It's not Civil War. It's Nefarious Paid Evil Players.
Matt, why would you say this? At 53mins, "The issue is the escalating rhetoric, really on both sides of this thing." I strongly disagree. This is a DEM phenomena.
As we spiral into a descent that our entire political system is culpable for, the Racket is failing the moment and instead is caught chasing its tail into the past. You are both truly American treasures in my eyes. The uncovering of the digital censorship machine and the Russiagate plot will, and should, go down as THE journalistic triumphs of the past decade, but the "Republicans have been kinder to me in the recent past" schtick has got to end. Your free speech credentials are fraying at the ends and the entire garment is threatening to unravel. How in the fuck are you failing to cover this insane and 100% overt pre-crime / censorship directive, NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/ while at the same time focusing your reporting efforts on how necessary the crackdowns are on people in the streets protesting the suspension of habeas corpus for immigrants? Sure it's complex, rioters are a pain in the ass, and the people did vote for an immigration solution, but you both know damn well that if anyone doesn't have habeas corpus, then NO ONE HAS HABEAS CORPUS. It is the entire backbone of the American system. How can you prove you are a citizen, or not a terrorist, or not guilty, if you never see a trial? I'm not telling you something you don't know. When no one wanted to defend Assange anymore you did. Why? Because what he exposed was our government's shrugging off our own citizens rights, and the extra-judicial killing of whoever the fuck they wanted. Now you're going to cheer the continued enshrining of that, especially on our countrymen?
Your defense of a free press and definition of journalism itself has never faltered ... until now. Just because an outlet is called the Free Press, doesn't make it an actual part of it, and the CBS merger / acquisition of it to be a billionaires dream propaganda outlet, serving at the pleasure of this administration's allowing the merger is nothing to fucking cheer about. Congratulations to Bari Weiss, the fucking queen of Palestinian voices cancelations? The accuser of Tulsi of being an "Assad toady" without even knowing what the fuck a toady is! Seriously fellas, it's time to recommit to the holding accountable of all of these fuckers. The billionaires own the entire government, and any pretense of any of these ass holes actually caring about free speech, censorship, a free press, holding criminals accountable etc. is yes, useful at the time, because hell, at least someone is doing it, but to see it as anything other than a cynical political ploy that not just can, but will, be reversed, at the first sign that it might hurt their own political ambitions, is to be played the fool.
Let me get this straight, Walter Kirn is making a movie about a made-up epidemic which forces us into a dystopian reality? Where have I heard this before? A friend of my wife's had and interesting take on the whole wacko over-reaction by the right regarding Covid and public health, that there's a reason that it is spearheaded mainly by white men — we had health mandates that all of the sudden they had to follow. Egads! Not us! Not Walter Kirn who lives in Montana! Mind you no one forced him to take a vaccine and at worst he had to follow a mask mandate on a flight (I took flights during Covid, mandates were rarely enforced). I live in Brooklyn, we had ambulance sirens around the clock on our streets, and hospitals were turning people away. They asked Walter Kirn to wear a mask during a flight, boohoohoo. Now Walter Kirn wants to compare his little project to Dr Strangelove, a movie wrestling with nuclear devastation. The delusion is striking.
My question is whether people can believe what our currently-in-office President says. Trump built a wall, saying KEEP OUT. Biden tore down the wall and said COME ON IN, and isn't that why millions poured in and felt it was not illegal to do so? Now Trump is saying STAY OUT and GO HOME, so they are no longer coming and many are going home. Wait 3 years and if the dems get in again, maybe they can come in again.
Should the law not require the President to actually follow the laws put in place by Congress, or go to jail for breaking them?
If California were to secede, what would stop Northern California, Eastern Oregon, and Eastern Washington from refusing to secede in turn? Be careful what you wish for.
The entire city of Portland is not falling apart. It's the ICE facility and the area around it that are troublesome. If they can clean that area up, all is good.
