The same Democratic minority staff that trashed the First Amendment in last week's Twitter Files hearings put something amazing in writing in a parallel case
For sure. Please don’t get Arkancided and wake up with multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the back of the head. And most definitely stay away from nailguns….
Haha, yeah….it’s just a crazy old “conspiracy theory” with a 50+ body count attributed to it. I’m sure there’s absolutely nothing tied to that famous first family from Arkansas. Pure coincidence. (Legal Disclaimer: This is satire and in no way to be construed as truth, fact or I’ll intentioned. *brought to you by Pfizer*).
Like that dude that just went up against the Clintons......found with a shot to the chest, no gun in sight, hung from a tree, but yeah, it was a "suicide."
The bankers were killing off people during the Great Financial Crime Spree too. There was one title dude who was suicided by nine shots from a nail gun. But, of course, he did that all by himself.
One of the perennial charms of the Racket News threads. Taibbi closes his piece mentioning that among other things he was accused by the subcommittee of promoting conspiracy theories...and then the loyal commenters get down to business...
When the police came to the White House after finding Vince Foster’s body, the Clinton people were desperately carting files out of his office. Which suggests that they had no advance warning.
It’s also worth noting that Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape, is still alive, four decades later.
Why kill someone when the media are ready to bury them for you?
I’ve heard it for years but I have a well worn tinfoil hat. Pray for Matt, it’s a war of good vs evil. I’ve experienced supernatural protection in times of trouble, it’s real.
Because people like the Clintons would never murder someone right?
Gaddafi, captured by her drones, beaten, then sodomised with a knife, then tortured to death, would disagree, but he can't because Hillary had him killed. And then laughed and laughed about it.
Then I think her leaked emails set the record straight when it changed that to, "We came, we saw, I needed someone to murder so I could prove my presidential bona fides, he died."
They’re ruthless. How many people died mysteriously in the hotel just before testifying? I lost track of the count. & the child trafficking in their home state.. it goes on& on..
The best possible sign of Matt's influence and reach would be for him to have readers from all walks of life. I think it's a very positive sign that he even has readers like you.
I'm not necessarily saying all of those accusations are true, but when Hillary Clinton asked whether it would be possible to drone Julian Assange and made it clear she wasn't joking after people initially laughed, I wouldn't put much past her or Bill.
Hillary is clearly that rare thing, a female psychopath. And for a psychopath humans are just dots, and if one of those dots stops moving?
“Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stop moving — forever? If I offered you twenty thousand for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”
Whitney Webb has covered the more unbelievable examples. Ron Brown and much of the Commerce Department, who were heavily involved in Chinagate (Hillary's model for Russiagate?), crashed in Croatia, killing many including several who survived the crash or were involved at the airport. Ron Brown infamously was found to have a bullet hole in his skull.
These things happen. With regularity in America now.
They are not necessarily trying to silence Matt, what they are trying to do is scare the hell out of anyone who is even thinking about following in his footsteps.
Tow the party line and you can be a million dollar a year man, worshipped by millions. Tell the truth and you will wind up on SubStack.
I see it as a two-pronged approach. For someone as well known and respected as Matt (especially after that risible Congressional "panel"), Michael, Bari, etc. they are too big to simply scare into silence. So long as they don't pull a Scott Adams and say or write something that can get them formally cancelled by the SJW shock troops.
The only option the swamp really has is to discredit them, as that grotesque thing from the Virgin Islands and her co-conspirators attempted to do. Not only did they fail spectacularly, they embarrassed themselves and their party by coming off as both unbelievably petty and utterly uninformed about the subject.
The fear factor is directed at us proles. Speak up and risk being branded a domestic terrorist as the FBI bursts through your front door with a battering ram at 4 AM, tosses flash bangs into your infants crib, and shoots the family dog. That'll teach you to shut your mouth. And the reason why these sorts of stunts are played up on the MSM, to reinforce the "message" that you'd better toe the line. Or else.
Though as I write this, I'm recalling MTG and how many times a member of Congress can be SWATed....
I don't worry so much about Matt's bank. Sure, I wish he made Hannity or Maddow money (I wish you and I did too!), but I think he's happy being rich, and not needing to be super rich. Same with Glenn. More power to 'em.
substack is immensely more important than the old organizations we used to call the media but are now propaganda outlets staffed, as we see from twitter files, by government gs guys with one point to make. i see they're already setting up 'misinformation' rules for financial news.
every thinking person needs to get on here just like you. it's gonna be under surveillance just as sure as God made little green apples but it is where free people can stand in a public forum.
