We know what one half will do, which is justify and rationalize literally everything the Trump admin does (while seeking a life time appointment from Trump as Librarian of Congress by the way, tiny conflict of interest that Matt seems to happily ignore) and Matt will basically nod along and sometimes say he “doesn’t love” what Trump is doing but that the media is worse.
It’s literally the same formula every week. You can predict with 100% certainty that Walter Kirn will support whatever the current admin is doing. Even when he criticized the previous admin for doing the exact same things, he defends Trump when he does it.
Why would we need to wait to hear which version of idiotic conspiracy thinking Walter will use to apologize for the Trump admin this week before assuming that’s what he will do, since he does it every week?
Last week he was justifying the targeted killing of unarmed civilians by our military not as a one-off mistake but as the proper and just policy going forward - kill civilians. He also justified a war on Venezuela by making up a crack-headed theory that fentanyl (which has nothing to do with Venezuela in reality, reality being a place Kirn rarely visits) is the new chemical weapon and weapon of mass destruction. Therefor, any and all acts against both the government and civilian population - up to and including targeting and killing unarmed civilians en mass - are justified.
So again, why wait for the pablum before commenting? You think he’s going to surprise us this week?
Sounds like maybe they’re not what you enjoy in commentary. Maybe you should just not listen. I find them both refreshing because they are free speech advocates who have different views while not sycophants of any political leader. Walter’s comments cut straight to the underlying issue precisely.
When’s the last time Kirn opposed something the Trump admin did instead of justify/rationalize/defend it? I can’t even name three things and I’ve been listening weekly for years.
Idk. I will try to note it. But he does not praise Trump either. He rather comments on the issues and events Matt brings up and his comments are incisive.
About how much they adore Trump and any criticism is either hypocritical, sour grapes or both? They have earned the contempt they are showered with. It’s pathetic.
At least one of them posts a quite large number of substance-free bitchy comments on each post. I’m not a fan of comment moderating, but at some point it just becomes content-free spam and probably ought to be site blocked. Another guy regularly complains profusely but at least makes substantive arguments, which is legitimate.
So you are the judge as to who gets free speech and who does not?
If I were the judge, and I thought as you do, I would prefer not to see comments like yours here. But I am wise enough just to skip over them. I am not authoritarian like you.
I don't dig down that deeply, so I don't know the mechanisms of the "Substack System". When it started, I thought it was touted as a free-speech platform. What do I know?
If find it fascinating how easy it is to convince a grown up man like Walter that it’s worth sending troops to die (yeah small countries kicked US ass even if you dominate their airspace) on a bogus pretense AGAIN (WMD, Gulf of Tonkin etc…).
AI will tell you that Venezuela represents 8% of US imports of cocaine and has NO ROLE in fentanyl! Just calm TF down and inform yourself you lazy fk!!!
The fact is We have to expand. Empires MUST expand. The $US Dollar is on its last legs.
All of us have been living off the Derivatives of this Debt Based Economy. We're all complicit.
Of course you're correct about the murders. Just as bad as the footage that Julian Assange originally exposed on Bill Moyer's Journal, of the Iraqi civilians gunned down from the helicopter. But not nearly as bad as Obama's drones, so Walter Kirn is "right".
We’re all complicit. When I hear people strutting around about speaking truth to power., I wonder when any journalist will point out how fucking pathetic the average citizen is
Another stupid lie used to sell another regime change war. Nothing surprising there but why do we have to sit here and listen to Walter believing the lie, or pretending to?
Walter: We need to kill them all because fentanyl is a chemical weapon!
Matt: Yeah (mumble mumble there's no fentanyl involved here it's cocaine)
Walter: WHAT?
Matt: I said yeah, fentanyl bad, yes.
Walter: Fentanyl bad! Kill them all!
Matt: And of course, Venezuela has oil...
Walter: In that case I kill them even more! Now it's a grown up war for geopolitical purposes!
Indeed I unsubscribed myself once or twice, because of Racket News' "stance" on Palestine.
Bottom line is Matt Taibbi was there at the Inflection Point, and laid it out at the Twitter Files Hearings. He's a fn American hero for The Ages. If Trump hadn't "won", he and Walter Kirn would be defuncted.
All of Us have benefitted from Deep State actions and The Banksters' usury. Every time we walk to the refrigerator.
But yes let's all sit here and listen to Walter Kirn bloviate on and on and on and on and on and fucking ON about how Trump is only murdering Venezuelans because he just really wants to stop the flow of fentanyl which isn't even suspected of being on those boats.
