Proof Press Kit, Vol. 2: 2022
Proof Press Kit, Vol. 2: 2022
Research and writing connected to the Proof project—both in its Substack and social media dimensions—is regularly cited by major media. Here are some exemplars from calendar year 2022.
{Note: This is a different sort of “press kit”—inasmuch as it’s a timeline of some of the major-media coverage of Proof in 2022, from CNN and The Guardian to Slate and The Los Angeles Times, from Bloomberg to Vanity Fair, FoxNews, The Boston Globe, and CNBC. All entries include the date and source of the coverage as well as the title of the report and a brief excerpt. For in-progress lists of domestic and international journalists who follow the Proof project, see the reports here and here. Outlets known to be MAGA propaganda organs are noted by “ 🏴☠️ ” instead of a national flag. Click the below to subscribe to Proof on a monthly or annual basis.}
Key: Countries Represented
🇦🇷 — Argentina
🇦🇺 — Australia
🇨🇱 — Chile
🇨🇳 — China
🇪🇨 — Ecuador
🇪🇪 — Estonia
🇫🇷 — France
🇩🇪 — Germany
🇬🇧 — Great Britain
🇬🇷 — Greece
🇮🇳 — India
🇮🇩 — Indonesia
🇮🇱 — Israel
🇮🇹 — Italy
🇳🇱 — The Netherlands
🇹🇼 — Taiwan
🇦🇪 — United Arab Emirates
🇺🇸 — United States
December 7, 2022
Outlet: The New Statesman (🇬🇧)
Title: “The Restoration of the Coffeehouse” (link)
“Twitter staff, advertisers, and some users have abandoned the platform amid the chaos of Elon Musk’s takeover. ‘He’s not building a community at Twitter’, wrote the American author Seth Abramson on November 29, 2022 after he [temporarily] quit the site, ‘but a hellscape in which people of good faith must daily fight off the moral dregs of society.’”
December 5, 2022
Outlet: Fox News (🏴☠️)
Title: “MSNBC and Liberal Analysts Complain That Hunter Biden Twitter Story Is a ‘Snoozefest’” (link)
“Journalist Seth Abramson also argued that there was nothing to see here. ‘This is the only sentence you need to read about the Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi “nothingburger”’, he tweeted, before quoting Taibbi acknowledging that there wasn’t any apparent ‘government involvement’ in the laptop story censorship decision.”
December 3, 2022
Outlet: El Universo (🇪🇨)
Title: “Why Was Oxana Fedorova, Miss Universe 2002, Dethroned [By Pageant Boss Donald Trump]?” (Link)
“In 2017, Seth Abramson, an American lawyer and author of a trilogy of books on the presidency of Donald Trump, posted a thread on Twitter claiming that Oxana Fedorova—‘Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend’—was a link between Trump and Putin. Mr. Trump was questioned during his presidency over his ties to Russia.”
November 25, 2022
Outlet: Mediaite(🇺🇸)
Title: “Donald Trump Hosting White Supremacist Nick Fuentes for Dinner at Mar-a-Lago Raises Questions” (link)
December 7, 2022
Outlet: The Daily Mail (🇬🇧)
Title: “Donald Trump Says He Is ‘Staying’ on Truth Social Despite the ‘Chief Twit’ Restoring His Twitter Account” (link)
“Leftwing absolutist Donald Trump hater Seth Abramson tweeted in response to [Elon Musk’s] reinstatement [of Trump’s Twitter account] that Trump ‘has been treated with more deference and generosity by the federal criminal justice system than maybe any person in the history of the United States. He should’ve been in prison ten times over by now.’”
November 23, 2022
Outlet: Business Today (🇮🇳)
Title: “‘Wasn’t Twitter Supposed to Die?’: Elon Musk Takes a Dig at Critics” (link)
November 20, 2022
Outlet: Outlook (🇮🇳)
Title: “Donald Trump Says He Sees No Reason To Return After Elon Musk Reinstates His Twitter Account” (link)
“Seth Abramson wrote, ‘Please remember—and please never forget—that Donald Trump has been treated with more deference and generosity by the federal criminal justice system than maybe any person in the history of the United States. He should’ve been in prison ten times over by now. Never stop saying it.’”
