Kyle Kulinski is consistently wrong
[This is a working guide.]
The Russia Investigation
A good portion of the Russia investigation section follows the findings laid out in a Reddit post by the user u/Polenthu.
Kulinski in 2017 said that ExxonMobil failing to get a permit to drill in Russia proves that him, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Jordan Chariton, and Michael Tracey were right about Russiagate. “We were right! We were right,” Kulinski screamed.
On April 25, 2017, Kulinski called the Russia investigation “Democrat Benghazi.”
On July 12, 2017, Kulinski posted to YouTube a video in which he admits that Trump did collude with Russia, then falsely charges that Hillary Clinton colluded with Ukraine.
On the August 12, 2017 edition of Secular Talk, Kulinski purported that Russia did not hack the DNC server, suggesting it is absurd to think WikiLeaks would run with the emails. He later back-tracked, clarifying that it was “Russian intelligence officials who did the hacking and then did get the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.”
Also on August 12, 2017, Kulinski said: “I wasn’t sure whether or not it really was Russia,” which begs the question: Why did Kulinski report Russia did not hack the DNC, and WikiLeaks did not run with the emails, if he wasn’t certain?
Six months passed, and it wasn’t until a February 7, 2018 Young Turks’ video that Kulinski admitted to Russian meddling.
Founder Cenk Uygur introduced Kulinski as “a reasonable guy,” and framed his disagreements with Kulinski on Russia as inconsequential, “we ostensibly have a disagreement on Russia. I think it’s a big deal. I’m gonna characterize his position as not a big deal,” later stating “we’re gonna try to find points of disagreement, which I suspect will be plentiful.”
“I believe [Trump] did money-laundering, and I think he owes the Russians, and is paying them back,” Uygur said. “and I think it is a wildly dangerous situation for our democracy. What part of that do you agree with, and what part of that do you disagree with?”
Kulinski responded by deploying a “classic Kremlin mechanism” that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel could be helping Trump with money-laundering, “”I think he did money laundering not just with Russia, I’m convinced he did it with other actors as well, I think he’s colluded with other governments, perhaps in an even more clear way than he’s colluded with the Russian government, If he’s indeed colluded with the Russian government at all.”
Kulinski continued, “when we talk about this issue of Russiagate, it’s actually a very complicated issue because there are many moving parts to it. So the first Question is what is Trump guilty of? I would say, he’s probably guilty of money laundering, I think he’s guilty of collusion with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, and I also think he’s guilty of other financial crimes..”
In the same viral debate, Kulinski reverted to his claim of no Russian meddling, he previously admitted that the claim couldn’t be true: “I’m not in favor for the new round of sanctions over the so called election meddling, because number one: The Intelligence Agencies presented zero evidence for that, and these are the same people, who said that Saddam did 9/11 and…”.
Uygur pressed him on his assertion that there was no evidence of Russian meddling, Uygur specifically stated: “Yes, the Russian intelligence officials … so, that’s evidence.”
Kulinski shot back stubbornly, “sure — but we’re doing the exact same thing to them.”
On March 29, 2018, Kulinski was still engaging in bad faith that the Russia investigation was baseless, tweeting mockingly “look I found a real Russia scandal,” linking to an NBC News article he likely didn’t read.
If he had read the article, he’d know the message “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” was written on Trump’s briefing materials for his call with Putin because staff were dreadfully aware of Trump’s solidarity with dictators, and more specifically, his admiration for Putin.
In a July 23, 2018 tweet Kulinski argued that Trump “sent weapons to Ukraine” therefore no collusion with Russia.
Ironic, considering that his March 29, 2018 tweet — mocking the Russia investigation — linked to an NBC News article (that if he actually READ) detailed it took months of National Security advisors trying to talk Trump into sending weapons to Ukraine, making no statement afterwards, and telling aids to not tout his decision in public.
Kulinski exposed his opposition to reading again as recently as four months ago.
“I have no time for philosophical, airy bullshit,” Kulinski told Jacobin story editor Connor Kilpatrik. “I don’t want to hear about Lenin. I don’t want to hear about Marx. I just want a super plainspoken, straightforward agenda with a straightforward way of selling it.”
A poorly-aged February 1, 2020 Secular Talk video uncritically advanced Bill Barr’s reductive, propagandistic interpretation of the Mueller report that there was “NO COLLUSION!”
Kulinski specifically said: “The Mueller report actually came back and they didn’t do anything to Trump, they didn’t say we’re indicting him on x y, they didn’t do that, they didn’t prove anything, that’s right that is what the Mueller report found. Adam Schiff couldn’t get over it.”
The Mueller report concluded charitably ( and with many pages redacted) that there was no proof Trump committed a crime, but did not postulate “total EXONERATION,” as Trump insisted in a March 24, 2019 tweet.
Marcy Wheeler reported: “Walton further cites claims that Barr made in his April 18 press conference and letter — where he specifically claimed Mueller had found no evidence of collusion — to judge that Barr lacked candor in his statements about the report.”
Diversity And Discrimination
Kulinski asserted in February that Rush Limbaugh “represents a dying breed of conservative thinker,” which is “white identity politics.”