I can enjoy the occasional clever trolling that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Of course that requires cleverness and a sense of humor both of which are noticeably absent today…
Walter Kirn: "I see drug addicts outside my house so I support bombing Venezuelan boats".
Those addicts are not slumped over from cocaine, as you know. And those boats are not even accused of carrying fentanyl, as you know. Or do you know that? Why do you not know that?
Hey Matt, looking forward to your take on two Trump initiatives that you’ve staked your credibility as a reporter on— DOGE and the Comey, James & Weissman prosecutions. You’ve been very enthusiastic about these actions by Trump. I believe there have been several developments. As much as we’d like your take on influencer Jennifer Welch, this seems a little more worth your time (and ours —assuming Kirn lets you get a word in edgewise).
Each Substack Writer has the right to "censor" whoever they want. Which makes sense, because it's their "property". Like you wouldn't have somebody from Bnai Brith over for supper.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the Substack phenomenon. I enjoy the content and the outlet it gives to independent voices (and even though I’ve been labeled a troll by the true believers for my dissent, I enjoy some of Matt’s content , especially when it come to literature).
But Matt has told us ad nauseam that Substack and people like himself and Joe Rogan are the New Media that will blow a fresh wind through journalism while the MSM withers on the vine because of its irrelevance. Matt, whose own numbers seem to be plummeting now, has equated ratings with credibility, and he has celebrated cutbacks and firings by MSM, which he doesn’t bother to define, but almost invariably refers only to media he considers antagonistic to him. Rogan is a professional bloviator and Matt now has retreated from doing any original reporting (ironically he has been reduced to sifting through revelations he finds out about in the NYT and the WaPo).
I find his posture reductive and hypocritical, and I would like to see a healthy ecosystem that encompasses a wide spectrum of voices.
The problem with a world of Joe Rogans and Matt Taibbi’s is the same thing they advertise as being their advantage— they have no oversight. They have no editors. They have no one to call their BS other than a few voices like mine. And yet they can be as wrongheaded and fallible and stupid as MSM. They exist in a bubble. Making matters worse, they revive the worst abuses of yellow journalism, by feeding their most radicalized bases with sensationalist stories, culture wars and false polemics.
Lastly. I disagree with you wholeheartedly that these two are centrists. Matt professes to be a populist, but his enthusiastically throwing his lot in with the polices of a faux populist billionaire like Trump makes him a reactionary in my book. Kirn is straight up MAGA, he doesn’t hide it.
Not only is Kirn maga, he aspires to be appointed by the administration to the library of congress director.
Matt in print is a super snarky witty fellow. In live debates he is a bashful puppy. He either rolls over for a belly rub from the likes of Kirn, or he pisses all over the floor like he did with mehdi hassan. For those that don’t understand why we hate watch, I personally don’t have the crayons or the inclination to enlighten them
Indeed. He professes love for the economic populism of the ‘old Bernie’ before he ‘sold out.’ But I can see you mistaking him a member of the Eastern establishment, because ultimately that is where he came from and it is what he is reverting to.
Economic populism is a recipe for disaster imo and I don't care which side it comes from. I see Matt (and many others) trying to raise children in a cultural/educational sewer, reverting by instinct to more "traditional" ways. Sure, Matt is a coastal elite, but the uniparty doesn't look like any elite he used to know. It is maybe better educated and more sophisticated than the populists, but also more corrupt. Even Grandpa Bernie has hitched himself to that wagon.
Walter has some holes in his intelligent head, as most recovering addicts do, but he is a steadfast romantic and I love that about him. He speaks well and has his own take on things, which I enjoy.
Interesting that you’ve spelled out a worldview for Matt which he himself refuses to do or is too muddled to do. I think it’s the former because it allows him to present this ah shucks I care about the little guy!persona. He still tells us he has a tender place in his heart for the old Bernie. Problem is once you’ve hitched your wagon Trump like he has at every turn that becomes patently dishonest. I’ve more respect for Walter who openly tells us that he believes this incompetent con artist billionaire who is busy creating a US kleptocracy in the Russian style will help the American middle class.
That is a reader's prerogative, to pull meaning from the text. Reading between the lines is what a reader is supposed to do!
I,m not sure that Matt disagrees with Walter on that. I think Matt is having a mid-life crisis. He has some figuring out to do. It's certainly no shame to have different politics at 55 than at 25, but I suspect Matt never saw it coming.
Thank you for your response. i enjoy your comments.