November 18, 2022
Outlet: Frankfurter Rundschau (🇩🇪)
Title: “Trump’s Six-Point Plan: How the Former President Wants to Regain Power” (link)
“Trump biographer and New York Times bestselling author Seth Abramson has presented the plan with which the ex-president apparently intended to win reelection. In a Twitter thread, Abramson published six points that he thinks Donald Trump is now banking on to secure a second term. According to Abramson, Trump already expects to face another duel with President Joe Biden in 2024 . While Biden hasn’t yet announced his candidacy for reelection, he’s expressed interest. In March, the American president said he would be ‘very happy’ if ‘the same man’ ran against him in 2024.
The third and fourth items in the plan, according to Abramson, involve the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives . This could support Trump’s 2024 campaign with ‘disinformation, misinformation, slander, rumours, innuendo, and slander about Biden’, Abramson wrote. At the same time, the author expects that the GOP will do ‘absolutely nothing’ to improve the U.S. economy . According to him, this could reduce Joe Biden’s approval ratings and thus his chances of reelection.
In the midterms, Republicans gained enough seats in the House of Representatives to block future Biden plans.
November 17, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “Trump Has a Six-Point Plan for Winning in 2024: Biographer” (link)
“Trump biographer and New York Times bestselling author Seth Abramson says that even though the odds increasingly look like they’re against the former president’s 2024 run, Donald Trump has a plan to win the next presidential election.
In response to Trump’s candidacy announcement Tuesday night, a number of prominent Republicans and GOP mega-donors have backed out of supporting the former president, casting doubt over Trump’s ability to win the Republican nomination, let alone another election.
However, Abramson believes otherwise. In anticipation of Trump’s 2024 bid, the author penned a lengthy Twitter thread on Tuesday, describing what he believes to be the six points that Trump is banking on to secure the presidency for a second term. The key assumption Trump is running on, according to Abramson, is that 2024 will be a rematch against President Joe Biden—a reasonable expectation given that most sitting presidents run for a second term and that Biden seems set on defeating Trump for a second time.
Biden has yet to formally announce a bid for reelection, but he has repeatedly expressed his interest to do so. Back in March, he said he’d be ‘very fortunate’ to have ‘that same man’ running against him in 2024. And then earlier this month, the president told reporters at the White House that ‘everybody’ wants to see him run in the next election. Asked what he thought of voters who didn’t want to see him on the ballot again, Biden said, ‘Watch me.’
Assuming that Trump and Biden go head-to-head again in two years, Abramson said Trump will continue to position himself as the ‘national/state-by-state leader against Biden’—a foil that Americans have bought into, according to what have been hypothetical surveys from independent and nonpartisan polling firms.
The third and fourth points that Trump will bank on should be set in stone now that the Republicans officially have enough seats to flip the House. The congressional chamber was called in the GOP’s favor late Wednesday night, paving the way for Republicans to dictate the legislative agenda for the next two years and likely block Biden’s plans for the second half of his presidency. With Republicans in control, Abramson predicts that the new GOP majority will help build the case for Trump’s 2024 campaign by ‘spreading disinformation, misinformation, slander, libel, rumor, innuendo and calumny about Biden, driving up his negatives, weakening his 2024 campaign, and doing free opposition research for Trump—with subpoena power.’
And with Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Trump ally, poised to take the gavel as the next House Speaker, Abramson says the GOP will ensure that it does ‘absolutely nothing’ to improve the U.S. economy in an effort to further drive down Biden’s approval ratings and lower his chances of reelection. With a House working in his favor, and a presidential opponent who’ll be up against the tough challenge of beating his longtime rival, Abramson said the groundwork for Trump is already being laid. Then, ‘If Trump comes up just short, Electoral College-wise, he’ll rely on the one to three GOP-led state legislatures he would need...to simply hand him the 2024 election in their state under the color of false claims of fraud’, the author said.
It’s a move that the former president already attempted to use in the fake electors scheme that involved seven swing states that did not vote for Trump in 2020.
The final piece to Trump’s plan, according to Abramson, is that any legal challenges to the former president’s potential efforts to try to overturn the 2024 election will go to a Supreme Court he created—a court that is the most conservative-leaning since the Civil War. And because SCOTUS decisions are final, Trump will get the rulings he wants and no other course of action can change those. ‘Trump’s 2024 campaign is both serious and dangerous’, Abramson wrote. ‘If you’re counting on the GOP to stop him, stop hoping—he’ll instantly threaten to bolt the party (thereby destroying it) if he is not handed its nomination.’”
