A Chinese religious cult undergoes a massive government crackdown. In response, they found a newspaper in the United States and set out to combat Beijing. But why did one of their journalists hand a mysterious envelope to Trump? This week we're joined by Jared Holt — repeat guest, journalist for Right Wing Watch and host of the Shitpost Podcast — to discuss The Epoch Times and its relationship to the Falun Gong cult.
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Welcome, listener, to the 75th chapter of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, the Epoch Times episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Fields, Jared Holt, and Travis View.
This week, we're jumping two feet first into the Epoch Times, a US-based international publication founded by Chinese cult members in the year 2000.
We'll examine how the paper rose to prominence by accusing the Chinese government of human rights violations.
Pretty out there.
And how it propelled itself to infamy in the wake of the 2016 elections by rolling around in far-right conspiracy theories.
Towards this task, we've invited Repeat guest Jared Holt to join us.
He's a journalist for Right Wing Watch and the host of the Shitpost podcast.
How's it going, Jared?
Oh, pretty good.
For some reason, I heard that, you know, the Epoch Times was founded in the year 2000, and now my brain is just playing that Jonas Brothers song.
You know what I'm talking about?
I know, I'm familiar with the Jonas Brothers, even if these two fucking idiots aren't.
Jake's here for you, man.
Jake's here for your trash references.
Yeah, Jake, you understand what it's like to live among the rubes.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I am one, I blend in.
But before all that...
First up, we have an updated tally of QAnon-promoting congressional candidates.
So Alex Kaplan over at Media Matters has continued calculating how many current or former congressional candidates promote QAnon, and the most recent tally is 22.
Woo!
Getting close to two dozen.
Which is 21 too many.
Wow.
I think there's room for one.
I think room for one.
Yeah, one's wacky, that's fine.
One's fun, one's kooky, you know?
One's fun.
It's interesting.
Travis says you can have one for a snack.
Yes, right.
22 more!
Well, then you get into trouble.
You can have a little QAnon as a treat.
Among them is a candidate for Oklahoma's 5th district named Dan Belcher, continuing the tradition of QAnon followers with ludicrous names.
You know, I actually had to cut out of the last episode an entire meltdown around how names continue to fucking do this to us.
It's not right, but yes, Belcher is your last name.
Absolutely incredible.
Hi, my name is Frederick Vomits.
I just love it.
Yet another hero in the extended QAnon universe.
So, Belcher has run multiple Facebook ads featuring the QAnon slogan, Where We Go One, We Go All, including his announcement video where he says the slogan out loud.
My name is Dan Belcher.
I'm a Republican.
I'm running for U.S.
Congress, 5th Congressional District.
There is an awakening happening across the United States.
We can do it.
Where we go one, we go all.
Come on.
This is madness.
With the same music.
They love those kind of licky little riffs in the background.
For my second story, right-wing militia recruitment leaflets distributed at Tampa QAnon Rally.
So as fans of the show know, there was a QAnon Rally in Tampa, Florida on January 11th, which we attended.
While we were there, Jake was handed a flyer encouraging QAnon followers to organize.
And here's what that leaflet says.
This is not a game.
This is more than just online posts, memes, and tweets.
The future of this country and the soul of humanity is at stake.
We are up against an evil worldwide cabal that has enslaved humanity for thousands of years.
It's time to get more involved and meet other like-minded people.
They want you controlled and dumb.
They want you fat and unhealthy.
They.
Want.
Want.
Us.
Divided.
And.
Controlled.
To the opposite.
Become.
Extremely.
Educated.
It's perfectly for these guys. God. To the opposite. Become extremely educated and spread the truth.
Become incredibly educated. Your brain will be something you have to pull along like a giant
prison ball.
Get in shape and improve your health.
Network and train with other patriots.
We need people from all walks of life ready to defend our country.
Consider forming your own mutual assistance group with like-minded friends.
Or check out existing patriot groups such as Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, Sons of Liberty, and State Militias.
Hashtag WWG1 WGA Punisher Skull.
Which is great that they signed it and then like within weeks the guy was like, he would
rip off your heads and shit down your skulls.
And now they have, imagine sending out pamphlets signed with something that later blows up
in your face like this.
Every QAnon shirt with the Punisher logo, they've all retroactively become a hilarious
example of their inability to face reality.
That's where you're wrong.
I love it.
That's where you're wrong, Julian.
That guy, it's not his logo anymore.
It's QAnon's.
I forgot that Disney owns the Punisher skull, which means that Disney could literally probably shut down the QAnon grift market, like, overnight.
Oh, that's true, I guess.
If they just shut down use of that skull, it would fuck up QAnon so bad.
So, Mr. Walt.
Yet they won't.
It makes you consider the possibilities.
Mr. Mouse.
Yeah, I'm actually glad to have you here for this episode, Jared.
I'm curious, what was your take on people within QAnon apparently using the movement to recruit for 3%ers and Oath Keepers and Sons of Liberty and these sorts of groups?
I mean, it's not that surprising to me because all of these militia groups, if you talk to these guys, it's a very similar frame of mind.
Maybe they don't believe in this pedophile sex tunnel network type thing, but they do see the government as this corrupted, terrible thing that will eventually come for the citizens if Trump doesn't step in and get the help of patriots to prevent that.
To me, like the impression I get is maybe these militia groups just like see this as ripe recruiting ground or as like another adventure that they can go LARP on.
I think it's uh the the fact that like half of this crowd is like doing you know like sit-ups every morning and the other half is morbidly obese and then so like one half is kind of just body shaming the other half and being like they want you to be like that.