Hello again. I've been thinking about this and your criticisms of Matt seem unfair. You might be right on target with Joe Rogan - i don't know because I've never listened to him.
Seems to me that a new wind in journalism could purposefully and very usefully sift through revelations found in the WaPo and NYT. The difference here is that Matt is one person with comparatively limited resources. He has a wealth of contacts, however, and he/they add/subtract to/from the mainstream gospel.
I think no editor/oversight is a great advantage to an opinion piece. Most writers exist in the bubbles of their own world view, and readers should know this going in. That's why reading and listening widely is valuable to the on-going process of forming and modifying one,s own world view and apprehension of reality.
Please explain what you mean by Matt and Walter reviving "the worst abuses of yellow journalism, by feeding their most radicalized bases with sensationalist stories, culture wars and false polemics." With or without Matt and Walter, culture wars seem all too real to me, and becoming dangerously problematic. Do you disagree? I'm close to the end of my life and no longer recognize my country. Change is inevitable but do you not think it a proper subject for discussion?
When opinion seems wrong-headed to me, facile, self-serving, dishonest, I move on. I haven't enough time left to spend it on unreliable sources.
Hasan exposes all of the flaws of the ‘new journalism,’ chief among them the sensationalism (ie telling his readers that 20 million postings had been flagged to be reviewed and taken down, when the number was less than 2000 with the entity involved never demanding any action (the vast majority were never taken down). The screaming headline by Taibbi spoke of a vast censorship industrial complex. Such actions have real life consequences. But Hasan also exposes the sloppiness that comes from having no editors (not a mortal sin perhaps but enough with the pontificating about how his model is the future of journalism).
If that were bad enough, the aftermath was even more damning. Taibbi had been heralding the takeover of Twitter by reactionary billionaire Elon Musk as a new age of free speech. Of course, shortly thereafter, Musk brazenly shadow banned Taibbi. Accusations began flying and sensing that his own communication with Musk would be leaked, Taibbi took the initiative. What we read was arguably as damning as anything in the Twitter Files—Taibbi protesting that he was being treated unfairly because he had willfully refrained from criticizing Musk in exchange for access to the Twitter files. So much for the virtues of the new media.
Too often he is settling scores with catty pieces targeting perceived enemies in the MSM (I would direct you to his bizarre hit jobs on Ezra Klein and David Brooks).
And in my book you don’t get to tell us how vacuous an influencer like Jennifer Welch is while sniping about her for one hour.
You’re, right that it would be noble to be a voice in the wilderness doing solid reporting. That’s not what I find on these pages.
Are you trying to give this old lady a stroke?! I,d just as soon watch a jackbooted thug kicking someone to death. I don,t admire the self-important style of voiceover "debate." I'd rather a screwdriver through an ear than listen to Donald Trump debate.
Please don't tell me Mehdi Hasan is your idea of a centrist, or an authority on anything beyond Islam as a religion of peace.
I,m inclined to agree on the Brooks and Klein pieces. Both seem gentle sorts who are trying hard though falling short.
No, I don’t care for his ideas on religion, but he embodies a British and Oxford ideal of rigor and debate, which we are sorely missing in this country. Hasan does not engage i a single ad hominem in the interview, instead he comes prepared with facts and Taibbi withers when faced with real rigor. It’s worth a watch.
I think a lot of the joy of debate is like against like, otherwise it's wrestling outside your weight class, neither fun to watch nor instructive.
I've not been a subscriber long enough to say for sure, but I started listening to the podcast assuming that Matt and Walter were well balanced. I'm realizing over time that Matt is a sharp-witted writer who doesn't think well on his feet, while Walter can do it all amusingly, but badly needs an editor. Neither one of them shines out of his element but both have a hard time adjusting to the idea of limits. They are too eager to make themselves vulnerable - unless they are very thick-skinned, which of course I have no way of knowing. I suspect that Matt has thicker skin than Walter.
Give it time. Eventually, the nonstop avoidance of any real criticism of Trump or Israel will be glaring. I hated Russia gate and agreed broadly with Matt on many issues. Klein Hassan and brooks are all audience captured and or propaganda pez dispensers. Matt, too, is becoming the guy he warned about in hate inc. I’m guessing Walter was never worth a fuck
Fentanyl I’ve heard is not manufactured in Venezuela; it’s made in Mexico. If our borders are closed to Mexico how are the drugs getting in? US spending millions daily to keep the fleet there outside Venezuela. Why can’t we use that money to deal with drugs in our streets? Or do the powers that be want to keep it going…???
