Seeing as how this kind of stuff was suppose to have stopped after the Church and Pike hearings back in the 1970's, but very obviously didn't, it's going to take a lot more, a LOT more than a few well chosen words to convince me that this stuff is over. You are right, Lars. They WILL be back, different names, more discreet, but they will be back. Most likely sooner than later.
Problem is the oversight authority, Congress, long ago abrogated it’s authority in favour of accepting bribes. Paired with the corporate capture of regulatory bodies then the only avenue of accountability and we do not have the money to shout loud enough.
I think it has been there for a long time but the advent of 1) the ability to easily get information from sources other than the MSM (like Racket) and 2) the complete hissy fit over Donald Trump by the establishment - have made what they are doing very obvious. If you read Vietnam memoirs they almost always comment on how dishonest / out of touch the MSM were about the war. But the MSM were the only game in town. Today we have 5 different takes a day on the Ukraine war if you care to look for them.
Even better read the Afghan papers published by Wikileaks. Julian Assange is still being held in the worst prison in Britain despite not having been convicted of any crime because he pissed off that fatuous twerp Pompeo and that arrogant and self righteous piece of shit Clinton by publishing the truth.
Absolutely. Subscription journalism and a fact/truth based national dialogue made the Twitter reporting possible. The MSM is the MDM described in the report.
I have tried and tried and tried to edit the Wikipedia article on the "Twitter Files." They will not allow anything to be added unless it quotes the MSM. On the "Talk" page you can see how it goes. And the article at Wikipedia is the narrative 95% will think the truth. Few look at the "Talk pages."
I gave up on editing years ago—the editors in charge are petty tyrants. I was attempting to contribute to an article on an orphan neurological disease, nothing even slightly political.
That is what they are, "petty tyrants". At their user pages they have 100K or more edits and they really rule. I have an assignment to get students to add info about libraries. Once in a while the PT sweeps in for no reason but sheer meanness and discourages them forever.
Back in the early 2000s, I knew a coal engineer - someone with decades of experience working with coal plants and coal technology around the world - whose Wiki contributions about what was going on in the field of coal energy and scrubbing technology around the world were almost constantly being altered and/or completely replaced by a zealous editor. After trying a few more times, the engineer finally gave up.
Let's face it, zealots have a lot of time on their hands and you can't possibly match that. I learned long ago to put no faith in WP. I'm sorry they burned you, but they've been burning subject matter experts for a long time. It's a loss, and the losses keep accruing.
As you can see from the W. page on "Reliable Sources" you can't cite anything that is a primary source (that would be the TF). Almost all the sources that talk about TF--Fox, notably, but also Reason, they won't allow. Since the MSM has ignored the TF it is a brick wall. I have been unable to find any scholarly articles yet.
I made a big table linked to each TF and it was deleted.
Well, Kathleen, of course you can't cite "The Twitter Files" when compiling an entry on "The Twitter Files" for Wikipedia, at least not without encountering the should-be-expected editorial pushback. This is no different from a snake oil salesman compiling an entry on his product line while citing only satisfied customer testimonials as his sources.
And I would suggest any brick walls you're encountering in your search for sources to cite have been built, wittingly or unwittingly, by your own hands.
A simple Google search provides dozens of "MSM" articles that discuss in detail "The Twitter Files." I've read most of them myself. You mention only "Fox" and "Reason" as potential sources. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these would be sources whose comments and opinions would generally be favorable to the assessments and conclusions of the authors of the "The Twitter Files," no?
And I suppose it won't move this comment along in a diplomatic fashion if I pause here to note that a rather distinct majority of educated readers on the internet regard these two "media" outlets as little more than propaganda organs in service to quite specific constituencies, correct?
Perhaps the Wikipedia editors suspect, as I do, that your efforts are more geared toward buttressing the arguments and conclusions of the authors of the "Twitter Files" than providing a balanced, unbiased account of "The Twitter Files" and any controversies or issues with which they're bound up.
Wikipedia I find is an excellent jumping off point for actually researching a subject but is to be entirely avoided for any conclusions or assessments its authors might offer on the subject at hand.
And as a former editor at a scholarly journal I can assure you that if "The Twitter Files" are to receive any kind of "scholarly" treatment in a scholarly journal it will not be forthcoming for a year or two at the earliest.
Finally, I cannot refrain from providing a link to a CJR piece that discusses a number of key issues I believe more accurately characterize the concerns over social media sites such as Twitter and their relationships with government agencies that were not adequately addressed, if they were addressed at all, by the authors of "The Twitter Files."
It was Jimmy Dore who pointed out to me how corrupt Wikipee is when it comes to political / social stuff. I'm not sure, but I think they're also slagging Assange.
I used to give them $25.00/year, but stopped back in 17. Now I use them for info on TV shows and the like.
Glad you are trying. My Mom, a geologist who worked for the Bureau of Mines, tried to edit one of their pages on geology and kept having her changes removed. They had made ridiculous, politically charged claims in the text to drive an agenda and she tried to bring it back to science. They didn’t like that.
Good for your mom for trying. I was visiting someone who had an Alexa device and they asked it a question. Its answer was.."According to Wikipedia...." That's when I became determined to figure it out. Clearly, I don't do well on some topics, though.
Which is one of many reasons why that platform is horribly broken. "It isn't true unless Jeff Bezos, Sheldon Adelson, Laurene Powell Jobs or the KSA Soverign Wealth fund say it is". Wikipedia was supposed to harness the knowledge of the masses, not suppress it.
No doubt they are not going anywhere. It is a brief pause to regroup. Based on how Matt and Michael were treated at the Congressional Hearings, the censors are not embarrassed and are not ashamed. They are on top of the game and have all the power. We haven’t seen the last of it.
Oh yes they will. They will find a way to classify their existance and the tools they use. You can be that they will either infiltrate social media companies, extort them and force them to sign documents that would make revealing their conversations a security violation with criminal penalties or they will find back doors to take control of the social media.
Doesn't matter. I'm thinking we only need an American community of 10% truth speakers to take the national dialogue back. We're already impacting the psyop.
You mean like Fox News? There is a misinformation and lying problem and it lies with the GOP and the American right, conservatives and libertarians. It is not censorship to control lies and misinformation, but it must be done carefully to not become censorship.
Yes, these are not allowed but the Twitter Files has had several well-done coverages on these sites. If MSNBC or CNN covered them, I could cite them. But they haven't.
I bet they never stopped, just renamed it, repackaged it and hide it. Remember ACORN that obama was part of that was a massive Voter Fraud and Crime group. When one of the women working there flipped on them, the gov. shut it down, broke it into many groups, renamed and repackaged for deception and to continue its work.
They did it right here. They never left. Tell the censorship industrial complex that you've changed things, let them lie about it, and make it worse than we could imagine. They won't stop until they are dead.
Yes, which is to continue to make (or steal) as much moolah as they possibly can and do anything and everything necessary to keep what they already have.
"maybe they. will think. I'm not. such. a shitty. shitlib. piece of shit. with this comment. "" "maybe. they will. think. I am . really. a leftist. whew.
Take a look at Schwab founder of the World Economic Forum architects of the great reset in which we will own nothing and be happy. His father was a successful industrialist under the Nazis and used forced labour to gain that success while manufacturing arms for the Nazi war machine. His son Klaus has never, as far as I’m aware, apologised for this. In fact Klaus while head of the same company illegally sold the plans to manufacture nuclear warheads to apartheid South Africa so I’m pretty where his sympathies and ambitions lie. And it’s douche bags like him and Soros who represent the future which does not include us. It’s like Atlas Shrugged coming to life.
Waking up to the part criminal financier's have played in creating and exploiting chaos for their own benefit at the expense of life and human dignity is vital. (You might enjoy the most recent Jordan Peterson/Michael Yon conversation on YouBoob.)