Get healthy and educated!
Like they're ashamed of that side of the movement?
Our softer brothers get with your firmer brothers.
I feel like the subtext between lines for this pamphlet is like, what's up you dumb fat fuck?
If you really want to help in the movement, you gotta read all the posts on the internet, you gotta get fit, you gotta get thick, get beef, and make friends.
Hang out.
Just chill, bro.
Patriots, Patriots, it's not enough to corner your nephew every single time you have a family reunion.
You gotta also do some push-ups.
Patriots, can I get a vibe check?
For my next story, I have an Epstein update.
A lawsuit alleges that Jeffrey Epstein abused girls as recently as 2018.
Prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands have unveiled a new lawsuit against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Authorities claim Epstein's sexual predation on the Hideaway Islands occurred as recently as 2018 and involved children as young as 11 years old.
The suit alleges that the activity was covered up by Epstein's associates through a complex web of corporations.
In one instance, investigators say a 15-year-old who was forced into sexual acts with Epstein attempted to escape by swimming off of one of Epstein's private islands, Little St.
James.
Prosecutors claim that eventually Epstein's crew found her after assembling a search team and took her passport.
This is like shit out of a horror movie.
That is so fucking scary.
Oh my god.
I just want to pour one out for the ephebophile crew.
The people who were still holding out hope that the word pedophilia is being misused here.
And when you see a number like 11, you can just put that one to bed, I think.
I didn't even understand any of what you just said.
Don't worry about it, man.
It means you're probably a better human being.
Although I was expecting the story to end with like, when reached for comment, Jeffrey Epstein said,
I'm not alive still.
I remain dead.
I remain dead.
Stop calling me.
You know that I'm dead.
Please stop calling me.
I'm just trying to enjoy a little R&R on a different island with a similar setup.
Boy, are those ears attached to someone else's face burning right now.
The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Denise George seeks to confiscate all property used in the alleged criminal conspiracy, including his two private islands, and is asking for the recovery of millions of dollars from the Epstein estate.
Epstein's victims would be the beneficiaries of what authorities are hoping to seize.
This shit's gonna be like fucking Galileo.
Like, give us 300 euros and we'll start apologizing for this shit.
Yeah.
For our last story, I just want to mention that Q is on yet another silent streak.
Q has not posted since December 29th of last year, which is weird.
A lot going on, we've got the impeachment, we've got the rally, you know?
It's almost like QAnon gets the fuck out of town as soon as there's something important.
Yeah.
Lest they make a false prediction again.
Yeah, because Q could be capitalizing on what's going on right now.
There has been talk about Iranian reform in some Q drops.
You would think that all of the stuff with Iran would be prime Q booms.
I mean, how many rockets hit the plane?
Is it boom, boom, boom, Boom.
I mean, where is that?
I mean, where are the fucking Bakers?
Have we checked in with those insane Iranian restart movement people that thought that they were going to take over Iran under Trump's guidance with the Make Iran Great Again movement?
Yeah.
They are very enthusiastic about the recent developments.
Of course they love it.
Oh, Trump is fucking nuking the guy we don't like?
Yeah, yeah.
They're hyped.
Fantastic.
Epic Times Origin Story.
Atlanta, Georgia.
In May of 2000, a man named John Tang founded the Epic Media Group, an umbrella organization for the multiple media companies he planned to roll out.
They included, of course, The Epic Times, a newspaper joined a year later in its media mission by the New Tang Dynasty, or NTD, a television broadcasting company operating out of New York City.
NTD stated its mission, promote uncensored information on China, to restore and
promote traditional Chinese culture, and to facilitate mutual understanding between the East and
the West.
A more credible goal might be the combating of the mainland Chinese government, which
less than a year prior had released a list of the 11 quote most active cults in China,
including the Falun Gong religious movement, which Travis will explore more in depth in
The creation of the list had been prompted by the horrifying murder of a 37-year-old woman at a McDonald's in northeastern Shandong province.
Caught on video, the deadly beating was allegedly carried out by a member of another Chinese cult known as the Church of Almighty God.
This sounds like an anime already.
And it will continue to.
The Xinhua news agency commented at the time, quote,
The audacity of the cult members to terrorize their victim at a McDonald's,
a chain frequented by average Chinese, further racked people's nerves.
This was a stroke of bad luck for Falun Gong.
With no body count of their own, they had nonetheless attracted the ire of the Chinese authorities.
Having been labeled a cult and banned from operating on the mainland, Falun Gong retreated to Hong Kong and Taiwan where they licked their wounds.
A year later, the embittered and cornered John Tang set out to become an info warrior in his own right and bring the fight to Beijing.
It may have been an uphill battle.
Here's from a 2004 Wall Street Journal article by Susan V. Lawrence.
The two organizations are still far from being respected mainstream Chinese language media outlets with the power to challenge the Chinese government's growing influence over the Chinese diaspora.
Whether they ever reach that position depends on their willingness to come clean about their links to Falun Gong And, most importantly, unpopular perceptions about the quality of their journalism.
A big issue on the journalism front.
Can they learn to adopt a sense of proportion in their coverage of Falun Gong's persecution?
Neither Niu Teng Dynasty nor the Epoch Times pays salaries, a big reason why they can do as much as they do on limited budgets.
Staffers are almost all part-time volunteers with day jobs unrelated to journalism.
NTDTV's director of programming, Zhao, Funding for both organizations is tight.