I think this whole Venezuela thing is a distraction.
if the J6 pipe-bomber was in fact, as has been reported, merely a very naïve, almost autistic-like 30 year old with the mind of a 16 year old, who doesn’t understand a lot of stuff, who acted alone, and was not being manipulated by more sinister forces, (if that really were the case), then to me prosecuting him really does not seem that important. If he was just an errant, ineffective individual with no other violent inclinations, then I would not mind seeing him get off with a mistrial, plea bargain or a very light sentence. But if Mike Benz and others are right, and he was a puppet of the blob, then all of the FBI's efforts should go to profiling him and identifying how he was co-opted. It seems unlikely to me that he acted alone, simply because of the exquisite timing of the placement of the devices for a person who was otherwise politically disengaged. On the other hand, if he was a cutout, there have to be threads that could be pulled and followed leading to his manipulators. The whole thing reminds one so much of the Joseph Conrad story "The Secret Agent".
Almost autistic loner evades the FBI for five years. Is it just me, or is there a very obvious effort to strain credulity in new ways almost every day.
Doesn't the innocent autistic bit come from his grandmother?
I wouldn't put much stock in that and I certainly wouldn't use it as a springboard into mind control--unless it's aimed at whoever mind controls grandmas into taking bullets for their grand kids. She is just being the best grandma she can considering the circumstances. I certainly don't trust her though, for that same reason.
We are all being manipulated by sinister forces--and at the top of that list is ourselves.
Mike Benz is a fraud who lied about his experience at the State Department, claiming he was “head of cyber” when there is absolutely no record of him doing any “cyber” work at State, was transferred from a low level speech writing job at HUD to State (State never even hired him) and he left his position at State within 3-7 weeks of obtaining it.
Despite this he acts like he has some kind of all encompassing pass to the secrets of the kingdom or at least some up-close first hand knowledge of “how things work.”
In reality he was denied security clearance (twice) because he was so untrustworthy and damaged.
Would anybody here like to talk about how bad you have to fuck up to be denied security clearance twice? Or how it likely has to do with the fact that the government felt he was compromised to the degree that he couldn’t have access to even low-level secrets?
So I guess our Latin American policy hasn’t really been to massacre entire villages opposing our favored regimes and displaying the heads and private parts along the roadsides to the “verified free and fair” voting locations.
I think I absorbed Matt’s concussion and Walter’s 20-yr cold. I’ve been in a brain fog the last 4 to 8 episodes not able to make sense out of anything. Contrastingly Max Blumenthal, Aaron and Katie, Judge Nap, Jimmy Dore, Due Dissidents and yes even Candace put me back into my reality right or wrong.
If German spies were coming ashore with explosives to blow up American infrastructure during WW2 and the US bombed their craft, would we be having this discussion? What if they brought poison to dump in US water systems? It’s difficult to square how drug smuggling qualifies as mere crime, when the British specifically utilized drugs to undermine Chinese society as part of a subjugation and occupation invasion.
It never ceases to amaze me that minutes after this type of post the comments are filled with outrage. Can they speak first?
We know what one half will do, which is justify and rationalize literally everything the Trump admin does (while seeking a life time appointment from Trump as Librarian of Congress by the way, tiny conflict of interest that Matt seems to happily ignore) and Matt will basically nod along and sometimes say he “doesn’t love” what Trump is doing but that the media is worse.
It’s literally the same formula every week. You can predict with 100% certainty that Walter Kirn will support whatever the current admin is doing. Even when he criticized the previous admin for doing the exact same things, he defends Trump when he does it.
Why would we need to wait to hear which version of idiotic conspiracy thinking Walter will use to apologize for the Trump admin this week before assuming that’s what he will do, since he does it every week?
Last week he was justifying the targeted killing of unarmed civilians by our military not as a one-off mistake but as the proper and just policy going forward - kill civilians. He also justified a war on Venezuela by making up a crack-headed theory that fentanyl (which has nothing to do with Venezuela in reality, reality being a place Kirn rarely visits) is the new chemical weapon and weapon of mass destruction. Therefor, any and all acts against both the government and civilian population - up to and including targeting and killing unarmed civilians en mass - are justified.
So again, why wait for the pablum before commenting? You think he’s going to surprise us this week?
Sounds like maybe they’re not what you enjoy in commentary. Maybe you should just not listen. I find them both refreshing because they are free speech advocates who have different views while not sycophants of any political leader. Walter’s comments cut straight to the underlying issue precisely.