Matt has admitted time and time again that he and his team are still working their way through the files. The files are turning into a labyrinth of twists and turns. It is my view that as his team journey farther into this labyrinth, even more shocking things will be revealed. I will not be surprised if he starts to get closer to the top of the chain and we start seeing an even more massive attempt to shut him down.
In the meantime, I understand that "they" is the entire US government system. That does not mean every single government employee is 'IN' on it, but there are a LOT of sycophants within those ranks. That system has taken on a life of it's own, at least since the end of WWII, and most likely before then. Most of it runs on autopilot now. It no longer even needs more than a few upper echelon to keep it running. (This also does not mean some other government in the world is somehow not part of efforts to bring them all into the proverbial fold to make things easier for groups like the G20, or the WEF. The fact that these groups are even in existence tells me that they STILL fear common people rising up and taking back the control that has been whittled away since the "end" of WWII.)
(For the record, I am one who agrees with the view that there was only ONE World War, with a two decade lull in the fighting before the 2nd MAJOR campaign started up again. The "lull" was anything BUT a "lull. It's sort of the same way I see the period between the Church and Pike hearings of the '70s and what is taking place now.)
A caveat. While the above IS my current understanding of things, and I do believe it to be based on fact and truth, this does not mean I am right. I am aware, after 72 years of looking at this, that I can indeed be mistaken, or flat out wrong. I DO see the "Twitter Files," however, as major confirmation that regardless of how my own bias, or the bias of others, can lead me astray, objective truth will always find a way to break through the chains put upon it.
While I completely distrust these people, I believe Twitter Files was pivotal in forcing these criminals to shutter this project. Awesome work!! But their need for power will overcome them and they’ll soon be back...spinning a web of disinformation to Americans about their importance in censoring domestic actors. Once again...GREAT JOB MATT and TEAM
Well, take a look at what a minority government was able to do in Canada! It only takes a handsome and charismatic proto fascist like Trudeau to undo centuries of hard won civil rights. When a government not only claims but exercises the right to freeze your assets because you disagree with them and the duly elected Parliament then votes in favour of the governments actions then we are, to use a technical term, fucked.
And this reshuffle is supposed to make us 'comfortable' - that our own government isn't attacking us on a daily basis? I have never feared the government & politicians as much as I do now @ 65 plus years old...I don't feel as if the government has our best interests at hand no matter how much they 'reorganize'.
Great reporting, Matt. "MDM" is simply not compatible with free speech. I'm less concerned about being fooled by Russian or Chinese disinformation than I am of my own government trying to silence Americans' right to question any and all policies.
How does one silence a "right?" And speaking now for "most Americans" are we? Most Americans, of course, save for the noble and fearless commenters on the Racket News comment threads? There we are now...
"Most" Americans, the great majority of them I believe, despise the auth-woke-left. Nonetheless, a huge number have been silenced because they will lose their jobs and careers if they speak out about the horrors perpetrated by the fascist woke. At the very least, the medical fascists and the woke-fascists have destroyed my family through vaccine mandates and lockdowns. They *might* have destroyed my community even, the verdict is out on that. They certainly destroyed my workplace, where all the libertarians and conservatives have been silenced of forced to leave. Ya'll will see a real reckoning come 2024.
Also, again, please leave here and go back to your skanky reddit underworld. Please?
By fostering the creation of third party agencies and coopting media tech companies and then convincing them to censor unacceptable views. Which is exactly what just happened. Or haven't you been paying attention?
Subscription journalism? How about 100,000 American's giving $1000.00 each to a national political candidate. The "MSM" couldn't silence it and it'd definitely change the national political dialogue. The DNC/criminal finance lie machine is already breaking down.
You may silence people but not concepts such as "rights." People may, on the other hand, rescind or grant rights. And are you Quad's spokesperson? Q take the rest of the evening off?
And who is doing all this "fostering?" And if you're some sort of organizational body or departmental agency why not do the "creating" part in-house and skip the "fostering" step, which requires yet another agency, more people, more money, and ultimately more letters of the alphabet for the signage out front.
It's a figure of speech ("silence a right") and should be easily interpreted as such. No need to suggest you don't understand it.
If you are the government, actually creating a third party agency to undertake the censorship activities would be a clear violation of the first amendment.
It's all about power, and today that means the control of information. That's why our noble overlords have been pushing, via censorship and suppression of dissent, to maintain a stranglehold on discourse using an informal alliance between the Democratic Party, America’s canon-making institutions, and Big Tech.
Does anyone know how to contact Matt directly? I have some info about CISA that involves Covid lockdowns and coverup that could use his investigative power. I think he could blow this thing wide open.
I'm mainly in agreement with you, except I'm leery about ascribing blame to either political party. They're both culpable, in many ways, in the corruption of our government. I think the focus on left/right, Democrat/Republican, conservative/liberal is largely a distraction.
Not sure if this is satire, but if you mean to infer that I meant that the Rs are the party of the working class, you are wrong. But the fake-left has gone ALL IN on war, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and all kinds of asshattery that I despise. I refuse to vote anymore. . . .
Although I’ve lived in the States for 30 years, I’m now 71, I’ve remained a British citizen so I don’t have a vote. I’ve asked my Americans time and time again why they keep voting for these two parties, the two most corrupt parties on the planet in the most corrupt political system on the planet. The responses are almost the same. Well, I’ve always voted …….; or voting for a third country would be wasting my vote. When I respond that by continuing to vote for this two party hegemony will result in things getting worse not better, they recognise that but still persist in behaviour which actually harms them. As long as it is perfectly legal to bribe candidates, at all levels of politics, then they will never act in your interests.
Local elections still matter. I mean local on the scale of municipal and perhaps county, at least in the less populous places like where I live. State-wide and nationwide, yes it's a waste of time, and just encourages them.
I think the Rethuglican's are malleable right now.
My take. This is an entirely new age. The jump in tech and communication made the standard operating procedure of criminal finance the MSM and political malefactor's transparent to reality. They're scared and dangerous. American's scare them the most. We only need 10% of America living in a truth/fact based reality to change the nature of the national discourse, re-animate citizen power and agency and heal the American psyche. The fact that the psyop is totally dependent on lies, manipulation and fear to survive makes me believe I'm right.
Problem is convincing people though Mike. Look at the level of censorship being imposed in our supposedly open and democratic societies. Entire blocks of the internet made unavailable particularly if those sites do not follow the narrative on the war in Ukraine. And yet, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people in the West are just supinely accepting this. This is Churchills iron curtain revisited except that this time it’s not the totalitarians imposing it it’s the frigging democracies.
if you mean to infer that () meant that the Rs are the party of the working class, you are wrong. But the fake-left has gone ALL IN on war, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and all kinds of asshattery
Yeah, try getting any independent news on the war in Ukraine without going through a VPN. If they were telling the truth then why the need for the censorship? When I post things on FB which contradict the narrative then my friends back in England whom I grew up with immediately tell me I’m wrong and starting quoting the BBC at me, possible the most discredited news source on the planet. I’ve even gone so far as to send them links to independent journalists and sources and explained to them how to get a VPN, how to use it and what it does but to no avail. What’s particularly frustrating is how soon they have forgotten Iraq and the lies told by both the American and British governments.
Although I’m English I’ve lived in the States for the last 30 years. It’s bloody heartbreaking to see what become of my country and I will never return there. England gave the world the concept of civil rights along with parliamentary democracy. Now look how low we have sunk when all it takes for someone to be arrested and fines or imprisoned is for someone else to claim that they were offended at what you wrote or said. At the recent minor protests against the accession of Charles a man with a blank sign, nothing written it, was detained and arrested. He was subsequently released without charge.
I have no doubt that some are and that others have an agenda. You have to have the common sense to sort the wheat from the chaff. My start point is that if the western democracies are imposing mass censorship of the internet on their citizens then those governments and their media outlets are lying.