Both New Tang Dynasty TV and The Epoch Times are not-for-profit corporations and rely largely on public donations.
is a data analyst for a major international financial institution who
attends State Department briefings in her lunch hour. Funding for both
organizations is tight. Both Niu Teng Dynasty TV and the Epoch Times are
not-for-profit corporations and rely largely on public donations. Most but not
all donations appear to be from Falun Gong followers.
So just the money coming in is just cult money?
New Tang Dynasty TV President Lee says donor information is very sensitive because of what he says is Chinese government pressure on anyone associated with New Tang Dynasty TV.
Advertising has not taken off at New Tang Dynasty TV, Lee says, because the Beijing government's labeling of it as Falun Gong organization drives off advertisers and some program vendors fearful of landing on a Beijing blacklist.
Don't worry, there's always America.
Yeah, so it's simultaneously like, okay, there's like weird dark money coming in from a cult,
but it's also like they're trying to paint themselves as a small startup that's still
like setting up operations.
Ooh, we're just, we have part-time people working for us.
And it's because mostly at the time they really don't have any allies yet.
They just have one big enemy, the Chinese government, and they have a kind of US landscape
of people that are unfriendly to their organization.
Maybe because it's called New Tang Dynasty TV and appears incredibly fucking sketchy.
However, Epic Times, that could pass a little more.
So, let's see how that develops.
By August 2004, the Epoch Times began printing what they call a, quote, regular 16-page general interest Epoch Times newspaper in English, printed and distributed on the streets of New York.
That November, they publish The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, an editorial series Quote, publicly revealing for the first time the full extent of the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda, persecution, famine, massacre, tyranny, and censorship over half a century.
They explain it has since been translated into 30 languages and effectively, quote, inspired a global movement to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party.
Unclear what they mean there, like just people leaving it?
I don't think I've seen like a big exodus, but whatever.
Despite their earlier claims of monetary woes, it seems like things started sorting themselves out by 2005 when the Epoch Times announced they were now printing newspapers in quote, every English-speaking country in the world, including Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Now, to some of you, this may seem worrying.
A media organization founded and sustained by a cult moving into mainstream Europe.
But don't worry, you'll notice that our German friends are not on the list.
They have the wisdom of their lessons from the last world war and would never fall for religious extremists like these guys.
Right?
Except, of course, by 2006, the German version of the Epoch Times, Die Neue Epoche, was given an award by the International Society for Human Rights for its reporting on human rights violations in China.
So, there went Europe, I guess.
The Epoch Times continued its push forward.
By 2008, they rolled out a daily print newspaper in New York City, and two years later, it was also in Hong Kong.
One of the most notorious pieces published by the Epoch Times was a March 2006 article containing allegations that the Chinese government were murdering Falun Gong followers to funnel their organs into the transplant industry.
It led to the Kilgore Matas report, an effort spearheaded by Canadian MP David Kilgore and human rights lawyer David Matas, seeking to determine the extent of the Chinese regime's alleged organ harvesting operations.
They determined that, quote, there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners.
Beijing, unsurprisingly, denied all wrongdoing.
By 2008, the United Nations reiterated its request to the Chinese government, quote, to fully explain the allegations of taking vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants that has been going on in China since the year 2000.
During this entire thing, the Epoch Times rode sidecar, gaining credibility among Westerners along the way.
Ladies and gentlemen, what we had here was a time bomb.
A media organization founded by a religious cultist with a chip on his shoulder, which also happened to be scratching the Western media's back by reporting on Chinese human rights abuses.
And the paper wasn't stupid.
They knew they were onto something.
In 2014, The Epoch Times began critically covering the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement protests under the watchful eye of the international press.
It paid dividends.
In 2015, The Epoch Times won 21 awards handed out by the New York Press Association, quote, including prizes for live news, special reports, photography, overall design, and best advertising.
It was the fruit of nearly 15 years of careful labor.
Okay, so now close your eyes.
Alright?
Alright?
Doing it with me?
Traveling back in time together.
I feel the mystic winds of change against my forehead.
It's nearly the end of 2015.
The United States Supreme Court has affirmed gay marriage.
And you just watched Justin Trudeau appoint the first gender-equal cabinet.
It turns out, there's water on Mars.
Everybody's favorite politician, Hillary Clinton, is using superdelegates to push good-for-nothing socialist Bernie Sanders out of the Democratic primary.
Liberalism is looking pretty good right now.
And then, suddenly, you remember the possible cult-run newspaper that is gaining credibility in the American mainstream.
You think to yourself, it would be a huge shame if all this highly flammable credibility came into contact with some sort of Spark.
Like, let's say, a reactionary outsider presidential candidate willing to start a trade war with the Chinese government.
You turn on MSNBC.
Jeb Bush is leading the Republican primary.
Things will probably be fine.
Jake has his eyes actually closed.
He looks so much happier than I've seen him in years.
This is so sad.
Yeah, he loves 2015.
It's too beautiful of a vision.
He looks so much happier than I've seen him in years.
This is so sad.
He opened his eyes and he looks like a full human being.
The Trump Ticket Who among us has not spent millions of dollars on inauthentic Facebook profiles and pages that promote President Trump?
Anyone?
Juliet?
Travis?
Why didn't you ask me?
See, that's what I thought.
We all have.
You see, the Epoch Times is getting totally unfair treatment in the media, folks.
And you know what?
I guess I should explain a little bit more.
After Trump announced his candidacy for... Can I borrow the Q voice real quick?
Yeah.
Q plus.
I mean, POTUS.
The Chinese paper quickly warmed to Trump and grew to be one of the president's most aggressive defenders throughout his first year in office.