Substack is a treasure trove of truth (pardon the alliteration), unfortunately it still falls far outside the mainstream for most of America's brain dead muppets. SS exists for those of us seeking the unvarnished facts -- which, to paraphrase Jack Nicolson, most people just can't handle, let alone be bothered to search for.
They charge 10% of subscriber fee https://substack.com/ scroll down to “Substack basics” ... It’s free to get started on Substack. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack will keep a 10% cut of revenues for operating costs like development and customer support. There are no hidden fees and we only make money when writers do.
Although strangely DWS (another psychopath or sociopath btw) was like "You make an awful lot of money, don't you?" I don't doubt that she and the others are trying to intimidate everyone into being good boys and girls, but that remark of hers seems to be at odds with the message they want to send.
Hastings wrote in his book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan," that he received a death threat from a former McChrystal staff member.
"We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write," the staffer threatened, according to Hastings, who calmly responded: "Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries."
Hastings went on to say: "I wasn't disturbed by the claim. Whenever I'd been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me."
The key ID feature was when government charged Assange with rape allegations, a few months after WikiLeaks published the Manning documents. Taibbi will probably soon see pedo charges. Fabricate and pin the most hated of sex crimes on him in order to turn the public.
I was thinking the same thing as I watched the questioning. I believe he's already been in danger for some time, protected somewhat by his large public following. If anything suspicious happens to him, God help the response.
A personal commitment to share Substack articles and expand the reach and impact of subscription journalism coupled with a centered shift in personal conversation toward preservation of the Republic and the Constitution supported by letter writing campaign's to American elected political leadership.
As a homeowner fighting foreclosure and an anti-foreclosure advocate, I received FOUR death threats. FOUR. And one came from the legislatorsat my Statehouse. These corrupt fuckers mean business. Fortunately, I told each fucker that I had a huge 51 state network and if they killed me, I would become a martyr, so bring it on!
I’ve been fighting banks 21 years. Won vs US Bank now I’m winning vs Wells. They did try to break into my house and broke into my car, and stole my dog house which was weird. But when they threatened me on YouTube I called in my network who went crazy with comments. YouTube shows your video more with a bunch of comments so it backfired on them! They’ve tried other tactics hasn’t stopped me.
I finally settled when I caught the appellate court fabricating a document to unlawfully dismiss my case. I got their fraud captured in court certified documents. And all the sudden, the crooked banks were willing to settle. I moved and was able to buy a house outright with the settlement. Good luck to you! And good luck to the upcoming victims of bank fraud
Finally found this. That’s good they settled. Fraud upon the court has no statute of limitations.
I settled with US Bank but then my money went into my rental for extraordinary repairs & attorneys fees for years of illegal evictions - now Wells Fargo owes that to me!! That’s fight #2.
Trust me I wish I had just bought a house then instead of standing on me lease but my autistic son didn’t want to move then. Had no idea that despite hiring attorneys I would be in this situation nine years later.
My hope is that he can be as lucky as Glenn, who's arguably been a thorn in the side of the establishment for longer than Matt has, but whom up until now the establishment has only tried to discredit as opposed to imprisoning or "disappearing" him.
I’m kinda glad this is finally sinking in. The Left does not play by the rules and they take no prisoner. If calling yourself Republican is too hard to swallow, well at least you can take sancage in knowing they won’t dynamite your house in the night.....
If you don't think both sides are abhorrent, you haven't been following politics very long. Remember, the right assassinated JFK, MLK, RFK, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton.
Elijah Muhammad is not the “right” by any stretch of the imagination. Malcolm X actually met with the KKK in the early 60s-nothing came of it, but he was objectively in far more physical danger from his own people than literal white racists.