Even "if the western democracies are[not] imposing mass censorship of the internet on their citizens then those governments and their media outlets"--- they are still bullshitting you and me.
What components are part of the corporate "controlled narrative?" Is there a tightly constructed plot? Is there a single protagonist or is this a tale told by many? Any familiar narrative archetypes we should anticipate or keep an eye out for: "hero," "creator," "caregiver," "lover," "sage," etc?
And what happens to the news and information that strays from the "controlled narrative?" Does it find a home? An island of misfit news and information perhaps? Forgive me for the 20 questions but I'm learning new things here.
Perhaps you have of Winston Churchills iron curtain speech given shortly after the end of WW2. Well a new iron curtain has descended on Europe but this time it’s the Western powers which have created it. It’s impossible for you, or anyone else, to access independent journalists or information from your browser particularly if using Google. You will have to subscribe to VPN, the best know is NordVPN but I prefer Mozilla since they are open source. You will then need to download the TOR browser which will enable you to browse anonymously and us encrypted. I believe that TOR also used Duck Duck Go as it’s default search engine which you should get in the habit of using for any search so that you can dump Google. Duck Duck Go does not record your browsing activity and history and sell it for advertising revenue. Finally use your VPN to log into a server in a neutral country before firing up TOR. I would recommend Serbia since the Serbians gave no reason to love NATO. Hope this helps.
Ross Ulbricht used Tor for the Silk Road. The FBI was on him for a good while before they could physically locate him--in a public library in SF, where agents grabbed his arms so he couldn't get to his laptop keyboard. Tor was developed in academia like Stanford and MIT with DoD money. VPNs protect from "criminal" criminals, not government criminals.
They grabbed his arms? I'm very sorry to hear that. Mr. Taibbi seems to be on to something with this FBI malfeasance thing. Grabbed his arms. The FBI ever grabs my arms...
Are you able to download baseball boxscores with this too? The Serbians, I have reason to believe, have even less reason to love baseball than NATO and frankly with the new My Pillow-sized bases and the NASCAR-themed pitch clock I can't really blame them. And don't get me started on the anti-shift posturing.
Speaking of NATO, instead of trolling Racket aren't their army recruiters at your door needing you to help fight for trans rights in Ukraine? Maybe your time would be better spent there? Cause, you know, fighting Eastern European border wars for the military industrial complex is SO 21st century woke and sure helps the American working class and just American in general. {big smiley emoji}}
You guys got this. Really smart folks, letting logic guide your way.
Personally I think eugyppius is closest to what's really going on, in terms of the global currents and complexities from which this arose. I don't think there's a supervillain cackling under a volcano somewhere.
Now you're being uncharitable and it wounds me deeply. And your attempt at pigeonholing me as some sort of deviant figure I also find troublesome---as if I'm some sort of conservative christian with a long habit of voting Republican. It won't do.
"I'm not sure if this is satire or..." Don't sweat it. I understand that very few GED modules cover satire. As long as you know how to work the registers and polish the bowling shoes...
The Illuminati are controlled by my people. Inbred Eastern Europeans who came from shtetl’s. I haven’t seen a dime from my control position but I have faith.
I have been told the head of communications was a DEI hire by the name Dr. Winston O’Boogie. As with most DEI hires, he isn’t that competent but the MOT are trying to be more accommodating of outsiders.
The DEI comment sounds like what I heard in a Fortune 50 company in the early 90s, when companies were run by straight, white men in their 40s and 50s.
It was a great time in America...if you were a straight, white man in his 40s or 50s.
Thanks for that great throwback We should also start calling women "broads" again.
I have no issue with being called a "broad". Best women grow into being a "broad". Just promise, you will never ask me what my fucking pronouns are!
I was at law school in the early to mid 90's, when "freedom of speech" and "ability to debate" - the content of my argument - was the most important quality in a law student. Imagine my surprise when a dimwitted, nepo-PM came along in 2015 and took credit for my achievements as a broad.
The throw back you are referencing isn't the 1990's, it's the 1950's. When people were judged by their immutable characteristics and NOT the content of their character. The race essentialism of DEI, the superficial diversity, the censorship, the paranoia over being hauled into a struggle session for thought crimes, that is McCarthy era, Red Scare, 1950's GOP (very much like the "progressives" of 2022 except pro-choice).
Thanks for reminding me of how lucky I was to go to law school when one was expected to respect & understand a diversity of opinions & debate issues on their merits.
No trigger warning's. No DEI bureaucrats making fools of themselves, the students body & the law school.
OK, you were in law school in the early to mid 90s. I worked at a large corporation. At that time, it was not unusual for white men to claim that anytime a woman, or a black person, or an Hispanic person was promoted, it was only because of their gender/race. So I know what I'm referencing.
Most women don't wish to be referred to as a broad. You may be the exception.
OK, so you are a lawyer, or at least went to law school....and you are comparing diversity and inclusion (which have been proven effective in commercial and other settings, ad nauseum) to McCarthyism? What do they teach in law school in Canada?
I think you may have missed my initial sarcasm, which is that your attack on diversity and inclusion sounded like what I heard from straight, white, male idiots in business in the early to mid 90s.
1) Can you please point out the research (not observation or survey) where DEI programs do anything but create grievance & new bureaucracies.
2) How do you know most women don't want to be referred to as broads? I'm PMC, Gen X. Not one female friend I have thinks being referred to as a broad is pejorative.
If you worked at a large corporation in the mid 90's, it was probable the professionals were all there based on merit. They had to have the test scores to get admitted to collage / professional schools. 54% of my Law school class was women, 7 out of top 10 students were women. We earned our seats. My constitutional law professor was from Harvard. He was part of the 1st wave of ivy educated, postmodernist's.
He never pretended his anti-capitalist, everything is a social construct, was anything other than neo-Marxism. The difference between now and then, was he wanted us to be exposed to his thinking & to be exposed to our thinking & then debate everything. That is what Joel Bakan taught me at law school in Canada.
Now equity (Marxist concept) means we no longer need test scores, or merit. People are 100% chosen for admissions based on race, color, sex, sexuality etc. Whoever qualifies as the most oppressed, plays the biggest victim, wins the seat. So, the DEI you think created a more just system, did just the opposite. People, perceived as oppressors (whether white men, woman, hetro & always the Jews) no longer risk being alone with the oppressed. They no longer risk speaking their minds (which is fantastic when ones say a resident has a scalpel in his hand and the senior surgeon isn't sure how to ask the resident to step back from the table).
What you describe the culture of your big corporation in the early 90's is magnitudes of worse now. We don't even wonder why certain people are promoted, we know there are quota's to fill.
One of the best comments I’ve heard recently concerned the last meeting at Davos. A mate of mine back in England expressed the hope that another Ukrainian surface to air missile would go off course and land on bloody Davos.
Espionage thriller set in Mexico, I think in the 1970s, oil industry involved somehow...been a while since I read it last but was worth at least the one reread, and maybe another!
Basically, the spooks decided that it was better to outsource the job to Big Tech, as this insulates the censorship function from unwanted election results, not to mention pesky FOIA and civil rights suits.
Sort of like how Sheriff Buford was The Law In This Heah County when it came to arresting civil rights activists on laughable pretexts, but he was just a private citizen exercising his constitutional rights when he felt it incumbent to inform the local sawmill owner that some of his workers were seen attending NAACP meetin's.
I think the "unwanted election results" you mention have not been mentioned near enough. When a corporate media head hears that the Security State leaned on Twitter to kill the Hunter Biden laptop story, he or she says (incredulously) "oh sure, the Trump administration wanted that spiked?!?" When, of course, it's not the elected folk who are doing the censoring.
The government didn't just burn this bridge.... they dynamited it.
I cannot envision a time when trust will be restored to our elected leaders, their appointees or their bullhorns in the media. If our government tells me it's sunny and warm, I'm bringing a ski jacket.