A former employee of the Epoch Times told NBC News last year that the paper's leadership came to believe that Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the Communist Party.
Apparently, there was no shortage of money the site and its affiliates were willing to spend to propagandize for their blessed communism slayer.
The Epoch Times last year was reported to be the second largest spender on pro-Trump Facebook ads.
They had about 11,000 of them and spent $1.5 million on them.
Oh, excellent!
And while most of us were on holiday break, you know, kind of checked out of the news, NBC News' Ben Collins reported that Facebook said it had taken down more than, quote, 600 accounts tied to the pro-Trump conspiracy website, The Epoch Times, for using identities created by artificial intelligence to push stories about a variety of topics including impeachment and elections.
$9.5 million had been spent on Facebook ads through its accounts.
This is from NBC News.
The network had over 55 million followers on Facebook, almost double the following of Kim Kardashian West.
The accounts pushed anti-impeachment and pro-Trump messages, while otherwise posing as everyday Americans.
Sometimes the accounts featured obvious errors.
One moderator of the popular BL page was named Ellen Dancy, but featured an AI-generated face of a man.
Oh boy.
Oh, something tickable.
Come on, give us the next line.
We're gonna lose it.
Dancy's sole post to his profile page read, Hello, welcome to my Facebook.
Amazing stuff.
Welcome.
Two L's, no E. It's like, welcome.
It looks like a fucking like, like telecommunications company.
It's like, welcome.
Serving you.
So I don't know where to bring this up.
I guess I'll do it here.
But I can't stop thinking about this.
In late 2018, a photographer for the Epoch Times broke protocol and at a White House event gave Trump an unmarked envelope.
And we never learned what was inside that envelope.
So they're just slipping the president mysterious envelopes containing no one knows what I mean come I mean, it's obviously come just as a giant and vehicle of come and that's by the way I mean, I assume reporters reached out be like dude.
What was in the envelope and they never got a response Yeah, well, what are you gonna?
Do publish what the guy said come well?
Well, and also here's the other thing is that if you're President Trump and somebody hands you a sealed envelope, you better believe that you're going to have Secret Service all over to make sure it's not anthrax.
No, you immediately put it in your mouth and eat it.
Yeah, or whatever.
You eat the envelope and whatever was inside it.
One can only infer that Trump knew he knew what was in that envelope and therefore it wasn't a security issue, right?
Yeah, he calls the editor of the Epoch Times later and is like, oh, this is the most beautiful cum tribute I've ever seen.
It's so wonderful.
I can tell at least seven reporters ejaculated on this photo.
It's maybe the best.
Maybe the best I've ever seen.
Definitely the last 10 years and possibly the last 100 years best I've ever seen.
The media, they won't report on the cum tribute.
They just say we don't know.
The media is saying that Obama ate a larger envelope full of cum than me.
And it's not true, folks.
It's a lie, folks.
It's the lying fake news media pretending that I can't eat an envelope that large.
Once again, to be clear, full of cum.
Travis is penning his resignation right now on the table in front of us.
He's so bummed out right now.
He's crafted all of this beautiful, eye-opening information on this proposal.
Oh my god, do my parents listen to this?
My parents thankfully do not.
newspapers and we're and we're and we've turned it into a fucking absolutely yeah
yeah he comes with like a lovely like cardboard version of like the Eiffel
Tower and he leaves in its paper mache and why come oh my god do my parents
listen to this my parents thankfully do not well bless them both so I guess to
rewind it we should also try to address the question of why this newspaper meets
media outlet type thing likes Trump so much.
In addition to the alleged sort of prophetic, I guess, characterization that they have of Trump in their minds, a 2018 report in BuzzFeed reported this.
The exact logic behind the newspaper's recent promotion of Trump is unclear, but it may be connected to the administration's current feud with Beijing over trade.
As ties between the Trump administration and China have deteriorated, the Epoch Times has ramped up its rhetoric against Trump's enemies, foreign and domestic.
Founded in 2000 as a way to, quote, provide uncensored news to a people immersed in propaganda and censorship in China, end quote, aligning itself with the Trump White House's efforts to curtail China's rise would make sense for the paper.
Damn, I actually hadn't read this part.
And I kind of called it, though, with the trade war.
I knew they'd love that.
It's just like any I mean, I guess any any kind of like Cold War with the Chinese government would be what the Epoch Times wants.
That's what they want.
They want another a new Cold War with a different communist regime.
Right, right.
Because the Epoch Times, at its core, is like an anti-China operation.
Well, it's a revenge outfit for the Chinese government listing them as a cult and taking away some power.
And cracking down on them severely, arresting possibly hundreds of thousands of them.
Possibly harvesting their organs.
Possibly harvesting their organs, yeah.
It's uncanny!
Brutal, brutal crackdown.
There's like some legitimate...
That's a weird gray area, that organ thing.
We have to look into it.
I can't say it's true or not, but there's legitimate credible sources.
It is true there was a systematic crackdown on the sect within China.
But I meant specifically harvesting their organs and feeding it into the transplant industry is pretty wild.
Wait a minute.
Yet again, it sounds like Epoch Times is actually the good guy in this scenario.
Should I be subscribing to them?
Yes, you should.
There are no good guys.
If you just want to delete your Patreon subscription to QAnon Anonymous, The Epoch Times has a paywall you can support.
Travis, Travis.
If there are no good guys, then which bad guy should I support?
That's the difference between me and Travis.
I'm like, I'll pick one.
I don't give a fuck.
I'll pick.
I'll pick and I'll enjoy it.
Yeah, whereas Travis takes his toys and he goes home.