November 9, 2022
Outlet: The Washington Examiner (🏴☠️)
Title: “‘Dark Brandon’ Redux: Pro-Biden Meme Returns After GOP Midterm Struggles” (link)
Seth Abramson wrote, ‘Lots of [midterm vote] counting left to do, but so far I’d say this [an image of the “Dark Brandon” meme] is last night’s [midterm election] in a single image.’”
November 7, 2022
Outlet: The Times of Israel (🇫🇷)
Title: “Obama Slams Celebrities for Spreading ‘Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories’” (link)
Seth Abramson wrote, ‘I’ve diagnosed the problem. Elon Musk is what academics call “digitally illiterate.” Hillary Clinton posted a Los Angeles Times article, and Musk replied with a post from a fake-news website that’s already down. Then he wrote [the words] “tiny possibility” as a hedge against spreading disinformation.’”
November 2, 2022
Outlet: Taiwan News (🇹🇼)
Title: “Seth Abramson Claims There Is a ‘Real Chance’ of a Chinese Invasion [of Taiwan], But It Is Not ‘Imminent’ or ‘Definite’” (link)
“One hour after his controversial tweet, Abramson issued a ‘blanket response’ to a flood of journalists based in China and Taiwan, who contacted him ‘en masse.’ He claimed that the words in his post were ‘chosen carefully’ and based on major media reports included in his tweets. He emphasized that his tweet was focused on the quality of GOP candidates rather than their party and he was expressing his concern that the individuals he had mentioned [‘utter clowns’, including Herschel Walker, J.D. Vance, Blake Masters, and Dr. Mehmet Oz] could pose a danger to Taiwan—in addition to China and ‘global stability’—due to their lack of qualifications.
Abramson claimed that in saying that there is a ‘real chance’ of an invasion, he was only echoing what experts have been saying about the possibility of an invasion ‘in 2022 or 2023.’ He stressed that he did not mean that a Chinese invasion is ‘imminent’ or ‘definite.’ He reiterated that his prediction was based on ‘scores of major media reports’ from experts in the field. He closed by claiming that although he has written two national bestsellers that included extensive coverage of China, ‘I do not consider myself an expert on the China-Taiwan issue.’
The timeline for China’s invasion of Taiwan [that Mr. Abramson] appears to be referring to [comes from] Chief of United States Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday’s comment on October 19, 2022 that China could potentially invade Taiwan ‘in 2022 or 2023.’”
October 31, 2022
Outlet: Jewish Insider (🇺🇸)
Title: “The Daily Kickoff” (link)
“Professor, attorney, author, political columnist, and poet Seth Abramson turns 46 today.”
October 30, 2022
Outlet: The Times of Israel (🇮🇱)
Title: “Musk Tweets Conspiracy Theory About Attack on Paul Pelosi, Raising Concerns About Platform” (link)
Musk’s tweet swiftly became a focal point for critics who have been nervous about the direction in which he intends to take Twitter, the leading platform for global discourse and diplomacy. Seth Abramson wrote, ‘I’ve diagnosed the problem. Elon Musk is what academics call “digitally illiterate.” Hillary Clinton posted a Los Angeles Times article, and Musk replied with a post from a fake-news website that’s already down. Then he wrote [the words] “tiny possibility” as a hedge against spreading disinformation.’”
October 28, 2022
Outlet: Canal Abierto (🇦🇷)
Title: “What Was [Brazilian Official] Eduardo Bolsonaro Doing in D.C. on January 6, 2021—the Day of the Assault on the Capitol?” (link)
“The love between Eduardo Bolsonaro and Steve Bannon is mutual. ‘[Eduardo] is a great hero’, Bannon has declared. And Eduardo tweeted on August 4, 2018, that ‘It was a pleasure meeting Steve Bannon, strategist in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. We had a great conversation and we shared the same world view. He said he was an enthusiast of [my father Jair] Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign and we are certainly in contact with the aim of joining forces, especially against cultural Marxism.’
The empathy between these two characters has reached the point at which they’re both part of the leadership structure of [international anti-‘globalist’ initiative] The Movement. And American journalist and lawyer Seth Abramson has affirmed that Eduardo Bolsonaro entered the United States on January 4, 2021 at the invitation of Ivanka Trump.”
October 28, 2022
Outlet: Slate (🇺🇸)
Title: “Posters Aren’t Heroes” (link)
October 24, 2022
Outlet: The Guardian (🇺🇸)
Title: “Bob Woodward to Publish Trump Interviews Detailing His ‘Effort to Destroy Democracy’” (link)
Oliver Willis, a writer for the American Independent, a progressive outlet, pointed to recent criticism of reporters, including Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, for allegedly holding important reporting for Donald Trump books. Willis said Bob Woodward essentially saying ‘Guys, I’m kind of feeling Trump might be a fascist’ was a ‘perfect example of how ivory tower journalism fails to inform the public.’