When’s the last time Kirn opposed something the Trump admin did instead of justify/rationalize/defend it? I can’t even name three things and I’ve been listening weekly for years.
Idk. I will try to note it. But he does not praise Trump either. He rather comments on the issues and events Matt brings up and his comments are incisive.
🛎️🔨
About how much they adore Trump and any criticism is either hypocritical, sour grapes or both? They have earned the contempt they are showered with. It’s pathetic.
🙄🙄🙄
Outrage bats first
Before the pitcher even walks to the mound.
At least one of them posts a quite large number of substance-free bitchy comments on each post. I’m not a fan of comment moderating, but at some point it just becomes content-free spam and probably ought to be site blocked. Another guy regularly complains profusely but at least makes substantive arguments, which is legitimate.
I sure hope I made the "legitimate" list this year!
So you are the judge as to who gets free speech and who does not?
If I were the judge, and I thought as you do, I would prefer not to see comments like yours here. But I am wise enough just to skip over them. I am not authoritarian like you.
I consider this comment of yours just spam.
I'm guessing K Andrew is talking about the fact that this episode hasn't aired yet.
I don't dig down that deeply, so I don't know the mechanisms of the "Substack System". When it started, I thought it was touted as a free-speech platform. What do I know?
If find it fascinating how easy it is to convince a grown up man like Walter that it’s worth sending troops to die (yeah small countries kicked US ass even if you dominate their airspace) on a bogus pretense AGAIN (WMD, Gulf of Tonkin etc…).
AI will tell you that Venezuela represents 8% of US imports of cocaine and has NO ROLE in fentanyl! Just calm TF down and inform yourself you lazy fk!!!
The fact is We have to expand. Empires MUST expand. The $US Dollar is on its last legs.
All of us have been living off the Derivatives of this Debt Based Economy. We're all complicit.
Of course you're correct about the murders. Just as bad as the footage that Julian Assange originally exposed on Bill Moyer's Journal, of the Iraqi civilians gunned down from the helicopter. But not nearly as bad as Obama's drones, so Walter Kirn is "right".
We’re all complicit. When I hear people strutting around about speaking truth to power., I wonder when any journalist will point out how fucking pathetic the average citizen is
Another stupid lie used to sell another regime change war. Nothing surprising there but why do we have to sit here and listen to Walter believing the lie, or pretending to?
Walter: We need to kill them all because fentanyl is a chemical weapon!
Matt: Yeah (mumble mumble there's no fentanyl involved here it's cocaine)
Walter: WHAT?
Matt: I said yeah, fentanyl bad, yes.
Walter: Fentanyl bad! Kill them all!
Matt: And of course, Venezuela has oil...
Walter: In that case I kill them even more! Now it's a grown up war for geopolitical purposes!
Absolutely incredible. It’s like thanksgiving with Archie bunker and peewee Herman. Or some other beta bitch. Matt is such a fucking coward.
Indeed I unsubscribed myself once or twice, because of Racket News' "stance" on Palestine.
Bottom line is Matt Taibbi was there at the Inflection Point, and laid it out at the Twitter Files Hearings. He's a fn American hero for The Ages. If Trump hadn't "won", he and Walter Kirn would be defuncted.
All of Us have benefitted from Deep State actions and The Banksters' usury. Every time we walk to the refrigerator.
Again, Walter, the psyop is working on you. You’ve accepted their frame of U.S. kill strikes as having something to do with drugs.
Imagine if a south american president were actually directing operations to import tons of drugs into the USA.
Oh hey that actually happened. His name was Juan Orlando Hernández and he got caught, tried in US courts, and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Take that, narco terrorism! 45 years in pri--oh hold on Donald Trump just pardoned him.
Really. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/ex-honduran-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-trump-pardon
But yes let's all sit here and listen to Walter Kirn bloviate on and on and on and on and on and fucking ON about how Trump is only murdering Venezuelans because he just really wants to stop the flow of fentanyl which isn't even suspected of being on those boats.
I wonder how Kirn will justify the targeted killing of unarmed civilians this week.
The trolls are out today. Too bad they’re not particularly good at their job.
It’s possible to block the trolls. Life is much nicer without them.
The trolls are also nasty & very stupid
I can enjoy the occasional clever trolling that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Of course that requires cleverness and a sense of humor both of which are noticeably absent today…
Walter, this has nothing to do with drugs. It’s about the futile effort of the hegemon to stop BRICS.
