaborate “Timeline War” plot:

An X account by the name of Henry Martinez made one post in 2023, reading only — “Cole Allen.” It’s the sole post on the account, which garnered 52 million views less than 48 hours after the WHCA shooting.

The Martinez account features an odd banner image, seen right, and a Pepe the Frog meme in a tux for the profile picture.

The banner image for the account @HenryMa79561893 is pulled from the Time Machine project, an EU-based company that uses data to build a digital archive of European history.

The colorized banner looks, to some, like a distorted image of Trump raising his fist after the 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. To others, it’s a classic example of pareidolia, the phenomenon that leads people to see Jesus cleaning trout in tree stumps or wall mold. The latter group is less important to the conspiracy theory, of course.

Cole Allen also interned at NASA in 2014, the same year NASA published a paper on rocket systems by a lead author named… Henry Martinez.

Therefore, a NASA-linked scientist, Martinez, knew about both the Butler shooting and the WHCA shooting in 2023. Throw in the recent string of disappearing scientists, and as @BGatesisaPsycho put it:

Either time travel is real, or more than likely you are simply watching a scripted movie.

Still-sane journalist/fact-checker David Puente theorized that this was a “well-known” technique: the Martinez account may have been previously private, posted many names or events, then deleted everything else and gone public to create the illusion of having made a prediction:

Either way, the Time Machine banner and the Butler images have captured the public’s imagination, and the results of the mass-Rorschach test are telling.

A False Flag for a Mossad Ballroom

Conspiracists quickly turned to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s unfortunate choice of words before the event, where she tried to hype up Donald Trump’s speech. “He is ready to rumble… This speech tonight will be classic Donald J. Trump. It’ll be funny. It’ll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight.” Oops. Minus the context, the clip went beyond-viral, with a single post racking up over 16 million views since the shooting.

To some, of course, this was an admission of prior knowledge.

Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, nephew of Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur, reposted the clip of Leavitt, writing “what did she know?” Countless others joined the chorus, calling the clip an obvious confirmation of the false flag.

Another “smoking gun” came during a FOX News segment. Correspondent Aishah Hasnie called into the show from the dinner, but the connection dropped while she was describing a conversation with Karoline Leavitt’s husband, who told the correspondent, “You need to be very safe … there are some…” That’s when the call cut off. This too went viral, and again was taken as obvious evidence of FOX trying to hide an admission of the “staged event.”

Some zeroed in on an image of the assembled cabinet during the press conference following the shooting, calling their cheery demeanor another sign of foreknowledge. Tweeter @BonkDaCarnivore did a “pop quiz,” asking if the people below were “a group of people who survived a traumatic, credible event on their lives” or “a group of people who knows everything went according to plan.”

False flag, sure — but for what purpose? Obviously, to catalyze support for the ever-important White House ballroom. Posts like these from blue-leaning think-tanks like Meidas Touch garnered millions of views, catching the cascade of prominent Republicans, including ousted AG Pam Bondi, who called for the ballroom to be built following the shooting:

Critics not only theorized the shooting was orchestrated to force the ballroom project, but that the construction was linked to — you guessed it — the Mossad. Some said the ballroom has been infiltrated by the Israelis and is a replica of Solomon’s Temple. “Hey @Grok, what’s the first name of Trump’s new White House ballroom architect? Just the first name,” asked one post (with millions of views). Grok replied, “Shalom.”

While we’re on the subject of Israel, many viral posts showed Google search traffic in Israel over the past seven days (the “spike in search traffic” meme has become a popular conspiracy-mongering tool) purporting to show the search term “Cole Tomas Allen” spiking on the day of the shooting. Allen was also said to be seen in old photos wearing an Israeli Defense Forces sweatshirt. Asked @NotOpCue: Why Did Cole Allen Have The Same Sweater As MOSSAD Pedophile Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein?

None of this bled into conventional news, but how far off can that be?

Cole Allen, the suspected shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner disaster, left behind a manifesto reading in part:

I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.