Seth Abramson, the author of three books on Trump, said: ‘I don’t know how it happened, but the Trump biographers who knew [about Trump’s effort to destroy democracy] for certain because of their research in 2016 and 2017 were outsold by Bob Woodward 10-to-1 despite him only coming to this conclusion now. A failure of media, or of publishing? Or both?’”
October 20, 2022
Outlet: MassLive (🇺🇸)
Title: “Flying Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard is ‘Human Trafficking’ and ‘Unbelievably Cruel,’ Massachusetts Officials Say” (link)
“Attorney and journalist Seth Abramson also weighed in on the Florida governor’s recent decision, questioning the legality behind the unknowing transportation of around fifty immigrants. ‘Only a very very small—vanishingly small—percentage of lawyers are expert in human trafficking legislation, and I’m not one of them’, Abramson wrote. ‘So I would love to hear additional discussion from experts and law enforcement about the legality of what DeSantis and Abbott are doing.’”
October 17, 2022
Outlet: The Daily Mirror (🇬🇧)
Title: “New Netflix Documentary Blows Viewers’ Minds As It Unravels the Mysteries of Our Universe” (link)
“The documentary’s heady mixture of awe and bewilderment made it all worthwhile, with Twitter ablaze with positive postings. Seth Abramson simply tweeted [of A Trip to Infinity], ‘I am not okay after watching this.’”
October 15, 2022
Outlet: The Library of Congress (🇺🇸)
Title: “Talking Books” (link)
{NB: The Library of Congress adds the audiobook of 2019 New York Times bestseller Proof of Conspiracy to its holdings, saying of my book that it “examines Trump’s Ukraine scandal and asserts that it was the foreseeable culmination of years of practices. It discusses little-known angles to the scandal, Trump’s dealings with China, and decades-long patterns of behavior from the president and [subsequently] his administration.”}
September 27, 2022
Outlet: The Independent (🇬🇧)
Title: “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Mocked for Fleeing Subpoena in Truck Driven By His Wife: ‘Run, Ken, Run!’” (link)
“Attorney Seth Abramson wrote that Mr. Paxton is ‘one of the great villains of the Trump era, yet still insufficiently infamous in my view.’”
September 7, 2022
Outlet: The Milwaukee Independent (🇺🇸)
Title: “Trump Accused of Inciting Domestic Terrorism By Calling President Biden An ‘Enemy of the State’” (link)
“‘You’re all enemies of the state,” twice-impeached ex-president Donald Trump said as the crowd booed Joe Biden. ‘He [Biden] is an enemy of the state, if you want to know the truth. The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him, which is circling around him. “Do this, do that, Joe.”’
‘How’d you like the red lighting behind him like the Devil?’ continued Trump, referring to the backlit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the site of President Biden’s speech.
Attorney and author Seth Abramson called Trump’s speech ‘fully unhinged.’
‘This is, quite simply, a speech intended to incite domestic terrorists to kill FBI agents and members of the Biden administration’, Abramson wrote on Twitter. ‘It is shocking that there are no legal consequences for incitement anymore.’”
September 6, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “These 12 Democrats Voted To Confirm Judge Who Granted Trump Special Master” (link)
“‘Trump appointee Aileen Cannon declared—and not just implicitly, but, horrifyingly, explicitly—that Donald Trump’s reputation simply matters more than yours or mine, as do his property rights’, attorney Seth Abramson wrote on Twitter.”
September 6, 2022
Outlet: Heavy (🇺🇸)
Title: “Aileen Cannon Joined The Federalist Society in 2005” (Link)
“Judge Cannon has been criticized for potential bias due to her political background. Seth Abramson recently tweeted a thread to ‘explain, from the perspective of a former criminal defense attorney and federal criminal investigator, why so many lawyers are horrified by Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling that a special master must be assigned to DOJ’s Trump investigation.’”