No kidding. If I were in Matt's shoes -- or Shellenberger's or Bari Weiss' -- I'd be very wary of my surroundings, who's lurking in the shadows or whatnot. For the deep state, it's probably a very small step from the type of systemic censorship that these journalists have documented to the type that's biologically permanent.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Matt. You take the most flack when you’re directly over the target. The psychopaths go full on mentally ballistic when they get called out for their Machiavellian schemes and scams. Wear the old term “Muckraker” with great pride. I’m proud to support your Substack (I think it’s some kind of webpage, or something, I’m not really sure). :/
Did you think both Matt and Michael Shellenberger were too laid back in their responses, especially since those asking the questions were aggressive and rude? His response to Wasserman-Schultz, whose face looks like it's made out of rubber, was particularly laid back. Her statement suggested he was just prostituting himself to make money on the Twitter files, as opposed to a journalistic endeavor to bring the truth to the American people. I know it's his style. Citizens United allowed the corporate world the opportunity to give lots of money to candidates of their choice, since their just people, right? Our politicians take their money to finance their campaigns and the money givers get top priority on their agenda, as opposed to those who elected them into office. Now that's a good example of prostituting one's self.
I really don’t think that. I do think that Matt and Mike were trying to keep their composure in what was sometimes a very hostile environment. The mistake they made was thinking that they were going to appear before a congressional committee that would be reasonable, respectful and thoughtful; and that they could use a logical thought process structure to talk about the issue at hand. I think they did a fine job considering the circumstances. My personal verbal reaction, had I been in their shoes, would have made Caligula blush with shame. I do my best to treat people with kindness and respect in the real world - which is why it’s so disheartening to have watched two good journalists, who were trying their best to report the truth, go through such a disgusting silly ordeal.
I am shocked by how calm they were in the footage I’ve seen. This is a treacherous situation, reminiscent of the Moscow Show Trials. Seeing powerful politicians spinning scurrilous narratives—as Matt has exposed above—is not the hallmark of a healthy democracy but of a burgeoning tyranny.
I really hoped he would turn the tables during the hearing and declare that the seated representatives are public servants, sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes the 1st Amendment. It might do the public some good to see the accredited, talented, courageous journalist give a needed, succinct civics lesson. Yes, restraint is most often prudent, but the slumbering masses need a jolt of truth.
Again. The Twitter file's happened because of our personal investment in subscription journalism and commitment to a new healthy truth/fact based national dialogue. WE'RE WINNING!! The Republican Party is malleable right now and America is watching and listening.
The dying cockroach position doesn't help anybody. Most of the psyop is to talk over the top of healthy human reality (our Constitution is healthy human) and convince us we're powerless.
Touché! But you know there’s plenty of room for this to get much worse. I’m writing this from Paris, which means a thought criminal like me can still travel. And here we are all happily, angrily blathering against the state. These are no small things. Magadan is a probable destination for this show. Until the final destination I plan to enjoy the dying embers of Western Civ.
The best way to keep people imprisoned is to make sure that they never know that they are in prison.
That said, the establishment's increasing reliance on overt censorship and open repression of dissent is not a sign that the establishment is feeling self-assured. Quite the opposite.
I just closed my LinkedIn account who censored my posts to SBV execs. Fuck the censorship industrial complex. I wont play in their games anymore. No more social media for me. Ever.
No one is saying they had to act in kind, just more assertive in their statements and their responses. Look, you might disagree with a friend and when you do you're polite, respectful of your differences, but not when you are dealing with adversaries, and they are. No one is saying he should rant and rave, just more assertive, louder. I'm not saying he should have gotten up and hit two timing Wasserman-Schultz in the head.
The truth is that the congresspeople were not there to hear Matt and Mike's testimony. They were there to get their opinions into the Congressional record. They certainly did not want M & M's comments to be entered into the record. One day the record will be referenced, and we can't have the truth being represented there. Only one narrative is allowed.
Wasn’t she removed from being democrat party election hack, I mean head a few years back? Seem to remember something she was involved in. I was a democrat then. Not anymore.
In 2016, Wasserman was removed from her position as head of the Democratic National Committee, after WikiLeaks e-mails showed that she was improperly tilting the Democratic nomination process towards Hillary and away from Bernie.
She is still a congressperson from Florida, and quite a piece of work, as her questioning of Matt demonstrated in glorious technicolor.
She was also chief cheerleader for Hillary during the '08 primaries, saying over and over that Democrat "Superdelegates" could decide to vote for Hillary even if Obama had won their state.
"The mistake they made was thinking that they were going to appear before a congressional committee that would be reasonable, respectful and thoughtful; and that they could use a logical thought process structure to talk about the issue at hand."