The "Cascadia" plan is doomed from the start because it's calling for people to fight for the cause of enabling the west coast states to free their authoritarian regimes from the restrictions of the US Constitution and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th amendments. Who in those states with the ability to actually fight would use that ability on behalf of a regime which will, on day 2, come and deprive them of the arms they used to do so? Once the secessionist regime has disarmed the populace and opened the southern border to all comers, it'd be a matter of months until the cartels who regularly threaten, bribe, and intinidate officials in Mexico would be running Cascidia as thoroughly as they currently control so much of the land within 100 miles of the southern US.
Nicely put but on the point of my question. Is there any evidence that at least prior to Biden's withdrawal there were plans to implement it in a close election?
The short answer is no, because the whole idea isn't serious, and while there are those who consider themselves to be serious about it, those people aren't serious and don't have a firm grip on a thing that I like to call "reality".
There's a small core of lunatics who have dream of forming a "Cascadia" out of the West Coast states which would be a left-progressive utopia, and in which all of the non left-progressives who populate most of the agriculture, manufacturing, and businesses in those states would just stick with the sinking ship and admit that they were wrong to have ever questioned it at all and that the gun owners in those places would turn out to fight for the rebel militias needed to establish a government which would immediately try to forcibly disarm them if they somehow actually won. Those people are always "serious" about going through with it (and didn't even much mind that the original 2017l "Calexit" movement was actually created in Moscow by someone with close ties to Putin and the FSB) and always will be as long as there's anyone in elected office anywhere in the country who they personaly wouldn't have voted for.
The entire concept of "Cascadia" as something which could ever realistically be possible, isn't and never will be something which anyone who lives on Earth or any other planet orbiting the sun sould actually think would be possible to carry out.
I worked at a public library in the 90s that shelved Fear and Loathing with the Las Vegas travel guides.
I’m listening to the audiobook for this round of book club. The opening epigram is alluded to throughout the text as people behave like beasts. I hadn’t noticed that the other times I’d read it.
Thanks for encouraging me to revisit a beloved classic.
It's not Civil War. It's Nefarious Paid Evil Players.
Matt, why would you say this? At 53mins, "The issue is the escalating rhetoric, really on both sides of this thing." I strongly disagree. This is a DEM phenomena.
As we spiral into a descent that our entire political system is culpable for, the Racket is failing the moment and instead is caught chasing its tail into the past. You are both truly American treasures in my eyes. The uncovering of the digital censorship machine and the Russiagate plot will, and should, go down as THE journalistic triumphs of the past decade, but the "Republicans have been kinder to me in the recent past" schtick has got to end. Your free speech credentials are fraying at the ends and the entire garment is threatening to unravel. How in the fuck are you failing to cover this insane and 100% overt pre-crime / censorship directive, NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/ while at the same time focusing your reporting efforts on how necessary the crackdowns are on people in the streets protesting the suspension of habeas corpus for immigrants? Sure it's complex, rioters are a pain in the ass, and the people did vote for an immigration solution, but you both know damn well that if anyone doesn't have habeas corpus, then NO ONE HAS HABEAS CORPUS. It is the entire backbone of the American system. How can you prove you are a citizen, or not a terrorist, or not guilty, if you never see a trial? I'm not telling you something you don't know. When no one wanted to defend Assange anymore you did. Why? Because what he exposed was our government's shrugging off our own citizens rights, and the extra-judicial killing of whoever the fuck they wanted. Now you're going to cheer the continued enshrining of that, especially on our countrymen?
Your defense of a free press and definition of journalism itself has never faltered ... until now. Just because an outlet is called the Free Press, doesn't make it an actual part of it, and the CBS merger / acquisition of it to be a billionaires dream propaganda outlet, serving at the pleasure of this administration's allowing the merger is nothing to fucking cheer about. Congratulations to Bari Weiss, the fucking queen of Palestinian voices cancelations? The accuser of Tulsi of being an "Assad toady" without even knowing what the fuck a toady is! Seriously fellas, it's time to recommit to the holding accountable of all of these fuckers. The billionaires own the entire government, and any pretense of any of these ass holes actually caring about free speech, censorship, a free press, holding criminals accountable etc. is yes, useful at the time, because hell, at least someone is doing it, but to see it as anything other than a cynical political ploy that not just can, but will, be reversed, at the first sign that it might hurt their own political ambitions, is to be played the fool.