On July 7, Kulinski tweeted: “Here’s a hot take for everyone, I think the 1st amdt should be expanded to the work place. In the same way the govt can’t jail you for speech your boss shouldn’t be able to fire you for speech. This is actually the socialist position bc in a democratic workplace you have no boss!”
On July 8, Secular Talk called White Fragility book “snake oil,” lamenting “white guilt” and “diversity training courses.”
Media Matters documented Tucker Carlson’s rant on 08/13/20 — it was nearly indistinguishable from Kulinski’s attack on White Fragility.
In early June, Kulinski said that BLM is “not as against violence as the civil rights movement was," whitewashing the violent opposition the civil rights movement faced. The Post reported that magnifying the problem was King’s key strategy to ensure dissidents could be rallied and that the oppression could no longer be ignored.
Mike Huckabee trotted out a declaration that sounded alike to Kulinski’s screed: Civil rights leader would be “appalled” by BLM’s approach, “you don’t do it by magnifying the problems,” he stated.
A few weeks later, Kulinski broadcasted a dire warning, “you open Pandora’s Box” by removing racist, confederate statues because FDR could be taken down — and asked “is any sort of national pride acceptable?”
A picture of Aunt Jemina and Uncle Ben was on the neon-green lit wall — Kulinski argued that if you remove the black characters people say this isn’t a step forward because now you’re not glorifying anything about black society.
Hydroxychloroquine
On March 27, Kulinski asserted that mainstream media promoted hydroxychloroquine, saying “there is evidence to suggest that it might work in some cases.” In reality, only Trump and Fox touted chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — spurring a man in Arizona to die.
On April 4, Kulinski again defended Trump’s unproven COVID-19 cure, and lamented the media “trying to play gotcha with him.”
For the third time, Kulinski tried to muddy the waters of what the medical consensus on the unproven COVID-19 treatment was, “the reality is somewhere in the middle… there are many medical professionals who say no, this is a decent treatment.”
On April 30, Kulinski issued a statement: “Now, the evidence is in the other direction, that it doesn’t work, but that was a malaria drug, so it’s all these drugs that are already in existence, and they’re just like, ‘try this, try this.’” Kulinski further besmirched the medical community with this comment, “And certain things in theory they could work, but you have to test it in reality, to see if it works.”
In other words, Kulinski was laying the groundwork to worm himself out of any blame — failing to address that he had defended the President’s promotion of an anti-malaria drug linked to ongoing deaths, with no benefit.
Attacking Fauci
I tweeted about Secular Talk calling Dr. Anthony Fauci a liar, on July 14. Kulinski then attacked the medical community, ranting about an out of context face mask video of Fauci.
Kulinski interpreted Fauci’s advice to not wear masks — ignited by a shortage of masks, as nefarious, saying “they destroyed their credibility, and that’s damaging.”
Kulinski said that he could not blame them, referring to conspiracy theorists who believed the COVID-19 numbers were inflated, “I can’t blame them because the government’s lied a million times,” he declared self-righteously.
“So, devastating to their credibility. really pathetic, I don’t know why they think they’d get away with that.”
Protectionism
Kulinski asked in late May, “what if you prioritize one of the few issues where Trump is better than Biden, like TPP?”
Invalidating Gender-neutral/non-binary people
In July, Kulinski ridiculed a gender-neutral person for giving a speech at a protest, described Antifa as silly, narcissistic, stereotypical, identity-obsessed leftists, and said he didn’t want antifa to be successful.
Kulinski has a long history of invalidating gender-neutral people, and it can be found here and here.
Dismissive About White Supremacy
On the July 2, 2020 edition of Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski would not call Stefan Molyneux a white supremacist, saying “but the majority of the stuff on his channel is not really race related, and he used to be this hardcore libertarian guy, and then he became more of a paleo conservative,” later adding that “he’s not as bad as Richard Spencer.”
Doesn’t Take QAnon Conspiracy Theory Seriously
On the July 25, 2020 edition of Secular Talk, Kulinski minimized the harm of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a far-right movement that encompasses almost every right-wing conspiracy imaginable, whose adherents believe that a channel of demonic child sex abusers rules over the world, and that Trump is dedicated to stopping them.
Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters “focusing on social media/disinfo & online extremism,” tweeted that up to sixty-two Republicans candidates, current and former, have embraced or lent credence to QAnon.
Kulinski failed to report that multiple followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement have committed violence, and acts of terrorism.
Kulinski said, “often times conspiracies are real,” conceding that direct threats of violence would justify a ban, this stands out because it has been determined that QAnon content is linked to “multiple instances of white supremacist terror.”
The commentator warned that white supremacists would cling to their victim narrative, and be more emboldened, after Twitter purged the 7,000 QAnon accounts.
An FBI field office deemed the violent ideology — which is also a conspiracy theory — “a potential domestic terrorism threat.”
The SPLC reported: A series of events linked to QAnon supporters includes:
The capture of nearly 300 migrants at gunpoint on the U.S.-Mexico border
The firebombing of a Minnesota mosque and attempted firebombing of a Champaign, Illinois women’s health center by an Illinois militia
An armed Nevada man’s blocking of traffic with an armored vehicle on a bridge near Hoover Dam
The arson by a California man of the Washington, D.C., restaurant Comet Ping Pong, which is at the center of the patently false Pizzagate conspiracy theory