Reuters: “BitChute has boomed as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook tighten rules to combat misinformation and hate speech. An upstart BitChute rival, Odysee, has also taken off. Both promote themselves as free-speech havens, and they’re at the forefront of a fast-growing alternative media system that delivers once-fringe ideas to millions of people worldwide.”

“Searching the two sites on major news topics plunges viewers into a labyrinth of outlandish conspiracy theories, racist abuse and graphic violence. As their viewership has surged since 2019, they have cultivated a devoted audience of mostly younger men.”

Philip Bump: “Trump was willing to be the voice of the fringe. He was willing to parrot it back to the base, what they were hearing on Breitbart, and what they’re hearing on Fox News, in a way that the establishment wouldn’t, right? And that has been his success ever since. He’s been engaging and rallying the far right of the Republican Party that didn’t feel like they had a voice, justifiably, in politics.”

“And that’s what DeSantis is doing as well. He’s really playing to that same far right and he is, in the same way that Donald Trump was Breitbart to the establishments, Fox News in 2016.”

“Now, Breitbart is, you know, almost establishment-esque to some extent, and Ron DeSantis is Infowars, right?”

“I mean, so it is this constant, okay, I’m going to engage where this most fervent element of the base is, and we call that Trumpism, but it’s, you know, really just the fringe, and engaging the fringe has proven to be a successful strategy for winning elections. And I think that’s what DeSantis is doing.”

This is really something to watch: The anchor for Real America’s Voice argues that the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago was to prevent Donald Trump from exposing satanic pedophile rings.

All the clearly uncomfortable co-anchor can do is say, “Right… Right… That’s right.”

“A wave of concern and even paranoia is gripping parts of Trump world as federal investigators tighten their grip on the former president and his inner circle,” Politico reports.

“In the wake of news that the FBI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump’s allies and aides have begun buzzing about a host of potential explanations and worries. Among those being bandied about is that the search was a pretext to fish for other incriminating evidence, that the FBI doctored evidence to support its search warrant — and then planted some incriminating materials and recording devices at Mar-a-Lago for good measure — and even that the timing of the search was meant to be a historical echo of the day President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.”

Said former Trump aide Monica Crowley: “There are no coincidences when it comes to the Deep State. They could have done this raid a couple of days before or tomorrow, but they chose Aug. 8 for a reason.”

Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax that he is worried Democrats might try to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

Said Kerik: “If you remember back in 2016, right before he got elected, I was in Washington D.C. I was at a couple of different social events, and I hear people talking, they said the Democrats want this guy so bad that they wouldn’t put assassination behind it. And I’m gonna tell you something. they’ve tried impeachment, they’ve tried another impeachment, they’ve tried one investigation after another.”

He added: “This is about one thing: this is about stopping him from running in 2024. And I’m gonna tell you something, I’m not into conspiracies, I’m not into anti-government rhetoric. This is the first time in my lifetime that I would say I am deathly afraid for Donald Trump. I would not put assassination behind these people.”

Sandy Hook lawyer Mark Bankston said that Alex Jones sent an “intimate photo” of his wife to political consultant and Trump ally Roger Stone, Yahoo News reports.

Jones has separately described the photo as a nude image.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Saturday said “no one can convince” her that the rioters behind the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol were not anti-fascist protesters and that she “cannot wait for a real investigation” to take place, the HuffPost reports.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell warned the audience at CPAC about the rise of the machines across the globe.

Said Lindell: “Over 54 countries have now been taken by the machines or are getting taken by the machines. And you never get to go back.”

He added: “Venezuela, Australia, they’re gone. You don’t get to vote out the machines once they’re there. Once they’re there, you don’t get your country back.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones testified that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was “100% real,” the AP reports.

In other news, Jones learned that his lawyer mistakenly send a huge cache of text messages to the Sandy Hook families’ attorney which prove he lied in his deposition.

New York Times: “Their bleak prospects reflect the shifting role that conspiracy theories play in American politics. The Republican Party flirted with QAnon in 2020, as several Q-linked candidates sought higher office and Q merchandise appeared at rallies for then-President Donald Trump across the country. Yet identifying with the movement emerged as a political liability. As they have during this election cycle, Democrats attacked Q-linked candidates as extremists, and all but two — Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado — lost their races.”

“But many QAnon themes have burrowed deeper into mainstream Republican politics this year, experts say, including the false belief that ‘evil’ deep-state operatives control the government and that Mr. Trump is waging a war against them. Savvy candidates have found ways to tap that excitement — all without explicitly mentioning the conspiracy theory.”

Barton Gellman: “He has baffled old comrades with his transformation since being fired as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014. He led chants to lock up Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, he posted a video of himself taking an oath associated with QAnon. He has endorsed crackpot fabrications of the extreme right: that Italy used military satellites to switch votes from Trump to Biden in 2020, that Covid-19 was a hoax perpetrated by a malevolent global elite, that the vaccine infused recipients with microchips designed for mind control.”

“Has Flynn always been susceptible to paranoid conspiracies? Or did something happen along the way that fundamentally shifted his relationship to reality? In recent conversations with the former general’s close associates, some for attribution and some not, they offered a variety of theories.”

“In the 1980s, Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas had a moment of clarity: She realized she had fallen in with a group she considered ‘a cult’ and sought to be ‘deprogrammed’ from it,” NBC News reports.

“Thomas’ involvement with Lifespring, an organization advertising training seminars purporting to help participants unlock almost superhuman potential, left her wondering what it was about herself that allowed her to be drawn in. Her successful deprogramming — considered a controversial tactic — led her to become a vigorous anti-cult crusader.”

“It’s difficult to reconcile Thomas then and now, four people who worked with her at the height of her anti-cult activism through the late 1980s said in interviews. After she spent years trying to expose cults, these people found Thomas’s efforts to promote outlandish plans to overturn the 2020 results, particularly the text messages and emails in which she referenced false election conspiracies that originated in QAnon circles on the internet, surprising. Democrats and Republicans alike have said QAnon supporters exhibit cult-like behavior.”