That's why no one wants to play with him.
This podcast is brought to you by the Epoch Times.
No Tang Dynasty!
After BuzzFeed published their reporting in 2018, the outlet's editor-in-chief published a letter
to the Epoch Times readers, including Jake, that read, Whether one agrees with the policies of the Trump
administration or not, There is no denying that President Donald Trump's presidency is transforming America.
This is something that most Americans genuinely care about.
We see the Trump administration's efforts to change socialist policies in America as well as set policies to counter infiltration and subversion by China as remarkable reversals from past policies and sincere efforts that, if fully realized, will benefit America and the world as a whole.
Nice.
So that's that rules.
It's like you're fighting the communists of your own government.
And then you're like, I could also fight these American socialists.
And then you're like, yeah, Antifa is bad.
President Trump's great.
And then you just mutate.
It's it is it's wonderful to watch it go and to understand the 10 years that led 15 years, in fact, that led you to the place where this made sense for the paper to do.
The Epoch Times has been a vicious proponent of Spygate claims meant to insist that Trump is actually the victim of a government conspiracy that presented itself as the Russia investigation.
In October 2018, the site published a conspiracy theory roadmap about Spygate that rivals even some of the most high-effort posts I've seen on QAnon boards through the years.
Additionally, media properties connected to the Epoch Times have peddled more intense conspiracy theories, including the one that this podcast is named for.
The Edge of Wonder, a podcast that's been supportive of the Q movement, was under the Epoch Times umbrella.
Wait wait wait, you're saying Edge of Wonder is funded by Epoch Times?
Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
What?
They're straight-up funded.
Oh, they're straight-up cult, yeah.
They're cult-funded, those two idiots.
They are, they are.
There's also a guy on Twitter who's like the Q, even though he doesn't mention Q directly, I don't think, who's basically like the Q version of Seth Abramson, who does like 42 tweet threads about how Spygate all connects together and shit.
Yeah, because, I mean, Jared, you were there.
You watched them speak on stage at the first Q rally.
I mean, they're very boring.
Yeah, and that one guy had a hole in his crotch.
So hey the epic times I can see the tip of your dick So despite all of this and let me tell you folks
I do not have the time nor the will to really unearth the complete weirdness
surrounding the ways that this publication fetishizes the president
The Epoch Times, you know, has still been able to establish itself as a must-stop destination for pro-Trump commentators and grifters.
And if you go to any major conservative conference like CPAC or Turning Point USA summits, you can almost be sure to see Epoch Times reporters and video guys roaming around in media row.
I say in spite of all of this, but part of it is because of all of this.
It wasn't really until the Epoch Times leaned into its political coverage in 2016 that it really made any significant blip in the political media radar.
So, I think that it may be more accurate to say that it got famous because of its weirdness, not in spite of it.
One of the side projects of The Epoch Times is filming and recording long-form interviews with the who's who of conservative and right-wing media, who sit down with a host named Jan Jekielek for the American Thought Leaders series.
Notable guests have included, but are not limited to, Benny Johnson, Andy Ngo, Dave Rubin, Sebastian Gorka, Glenn Beck, Dennis Prager, Scott Adams, Tom Fitton, Newt Gingrich, Carpe Donctum, Michelle Malkin, Candace Owens, Diamond and Silk, Pillow God, Mike Lindell.
Oh yes, my pillow!
My pillow, Mike Lindell!
And then you've also had several elected officials and cabinet members sitting down with the Epoch Times to do interviews, including Representatives Mark Meadows, Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Dan Crenshaw, Paul Gosar, Ken Buck, Louie Gelmert, Michael Cloud, and Jim Banks.
All the heavy hitters.
Just an incredible who's who.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has sat down with him, HUD Secretary Ben Carson has sat down with him, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie has sat down with them.
God bless.
Laura Trump has also sat down with the Epoch Times for an interview.
And those are just the names that I got before I stopped scrolling through the YouTube channel because, frankly, I was putting this together on a Saturday, and seeing all of this was bumming me out, and I just wanted to go get a drink with some friends.
That's right, dude.
Don't ever bring good content to our show.
That's right.
Only bring enough content that can get you to the drinks with your friends.
That's an obvious rule.
We don't say it out loud, but we should.
Hey, as long as capitalism exists, that is the operating procedure.
Yeah, you're getting as much entertainment as there is until our footsteps stop and a pile of drugs or an alcohol begins.
Maybe that's... I don't know if that's necessarily the case for Jared.
You can't just assume that what's true for you is true for all of your friends.
Well, Jared's rampant industry-wide behavior, I won't... I don't have to characterize it because it's just well-known.
That's all I'll say.
The Epoch Times, shameless shucking for Trump, some of which would be out of place even on Fox News, has appeared to pay huge dividends for the outlet and has had the effect of solidifying a place for the outlet in the Trump era.
But regardless of its prominence, I think it's important to remember this.
The Epoch Times is primarily an ideological project, which means that generating revenue or appearing impartial is not a concern that factors into any media they produce.
The goal is to reach people and to hammer in its bounding mantra.
That is the only underlying goal.
And there's perhaps no better example of this leading principle than the fact that the Epoch Times partnered with Steve Bannon to produce a propaganda film The film is a perfect encapsulation of what the outlet has become.
Will Sommer at the Daily Beast reported of the film, The message is obvious.
Chinese executives and officials are intent on undermining other countries and
Western institutions have been too cowardly or greedy to stand up to them.
The film is a perfect encapsulation of what the outlet has become.