Given Congress is in the process of resurrecting the Sedition Act as we speak, the elimination of monitoring of "domestic sources" strikes me as potentially preparation for authorizing investigating anyone who challenges the official narrative as a "foreign agent". And yes, I AM paranoid, as should be anyone who's paying attention.
Isn't it funny how the wokefakeleft became the people that we were railing against as little as 20 years ago during the Iraq War? When the neocons absorb the woke and they become their watercarriers (AOC just had military recruiters at one of her events), you know we live in some kind of Looking Glass Hellscape.
"AOC just had military recruiters at one of her events"
Pepperidge Farms remembers when military recruiters and ROTC programs were kicked off college campuses or otherwise "railed against" by the then progressive vanguard.
"Wokefakeleft" sounds like an old Lombardi running play where the offensive rightside tackle pulls slightly to decoy a right side running play but actually is a decoy for a short sideline pass on the right as well as blocking protection against the defense pursuing the action from the left side. Or maybe a crossing pattern from either wide receiver towards the middle of the field.
At any rate, it's not describing any cohort of Americans I'm familiar with.
You are now officially in the running for Wet Towel-Snapper of the Month here at Racket News. Congratulations.
However, with less than four days left in the month I’m compelled to inform you that both S Smith and Pacificus are both strong favorites for the prestigious award at this point. Sufficient time to rally, however. You’re strong in the all-important “callow” category. The judges award points in this particular category quite generously.
That will go very nicely with the espionage act. The 1930s legislation under which that paragon of Democratic Party virtue Obama imprisoned more whistleblowers and journalists than any other president since this ridiculous piece of legislation was passed.
Yep, I am old enough to remember how anyone who disagreed with the prevailing narrative was called a Russian bot by the Twitter mob. Same as being called a foreign agent. And I don see how it is better than a domestic threat. Jan 6 prisoners are not treated much better than terrorists from the Middle East. So, foreign or domestic, they will come up with a label and get us.
Except for the part of the Jan. 6 people treated not much better than terrorists. A lot of former and current residents of Gitmo would like to gently disagree. And the survivors of the black hole prison torturing would disagree in a less gentle manner.
They may disagree. Gitmo and black holes are a shameful stain on our history. But we can’t come to any conclusion until we know more. We have seen pics and videos of Gitmo and black holes thanks to whistleblowers and journalists. We know nothing about the conditions of so called Jan 6 rioters. And they plan to arrest another thousand. True that some of prisoners in Gitmo turned out to be innocent grabbed and thrown there without proper or fair procedures. But we also have seen videos of people walking into the Capitol, taking pics and leaving, now incarcerated for 2 years for trespassing. We should keep an open mind until we know more. And maybe compare their conditions to those kept in American prisons, like terrorists convicted for 1993 World Trade Center bombing, enemies hating and planning to destroy our nation. Jan 6 people, as misguided as they were, were not enemies.
I’m probably stating the obvious, but if a government agency told me that they were debunking some conspiracy, I would absolutely believe the conspiracy. I can’t be alone in this. It would not be the move I’d recommend if a goal is to create a more trusting, transparent environment.
I have a friend who always says, "...these things get exposed, but nothing ever happens..." I have to tell her that she's not going to hear about it generally on TicToc or in even the alt media she may catch in a busy schedule. But THINGS DO HAPPEN, like this - an entire new hub of Orwellian nastyness has not started, or gotten entrenched, only to have to be worked on for decades to root out, expose and finally disband.
It just happens quietly. Thank you for the yeoman's work and labor you have put in on this project Mr. Taibbi - I told friends about you years ago, and you have only risen to greater heights of merit in your professional work, despite all the blocks and obstacles. Your vision and voice mean the world to so many people. Really enjoy your weekly talk round up too. <3
Matt , you’re a treasure. Will digest if I can, but this topic has me checking to see if I have enough Rolaids. To think that the taxpayer funds people who want only two things each of which trump all other considerations.
1) the first to be re-elected, and all activities are taken depending on whether they tick enough re-election boxes.
2) the second is also to be re-elected, knowing that gaming for personal gain will be easier the second time around.
They'll be back, with a different name, in a different guise, being more discreet but they'll be back.
They are gonna polish the censorship turd until it glistens - but it will still be a piece of shit.
Hopefully the public can pre-bunk the ass it comes out of.
Eww. Apt imagery.
But a shiny piece of shit that many people will admire.
Seeing as how this kind of stuff was suppose to have stopped after the Church and Pike hearings back in the 1970's, but very obviously didn't, it's going to take a lot more, a LOT more than a few well chosen words to convince me that this stuff is over. You are right, Lars. They WILL be back, different names, more discreet, but they will be back. Most likely sooner than later.
They've never left
One word: accountability
Problem is the oversight authority, Congress, long ago abrogated it’s authority in favour of accepting bribes. Paired with the corporate capture of regulatory bodies then the only avenue of accountability and we do not have the money to shout loud enough.
Exactly. The Executive is running the show without proper legislative oversight.
This. Exactly.
I think it has been there for a long time but the advent of 1) the ability to easily get information from sources other than the MSM (like Racket) and 2) the complete hissy fit over Donald Trump by the establishment - have made what they are doing very obvious. If you read Vietnam memoirs they almost always comment on how dishonest / out of touch the MSM were about the war. But the MSM were the only game in town. Today we have 5 different takes a day on the Ukraine war if you care to look for them.
Even better read the Afghan papers published by Wikileaks. Julian Assange is still being held in the worst prison in Britain despite not having been convicted of any crime because he pissed off that fatuous twerp Pompeo and that arrogant and self righteous piece of shit Clinton by publishing the truth.
Absolutely. Subscription journalism and a fact/truth based national dialogue made the Twitter reporting possible. The MSM is the MDM described in the report.
I have tried and tried and tried to edit the Wikipedia article on the "Twitter Files." They will not allow anything to be added unless it quotes the MSM. On the "Talk" page you can see how it goes. And the article at Wikipedia is the narrative 95% will think the truth. Few look at the "Talk pages."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Twitter_Files
So Wikipedia is NOT really reader-edited; it's tightly muzzled, when it matters. There goes one more cyber-myth.
Thanks for your efforts, anyway.
No, it IS reader edited but an edit can be reverted. So if I post something with a citation that is not MSM it won't stay.
However most pages aren't controversial, so they are fine. To add on a current topic that is not footnoted at MSM is not possible.
I gave up on editing years ago—the editors in charge are petty tyrants. I was attempting to contribute to an article on an orphan neurological disease, nothing even slightly political.
That is what they are, "petty tyrants". At their user pages they have 100K or more edits and they really rule. I have an assignment to get students to add info about libraries. Once in a while the PT sweeps in for no reason but sheer meanness and discourages them forever.
Back in the early 2000s, I knew a coal engineer - someone with decades of experience working with coal plants and coal technology around the world - whose Wiki contributions about what was going on in the field of coal energy and scrubbing technology around the world were almost constantly being altered and/or completely replaced by a zealous editor. After trying a few more times, the engineer finally gave up.
Let's face it, zealots have a lot of time on their hands and you can't possibly match that. I learned long ago to put no faith in WP. I'm sorry they burned you, but they've been burning subject matter experts for a long time. It's a loss, and the losses keep accruing.
Who were you attempting to cite?
As you can see from the W. page on "Reliable Sources" you can't cite anything that is a primary source (that would be the TF). Almost all the sources that talk about TF--Fox, notably, but also Reason, they won't allow. Since the MSM has ignored the TF it is a brick wall. I have been unable to find any scholarly articles yet.
I made a big table linked to each TF and it was deleted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
Well, Kathleen, of course you can't cite "The Twitter Files" when compiling an entry on "The Twitter Files" for Wikipedia, at least not without encountering the should-be-expected editorial pushback. This is no different from a snake oil salesman compiling an entry on his product line while citing only satisfied customer testimonials as his sources.