September 6, 2022
Outlet: Vanity Fair (🇺🇸)
Title: “Trump’s Special Master Situation Is Shady as Fuck, Say Legal Experts” (link)
“Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard Law School professor, told the New York Times that everyone targeted by a search warrant worries about how their reputation will suffer as a result, but few of them are able to call in favors from the government. He dubbed Judge Cannon’s logic ‘thin at best’ and accused her of giving ‘undue weight’ to Donald Trump’s status as a former inhabitant of the White House. ‘I find that deeply problematic,’ he told the Times, noting that, in the United States, the criminal justice system is supposed to treat everyone equally. ‘This court is giving special considerations to the former president that ordinary, everyday citizens do not receive.’ Attorney Seth Abramson similarly called BS on Monday, tweeting that Cannon ‘declared—and not just implicitly, but, horrifyingly, explicitly—that Donald Trump’s reputation simply matters more than yours or mine, as do his property rights. And they matter more because he is a powerful man.’”
September 4, 2022
Outlet: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (🇦🇺)
Title: “Donald Trump Calls Joe Biden ‘An Enemy of the State’ After President’s Condemnation of MAGA Extremism’” (link)
August 17, 2022
Outlet: Tor Books (🇺🇸)
Title: “The Ghost of Workshops Past: How Communism, Conservatism, and the Cold War Still Mold Our Paths Into Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing” (link)
{A lengthy essay by Hugo Award-winning and national-bestselling author S.L. Huang that cites and makes extensive use my 2018 Bloomsbury book, An Insider’s Guide to Graduate Degrees in Creative Writing.}
August 16, 2022
Outlet: Liberty Times (🇹🇼)
Title: “The FBI Seizes Donald Trump’s Three Passports; Netizens: ‘Are They Afraid He’ll Abscond?’” (Link)
“Shortly after CBS News anchorwoman Norah O’Donnell’s post, Donald Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budowich shared an email from Jay Bratt, the top counterterrorism official in the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, which confirmed that the FBI had confiscated three of Trump’s passports and forwarded them to DOJ. A Justice Department official later told NBC News that the passports had been returned to Trump.
While Trump did not reveal any details about why the FBI wanted the passports, some Twitter users speculated that it was because Trump had [at the time of the seizure been] viewed as a flight risk. If the news [of the deliberate passport confiscation] is true, ‘the FBI is acknowledging what I’ve said for a long time…[that] Trump is a flight risk’, attorney Seth Abramson wrote in a post.”
August 15, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “Donald Trump Labeled a ‘Flight Risk’ After Saying FBI Took His Passports” (link)
While Trump did not offer any details on why the FBI may have wanted the passports, some Twitter users suggested that it was because the ex-president was viewed as a flight risk. Attorney Seth Abramson wrote in a Twitter thread on Monday that if the news was true, ‘the FBI is acknowledging what I’ve long said, which is that as a factual matter Trump is a flight risk.’”
August 1, 2022
Outlet: Fox News (🏴☠️)
Title: “Reuters Mocked for Fact-Checking Spoof Video of Joe Biden Being Distracted By Ice-Cream Truck Music” (link)
“Seth Abramson, the left-wing academic, was among those angered by the mere existence of the satire video in the first place. ‘How do I know Republicans have nothing on Biden? Because every day their pimple-faced, basement-dwelling trolls vomit up some fake media to try to establish a narrative of foolishness and incompetence that reality doesn’t bear out. If they had anything, they’d stick to reality.’”
June 28, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “January 6 Hearing: Ginni Thomas Subpoena Calls Revived Over Refusal to Testify” (link)
“‘Ginni Thomas isn’t just a key player in the January 6 timeline, she’s one of the most significant players’, tweeted author Seth Abramson. ‘She’s desperate to stall Congress for seven months—after which she anticipates the House January 6 Committee will be disbanded by Kevin McCarthy. Subpoena her today.’
‘Only by issuing a subpoena to Ginni Thomas now does Congress have a chance of being able to work through her inevitable legal challenges and refer her to DOJ for a Criminal Contempt indictment before a possible handover of Congress to the insurrectionists in early 2023’, he added.”
June 1, 2022
Outlet: Sportskeeda (🇮🇳)
Title: “Fans React to Bo Burnham’s song on President Joe Biden in Recently Released Hour-Long Outtakes of ‘Inside’” (link)
“Bo Burnham released more than an hour of outtakes from his Netflix program, Inside, to commemorate the first anniversary of its premiere. Burnham’s Netflix special, which detailed his experience during the coronavirus outbreak, was released in May last year.
‘This is an incredible gift’, tweeted Seth Abramson. ‘Bo Burnham’s “Inside” is—to be trite but hopefully helpful to potential viewers—the [famous Allen Ginsberg poem] “Howl” of the COVID-19 pandemic, and maybe even this whole era of American history. To get to see additional material from it is just monumental.’”