A place where a cult's ideology and Republican leaders can fuse together to
create powerful pro-Trump propaganda.
Amazing stuff.
Delicious.
Absolutely fantastic.
What a combustible era.
It's scary though.
These guys like advertise on talk radio and shit too.
Epic Times.
I hear commercials on the radio all the time.
So they realize that the Trump audience is just like, Yeah, they love it.
They're reading it up.
The perfect fucking suppository.
They're reading it up.
You think they're checking the source?
I mean, they've accepted way worse sources than the Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times has done real journalism here and there, at least.
Compared to, like, Carpet Donk Them, who just straps together a meme and shoots it out.
He gives a shit.
Yeah, and it's good.
They have good graphic designers, and it looks, yeah, it's got good branding.
Why do they want awards?
Good graphic design.
That's all that matters.
Well, I think we're about to explore a bit of a cult angle on the matter.
Falun Gong, enter the cult.
Falun Gong, which means Law Wheel Practice in Chinese.
So it means nothing?
Yeah.
It's just the word salad?
Law Wheel Practice?
Yeah, why even translate it if it's like Umbrella Wheelbarrow Park?
Oh god, nothing means anything!
Oh, fuck!
It started as a set of meditation exercises and texts that preached the virtues of truth, benevolence, and forbearance.
It was founded in Northeast China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former trumpet player.
Falun Gong draws on China's long tradition of qigong, a regimen of controlled breathing and slow, controlled physical movements.
But while other Qigong-inspired disciplines merely promised health benefits to practitioners,
Falun Gong promised a lot more, incorporated elements of Buddhism and mysticism to offer
a path to salvation.
Adherents tried to gain enlightenment by reading the works of Master Li, who is said
to be able to walk through walls and levitate.
In fact, in one early writing, Li Hongzhi seemed to be under the impression that magician
David Copperfield actually walked through the Great Wall of China.
David Copperfield, a magician in the U.S., is a master of supernormal abilities who once
performed the feat of walking through the Great Wall of China.
When he was about to pass through the wall, he used a white cloth as a cover, pressed
himself against the wall, and then proceeded to go through it.
Why did he do that?
This is insane.
Doing it that way would lead many people to consider it a magic show!
It had to be done like that, since he knew there were many people in China with great supernormal abilities.
I mean, holy shit.
I love the idea that, like, all of Falun Gong is just people who watch David Copperfield on TV and we're just like, damn!
They think every magic trick is real.
They were like, why is he dressing up real magic as if it were a trick?
They were like, I started the Epoch Times because I had to defend the amount of people being sawed in half in today's society for nothing!
For just an audience's pleasure!
This is like some, like, Christopher Nolan, like, The Prestige shit.
Like, this guy, like, saw a magic trick that he was like, but it's, but the magic is real!
And he was like, then created a cult to fucking exercise his demons.
Yeah, I often said that, like, debunking QAnon often feels like, like, trying to explain the mechanics of a magic trick to someone in the audience who wants, who believes it's real, and having them just dismiss me out of hand and insist, no, actually, the rabbit did really disappear.
He's like, how dare he use a white sheet to make it look like it's a magic trick.
You're gonna confuse people, David.
Make them think you're a magician of some sort.
He's like, how dare he use a white sheet to make it look like it's a magic trick.
You're going to confuse people, David.
Make them think you're a magician of some sort.
Yes, when really you are a warlock.
I read a few of the lectures in the official English translation of the Zuan Falun, the
core text of Falun Gong.
And it is a lot.
It talks a lot about perfecting your personal character, karma, energy, and virtue.
Li believes that through the refinement of one's character, the body can literally evolve into another form of matter.
At that point, the saved person is capable of flying to paradise, which may exist out in the cosmos or some other dimension.
How is Kanye West not in this cult?
It seems like everything Kanye loves.
He's working on their album.
Here's one section of the book to give you an idea.
Each individual has multiple bodies that exist across many dimensions.
The largest component of the body that the eyes can see are its cells, which make up this physical body.
But if you were to enter into the space between cells and molecules, or one molecule and another, you would experience what it's like to enter another dimension.
To go there, however, your body would have to first meet the requirements for existence there.
But the concepts we have here wouldn't enable you to understand the very different bodies you saw there.
Bodies that can expand or shrink.
And those are unimaginably vast realms.
But I am just describing one simple form of parallel dimension which exists in the same place and at the same time as ours.
A person has a different body in each of various dimensions.
And in one particular dimension, he has a body that is surrounded by a field filled with virtue.
That's Travis View.
Yeah.
He thinks.
We can see through it though.
Yeah, just really weird morality and mind expansion, mysticism stuff.
It's interesting.
According to David Ownby in his 2008 book Falun Gong and the Future of China, practitioners believe that, quote, humans were originally gods of some sort who lost their status as life became complicated.
There are four standing exercises and one seated meditative exercise.
These are very, very easy to do.
can redeem themselves through cultivation and regain their divine status.
Falun Gong practitioners also engage in five physical exercises.
There are four standing exercises and one seated meditative exercise.
These are very, very easy to do.
For example, there's one exercise called the Penetrating the Two Cosmic Extremes,
in which a practitioner slowly moves their arms up and down like pistons.
So- Shacking off some sort of invisible god.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
These exercises are intended to stimulate and increase the flow of energy through the body.
By the late 1990s, millions of Chinese from all walks of life had taken up Falun Gong.
Practitioners could be seen meditating in parks and public squares in every city.
So, this spooked the Chinese Communist Party.
Officials felt threatened by a powerful, competing ideology, and by the incredible growth in the number of practitioners between 1992 and 1999.