Good guess. Why would anyone above the age of seven believe in that ahistorical, fact free nonsense?
Fair enough, but to your point, in preparing witnesses, the lawyerly advice is to say as little as possible under cross-examination and wait for redirect, which is what they both did.
And politically, the Dems hurt themselves quite enough.
Yes, I do think they were too laid back. It would have been cool if they'd had an Al Pacino style "I'd take a flame thrower to this place" speech ready to go, but DWS probably would have wheeled out the until-now-secret Congressional guillotine on the spot.
More seriously, IMHO, Matt should have told DWS that when he took on the Twitter Files, he actually expected he would lose both money and social media followers because millions of people like DWS would be really angry with him.
Put me down for flame thrower. DWS started her blather with a reference to ethics. Personally I would have asked how a person who resigned from the DNC for corrupting democracy could have the gall.
Perfect imagery, she is the creature from hell. I'm sending several hundred dollars to Bernie's campaign just thinking maybe no more war, and she's two timing him looking for a Clinton win, the devil herself. Now Bernie with his sweetheart welcome for Clinton wouldn't get a dime from me.
Hillary branded Bernie as a Putin Puppet (along with Trump, Jill Stein, Tulsi and likely many others).
At least when Rachel Maddow did the same-- "literally"-- to OAN they took her to court (of course the judge ruled that Maddow-- who probably makes more money than Taibbi- is an "entertainer" not a news-person, and thus there was no defamation, she was just exercising her Free Speech. OAN was ordered to pay Maddow's >$200,000 legal fees).
I can't stand Maddow, and at one time I liked her, but she and those like her is one of the reasons democrats have become so ruthless. They were given free rein during the Trump years. They could push the lie of Russia-gate and garner support from the press and even left wing sites, like Amy Goodman. They were supported by the deep state and courted by neocons and any celebrity could spew Trump hate even calling for his death, so is it any wonder they behave in in an authoritarian manner in regard to dealing with the issue of freedom of speech? They lie when it comes to calling the Jan 6 riot an insurrection, then push for an unconstitutional Jan 6 committee to substantiate their lie. Their authoritarian demeanor supported by many was on full display at the meeting with Taibbi.
That's the right call by Nader, although sadly Nader believed RussiaGate. I know that no one is right about everything, but it was still disappointing for me.
Sanders has voted for war repeatedly. After Sander voted no on the invasion of Iraq in 03, in his cute performative way, he then voted several times to fund it when few were paying attention. He has since said that he regretted that, which is yet more performance.
Bernie's role in the great psychodrama is as the designated rebel. Sanders and his wife Jane are "good friends" with the Bidens, they have dinner parties.
I have come to understand that. The dems were not always so self serving. Thomas Franks books take you on their journey of their decline, and citizens united passed by the Supreme Court really didn't help.
Spot on, Bill Owen. Yes, the Bern is a putz of the first order...another example of the hypocrisy of the system....Trump remains the only national politician in my lifetime who has taken this system on, which is why he is still so popular in spite of his many flaws.
Trump didn't and has never "taken the system on." This "system" you so casually and opaquely reference is the same "system" that has enriched (in your lifetime) a charlatan and serial criminal such as your man Trump while simultaneously impoverishing millions of Americans.
Trump merely took advantage of a "system" that was clearly screwing 90% of the population and rode his revanchist rhetoric to electoral victory. Helped greatly by the crude and cynical political strategy the cretinous Steve Bannon and other fascist whisperers whispered in his ear along the way.
Trump is, however, the first politician in your "lifetime" (how many years stacked up in your "lifetime?") to say the quiet part out loud, the sort of stuff which has always attracted and turned on the worst elements of American society. Always. From the very beginning. You can see the zebra, Pacificus---now start looking for the stripes.
"Did you think both Matt and Michael Shellenberger were too laid back in their responses....?"
One of the things I learned back in the days of USENET was to drive my opponents crazy by never losing my cool, never turning nasty, never failing to be polite. (Something I had gotten from martial arts long ago in a different world.) Those who are stupid or evil or fools can't help revealing themselves; you don't have to do it. Although in the case of the goons Mr. Taibbi was up against, I might have let a light snicker escape for the benefit of DWSh and Tinfoil Hat Man.