May 20, 2022
Outlet: The SFist (🇺🇸)
Title: “Elon Musk Sexual Misconduct Charges Arrive: He Allegedly Exposed Himself and Propositioned a Flight Attendant” (link)
Musk has also been tweeting and responding like mad about the allegations. ‘The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens—this is their standard, despicable playbook. But nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech’, he tweeted Thursday night. “Seth Abramson tweeted in response, ‘So many words, Elon Musk, just to refuse to clearly state whether you paid this woman a quarter of a million dollars or not.’”
May 18, 2022
Outlet: OutKick (🏴☠️)
Title: “The Yumi Nu Sports Illustrated Cover Achieved Its Goal of Firing Up Social Media” (link)
May 14, 2022
Outlet: PC Gamer (🇬🇧)
Title: “Lawsuit Against Videogame Grading Service Wata Alleges Manipulation of Retro Game Prices” (link)
“The class action lawsuit alleges that Heritage Auctions and Wata coordinated media appearances and press releases to drive up the prices of collectible games, with Heritage taking a cut of successful sales and Wata’s fee for its services being proportional to a game’s estimated price.
In September of 2021, journalist Seth Abramson published an article to his Substack newsletter, Retro, alleging that Wata co-founder Mark Haspel was selling a significant volume of Wata-graded games through eBay. This goes against best practices and ethics among grading houses, and also directly contradicts statements by Wata president Deniz Khan to the New York Times that the company’s employees would not personally sell Wata-graded games due to the potential conflict of interest.
Also covered by Abramson through Retro, Haspel subsequently admitted to selling Wata-graded games, while also claiming to have distanced himself from the company. Despite this, Haspel continues to have a featured place on the company website alongside the rest of its executive team.”
May 1, 2022
Outlet: The Bali Tribune (🇮🇩)
Title: “Former President of the United States Donald Trump Branded a ‘Traitor’” (Link)
“Criticism and insults were also directed at Donald Trump for his decision to ask for help from Vladimir Putin, at a time the Russian president has become a major enemy of the United States due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. ‘Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, loves Putin more than America. This is proof that this man needs to be dealt with carefully’, said Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison.
Former George W. Bush-era Chief Ethics Attorney for the White House, Richard Painter, described Trump as a grave traitor. Lawyer and author of three books [about Trump], Seth Abramson, also expressed the same sentiment. ‘President Biden is America’s commander-in-chief. We are on the brink of war with Russia. Putin is without a doubt an enemy of the United States’, he said.
April 25, 2022
Outlet: Bloomberg (🇺🇸)
Title: “Twitter Users Looking to Defect After Elon Musk Deal Have Few Options” (Link)
April 7, 2022
Outlet: Forbes (🇺🇸)
Title: “Ted Cruz Trolls Mr. T Covid-19 Face Mask Tweet, and Here’s the Reaction” (link)
“Unlike Senator Cruz, a number of people on Twitter offered their support for Mr. T’s tweet, such as author and attorney Seth Abramson.”
March 30, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “‘Treachery’—Donald Trump Faces Backlash for Asking Vladimir Putin For a Favor” (link)
“Donald Trump has now been condemned for asking Vladimir Putin to help unearth information on Hunter Biden amid the war in Ukraine, where Russia is accused of committing war crimes by purposely targeting civilians and hospitals.
Author, journalist, and attorney Seth Abramson wrote, ‘President Biden is America’s commander-in-chief; we’re at the brink of open war with Russia; Putin is unambiguously an enemy of America. So one would expect any info Putin releases about our commander-in-chief to be a lie—and yet Trump now begs for Putin’s aid. Open treachery.’”
March 28, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “‘It’s Staged’: Some People Believe Will Smith Oscars Slap Isn’t Real” (link)
“Journalist Seth Abramson wrote that even [the slap] it wasn’t staged, he hoped it would be. ‘This feels to me like another sign that the world is off its hinges, so I sure hope we are going to find out that—despite there being no evidence of it—this was staged’, he wrote.”
March 22, 2022
Outlet: Newsweek (🇺🇸)
Title: “Joe Biden’s ‘New World Order’ Comment Jumped on By Conspiracy Theorists” (link)
“Author, journalist and attorney Seth Abramson commented, ‘The Right now claims that Biden saying the words “new” and “world” and “order” in succession proves their deranged conspiracy theory correct in every particular.’”
