On the most recent edition of the PRIMO NUTMEG podcast, former Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein responded to accusations that she is an operative of either George Soros or Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this week, both NBC News (Robert Windrem) and then DailyKos (Mark Sumner) dug up and spun Jill's participating in a RT event in Moscow back in December 2015. The 16-month-old "news" (which DailyKos was focusing on five months ago and Rachel Maddow has oh-so-hilariously shouting about two months ago) was once again spun to insinuate that Jill Stein may have been doing Putin's bidding by running for President of the United States -- you know, like she did back in 2012 and like Greens have been doing for decades.

This is, of course, pretty predictable considering the insane level of neo-Cold War, Russophobic, McCarthyist Red Scare idiocy coming from the pro-Hillary corporate media. But, ironically, it also comes just a few months after Stein's recount efforts had nuts on the right accusing her of being a pawn of George Soros and/or Hillary Clinton.

It seems as though, regardless of whether you lean Democrat or Republican, there's an anti-Jill Stein conspiracy theory for you.

Stein rebuffed both accusations during her interview on PRIMO NUTMEG #83.

On the Soros recount conspiracy, Stein said:

"I've never had any contact with George Soros. The accusation was that he was funding the recount. Actually, our recount was funded by small donors -- an average of something like 40 or 45 dollars per donor. We received contributions under FEC limits, and that is campaign limits. So maximum donation acceptable under FEC limits for a campaign like ours, which got matching funds -- you cannot receive over twenty-seven-hundred dollars from a donor. And the average donation was far less than that. We had very few donations over a thousand dollars to the recount. And, for the most part, these were very small donations. Massively, overwhelmingly. So the Soros thing is just somebody's smear campaign."

Regarding the Putin conspiracy, Stein said:

"And, likewise, the Putin thing is a smear campaign. I went to a conference in Moscow in 2015. And I went really as part of a large peace delegation, in fact. Ironically, if you are a dissident in the US, you don't get covered by corporate media. But RT, you know, we have to go to Russia TV to get coverage if you are a dissident in the US. So lots of peace proponents get their message out, to the extent we can, on RT.

"So people like Thom Hartmann -- famous democratic, progressive media person -- also on RT, was there. Jesse Ventura, a peace advocate as well. Max Blumenthal. And Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst who worked for several presidential administrations, advising presidents on security. A whole slew of peace advocates were actually at this conference. Cause it gave us an opportunity to get our message heard.

"And my message to everybody, including Russia, the US, Putin, Obama, the American voting public, my message is recorded on the video of the presentations that were given that day, the day of the dinner where these photographs were taken. But my message was very clear. And it was a challenge to Vladimir Putin as it was a challenge to Barack Obama and Donald Trump for that matter, and the Republicans, all the Republican candidates.

"My message was that Russia [was] following catastrophic footsteps of the US, by entering into its bombing campaign of Syria. That has been my message for a long time. For many years, I have been supporting a peace message.

"So there are some people who really don't like that message and who've attempted to bury that message beneath a smear campagin, accusing me of being Putin's puppet. By my message was hardly a kiss-up to Putin any more than my message has been a kiss-up to the Democratic and Republican parties.

"I have been calling for a weapons embargo to the Middle East. And for a freeze on the bank accounts of those countries who continue to fund terrorism. Like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We need to move forward to a path towards peace."

While Jill's explanation is certainly not going to sway those folks committed to either conspiracy theory, it does at least provide a logical response to their tinfoil-hat lunacy.

But don't count the Soros conspiracy theorists to see their own views in the same light as the Putin conspiracy theories, nor vice versa.