And I would suggest any brick walls you're encountering in your search for sources to cite have been built, wittingly or unwittingly, by your own hands.
A simple Google search provides dozens of "MSM" articles that discuss in detail "The Twitter Files." I've read most of them myself. You mention only "Fox" and "Reason" as potential sources. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these would be sources whose comments and opinions would generally be favorable to the assessments and conclusions of the authors of the "The Twitter Files," no?
And I suppose it won't move this comment along in a diplomatic fashion if I pause here to note that a rather distinct majority of educated readers on the internet regard these two "media" outlets as little more than propaganda organs in service to quite specific constituencies, correct?
Perhaps the Wikipedia editors suspect, as I do, that your efforts are more geared toward buttressing the arguments and conclusions of the authors of the "Twitter Files" than providing a balanced, unbiased account of "The Twitter Files" and any controversies or issues with which they're bound up.
Wikipedia I find is an excellent jumping off point for actually researching a subject but is to be entirely avoided for any conclusions or assessments its authors might offer on the subject at hand.
And as a former editor at a scholarly journal I can assure you that if "The Twitter Files" are to receive any kind of "scholarly" treatment in a scholarly journal it will not be forthcoming for a year or two at the earliest.
Finally, I cannot refrain from providing a link to a CJR piece that discusses a number of key issues I believe more accurately characterize the concerns over social media sites such as Twitter and their relationships with government agencies that were not adequately addressed, if they were addressed at all, by the authors of "The Twitter Files."
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/twitter_glitches_trolls_musk_soap_opera.php
It was Jimmy Dore who pointed out to me how corrupt Wikipee is when it comes to political / social stuff. I'm not sure, but I think they're also slagging Assange.
I used to give them $25.00/year, but stopped back in 17. Now I use them for info on TV shows and the like.
Too bad, I used to trust it a lot.
Glad you are trying. My Mom, a geologist who worked for the Bureau of Mines, tried to edit one of their pages on geology and kept having her changes removed. They had made ridiculous, politically charged claims in the text to drive an agenda and she tried to bring it back to science. They didn’t like that.
Good for your mom for trying. I was visiting someone who had an Alexa device and they asked it a question. Its answer was.."According to Wikipedia...." That's when I became determined to figure it out. Clearly, I don't do well on some topics, though.
Which is one of many reasons why that platform is horribly broken. "It isn't true unless Jeff Bezos, Sheldon Adelson, Laurene Powell Jobs or the KSA Soverign Wealth fund say it is". Wikipedia was supposed to harness the knowledge of the masses, not suppress it.
It's ok for many things but nothing that has differing viewpoints..
No doubt they are not going anywhere. It is a brief pause to regroup. Based on how Matt and Michael were treated at the Congressional Hearings, the censors are not embarrassed and are not ashamed. They are on top of the game and have all the power. We haven’t seen the last of it.
The power and agency of the citizen is the thing sycophants fear most. Simply seeing them for what and who they are is a beginning.
Just like JournoList.
Link.
https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/journolist-inside-the-echo-chamber-020086
Oh yes they will. They will find a way to classify their existance and the tools they use. You can be that they will either infiltrate social media companies, extort them and force them to sign documents that would make revealing their conversations a security violation with criminal penalties or they will find back doors to take control of the social media.
Doesn't matter. I'm thinking we only need an American community of 10% truth speakers to take the national dialogue back. We're already impacting the psyop.
but a bit less confident and brazen
You mean like Fox News? There is a misinformation and lying problem and it lies with the GOP and the American right, conservatives and libertarians. It is not censorship to control lies and misinformation, but it must be done carefully to not become censorship.
Yes, these are not allowed but the Twitter Files has had several well-done coverages on these sites. If MSNBC or CNN covered them, I could cite them. But they haven't.
Agree - like Arnold in Terminator - they will be back - and more ferocious than before!
I bet they never stopped, just renamed it, repackaged it and hide it. Remember ACORN that obama was part of that was a massive Voter Fraud and Crime group. When one of the women working there flipped on them, the gov. shut it down, broke it into many groups, renamed and repackaged for deception and to continue its work.
They did it right here. They never left. Tell the censorship industrial complex that you've changed things, let them lie about it, and make it worse than we could imagine. They won't stop until they are dead.
Who is “they”?
Oh lookie. A government troll spamming the thread.
Great name though..... O'Boogie. I'm guessing that's in the vein of Boogeyman not Boogie Nights...... And he's a Doctor no less...
Google it for the reference
@
Dr Winston O’Boogie- you are still a douchebag.
Why are so many people liking this comment? It's a worthless non sequitur.
DAYUM! I'm old enough I should have caught the reference. Now I'm worried you might be channeling John from the grave. Apologies to Dr. Boogie!
So anyone who doesn’t buy into the one world uniparty secret cabal thread is a troll?
It's not a secret. All one has to do is observe the behavior of the powerful and the wealthy to notice that they all possess the same goals.
Yes, which is to continue to make (or steal) as much moolah as they possibly can and do anything and everything necessary to keep what they already have.
*feldspar--breathing heavily
"maybe they. will think. I'm not. such. a shitty. shitlib. piece of shit. with this comment. "" "maybe. they will. think. I am . really. a leftist. whew.
*feldspar wipes brow in dingy parents basement
Take a look at Schwab founder of the World Economic Forum architects of the great reset in which we will own nothing and be happy. His father was a successful industrialist under the Nazis and used forced labour to gain that success while manufacturing arms for the Nazi war machine. His son Klaus has never, as far as I’m aware, apologised for this. In fact Klaus while head of the same company illegally sold the plans to manufacture nuclear warheads to apartheid South Africa so I’m pretty where his sympathies and ambitions lie. And it’s douche bags like him and Soros who represent the future which does not include us. It’s like Atlas Shrugged coming to life.
Waking up to the part criminal financier's have played in creating and exploiting chaos for their own benefit at the expense of life and human dignity is vital. (You might enjoy the most recent Jordan Peterson/Michael Yon conversation on YouBoob.)
Thanks Mike, always enjoy Mr. Petersen
Good thing they are only human and as such, are easily eliminated.
Very likely. Especially when they phrase it like that.
Not a troll but stupid
That's pretty much how the pupils roll here.
And a Dr! No less.
No, it's a good question. Matt's report, above, names names, but goes only so far up the chain.
Vague references to "they" are a tipoff to dangerous ignorance. It would help a great deal to know who "they" are.
Matt has admitted time and time again that he and his team are still working their way through the files. The files are turning into a labyrinth of twists and turns. It is my view that as his team journey farther into this labyrinth, even more shocking things will be revealed. I will not be surprised if he starts to get closer to the top of the chain and we start seeing an even more massive attempt to shut him down.
In the meantime, I understand that "they" is the entire US government system. That does not mean every single government employee is 'IN' on it, but there are a LOT of sycophants within those ranks. That system has taken on a life of it's own, at least since the end of WWII, and most likely before then. Most of it runs on autopilot now. It no longer even needs more than a few upper echelon to keep it running. (This also does not mean some other government in the world is somehow not part of efforts to bring them all into the proverbial fold to make things easier for groups like the G20, or the WEF. The fact that these groups are even in existence tells me that they STILL fear common people rising up and taking back the control that has been whittled away since the "end" of WWII.)
(For the record, I am one who agrees with the view that there was only ONE World War, with a two decade lull in the fighting before the 2nd MAJOR campaign started up again. The "lull" was anything BUT a "lull. It's sort of the same way I see the period between the Church and Pike hearings of the '70s and what is taking place now.)
A caveat. While the above IS my current understanding of things, and I do believe it to be based on fact and truth, this does not mean I am right. I am aware, after 72 years of looking at this, that I can indeed be mistaken, or flat out wrong. I DO see the "Twitter Files," however, as major confirmation that regardless of how my own bias, or the bias of others, can lead me astray, objective truth will always find a way to break through the chains put upon it.