No one said they had to act like their interrogators, but I do think they were too low key in their responses which might make people see them as intimidated, and provide their accusers with more credibility. Their distain also says, I don't hold you, or what you claim in high regard.
I think both were completely flabbergasted by the total lack of ethics displayed by Plackett, W-Schultz and Garcia. The calm responses they gave in response to these evil, Stasi inquisitors made me envision the ocean of difference between Matt and Mike, and the complete abandonment of any pretense by the democrats to follow our Constitution.
I had the same take on it that you did, because we know their work and the truth of it, but democrats watching didn't see it the way we did, and their silence only made them look guilty of the accusations thrown at them. People I know who are democrats have already expressed that opinion to me, and you can't say anything to them.
Perhaps, but committed progressives squeed so hard during the hearings they damaged their vocal chords. They debate like schoolchildren for real, it is not performative.
I saw clips of Turley responding to Wasseman-Schultz and he came across as lethargic, like he skipped a good night's sleep. The democrats during Trump's term in office came off as an authoritarian lot, and they go lots of backing even from the left who hated Trump and used no sense of objectivity in their reporting and even swallowed up Russia-gate. That kind of back-up including that which they got from the FBI and CIA can make people feel invincible, and make them feel like no one should question them. They're following a political agenda of world wide hegemony. now that's pretty authoritarian. I just read Taibbi voted for Joe Biden, Good grief.
I do think their laid back demeanour was an asset and added to their credibility. It amplified the ridiculousness of those who jumped at every chance to chastise them. They reminded me of horrible abusive teachers that love the abuse of power bestowed in the process..."I didnt ask you a question...I want more time".
Well, they did come across as abusive authority figures, you see it and I do, and like myself you support his work and it's importance in regard to free speech. However most of the audience watching don't even know him, or his work on Twitter, and the majority are not even paying attention. Johnathan Turley was also cross examined and here is a headline from and article that quotes him, Turley: 'Twitter Files Hearing Was A "Soviet Show Trial," Democrats Used It To Attack Free Speech And A Free Press." I saw a short video clip of Turley going through the same thing, and he seemed rather taken aback by their accusations and demeanor, at least in that short clip. You certainly don't want people to see that the democrats can render you speechless, or have the power to do so.
I don’t think being more aggressive would have been a good idea. In fact they were probably hoping they would - because then they can call them partisans.
No, they weren't too laid back in that setting. They should have never gone there in the first place. But, it is not the place to fight back or argue. It was a lose-lose situation for them always.
Yup…”kill ‘em’ with kindness” is a philosophy I try to subscribe to. Those kinds of people generally have no problem with showing themselves to be the mental midgets that they truly are. I’ll take truth and integrity over posing as some kind of holier than thou fraud everyday of the week, and twice on Sunday.
I agree, though I think for the most part they weren't really allowed to. They would get forced into yes/no answers, cut off when trying to explain, or simply not even being given the opportunity to respond. I felt that Matt and Michael were taking their oaths seriously, and so felt compelled to give truthful answers that were necessarily complicated, and those complications made them look wishy washy or uncertain, because these assholes are so used to blanket bullshit definitive statements, like the kinds they were making themselves.
I found the format of these hearings to be really unhelpful for actually getting at the truth. I feel like maybe witnesses should be given an opportunity to respond after each committee member has their 5 minutes, especially since the whole point of the meeting is to hear from the witnesses.
I don't disagree that they were shut down, but it would have been better had they spoken up, and louder. I've seen Glen Greenwald really stand up to people like them. I'm not being critical of them personally, and I know Matt is more subdued in his responses, but it's like the whole thing went no where. The only thing I came away with is knowing the decision I made to disassociate myself from the democratic party during the Trump years was reaffirmed as a very wise decision.
I saw a clip of Matt Walsh's recent appearance before a committee and that was a great example of not taking any shit from these assholes. I thought he did a great job of making them look stupid.
They were limited as to what they could do. They tried to speak up many times and were overruled/quieted by the questioner. "You don't get to ask questions" was said many times.
The reptilian part of my brain would've liked it a lot if he'd answered DWS by telling her to go fuck herself, or if he theatrically yawned while Allred was lecturing him, stuff like that. However, I think that might have been doing them a favor; just as people willing to say so are now pointing out how childish and petty the Democrats were, if Matt and/or Michael had been confrontational then there would be all of these pieces in The Atlantic and The Daily Beast and so on about "Look at how these 'journalists' talked to Democrats, clearly they have an axe to grind and that's one more reason why none of you should trust them."