Donald Trump appeared on 60 Minutes last night. Correspondent Norah O’Donnell read the passage, eliciting a much-publicized quote from Trump: “I was waiting for you to read that” because “you’re horrible people.” That wasn’t all. Watch how O’Donnell tries to get Trump to connect the dots for her, as if surprised he’d see himself in Allen’s description: “Oh, you think he was referring to—?”

Trump is not a person who needs to be lied about to be criticized. His provocations in word (“a whole civilization will die tonight”) or deed (using the military to bomb civilian boats, hitting civilian infrastructure because Iranians are “willing to suffer,” etc.) provide enough fodder for opponents. Lying not only isn’t necessary, it’s ineffective. False media narratives did more than anything to get him reelected in 2024. But we keep getting them, and getting assassination attempts and shootings, which are covered with increasingly undisguised sympathy for assailants. Why?

Meanwhile across town, there was an episode involving my podcast partner Michael Tracey that everyone had a laugh over, but was tied to this mess. It was also symbolic of the repulsive clubbiness that marks the Correspondents’ Dinner (and sadly now, Substack events?) and is a major reason why the public despises reporters — they’re care more about protecting each other than getting facts right. Michael may need a remedial fashion class, but he at least knows what the job is and cares about it, while colleagues don’t take responsibility for birthing wannabe assassins:

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If you followed Michael Tracey over the weekend, you know what Matt is going to discuss with him on this evening’s “Today’s News” livestream: Jim Acosta suggesting that he and Tracey “step outside.” Tracey took him up on the offer, but Acosta didn’t show. It all started after Michael tried to ask Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown about a February social media post:

Brown claims Michael was “screaming at her,” while Tracey says she’s a “historic liar … All the more reason to toss her bogus Epstein Reporting in the trash can.”

We’ll also be joined by a witness to the confrontation.

Of course, something far more serious occurred Saturday night — shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with President Trump and numerous Cabinet officials in attendance. Cole Tomas Allen is now charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump.

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/24/26:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/21/26:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/19/26:

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On July 20, 2022, Quartz published an article titled, “A new dashboard tracks real-time extremist hate online,” above a scary photo of tiki-torch-bearing supremacists at Charlottesville:

The article cheered the launch of “Exploring Hate Online,” a new tool launched by the Google-and-taxpayer-funded New America Foundation in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League. The new digital tool aimed “to give new insight into how this kind of manipulation… spreads online” by “monitoring over 1,000 of the most active extremist accounts on Twitter.” The article noted the new tool worked “in a similar way to Hamilton 68, a dashboard… which shows analysts what Russia-linked Twitter accounts are focusing on.” It wasn’t similar to Hamilton 68, it was the same:

“Exploring Hate Online” shut down within a year, though it had been planned for at least four. While investigating Hamilton 68, which was discovered in Twitter Files correspondence to be an elaborate media hoax, I found correspondence from 2018 between concerned Twitter executives about the New America tool. It too was designed by the same person who designed Hamilton 68, only this time in conjunction with the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center:

We don’t know if the SPLC remained on board with the project (it appears not), but the fact that it was even involved in the early discussions is notable, as is their other correspondence in the Files, which has now been indicted for another kind of fraud.

The SPLC and its “Hatewatch” monitoring program appear regularly in the Twitter Files and other documents this site has covered over the years. For instance, they’re in the files of the CTI League, an early group put together by a cohort of ex-intelligence and defense officials to manipulate information around the Covid crisis and combat “Fox News Snorters” and “whackadoodles.” CTI advised members — also coached to adopt sock-puppet identities — to send online inquiries about “non-COVID misinformation” to the SPLC:

The same CTIL members were trained to use a group of “counter” techniques originally called AMITT but later called DISARM that involved tactics like “cultivate ignorant agents,” by which they meant encouraging undereducated figures who’d defame their own movements. Targets here included leftists hostile to globalism and nationalists against immigration:

Exploring Hate, Hamilton 68, and CTIL all used digital techniques to exaggerate threats for political and financial reasons. It shouldn’t be a big revelation, but NGOs and politicians that fundraise on images of hate or hate speech — Twitter complained that “SPLC-type organizations” were at the forefront of demanding they censor — are massively incentivized to overstate or even concoct their “work product.” Though the SPLC’s indictment this week for paying members of hate groups is still just a list of unproven charges at this stage, there are now enough of these incidents to ask if America is really as steeped in hate as many institutions say.