The control freaks and the apparatchiks who obey them.
@
Dr Winston O’Boogie- please GFY. Your trolling is transparent.
I gave you an hour's worth of material to look at to this SAME question - clearly you are not serious : P
"..., you got a mouse in your pocket?" is I believe the rest of this missive.
While I completely distrust these people, I believe Twitter Files was pivotal in forcing these criminals to shutter this project. Awesome work!! But their need for power will overcome them and they’ll soon be back...spinning a web of disinformation to Americans about their importance in censoring domestic actors. Once again...GREAT JOB MATT and TEAM
Well, take a look at what a minority government was able to do in Canada! It only takes a handsome and charismatic proto fascist like Trudeau to undo centuries of hard won civil rights. When a government not only claims but exercises the right to freeze your assets because you disagree with them and the duly elected Parliament then votes in favour of the governments actions then we are, to use a technical term, fucked.
well said.
The Twitter files has been a strong recent influence. But their choice of a cartoon character to run the project certainly helped us a lot.
Yep. I say accept the win. Expand the platform.
And this reshuffle is supposed to make us 'comfortable' - that our own government isn't attacking us on a daily basis? I have never feared the government & politicians as much as I do now @ 65 plus years old...I don't feel as if the government has our best interests at hand no matter how much they 'reorganize'.
Great reporting, Matt. "MDM" is simply not compatible with free speech. I'm less concerned about being fooled by Russian or Chinese disinformation than I am of my own government trying to silence Americans' right to question any and all policies.
The corporate media blackout has already silenced most Americans' right to question any and all policies.
How does one silence a "right?" And speaking now for "most Americans" are we? Most Americans, of course, save for the noble and fearless commenters on the Racket News comment threads? There we are now...
"Most" Americans, the great majority of them I believe, despise the auth-woke-left. Nonetheless, a huge number have been silenced because they will lose their jobs and careers if they speak out about the horrors perpetrated by the fascist woke. At the very least, the medical fascists and the woke-fascists have destroyed my family through vaccine mandates and lockdowns. They *might* have destroyed my community even, the verdict is out on that. They certainly destroyed my workplace, where all the libertarians and conservatives have been silenced of forced to leave. Ya'll will see a real reckoning come 2024.
Also, again, please leave here and go back to your skanky reddit underworld. Please?
S Smith, drama queen.
By fostering the creation of third party agencies and coopting media tech companies and then convincing them to censor unacceptable views. Which is exactly what just happened. Or haven't you been paying attention?
Subscription journalism? How about 100,000 American's giving $1000.00 each to a national political candidate. The "MSM" couldn't silence it and it'd definitely change the national political dialogue. The DNC/criminal finance lie machine is already breaking down.
You may silence people but not concepts such as "rights." People may, on the other hand, rescind or grant rights. And are you Quad's spokesperson? Q take the rest of the evening off?
And who is doing all this "fostering?" And if you're some sort of organizational body or departmental agency why not do the "creating" part in-house and skip the "fostering" step, which requires yet another agency, more people, more money, and ultimately more letters of the alphabet for the signage out front.
Please leave and slink back to your parent's basement and play in reddit's skanky, woke totalitarian underworld. We really don't want you here.
"Woke Totalitarian Underworld." Coming your neighborhood soon enough, eh?
Jesus H. What agency of spooks paid you to be here and for how much? Maybe I can become a quadruple agent.
It's a figure of speech ("silence a right") and should be easily interpreted as such. No need to suggest you don't understand it.
If you are the government, actually creating a third party agency to undertake the censorship activities would be a clear violation of the first amendment.
He's just a rather self important asshole.
Seems fair to say you can disregard any "information" coming from the overlords. This is all a smoke and mirrors ploy to distract.
It's all about power, and today that means the control of information. That's why our noble overlords have been pushing, via censorship and suppression of dissent, to maintain a stranglehold on discourse using an informal alliance between the Democratic Party, America’s canon-making institutions, and Big Tech.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-misinformation-boogeyman
Does anyone know how to contact Matt directly? I have some info about CISA that involves Covid lockdowns and coverup that could use his investigative power. I think he could blow this thing wide open.
racketnews@protonmail.com
THANKS!
I know he's posted an email on Twitter a couple of times, if I see it again I'll reply.
Put it in your contacts: racketnews@protonmail.com
And get a proton account of your own if you don’t already have one.
Thanks man!
I'm mainly in agreement with you, except I'm leery about ascribing blame to either political party. They're both culpable, in many ways, in the corruption of our government. I think the focus on left/right, Democrat/Republican, conservative/liberal is largely a distraction.
While the Republicans are busy holding bake sales for the underprivileged and homeless...
Not sure if this is satire, but if you mean to infer that I meant that the Rs are the party of the working class, you are wrong. But the fake-left has gone ALL IN on war, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and all kinds of asshattery that I despise. I refuse to vote anymore. . . .
Although I’ve lived in the States for 30 years, I’m now 71, I’ve remained a British citizen so I don’t have a vote. I’ve asked my Americans time and time again why they keep voting for these two parties, the two most corrupt parties on the planet in the most corrupt political system on the planet. The responses are almost the same. Well, I’ve always voted …….; or voting for a third country would be wasting my vote. When I respond that by continuing to vote for this two party hegemony will result in things getting worse not better, they recognise that but still persist in behaviour which actually harms them. As long as it is perfectly legal to bribe candidates, at all levels of politics, then they will never act in your interests.
Imagine
If you can
All the people voting but not voting for a Democrat or a Republican . . .
I'm understanding better and better the people who, decades ago, wrote in Pat Paulsen or Donald Duck for president.
I wish that were the case. I’ve yet to find a single one of my American friends who is willing to do so.
Local elections still matter. I mean local on the scale of municipal and perhaps county, at least in the less populous places like where I live. State-wide and nationwide, yes it's a waste of time, and just encourages them.
That government is best which is closest.
I think the Rethuglican's are malleable right now.
My take. This is an entirely new age. The jump in tech and communication made the standard operating procedure of criminal finance the MSM and political malefactor's transparent to reality. They're scared and dangerous. American's scare them the most. We only need 10% of America living in a truth/fact based reality to change the nature of the national discourse, re-animate citizen power and agency and heal the American psyche. The fact that the psyop is totally dependent on lies, manipulation and fear to survive makes me believe I'm right.
Problem is convincing people though Mike. Look at the level of censorship being imposed in our supposedly open and democratic societies. Entire blocks of the internet made unavailable particularly if those sites do not follow the narrative on the war in Ukraine. And yet, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people in the West are just supinely accepting this. This is Churchills iron curtain revisited except that this time it’s not the totalitarians imposing it it’s the frigging democracies.
My comment was not addressed to you.
if you mean to infer that () meant that the Rs are the party of the working class, you are wrong. But the fake-left has gone ALL IN on war, Big Pharma, Bill Gates and all kinds of asshattery
sorry to be a dork but you mean 'imply.' you used 'infer' above too. again, apologies if you find this annoying rather than helpful
Distract from what? That my tax refund has yet to arrive in a timely fashion over the last 20 years?
And here we go with the shadowy Illuminati that controls the world. Who heads it?
GFY- There is clearly a blackout by corporate media on any news or information that strays from the controlled narrative. FJB.
Yeah, try getting any independent news on the war in Ukraine without going through a VPN. If they were telling the truth then why the need for the censorship? When I post things on FB which contradict the narrative then my friends back in England whom I grew up with immediately tell me I’m wrong and starting quoting the BBC at me, possible the most discredited news source on the planet. I’ve even gone so far as to send them links to independent journalists and sources and explained to them how to get a VPN, how to use it and what it does but to no avail. What’s particularly frustrating is how soon they have forgotten Iraq and the lies told by both the American and British governments.
What breaks my heart is the ongoing arrest's for thought and speech crimes in Great Britain and the silence surrounding it.