I also don't know what it takes to be charged with contempt of Congress, whether being rude right back could have set them up for that or not.
I am not saying they should be confrontational, just a lot more assertive in their position. I have felt for quite some time that the democrats during the Trump years were quite authoritarian and the reason they could be, is that the media and many on the left supported their lie of Russia-gate and most went on a brutal attack of Trump, with no shades of grey anywhere. They even managed to impeach him in the house. They were supported by the deep state, and the neocons even shifted to their side, which is telling. If they didn't instigate Jan 6, I feel they were complicit on some level, and then made the claim a riot was an insurrection. They moved on with a January 6 comm, which was unconstitutional on many levels, and even tried to prevent Tucker Carlson from showing a different perspective on what happened on that day. . No one is saying they should have been rude, but definitely supported their case more forcefully. The democrats were engaged in preventing freedom of speech on Twitter and the CIA backs them up when it comes to Hunter Biden's laptop. Russian disinformation? The Intercept wouldn't even allow Greenwald his story on the lap top. The very fact that the democrats came across in that combative and disrespectful manner shows just how authoritarian they have become. Yeah they should have been confronted. Their hatred of Trump even gave free rein to hate speech calling for Trump's death, by non other then two bit actors.
All of that is true about Democrats. Never thought I'd live to see the day when Republicans would be better or less bad than Democrats, but it's here. (And since people like MTG were victims of the very censorship that they're arguing against, I can believe that at least some of them are sincere about wanting to put an end to censorship instead of just grandstanding to make themselves look righteous.)
The question is what to do about it, either to stop them cold or failing that to show them that they can't do this kind of crap without pushback of one kind or another. You could be right about it being better for Matt and Michael to have handled it differently. And I could be wrong about what I say next, and here's what I say next...
I'm thinking about how these exchanges play to the normies who see them. Matt and Michael are being pretty civil, all things considered, and the Democrats in that hearing are coming across like bullies. Like, yes, authoritarians. Jimmy Dore's video about this, which I haven't watched it yet, is entitled "Dems Attack ‘Twitter Files’ Journalists & Completely Clown Themselves!" I want to believe that this is what most people who saw those exchanges took away as well.
The vast majority of people don't watch this. I think most people are not tuned into what is going on at all. My brother with a phd in neurology thinks Maddow can tell him all he needs to know. I rest my case. I watched Jimmy Dore on on this one, and Aaron Mate is there as well. Good listening. I was always a registered democrat and during the Trump years became an independent, which means voting Republican also.
I totally felt the same way, particularly given how one sided the format is in who gets to control the conversation. I also think there needs to be more pushback when people demand yes or no answers. I get that it can stop a hostile witness from waffling, but telling a person what answer they are allowed to give is basically not allowing them to answer at all. You might as well say, "please just answer yes to the following question"...
An experienced litigator would be the only people to gut those fuckers. All of those people are attorneys, so they have years of experience promoting lies as facts.
they are different skills. Though, I think Greenwald could come off as shrill. I dont have a lot of respect for people like DWS but they know how to play to their base and the MSM will aid them. I would be very wary to get in a shouting match with them in this forum.
The old sayig dont argue with an idiot, people wont know the difference pops to mind.
As noted elsewhere in this discussion, the committee did not allow the witnesses to respond. They could have raised Vyshinsky from the dead and had him conduct the "questioning." Greenwald would never have been allowed to do his lawyerly-discursive thing.
The first time i saw Greenwald he was pretty young, and was confronted by two older politicians that thought he was easy prey, oh, but were they mistaken.
Glenn Greenwald is an attorney as well as being a journalist. It takes a litigator to understand how to think fast when you are being berated by attorneys from legislative bodies. They count on that.
I think Matt and Michael did fantastic for not being attorneys!
Karen, almost everyone I know is a democrat, and I have spoken to a few who saw what went on, and thought people like Wasserman Schultz put them in their place. I am not being critical of them on a personal level, but already some people have said to me they couldn't, defend their position because they had none. Democrats have become loud, aggressive, and combative and their supporters are no different. Johnathan Turley was subjected to the same crap and also felt pushed into a corner, and wrote a scathing piece on them.