Walter Kirn: "I see drug addicts outside my house so I support bombing Venezuelan boats".
Those addicts are not slumped over from cocaine, as you know. And those boats are not even accused of carrying fentanyl, as you know. Or do you know that? Why do you not know that?
Hey Matt, looking forward to your take on two Trump initiatives that you’ve staked your credibility as a reporter on— DOGE and the Comey, James & Weissman prosecutions. You’ve been very enthusiastic about these actions by Trump. I believe there have been several developments. As much as we’d like your take on influencer Jennifer Welch, this seems a little more worth your time (and ours —assuming Kirn lets you get a word in edgewise).
Each Substack Writer has the right to "censor" whoever they want. Which makes sense, because it's their "property". Like you wouldn't have somebody from Bnai Brith over for supper.
No,..they only rent space from the Substack digital platform, open to the public.. They do not own it.
Just as a shop owner on rented premises cannot refuse to serve someone in an ethnic group he/she personally does not like.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the Substack phenomenon. I enjoy the content and the outlet it gives to independent voices (and even though I’ve been labeled a troll by the true believers for my dissent, I enjoy some of Matt’s content , especially when it come to literature).
But Matt has told us ad nauseam that Substack and people like himself and Joe Rogan are the New Media that will blow a fresh wind through journalism while the MSM withers on the vine because of its irrelevance. Matt, whose own numbers seem to be plummeting now, has equated ratings with credibility, and he has celebrated cutbacks and firings by MSM, which he doesn’t bother to define, but almost invariably refers only to media he considers antagonistic to him. Rogan is a professional bloviator and Matt now has retreated from doing any original reporting (ironically he has been reduced to sifting through revelations he finds out about in the NYT and the WaPo).
I find his posture reductive and hypocritical, and I would like to see a healthy ecosystem that encompasses a wide spectrum of voices.
The problem with a world of Joe Rogans and Matt Taibbi’s is the same thing they advertise as being their advantage— they have no oversight. They have no editors. They have no one to call their BS other than a few voices like mine. And yet they can be as wrongheaded and fallible and stupid as MSM. They exist in a bubble. Making matters worse, they revive the worst abuses of yellow journalism, by feeding their most radicalized bases with sensationalist stories, culture wars and false polemics.
Lastly. I disagree with you wholeheartedly that these two are centrists. Matt professes to be a populist, but his enthusiastically throwing his lot in with the polices of a faux populist billionaire like Trump makes him a reactionary in my book. Kirn is straight up MAGA, he doesn’t hide it.
Not only is Kirn maga, he aspires to be appointed by the administration to the library of congress director.
Matt in print is a super snarky witty fellow. In live debates he is a bashful puppy. He either rolls over for a belly rub from the likes of Kirn, or he pisses all over the floor like he did with mehdi hassan. For those that don’t understand why we hate watch, I personally don’t have the crayons or the inclination to enlighten them
“ Matt professes to be a populist..”
Sayyyyyyy whaaaaaat?
Indeed. He professes love for the economic populism of the ‘old Bernie’ before he ‘sold out.’ But I can see you mistaking him a member of the Eastern establishment, because ultimately that is where he came from and it is what he is reverting to.
Economic populism is a recipe for disaster imo and I don't care which side it comes from. I see Matt (and many others) trying to raise children in a cultural/educational sewer, reverting by instinct to more "traditional" ways. Sure, Matt is a coastal elite, but the uniparty doesn't look like any elite he used to know. It is maybe better educated and more sophisticated than the populists, but also more corrupt. Even Grandpa Bernie has hitched himself to that wagon.
Walter has some holes in his intelligent head, as most recovering addicts do, but he is a steadfast romantic and I love that about him. He speaks well and has his own take on things, which I enjoy.
Interesting that you’ve spelled out a worldview for Matt which he himself refuses to do or is too muddled to do. I think it’s the former because it allows him to present this ah shucks I care about the little guy!persona. He still tells us he has a tender place in his heart for the old Bernie. Problem is once you’ve hitched your wagon Trump like he has at every turn that becomes patently dishonest. I’ve more respect for Walter who openly tells us that he believes this incompetent con artist billionaire who is busy creating a US kleptocracy in the Russian style will help the American middle class.
That is a reader's prerogative, to pull meaning from the text. Reading between the lines is what a reader is supposed to do!
I,m not sure that Matt disagrees with Walter on that. I think Matt is having a mid-life crisis. He has some figuring out to do. It's certainly no shame to have different politics at 55 than at 25, but I suspect Matt never saw it coming.