Although I’m English I’ve lived in the States for the last 30 years. It’s bloody heartbreaking to see what become of my country and I will never return there. England gave the world the concept of civil rights along with parliamentary democracy. Now look how low we have sunk when all it takes for someone to be arrested and fines or imprisoned is for someone else to claim that they were offended at what you wrote or said. At the recent minor protests against the accession of Charles a man with a blank sign, nothing written it, was detained and arrested. He was subsequently released without charge.
What makes you think that the "independent" sources you rely on aren't compromised as well?
I have no doubt that some are and that others have an agenda. You have to have the common sense to sort the wheat from the chaff. My start point is that if the western democracies are imposing mass censorship of the internet on their citizens then those governments and their media outlets are lying.
Got troubling news for you, Paul.
Even "if the western democracies are[not] imposing mass censorship of the internet on their citizens then those governments and their media outlets"--- they are still bullshitting you and me.
Sorry.
What components are part of the corporate "controlled narrative?" Is there a tightly constructed plot? Is there a single protagonist or is this a tale told by many? Any familiar narrative archetypes we should anticipate or keep an eye out for: "hero," "creator," "caregiver," "lover," "sage," etc?
And what happens to the news and information that strays from the "controlled narrative?" Does it find a home? An island of misfit news and information perhaps? Forgive me for the 20 questions but I'm learning new things here.
Perhaps you have of Winston Churchills iron curtain speech given shortly after the end of WW2. Well a new iron curtain has descended on Europe but this time it’s the Western powers which have created it. It’s impossible for you, or anyone else, to access independent journalists or information from your browser particularly if using Google. You will have to subscribe to VPN, the best know is NordVPN but I prefer Mozilla since they are open source. You will then need to download the TOR browser which will enable you to browse anonymously and us encrypted. I believe that TOR also used Duck Duck Go as it’s default search engine which you should get in the habit of using for any search so that you can dump Google. Duck Duck Go does not record your browsing activity and history and sell it for advertising revenue. Finally use your VPN to log into a server in a neutral country before firing up TOR. I would recommend Serbia since the Serbians gave no reason to love NATO. Hope this helps.
Ross Ulbricht used Tor for the Silk Road. The FBI was on him for a good while before they could physically locate him--in a public library in SF, where agents grabbed his arms so he couldn't get to his laptop keyboard. Tor was developed in academia like Stanford and MIT with DoD money. VPNs protect from "criminal" criminals, not government criminals.
They grabbed his arms? I'm very sorry to hear that. Mr. Taibbi seems to be on to something with this FBI malfeasance thing. Grabbed his arms. The FBI ever grabs my arms...
Are you able to download baseball boxscores with this too? The Serbians, I have reason to believe, have even less reason to love baseball than NATO and frankly with the new My Pillow-sized bases and the NASCAR-themed pitch clock I can't really blame them. And don't get me started on the anti-shift posturing.
Speaking of NATO, instead of trolling Racket aren't their army recruiters at your door needing you to help fight for trans rights in Ukraine? Maybe your time would be better spent there? Cause, you know, fighting Eastern European border wars for the military industrial complex is SO 21st century woke and sure helps the American working class and just American in general. {big smiley emoji}}
You guys got this. Really smart folks, letting logic guide your way.
Sorry, don’t watch baseball, don’t understand why anyone would. Rugby, football and cricket.
Personally I think eugyppius is closest to what's really going on, in terms of the global currents and complexities from which this arose. I don't think there's a supervillain cackling under a volcano somewhere.
"Ring ring."
"Who dis"
"Xhamster, your subscription to hot tranny milfs has expired."
"OH my, whatever shallI do, i spent all me money on trolling substacks,
Now you're being uncharitable and it wounds me deeply. And your attempt at pigeonholing me as some sort of deviant figure I also find troublesome---as if I'm some sort of conservative christian with a long habit of voting Republican. It won't do.
"I'm not sure if this is satire or..." Don't sweat it. I understand that very few GED modules cover satire. As long as you know how to work the registers and polish the bowling shoes...
Dr. Winstons response is the classic Straw Man argument again.
any reporting on institutional abuse of power becomes the “oh, I guess this is the shadowy lizard people again”
Totally. Typical gaslighting.
The Illuminati are controlled by my people. Inbred Eastern Europeans who came from shtetl’s. I haven’t seen a dime from my control position but I have faith.
I have been told the head of communications was a DEI hire by the name Dr. Winston O’Boogie. As with most DEI hires, he isn’t that competent but the MOT are trying to be more accommodating of outsiders.
The DEI comment sounds like what I heard in a Fortune 50 company in the early 90s, when companies were run by straight, white men in their 40s and 50s.
It was a great time in America...if you were a straight, white man in his 40s or 50s.
Thanks for that great throwback We should also start calling women "broads" again.
I have no issue with being called a "broad". Best women grow into being a "broad". Just promise, you will never ask me what my fucking pronouns are!
I was at law school in the early to mid 90's, when "freedom of speech" and "ability to debate" - the content of my argument - was the most important quality in a law student. Imagine my surprise when a dimwitted, nepo-PM came along in 2015 and took credit for my achievements as a broad.
The throw back you are referencing isn't the 1990's, it's the 1950's. When people were judged by their immutable characteristics and NOT the content of their character. The race essentialism of DEI, the superficial diversity, the censorship, the paranoia over being hauled into a struggle session for thought crimes, that is McCarthy era, Red Scare, 1950's GOP (very much like the "progressives" of 2022 except pro-choice).
Thanks for reminding me of how lucky I was to go to law school when one was expected to respect & understand a diversity of opinions & debate issues on their merits.
No trigger warning's. No DEI bureaucrats making fools of themselves, the students body & the law school.
OK, you were in law school in the early to mid 90s. I worked at a large corporation. At that time, it was not unusual for white men to claim that anytime a woman, or a black person, or an Hispanic person was promoted, it was only because of their gender/race. So I know what I'm referencing.
Most women don't wish to be referred to as a broad. You may be the exception.
OK, so you are a lawyer, or at least went to law school....and you are comparing diversity and inclusion (which have been proven effective in commercial and other settings, ad nauseum) to McCarthyism? What do they teach in law school in Canada?
I think you may have missed my initial sarcasm, which is that your attack on diversity and inclusion sounded like what I heard from straight, white, male idiots in business in the early to mid 90s.
1) Can you please point out the research (not observation or survey) where DEI programs do anything but create grievance & new bureaucracies.
2) How do you know most women don't want to be referred to as broads? I'm PMC, Gen X. Not one female friend I have thinks being referred to as a broad is pejorative.
If you worked at a large corporation in the mid 90's, it was probable the professionals were all there based on merit. They had to have the test scores to get admitted to collage / professional schools. 54% of my Law school class was women, 7 out of top 10 students were women. We earned our seats. My constitutional law professor was from Harvard. He was part of the 1st wave of ivy educated, postmodernist's.
He never pretended his anti-capitalist, everything is a social construct, was anything other than neo-Marxism. The difference between now and then, was he wanted us to be exposed to his thinking & to be exposed to our thinking & then debate everything. That is what Joel Bakan taught me at law school in Canada.
Now equity (Marxist concept) means we no longer need test scores, or merit. People are 100% chosen for admissions based on race, color, sex, sexuality etc. Whoever qualifies as the most oppressed, plays the biggest victim, wins the seat. So, the DEI you think created a more just system, did just the opposite. People, perceived as oppressors (whether white men, woman, hetro & always the Jews) no longer risk being alone with the oppressed. They no longer risk speaking their minds (which is fantastic when ones say a resident has a scalpel in his hand and the senior surgeon isn't sure how to ask the resident to step back from the table).
What you describe the culture of your big corporation in the early 90's is magnitudes of worse now. We don't even wonder why certain people are promoted, we know there are quota's to fill.