March 16, 2022
Outlet: HuffPost (🇺🇸)
Title: “Donald Trump Jr.’s Idea For How His Dad Could Fix Russia-Ukraine Backfires” (link)
“Seth Abramson tweeted, “You can’t make him love you, Don.’”
March 1, 2022
Outlet: Military Times (🇺🇸)
Title: “Ukraine Invasion Live Updates” (link)
February 26, 2022
Outlet: The Khaleej Times (🇦🇪)
Title: “After the UAE Abstained [From a United Nations Resolution Condemning the Russian Invasion of Ukraine], Where Are Relations Between Abu Dhabi and Washington Headed?” (link)
“American writer Seth Abramson said, ‘This is your reminder that the UAE interfered in the 2016 [U.S. presidential] election to aid Vladimir Putin’s preferred candidate, Donald Trump, and did so shortly after forming a massive partnership with the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The Emirati princes are in bed with Putin and they cannot be seen as allies.’ He added, ‘Putin’s war crimes expose the worst actors in the world: Putin, Xi Jinping, Trump, Narendra Modi, and Mohamed bin Zayed (Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi). This historic attack on global security and the basic principle of sovereignty [by the Russians] is the right moment for people to show their true character. And Trump’s allies are doing just that.’”
February 25, 2022
Outlet: The Wrap (🇺🇸)
Title: “‘Go Fuck Yourself’: Ukrainian Soldiers Celebrated as Viral Heroes for Last Words to Russian Warship” (link)
“Seth Abramson wrote, ‘May the thirteen heroes of Snake Island rest in peace. They will be justly—and long—remembered.’”
February 25, 2022
Outlet: FTV News (🇨🇳)
Title: “All 13 Soldiers on Snake Island in Ukraine Were Killed; Last Sound File Saw Soldiers Spit at a Russian Warship, ‘Fuck you!’” (link)
February 25, 2022
Outlet: CNN (🇬🇷)
Title: “The War in Ukraine: The ‘Ghost of Kyiv’—a Ukrainian Pilot Who Shoots Down Russian Fighters—Goes Viral” (Link)
“Seth Abramson wrote, ‘I’m begging major media to report on whether “The Ghost of Kyiv” really exists—as if it’s true that today a heroic Ukrainian fighter pilot single-handedly downed six Russian jets, this flying ace immediately becomes a stirring symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Putin's war crimes.’”
February 25, 2022
Outlet: Radio Bío-Bío (🇨🇱)
Title: “The ‘Ghost of Kyiv’?: The Truth Behind the Soldier Who Is Said to Have Shot Down Six Russian Jets” (Link)
“Writer and lawyer Seth Abramson also referred to the ‘ghost,’ noting, ‘This ace pilot quickly became a poignant symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Putin’s war crimes’—although he later clarified that ‘we don’t know if this [the “Ghost of Kyiv” story] is real or not.’”
February 25, 2022
Outlet: Postimees (🇪🇪)
Title: “Day 1 of the War: Russian Troops Bomb Ukrainian Hospitals, and Chernobyl Is in the Hands of the Invaders” (Link)
{NB: Quoting a since-archived tweet about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the Twitter account associated with Proof. Certain tweets from the Proof project have been archived to protest the racism, antisemitism, and Kremlinism encouraged by Twitter owner Elon Musk.}
February 25, 2022
Outlet: Greek Reporter (🇬🇷)
Title: “‘Ghost of Kyiv’ Ukrainian Pilot Becomes the Stuff of Legend” (Link)
“Seth Abramson wrote, ‘I’m begging major media to report on whether “The Ghost of Kyiv” really exists—as if it’s true that today a heroic Ukrainian fighter pilot single-handedly downed six Russian jets, this flying ace immediately becomes a stirring symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Putin's war crimes.’”
February 22, 2022
Outlet: Sportskeeda (🇮🇳)
Title: “Why Nerdle Can Be the Perfect Math Lovers’ Substitute for Wordle” (link)
“Seth Abramson tweeted, ‘What a crazy day to have my best-ever “Worldle” (one guess) and “Wordle” (two guesses) games. Apparently being extremely sad and feeling like the world is ending really clears the mind.’”
February 20, 2022
Outlet: The Escapist (🇺🇸)
Title: “Your Old Video Games Might Have Doubled or Quadrupled in Value” (link)
“Organizations like grading house WATA and Heritage Auctions have faced serious accusations of artificially inflating the value of sealed video games, resulting in unreasonably high valuations like $2 million for Super Mario Bros.