Let me get this straight, Walter Kirn is making a movie about a made-up epidemic which forces us into a dystopian reality? Where have I heard this before? A friend of my wife's had and interesting take on the whole wacko over-reaction by the right regarding Covid and public health, that there's a reason that it is spearheaded mainly by white men — we had health mandates that all of the sudden they had to follow. Egads! Not us! Not Walter Kirn who lives in Montana! Mind you no one forced him to take a vaccine and at worst he had to follow a mask mandate on a flight (I took flights during Covid, mandates were rarely enforced). I live in Brooklyn, we had ambulance sirens around the clock on our streets, and hospitals were turning people away. They asked Walter Kirn to wear a mask during a flight, boohoohoo. Now Walter Kirn wants to compare his little project to Dr Strangelove, a movie wrestling with nuclear devastation. The delusion is striking.
My question is whether people can believe what our currently-in-office President says. Trump built a wall, saying KEEP OUT. Biden tore down the wall and said COME ON IN, and isn't that why millions poured in and felt it was not illegal to do so? Now Trump is saying STAY OUT and GO HOME, so they are no longer coming and many are going home. Wait 3 years and if the dems get in again, maybe they can come in again.
Should the law not require the President to actually follow the laws put in place by Congress, or go to jail for breaking them?
If California were to secede, what would stop Northern California, Eastern Oregon, and Eastern Washington from refusing to secede in turn? Be careful what you wish for.
The entire city of Portland is not falling apart. It's the ICE facility and the area around it that are troublesome. If they can clean that area up, all is good.
I have read other Hunter Thompson and he comes across as a total asshole. Worse than Charles Bukowski, another asshole who is worshiped by losers.
One of the great lines in all of literature.
What are thoughts of the Cascadia plan being implemented in 2024 assuming Biden didn't withdraw? Was it considered by Harris?
The "Cascadia" plan is doomed from the start because it's calling for people to fight for the cause of enabling the west coast states to free their authoritarian regimes from the restrictions of the US Constitution and the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th amendments. Who in those states with the ability to actually fight would use that ability on behalf of a regime which will, on day 2, come and deprive them of the arms they used to do so? Once the secessionist regime has disarmed the populace and opened the southern border to all comers, it'd be a matter of months until the cartels who regularly threaten, bribe, and intinidate officials in Mexico would be running Cascidia as thoroughly as they currently control so much of the land within 100 miles of the southern US.
Nicely put but on the point of my question. Is there any evidence that at least prior to Biden's withdrawal there were plans to implement it in a close election?
The short answer is no, because the whole idea isn't serious, and while there are those who consider themselves to be serious about it, those people aren't serious and don't have a firm grip on a thing that I like to call "reality".
There's a small core of lunatics who have dream of forming a "Cascadia" out of the West Coast states which would be a left-progressive utopia, and in which all of the non left-progressives who populate most of the agriculture, manufacturing, and businesses in those states would just stick with the sinking ship and admit that they were wrong to have ever questioned it at all and that the gun owners in those places would turn out to fight for the rebel militias needed to establish a government which would immediately try to forcibly disarm them if they somehow actually won. Those people are always "serious" about going through with it (and didn't even much mind that the original 2017l "Calexit" movement was actually created in Moscow by someone with close ties to Putin and the FSB) and always will be as long as there's anyone in elected office anywhere in the country who they personaly wouldn't have voted for.
The entire concept of "Cascadia" as something which could ever realistically be possible, isn't and never will be something which anyone who lives on Earth or any other planet orbiting the sun sould actually think would be possible to carry out.
I believe there are powerful actors who are trying to bring about a Kent State 2.0.
Nobody says OregOn Matt.
I saw that movie as a kid, but I remembered the name as The Big Carnival, because a carnival was created by the Journalist and the town
Thank you for the substack link!!!
I worked at a public library in the 90s that shelved Fear and Loathing with the Las Vegas travel guides.
I’m listening to the audiobook for this round of book club. The opening epigram is alluded to throughout the text as people behave like beasts. I hadn’t noticed that the other times I’d read it.
Thanks for encouraging me to revisit a beloved classic.