Ugh, that sounds awful, Fran. Well, my other reply to you described what I hoped was true, and I really hope that although people who are dumb enough to still vote blue no matter who feel that way, that those who do not vote blue no matter who and those who have given up on the Democratic Party entirely comprise a majority of Americans and are disgusted by the way DWS and those other shitheads acted.
No, to me it looked like they got the upper hand, not that I believed them, but no doubt many did. Just look at how they pushed the lie of Russia-gate, and it's been disputed and yet many if not most people continue to believe it.
I hear ya Beyond Spin. my parents were both very active Texas Democrats in the 70’s and 80’s. I remember going to fundraisers and voting drives with them. I was taught that the Democrats were the working class party that stood up for the little guys and fought like Hell to protect free speech, free thinking and the First Amendment.
well, I don’t have to explain what happened since then, but lets just say I will never vote blue no matter who for the long, foreseeable future.
I am disgusted that I spent decades voting for these people while passionately trying to persuade other to vote the same.
maybe it was always like this. maybe I am too naive.
at one point tho, I thought they were the good guys.
#metoo. I really don’t know if they were ever the good guys, but I was raised to think they were and turned 18 the year Bush won, which reinforced that belief of mine we he said he opposed foreign intervention then blew up Iraq for no reason. I really didn’t even start paying attention to any Republican candidate until 2016ish. I’m grateful I ate some humble pie, but having young kids feel immense guilt I helped usher in some of the lunatics destroying their generation and robbing them of freedoms they have to be taught they should have been entitled to.
I’ve been registered all parties through the year s. Sadly they work for themselves now, not for us. None of them should be so rich as public servants!
No, you weren’t naive. Me and most of my family and friends were in the same boat. The Democrats actually WERE the good guys back then, but now the script has been flipped and they are firmly in bad guy camp, along with most Republicans. It truly is the Uniparty. Sadly, most of my family and peers are still in the “blue no matter who” camp...
The lesson here is never be too sure you're the good guys, because that's how you become the bad guys. We've all passed this test this time around. It's just so distressing how many failed it.
‘We Had To Destroy The Republic In Order To Save It.’
I feel you pain, BP. World peace, civil liberties & the supporting the working class used to be Democrat core values. Now they are deemed the telltale signs of a right wing terrorist.
I’m waiting for some swine at the podium to announce that they had to destroy the republic in order to save it, because that is what they are accomplishing. September 11th with its Patriot Act started the process, but the Trump chimera really got the ball rolling. Covid hysteria accelerated the process of stifling debate. January 6th was this regime’s Reichstag moment, petrifying the faithful into braying for establish concentration camps.
Back when the body politic had a functioning mind, most people saw blanket censorship, surveillance, propaganda & perpetual war as pillars of tyranny, not democracy. Today these are the core values of the Democrat faithful.
"I’m waiting for some swine at the podium to announce that they had to destroy the republic in order to save it"
They did.
Build Back Better wtf To build back, you need to destroy.
Things were going very well, this lying old guy gets power, and announces the tag line Build Back Better. Combined with Obama's Third Term, we were warned.
So I take it you believe that our nation's infrastructure is just fine and needs little upkeep or rebuilding? If so you'll especially enjoy the collapse of the power grid when and if electric cars become affordable to more than Delorean collectors, bitcoin enthusiasts and monied liberals.
Until the majority of Americans come to understand that they are being tag-teamed, that power plays good cop, bad cop with us, then nothing will change, nothing can change.
"Both" sides agree on all the "important" stuff, like endless war, the wealth transfer, and condition free LOVE for Israel, just to name a few.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
Vasily Grossman wrote the "War and Peace" for WWII in the two-volume "Stalingrad" and "Life and Fate".
I can't recommend them enough, and they provide a wonderful look at Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany. They are both hellish societies, but you realize that what we all hate about them is not the economic system. (one derives from capitalism and one from communism). What makes them awful is that they are authoritarian police states based on fear, where everyone is afraid to talk.
That's the danger we are facing now in the US, and what the people need to do is put aside theoretical differences and unite behind removing the bought politicians of both parties and scaling back the national security state spying and policing agencies.
Instead of nationalizing the private sector, the left has co-opted it to push its ideology.