In 1996, the government banned public sales of the book Zhuang Falun.
Soon afterwards, newspaper editorials from state-run media began attacking Falun Gong, claiming it drives adherents to commit suicide.
In April of 1999, more than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners protested outside of the Communist Party's headquarters in Beijing.
In response to this provocation, China's then-president Jiang Zemin cracked down on the sect.
In June of 1999, he set up Office 610, a secretive extrajudicial party organization tasked with suppressing Falun Gong.
The following month, the government declared the religious movement to be illegal.
Within months, thousands of practitioners were rounded up, sent to jail or to re-education centers.
Hundreds of thousands of practitioners are estimated to have been imprisoned extrajudicially.
The decades-long crackdown did devastate the number of Falun Gong practitioners in China, but it didn't destroy it entirely.
The Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne estimated in 2018 that the Falun Gong following
was 5% of what it was at its peak in 1999.
Wow. So yeah, devastated.
Yeah, just totally. I mean, there was a very brutal crackdown, it sounds like.
Today, Li, the founder of Falun Gong, lives among hundreds of his followers near Dragon Springs,
which is a 400-acre compound in upstate New York that houses temples, private schools,
and quarters for the organization's dance troupe, Shun Yun.
Perhaps you've seen billboards advertising the dance troupe all over your town.
I have, actually.
Yeah, yeah.
They're all over LA, certainly.
Life in Dragon Springs is reportedly tightly controlled by Lee.
Internet access is restricted, the use of medicines is discouraged, and arranged relationships are common.
Two former residents on visas said that they were offered to be set up with U.S. residents at the compound.
So the connection between Falun Gong and the Epoch Times has, strictly speaking, never been a secret.
But strangely, Epoch Times has worked to downplay or sometimes even deny its connection to the religious
movement.
This was apparently part of the publication's efforts to appear more like a legitimate news organization.
These efforts were reported in an NBC News article by Brandy Zenzrosny and Ben Collins.
In March 2016, the company placed job ads on the site Indeed.com and assembled a team of seven young reporters otherwise unconnected to Falun Gong.
As part of their orientation, the new reporters watched a video that explained the Chinese persecution of Falun Gong followers.
The publisher, Stephen Gregory, told the reporters that he envisioned the Epoch Times as an answer to the liberal mainstream media.
When anti-communism goes full fash, it's just beautiful stuff.
So their content was supposed to be critical of Communist China, clear-eyed about the threat of Islamic terrorism, focused on illegal immigration, and at all times rooted in traditional values.
This meant no content about drugs, gay people, or popular music.
Get rid of them all!
The reporters said that they worked from desk arranged in a U-shape in a single room office that was separated by a locked door from other staff members who worked on the paper.
There were also dozens of Falun Gong volunteers and interns.
The new recruits wrote up to five news stories in a day in an effort to meet a quota of 100,000 paid views and submitted their work to a handful of editors.
Those editors were a team of two Falun Gong practicing married couples.
Articles were edited to remove any outside criticism of Trump.
According to Ben Hurley, a former Falun Gong practitioner who helped create Australia's English version of the Epoch Times, devout Falun Gong practitioners, quote, believe that Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the Communist Party, end quote.
When the Epoch Times covered QAnon, the paper was uncritical and even times sympathetic to it.
For example, this is from an August 2018 Epoch Times article headlined, The Q Phenomenon.
If the Q posts are real, they may indicate that the Trump administration has established an alternate channel to speak to supporters, bypassing news outlets and social media altogether for something more direct.
The validity of the channel has not been confirmed or denied by the administration.
Q followers say that the connection of the Q posts to the Trump administration has been provided through the cross-posting of keywords with President Donald Trump's Twitter account.
Travis just shook his head in such a sad way.
It's a terrible way to cover Q. Every episode is just a different way of Travis disappointing himself.
So, we have a Chinese cult promoting an American extremist movement.
Just cult synergy.
And remember, this is not the first time this has happened.
The Ramtha School of Enlightenment cult up in Washington State has also been promoted in QAnon.
So, I think, Jake, you once said that QAnon is like the sales force for cults, where they just sort of plug in, and they just, as a way to funnel and grow Basically, we can blame Trump on the Chinese government cracking down on the innocent and good Falun Gong practitioners.
And that brought a new era of fascism to us.
So next time, be nice to the cults that are in your community.
Be nice to the people you see around you that are using mind control on each other and perpetrating large-scale abuses.
And have a little bit of compassion.
Do some self-crit.
Get your shit together.
Yeah, I feel like more and more when people ask me, like, what QAnon is, I am responding that's like, well, it really depends who you ask.
Like, there's a general umbrella uniting all of the QAnon world.
And by all intents and purposes, it appears the Epoch Times also subscribes to that same umbrella, which is why I think, you know, their coverage of QAnon for what they did have was seems to be like very non-combative or sort of passive almost.
Well, it's because like it's it's the they're part of the same kind of tribe of spiritual MAGA.
There's like MAGA core kind of political movement.
And then there's like spiritual MAGA, which ranges anywhere from, you know, full QAnon to like this guy who thinks that.
Trump is like a heavenly being combating the communists or whatever.
You know, they're all just different ways of experiencing this resurgence of like kind
of fascist ideology in the disinformation landscape.
And you know what?
I'm very excited for it because it turns out we have a podcast that covers just that.
And it is only like a festering open wound getting worse every single day.
Like the like the fucking mouth in that Star Wars movie that they just feed people into.
One day we're going to feed people into the QAnon chasm just to satisfy the gods.
