A RAGE MONSTER'S RETURN

Democrats haven't managed to create even a basic advocacy media outlet, but NBC News reports that Republicans, who know how successful Fox News and talk radio have been for them, are hard at work on an advocacy outlet just for Hispanics.

The nation’s first Spanish-language conservative network launches Tuesday morning on satellite radio, opening a new front in the political information wars targeting Latinos in the United States and beyond....

It's scheduled to launch first on SiriusXM radio, then on streaming TV this summer, offering a mix of news programming and commentary. The network has close ties to former President Donald Trump's campaign, as well as to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush....

A great deal of Spanish-language disinformation made its way to Hispanic voters in the U.S. in 2020. It's not clear whether Americano plans to spread lies or simply rely on the usual anti-liberal bile. But buried in paragraph 26 of this story is one name -- a non-Hispanic name -- that should give us pause.

Americano’s chief strategy officer, former Trump campaign and White House adviser Michael Caputo, said the company “has investors, not donors.” ...

“I’m doing this because it’s going to be a profitable business. I could use some money after the Russia investigation,” he said, joking.

Though never charged with wrongdoing, Caputo was swept up in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election because of his past work involving Kremlin-linked Russian propaganda and his aid to the 2016 Trump campaign. This has led to a whisper campaign among Miami Democrats, who said his involvement with Americano was evidence that it would be a breeding ground for disinformation.

Caputo, whose mentor was Roger Stone, seemingly crashed and burned in 2020 when, after being made the top communications official at Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services, he posted a conspiratorial pandemic-themed Facebook rant:

The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus made outlandish and false accusations on Sunday that career government scientists were engaging in “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.

Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump, even if that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 death toll.

Mr. Caputo ... suggested that he personally could be in danger from opponents of the administration. “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,” he urged his followers.

... C.D.C. scientists “haven’t gotten out of their sweatpants except for meetings at coffee shops” to plot “how they’re going to attack Donald Trump next,” Mr. Caputo said. “There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.”

This came shortly after he was found attempting to exert political influence on weekly reports published by the CDC. It also happened some time after it was learned that he'd tweeted racist anti-Chinese messages on Twitter at the start of the pandemic:

In a series of tweets on March 12, [2020,] Caputo responded to a baseless conspiracy theory that the United States brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China, by tweeting that "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters."

He followed up at another user, "Don't you have a bat to eat?" and tweeted at another user, "You're very convincing, Wang."

Research into Caputo's social media use also found some vile sexism:

In December 2019, Caputo directly responded to a tweet from [former FBI agent Lisa] Page with a crude reference to oral sex, writing, "what's that on your chin."

... In other tweets from 2020, Caputo repeatedly referred to different women as "dogface," telling them "look at this dogface," "you have a dogface," and "I would never sleep with you, dog-face." In another tweet Caputo told a woman to "go f**k yourself," saying she was "ugly," and calling her "honey."

He called Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic consultant, a crone and a "nutty hag."

The paranoid Facebook rant was described as a response to the stress of Caputo's recent cancer diagnosis; he soon left the job.

In August 2021, Caputo was the subject of what was clearly intended to be a reputation-laundering Politico profile. In it, Caputo is portrayed as having undergone a religious conversion.

The profile begins with Caputo handing out toys to refugee children at a Catholic Charities famility in Texas, under a sign that read "Restoring Human Dignity." He carries around a copy of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.

(Roger Stone, you may recall, also proclaimed that he'd had a religious awakening a couple of years ago.)

But by the end of the profile, Caputo is back in attack-dog mode:

“I believe January 6 is being used by the people who put Biden in charge.”

“Do you think,” I now had at to ask, “Joe Biden was legitimately elected president?”

“I think,” Caputo said, “the jury is out.”

Early the next morning my phone dinged with a string of texts from Caputo....

“I believe Covid-19 was created in and released from the Wuhan lab, and the work to defeat the very real pandemic that resulted was manipulated to also assure the defeat of Donald Trump,” he said.

“I believe the 2020 elections were fraudulent in many states and the results were manipulated to assure the defeat of Donald Trump,” he said.

“I believe the same cynical federal authorities and bureaucrats who tried and failed to destroy my family with the bogus Russia investigations created a similarly anti-American plan that created or worsened illegal activity at the U.S. Capitol,” he said.

“Importantly, I’m wide open to changing my mind on all three points. As they say: Prove me wrong,” he said.

This guy is the chief strategy officer for the new right-wing Spanish-language media outlet. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that it will broadcast some disinformation.