Thank you for your response. i enjoy your comments.
Hello again. I've been thinking about this and your criticisms of Matt seem unfair. You might be right on target with Joe Rogan - i don't know because I've never listened to him.
Seems to me that a new wind in journalism could purposefully and very usefully sift through revelations found in the WaPo and NYT. The difference here is that Matt is one person with comparatively limited resources. He has a wealth of contacts, however, and he/they add/subtract to/from the mainstream gospel.
I think no editor/oversight is a great advantage to an opinion piece. Most writers exist in the bubbles of their own world view, and readers should know this going in. That's why reading and listening widely is valuable to the on-going process of forming and modifying one,s own world view and apprehension of reality.
Please explain what you mean by Matt and Walter reviving "the worst abuses of yellow journalism, by feeding their most radicalized bases with sensationalist stories, culture wars and false polemics." With or without Matt and Walter, culture wars seem all too real to me, and becoming dangerously problematic. Do you disagree? I'm close to the end of my life and no longer recognize my country. Change is inevitable but do you not think it a proper subject for discussion?
When opinion seems wrong-headed to me, facile, self-serving, dishonest, I move on. I haven't enough time left to spend it on unreliable sources.
There are too many examples to list here.
A good beginning, if you can bear to watch, is Mehdi Hasan’s vivisection of Taibbi on live TV (warning, it’s painful).
https://youtu.be/a597e6Wv_xg?si=-xSe-f_U5ZM5U5LE
Hasan exposes all of the flaws of the ‘new journalism,’ chief among them the sensationalism (ie telling his readers that 20 million postings had been flagged to be reviewed and taken down, when the number was less than 2000 with the entity involved never demanding any action (the vast majority were never taken down). The screaming headline by Taibbi spoke of a vast censorship industrial complex. Such actions have real life consequences. But Hasan also exposes the sloppiness that comes from having no editors (not a mortal sin perhaps but enough with the pontificating about how his model is the future of journalism).
If that were bad enough, the aftermath was even more damning. Taibbi had been heralding the takeover of Twitter by reactionary billionaire Elon Musk as a new age of free speech. Of course, shortly thereafter, Musk brazenly shadow banned Taibbi. Accusations began flying and sensing that his own communication with Musk would be leaked, Taibbi took the initiative. What we read was arguably as damning as anything in the Twitter Files—Taibbi protesting that he was being treated unfairly because he had willfully refrained from criticizing Musk in exchange for access to the Twitter files. So much for the virtues of the new media.
Too often he is settling scores with catty pieces targeting perceived enemies in the MSM (I would direct you to his bizarre hit jobs on Ezra Klein and David Brooks).
And in my book you don’t get to tell us how vacuous an influencer like Jennifer Welch is while sniping about her for one hour.
You’re, right that it would be noble to be a voice in the wilderness doing solid reporting. That’s not what I find on these pages.
Are you trying to give this old lady a stroke?! I,d just as soon watch a jackbooted thug kicking someone to death. I don,t admire the self-important style of voiceover "debate." I'd rather a screwdriver through an ear than listen to Donald Trump debate.
Please don't tell me Mehdi Hasan is your idea of a centrist, or an authority on anything beyond Islam as a religion of peace.
I,m inclined to agree on the Brooks and Klein pieces. Both seem gentle sorts who are trying hard though falling short.
No, I don’t care for his ideas on religion, but he embodies a British and Oxford ideal of rigor and debate, which we are sorely missing in this country. Hasan does not engage i a single ad hominem in the interview, instead he comes prepared with facts and Taibbi withers when faced with real rigor. It’s worth a watch.
I think a lot of the joy of debate is like against like, otherwise it's wrestling outside your weight class, neither fun to watch nor instructive.
I've not been a subscriber long enough to say for sure, but I started listening to the podcast assuming that Matt and Walter were well balanced. I'm realizing over time that Matt is a sharp-witted writer who doesn't think well on his feet, while Walter can do it all amusingly, but badly needs an editor. Neither one of them shines out of his element but both have a hard time adjusting to the idea of limits. They are too eager to make themselves vulnerable - unless they are very thick-skinned, which of course I have no way of knowing. I suspect that Matt has thicker skin than Walter.
Give it time. Eventually, the nonstop avoidance of any real criticism of Trump or Israel will be glaring. I hated Russia gate and agreed broadly with Matt on many issues. Klein Hassan and brooks are all audience captured and or propaganda pez dispensers. Matt, too, is becoming the guy he warned about in hate inc. I’m guessing Walter was never worth a fuck
Bloviating by another name.