Not being conspiratorial, just a predictable response when the weather vane starts blowing the other direction.
Not being conspiratorial (perhaps a touch pedantic though), but the wind blows and the weather vane reacts.
You're so old fashioned, like there has to be a 'head'. It is a hydra and it's names are WEF, Club of Rome, etc.
One of the best comments I’ve heard recently concerned the last meeting at Davos. A mate of mine back in England expressed the hope that another Ukrainian surface to air missile would go off course and land on bloody Davos.
The next Noel Coward.
Damn your comment reminded me of one of my favorite novels, the Hydra Head by Carlos Fuentes. Might need to read it again.
I guess I need to check that one out!
Espionage thriller set in Mexico, I think in the 1970s, oil industry involved somehow...been a while since I read it last but was worth at least the one reread, and maybe another!
That you insist on arguing with strawmen shows that your arguments are weak.
Several people have enough power and money to be candidates. I’m sure you can find them.
Maybe you should, I dunno, read the Twitter Files.
They are not lacking in specifics.
My Dear Dr. Winston, you just haven't been redpilled yet. Give it time. . . .
Wise up: https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE
One thing the government appears to have mastered: combining business jargon and academic jargon into indecipherable gobbledygook.
Indeed. That's a whole lot of word salad. Maybe outside law firms help them write it - and are paid by the word? IDK
“Pre-socialize” Ugh!
They are all the same people now.
Prediction: they'll still do it but just not tell anyone. -- Signed, Captain Obvious
Don't we already have a disinformation governance board? It's called the mainstream media. I think its Chair is Rachel Maddow.
Basically, the spooks decided that it was better to outsource the job to Big Tech, as this insulates the censorship function from unwanted election results, not to mention pesky FOIA and civil rights suits.
Sort of like how Sheriff Buford was The Law In This Heah County when it came to arresting civil rights activists on laughable pretexts, but he was just a private citizen exercising his constitutional rights when he felt it incumbent to inform the local sawmill owner that some of his workers were seen attending NAACP meetin's.
And chasing’ The Bandit through several States when all them good ‘ole boys wanted was a Coors beer in Georgia.
I think the "unwanted election results" you mention have not been mentioned near enough. When a corporate media head hears that the Security State leaned on Twitter to kill the Hunter Biden laptop story, he or she says (incredulously) "oh sure, the Trump administration wanted that spiked?!?" When, of course, it's not the elected folk who are doing the censoring.
The government didn't just burn this bridge.... they dynamited it.
I cannot envision a time when trust will be restored to our elected leaders, their appointees or their bullhorns in the media. If our government tells me it's sunny and warm, I'm bringing a ski jacket.
Given Congress is in the process of resurrecting the Sedition Act as we speak, the elimination of monitoring of "domestic sources" strikes me as potentially preparation for authorizing investigating anyone who challenges the official narrative as a "foreign agent". And yes, I AM paranoid, as should be anyone who's paying attention.
Old saying, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
Isn't it funny how the wokefakeleft became the people that we were railing against as little as 20 years ago during the Iraq War? When the neocons absorb the woke and they become their watercarriers (AOC just had military recruiters at one of her events), you know we live in some kind of Looking Glass Hellscape.
"AOC just had military recruiters at one of her events"
Pepperidge Farms remembers when military recruiters and ROTC programs were kicked off college campuses or otherwise "railed against" by the then progressive vanguard.
Well, as Winston Churchill said, “there are two kinds of fascists. Fascists and anti fascists”. Mail on head.
"Wokefakeleft" sounds like an old Lombardi running play where the offensive rightside tackle pulls slightly to decoy a right side running play but actually is a decoy for a short sideline pass on the right as well as blocking protection against the defense pursuing the action from the left side. Or maybe a crossing pattern from either wide receiver towards the middle of the field.
At any rate, it's not describing any cohort of Americans I'm familiar with.
Haha good one. Shouldn't you be spending your time having gun battles with conservatives at Trans rallies?
Wokefakeleft/shitlib, you are all the same and have ruined this country.
Are you kidding? He would be too busy in the front row watching toddlers stuff dollar bills into a drag queen's thong during one of those protests.
Good news!
You are now officially in the running for Wet Towel-Snapper of the Month here at Racket News. Congratulations.
However, with less than four days left in the month I’m compelled to inform you that both S Smith and Pacificus are both strong favorites for the prestigious award at this point. Sufficient time to rally, however. You’re strong in the all-important “callow” category. The judges award points in this particular category quite generously.
Good luck.
I wasn't kidding. 'Member when you were defending that kind of thing?
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-drag-event-protests
Then set sail, preferably on a balsa-wood raft with lignite-based tarpaper as the only intermediate means of waterproofing.
That will go very nicely with the espionage act. The 1930s legislation under which that paragon of Democratic Party virtue Obama imprisoned more whistleblowers and journalists than any other president since this ridiculous piece of legislation was passed.
Yep, I am old enough to remember how anyone who disagreed with the prevailing narrative was called a Russian bot by the Twitter mob. Same as being called a foreign agent. And I don see how it is better than a domestic threat. Jan 6 prisoners are not treated much better than terrorists from the Middle East. So, foreign or domestic, they will come up with a label and get us.
Except for the part of the Jan. 6 people treated not much better than terrorists. A lot of former and current residents of Gitmo would like to gently disagree. And the survivors of the black hole prison torturing would disagree in a less gentle manner.
They may disagree. Gitmo and black holes are a shameful stain on our history. But we can’t come to any conclusion until we know more. We have seen pics and videos of Gitmo and black holes thanks to whistleblowers and journalists. We know nothing about the conditions of so called Jan 6 rioters. And they plan to arrest another thousand. True that some of prisoners in Gitmo turned out to be innocent grabbed and thrown there without proper or fair procedures. But we also have seen videos of people walking into the Capitol, taking pics and leaving, now incarcerated for 2 years for trespassing. We should keep an open mind until we know more. And maybe compare their conditions to those kept in American prisons, like terrorists convicted for 1993 World Trade Center bombing, enemies hating and planning to destroy our nation. Jan 6 people, as misguided as they were, were not enemies.
Not enemies? Say who?
Well, they are terrorists from America. Demonstrates the absolute blindness of American jurisprudence.
I’m probably stating the obvious, but if a government agency told me that they were debunking some conspiracy, I would absolutely believe the conspiracy. I can’t be alone in this. It would not be the move I’d recommend if a goal is to create a more trusting, transparent environment.
At Least I would have Questions.
I have a friend who always says, "...these things get exposed, but nothing ever happens..." I have to tell her that she's not going to hear about it generally on TicToc or in even the alt media she may catch in a busy schedule. But THINGS DO HAPPEN, like this - an entire new hub of Orwellian nastyness has not started, or gotten entrenched, only to have to be worked on for decades to root out, expose and finally disband.
It just happens quietly. Thank you for the yeoman's work and labor you have put in on this project Mr. Taibbi - I told friends about you years ago, and you have only risen to greater heights of merit in your professional work, despite all the blocks and obstacles. Your vision and voice mean the world to so many people. Really enjoy your weekly talk round up too. <3
Thank God for ACTUAL reporters doing their actual job!
Yeah, seriously, right? Not just some apparatchiks for the security state or mouthpieces for the wokefakeleft like our American Pravda
Matt , you’re a treasure. Will digest if I can, but this topic has me checking to see if I have enough Rolaids. To think that the taxpayer funds people who want only two things each of which trump all other considerations.
1) the first to be re-elected, and all activities are taken depending on whether they tick enough re-election boxes.
2) the second is also to be re-elected, knowing that gaming for personal gain will be easier the second time around.
You left off the third-through-death reelections, but exactly.
Has even ONE person been fired? Demoted?
If the answer is no then the lesson has not been learned.
It’s like the Catholic Church. You just get moved around.
I think the lesson was learned. Do the shit in secret instead of parading it around like a bunch of amateurs.