In the digital age, a little bit of fraud goes a long way. The hate-business model works so well that right- and left-leaning organizations have fed each other customers. This is part of the SPLC’s background, and one reason we have so much hate inflation in America:

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A note from Managing Editor Greg Collard:

New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, passed in 2019, was intended to impose regulations aimed at significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many of those regulations haven’t been approved, and in February, the New York Energy Research and Development Authority determined that full implementation of regulations just to meet the law’s 2030 goals would cost people a lot of money — more than $4,000 annually for oil and gas households in upstate New York, and $2,300 for natural gas customers in New York City.

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Of course, businesses would be hit, too. “Depending on the utility and size of the facility, such entities could expect utility costs to increase by as much as 46%. Costs for operating a delivery truck would increase by over 60%,” the Development Authority’s president and CEO wrote.

Hochul now wants to amend the law.

“While I am still committed to working toward our targets, with all the stress our residents are under, New Yorkers expect their elected officials to prioritize affordability,” Hochul wrote in a March 20 op-ed.

Climate activists are not happy, and they expressed their dismay Tuesday at the state capitol in a protest filmed by Ford Fischer of Racket News partner News2Share. At one point, a protest leader stood up and said, “I heard many of us chanting just a few weeks ago, ‘No kings.’ Now, no queens!”

A new chant was born.

Nyserda Memo

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The New York Times on old people:

It is not ageist to ask whether older people should be required to give more to younger Americans… Older Americans favor restrictions on immigration… there is a correlation between age and resistance to policies to halt the overheating of the planet… impose age ceilings on political offices… Older Americans own much of the most desirable real estate… It is not ageist, finally, to impose policies to transfer jobs, houses and wealth down the generational chain.

Yale law professor Samuel Moyn, whom I interviewed once, always seemed generous and reasonable, even when our politics differed. But unless it’s an elaborate meta-joke, the above column and forthcoming book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Wealth and Power in America advance some of the most intellectually vicious ideas I’ve ever seen. The Godwin’s Law factor alone is a shocker.

Moyn observes that people of years have accumulated money and influence and contrives to end the “tyranny of the old” by having “the elderly divested of political power, wealth, and property,” because reasons. The title of the Times piece, “Older Americans Are Hoarding America’s Potential,” carries the obscene lefty connotation that no one really owns anything and the elderly, by dint of living too long to begin with, and having a generally shitty quality of life compared to the young, and voting incorrectly/selfishly (hilarious, in the context of open scheming to seize their savings) and wasting resources “playing for time” for “another day, month, or year among loved ones” makes them lousy stewards of what the author unironically calls “our inheritance,” i.e. their homes and bank accounts.

Moyn cites the example of apes and chimpanzees who establish hierarchies based on “brute strength, and therefore physical vitality” and can “marginalize faltering alpha males” who then “sometimes go into exile, which means death.” Humans, by unpleasant contrast, traditionally value the wisdom of elders, so achieving “intergenerational equity” may require (here Moyn quotes the Succession character Shiv Roy) “a good old-fashioned dinosaur cull.”

The piece doesn’t just seethe with collectivist bloodlust, it’s incorrect. Moyn confuses a handful of old politicians and billionaires with the wider category of “old people,” who far from being antisocial hoarders have been repeatedly victimized by public and private interests over the last twenty-plus years, always for the same offense: being good citizens. I’d say it’s astonishing that a Yale professor could not know this, but sadly it isn’t. As someone who had to cover the ripoffs, it’s lunacy:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 04/16/26:

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A lot is on the agenda. Matt and Michael will discuss the latest in Iran, Kash Patel’s lawsuit against the Atlantic over a Friday story that casts him as a drunk, the continuing fallout from the Eric Swalwell scandal, and President Trump’s support for research into psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness.

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