Lol is that we commentators too?
How do I cancel my subscription?
Anyone claiming this is about stopping drugs is ignorant or dishonest.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/ex-honduran-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-trump-pardon
Especially pretending it's about FENTANYL which DOES NOT COME FROM VENEZUELA
Fentanyl I’ve heard is not manufactured in Venezuela; it’s made in Mexico. If our borders are closed to Mexico how are the drugs getting in? US spending millions daily to keep the fleet there outside Venezuela. Why can’t we use that money to deal with drugs in our streets? Or do the powers that be want to keep it going…???
I think this whole Venezuela thing is a distraction.
if the J6 pipe-bomber was in fact, as has been reported, merely a very naïve, almost autistic-like 30 year old with the mind of a 16 year old, who doesn’t understand a lot of stuff, who acted alone, and was not being manipulated by more sinister forces, (if that really were the case), then to me prosecuting him really does not seem that important. If he was just an errant, ineffective individual with no other violent inclinations, then I would not mind seeing him get off with a mistrial, plea bargain or a very light sentence. But if Mike Benz and others are right, and he was a puppet of the blob, then all of the FBI's efforts should go to profiling him and identifying how he was co-opted. It seems unlikely to me that he acted alone, simply because of the exquisite timing of the placement of the devices for a person who was otherwise politically disengaged. On the other hand, if he was a cutout, there have to be threads that could be pulled and followed leading to his manipulators. The whole thing reminds one so much of the Joseph Conrad story "The Secret Agent".
Almost autistic loner evades the FBI for five years. Is it just me, or is there a very obvious effort to strain credulity in new ways almost every day.
the FBIs Department of Dildos got involved and blew the case wide open!
Over thinking it. If he was really any sort of dolt he would have been apprehended very quickly. That is, if apprehending him was the goal.
Doesn't the innocent autistic bit come from his grandmother?
I wouldn't put much stock in that and I certainly wouldn't use it as a springboard into mind control--unless it's aimed at whoever mind controls grandmas into taking bullets for their grand kids. She is just being the best grandma she can considering the circumstances. I certainly don't trust her though, for that same reason.
We are all being manipulated by sinister forces--and at the top of that list is ourselves.
Mike Benz is a fraud who lied about his experience at the State Department, claiming he was “head of cyber” when there is absolutely no record of him doing any “cyber” work at State, was transferred from a low level speech writing job at HUD to State (State never even hired him) and he left his position at State within 3-7 weeks of obtaining it.
Despite this he acts like he has some kind of all encompassing pass to the secrets of the kingdom or at least some up-close first hand knowledge of “how things work.”
In reality he was denied security clearance (twice) because he was so untrustworthy and damaged.
Would anybody here like to talk about how bad you have to fuck up to be denied security clearance twice? Or how it likely has to do with the fact that the government felt he was compromised to the degree that he couldn’t have access to even low-level secrets?
That Mike Benz?
Where'd you hear this about Mike Benz? ABC News?
FOIA releases.
Where are they?
On which podcast does he discuss this issue so we can take a listen?
He is lying.
So I guess our Latin American policy hasn’t really been to massacre entire villages opposing our favored regimes and displaying the heads and private parts along the roadsides to the “verified free and fair” voting locations.
I think I absorbed Matt’s concussion and Walter’s 20-yr cold. I’ve been in a brain fog the last 4 to 8 episodes not able to make sense out of anything. Contrastingly Max Blumenthal, Aaron and Katie, Judge Nap, Jimmy Dore, Due Dissidents and yes even Candace put me back into my reality right or wrong.
If German spies were coming ashore with explosives to blow up American infrastructure during WW2 and the US bombed their craft, would we be having this discussion? What if they brought poison to dump in US water systems? It’s difficult to square how drug smuggling qualifies as mere crime, when the British specifically utilized drugs to undermine Chinese society as part of a subjugation and occupation invasion.
If we found out that a south american president was directing operations to import drugs into the US, what would we do?
What would you do Jennie?
Did you say "I would pardon him"?
If so then, correct!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/ex-honduran-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-trump-pardon
...what if the Biden administration used an F-22 and an AIM to take out a "weather" balloon ...
Thank you for sharing.. It articulates a thought I couldn't quite put to words.
Walter just explained why alleging drug trafficking is an effective psyop to justify regime change. Come on, guys!
Effective against the very stupid, anyway.