Lawyer Seth Abramson and YouTuber Karl Jobst have detailed the issue in depth, but long story short—exercise intense caution if you want to get into collecting sealed games.”
February 8, 2022
Outlet: HuffPost (🇺🇸)
Title: “Nikki Haley’s Clueless New Trump Defense Trashed On Twitter” (link)
“Seth Abramson tweeted, “Nikki Haley’s spine is like the Grinch’s heart on page 1.’”
February 1, 2022
Outlet: HuffPost Italia (🇮🇹)
Title: “Forty Unforgivable Plot Holes in Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (link)
{NB: HuffPost Italia opens up an archive of my past work for HuffPost on this 2022 date.}
January 11, 2022
Outlet: The Boston Globe (🇺🇸)
Title: “Elmo Has Zero Patience for a Pet Rock, and the Internet Can Relate” (link)
“‘Right now we are all Elmo having an oatmeal raisin cookie denied him so that a rock can be placed next to it’, tweeted author Seth Abramson on January 5.”
January 11, 2022
Outlet: The Los Angeles Times (🇺🇸)
Title: “Elmo—Yes, That Elmo—Is Beefing With a Rock, and Twitter Is Eating It Up” (link)
“‘It’s almost like the pandemic is getting to Elmo too’, tweeted author Seth Abramson. ‘Right now we are all Elmo having an oatmeal raisin cookie denied to him so that a rock can be placed next to it.’”
January 6, 2022
Outlet: The Miami Herald (🇺🇸)
Title: “‘Sesame Street’ Video Resurfaces, and People Can’t Get Enough of It; See Elmo’s Response Here” (link)
“‘It’s almost like the pandemic is getting to him too’, author Seth Abramson said. ‘Right now we are all Elmo having an oatmeal raisin cookie denied him so that a rock can be placed next to it.’”
January 6, 2022
Outlet: T3N (🇩🇪)
Title: “Why Elmo From Sesame Street Is Suddenly Trending” (link)
“The clip was shared on Twitter on Wednesday and has since garnered almost 400,000 likes and 75,000 retweets. American author Seth Abramson also shared the tweet and commented on it. Abramson said that understands why the clip is so trendy right now, as it’s the angriest thing he’s ever seen from Elmo and it almost seems as if the pandemic has finally gotten to Elmo, too—even though the miniature monster doesn’t even have lungs.”
January 5, 2022
Outlet: CNET (🇺🇸)
Title: “Why Elmo From Sesame Street Is Trending in 2022” (link)
“The clip is about Elmo’s incredulity over Rocco, a pet rock, being given an oatmeal raisin cookie instead of him. ‘How is Rocco going to eat that cookie, Zoe?!’ Elmo yells. ‘Tell Elmo! Rocco doesn’t even have a mouth! Rocco’s just a rock! Rocco’s not alive!’ Elmo’s frustration has resonated widely. The clip was posted on Twitter on Wednesday, and has since racked up 360,000 likes and over 90,000 retweets.
‘It’s almost like the pandemic is getting to Elmo too’, tweeted author Seth Abramson. ‘Right now we are all Elmo having an oatmeal raisin cookie denied to him so that a rock can be placed next to it.’”
January 2, 2022
Outlet: The Ministry of General Affairs Public and Communication Service of the Government of the Netherlands (🇳🇱)
Title: “Journalism Is Under Pressure” (link)
“A form of investigative journalism that seems to be on the rise is curated journalism, or metajournalism. Many separate, sometimes short, messages appear on each subject. A metajournalist tries to follow that huge mass of online messages from different titles on a subject and to create a coherent picture based on that. Such authors are involved in a subject for a long time and become aware of many details. This way of working produces new messages that can reveal a bigger story than the individual messages. That larger story can also become news. An example of someone who works in this way and who now has more than 900,000 followers [on Twitter] is the American Seth Abramson, who frequently publishes about developments in American politics.”
January 1, 2022
Outlet: CNBC (🇺🇸)
Title: “Pro-Trump Lawyer Says His Plantations Were Go-To Spots for Those Aiming to Overturn the 2020 Election” (link)
“Jim Penrose was among a group of people who met with conservative lawyer John Eastman on January 5, the day before the deadly riot on Capitol Hill, attorney and independent journalist Seth Abramson reported.”
I love the flag you chose for the MAGA propaganda outlets!