Yeah, QAnon has a lot of it has a lot of good sort of umbrella products that fall beneath
it that that make it perfectly.
It's advantageous for various cults to have, because you can sort of mix and match your experience.
Of course.
You can rearrange your dashboard, if you will, for those familiar with Salesforce.
Wow.
Yeah, everybody listening to this obviously loves and is familiar with Salesforce.
Including me, by the way.
If you want aliens and ... I'm a HubSpot guy, personally, but yeah.
Yeah, if you want aliens and intergalactic slave trafficking, you can adopt that program.
If you just want to be in for Spygate, you don't want any of the crazy Hillary Clinton is a lizard stuff, you can opt in just for that.
It's really just like the moldiest Club Med you've ever been to.
You live in mold, you sleep in mold, you eat mold, and you do whatever activity you want to do on the ground.
Yeah, it's like, just because some people that believe in Spygate, like, also believe in, like, intergalactic pharaohs, it doesn't necessarily mean that, like, Spygate isn't real.
Like, you know... So true.
Such a good statement.
I think everyone can agree.
You know, I would just say like, yeah, it's like it is sort of like, yeah, it's like mix and match.
It's like you pick up.
It's like like Dylan Lewis Monroe, like the Deep State Macking Project.
He's red pilled on all of it.
But like, you just have to like pick, well, I'm just going to be red pilled on this tiny corner of it.
And you can call yourself a QAnon follower to a little sliver of it.
Yeah, it's not my fault that there are other people that also like this thing that are, like, crazier than me.
Like, I can't control that, you know?
I'm just in it for some Spygate, you know, feel-goods, and maybe a little bit of, you know, pedophilia, but...
Penphilia fighting, to be clear.
Fighting, fighting.
Not engaging in or enjoying.
He wants to see Stroke and Page punished for their love.
Punished for their illicit love.
You're just like the fucking village in the Scarlet Letter.
You're just another Puritan.
You're disgusting.
Well, thank you so much for all the work you did and for joining us on this episode, Jared.
Oh, it's always a pleasure.
Could you give us your beautiful plug?
Where can people listen to Shitpost?
Where can people find you on Twitter?
Well, my Amy Therese account was suspended, so you can follow me at Jared L. Holt.
I do a podcast called Shitpost.
It's okay.
If you tune in this week, you may hear some familiar voices.
I've got these fellas joining me to talk about that Tampa QAnon rally.
But other than that, the articles I do and everything, I'm posting online.
So yeah.
And my DMs are open.
Harass me and threaten my life, please.
Harass Jared Hart!
Paying pigs for life!
We'll close on that.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Please go to patreon.com slash QAnon Anonymous and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every week.
Plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes of which there are over 50.
When you subscribe, you help us stay advertising free, which is the way that we like it.
Saturday, February 8th, in Los Angeles, California.
Pew pew pew pew!
Live sh- Heh.
Heh.
Live show, uh, I- I will be doing a story.
I'm starting to mull it over.
I've got a couple good ideas, I think.
I'm gonna write it at 3am the night before the live show.
No you will not, because we have to plan the music and all that stuff in advance.
We have to talk about this offline.
I will throw Julian to the wolves and just make him show up with random sound effects and hope that they match what I've crafted merely hours before.
I'm gonna put you in a cage and hit you with a small baton.
Yeah, there's also a ton of merch, great designs, new shit, looks fucking awesome.
Merch.QAnonAnonymous.com.
Listener, until next week, may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you.
It's not a conspiracy, it's fact.
And now, today's Auto-Q.
Factual.
Honest news.
Not biased, but completely straightforward.
Not emotionally going up and down.
Bringing morality back to newspapers.
Be honest.
Old-fashioned journalism.
You're presenting the facts and letting the reader decide.
The Epoch Times is a fearlessly independent news media that publishes in 35 countries and 21 languages.
Truth and tradition is our motto.
Founded as an antidote to communist propaganda, today we're quickly becoming a household name across America.
Our subscribers thank us for our relentless and unbiased coverage.
I've been part of The Epoch Times for nearly a decade, because I've seen there's no other major media outlet in the world as devoted to real journalism.
The Epoch Times has never had any corporate or political agenda.
We only serve our readers, and we'll stay that way, no matter what.
We connected the dots around SpyGate, the Obama administration's elaborate efforts against Trump's 2016 campaign.
We often break news months ahead of other media on topics such as Chinese espionage, cyber warfare, subversion in America, and more.
But our authoritative reporting didn't only just begin.
We are tried and true.
Our paper was born out of the need to respond to a human rights catastrophe in China.
It was enabled by the Communist Party's vicious and dishonest propaganda.
We soon learned that Western media were picking up and amplifying the lies.
The Upper Times' truthful reporting exposed the Communist Party's lies for the Chinese people.
But it also helped protect our Western audience.
It disabused for them the lies in this propaganda.
Our reporting has also helped uncover how communist ideas are taking root in our own country.
The Upper Times started as a small and unknown publication in one of the toughest media markets in the world.
We have built it through hard work and trial and error.
We were founded in the year 2000 in Atlanta, Georgia by Chinese Americans who had fled Communist China.
Our independent reporting came at a price.
Our staff members in China were jailed and tortured for their reporting, some for as long as 10 years.
Because our founders believed in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the principles of the spiritual practice fallen gone.
They felt such sacrifices were worth it to ensure for the world an independent, honest media, one that would report on the most pressing issues of our time.
As many major media are losing people's trust and declining further every day, the fastest growing newspaper in America delivers truth and tradition.