The problem is that if you bring it up, the left says it is impossible because fascism is "right wing." Why? because Wikipedia says so. So it can't be true.
I'm a longtime voter for Democratic Party candidates, but at this point am feeling extremely alienated from the party. Called up my Congressional rep today and spoke with an actual live staffer.
My Congresscritter isn't on the Weaponized Gov't Subcommittee, but I let him know that I was completely disgusted by his fellow party members' anti-First Amendment conduct and if he and his party wanted my vote they'd better start standing up for my rights.
It seems likely that in 2024 there will be a rematch in the presidential election. It also appears that the Democratic Party is doing everything in its power to lose that election. I don't think that the Republican Party is any better in general, probably worse in fact, but if the Democratic Party thinks I'm going to keep on showing up and filling in bubbles for them, then they've got another thing coming.
It is obviously a coordinated approach. My question, as it’s always been, is who exactly is in charge of this? Obviously a very destructive force but well organized and effective. It’s going to take more than these hearings to cleanse the body politic and it needs to be a very forceful campaign. What is it going to be?
You raise a great point and it’s something that I think of often. Qui bono? I don’t believe for one second that these people don’t know exactly what the game plan is. Who is the marionette master pushing us off the cliff is my question.
This is too coordinated, and quickly, to be a coincidental, random group. This is well thought out and carried out. Someone is giving specific instruction on a constant basis. I’m not suggesting that it’s one person exactly but it is at best a small group.
Yes it comes from groups like the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderburgs. It sounds like conspiracy theory until one actually researches it and realizes it’s true.
Conspiracies to gain and hold power, by whatever means, are totally real, and that's why they push back so hard on those of us who don't buy their elaborate facades and cover stories.
Obama, who came from nowhere, and who had accomplished little in his life, was clearly purpose-built by the deep state to take power. His mom, Sydney, was CIA too.
I agree. Obama was recruited from central casting. Vermont has a politician named Becca Ballint who mysteriously showed up in a small town, got elected a couple times to the state legislative and suddenly she gets elected as the state’s only US House representative with the help of a million dollars of crypto money from FTX which she refuses to return. Definitely a plant
There's small group running the plays in the US. My gut says Obama is one of the ring leaders. How to get those who aren't already sociopaths to go along with your wishes? Well, if they want to play big, they're drugged and wind up with compromising photos held against them (think child porn). Then they'll dance like a marionette. And the more they dance, the more money they get, and at that point are too far gone mentally to ever come back.
International criminal finance looted and destroyed capitalism in the name of capitalism. European's are being arrested for speech and thought crime's. Euthanasia law's have been expanded in some European countries and Canada to include those suffering anxiety and depression in some cases over social status and finances.
DNC/WEF/CCP/IMF Environmentalism = Access to cheap throw away labor/unhampered exploitation of all natural resources. --- They are slaver's and the same psychopath's who machine gunned women and children in Ludlow,Colorado, murdered striker's at Lawrence, Massachusetts and are driving the Cobalt trade in the Congo. It's not something else. International criminal finance doesn't like you or your Constitution.
Plural nouns do not take the possessive form unless it demonstrates the following:
"The possessive form is used with nouns referring to people, groups of people, countries, and animals. It shows a relationship of belonging between one thing and another."
Example: Mike R.'s grammatical crimes are forgivable---if corrected immediately.
In my opinion, much of this stems from covid. It created a frenzy and in the panic the bad guys slipped up and exposed themselves.
The pharmaceutical industry has captured media and congress. It is the number one revenue source for both of these groups. Imagine if it were discovered that the lab leak were caused by the joint efforts of the Pharma industry. Who else does gain of function benefit if not Pharma?
There is not enough equity in the Pharmaceutical industry to repay the damage caused to the planet by the careless release of this pathogen. I say it is the worst man made environmental disaster in history. If the Pharma giants were sued in a global class action, first their reputation would completely collapse. If found guilty, the resulting damage payments would bankrupt every one of them. Media would need a new revenue stream, and so would congressmen and senators.
No one is more motivated to hide the truth than these entities.
Democrats had the added benefit of relaxing election laws to the point of an easy fixing of the presidential race, which completely explains their unnatural alliance with any large corporate interest. Normally an alliance with any big corporation would be distasteful for Democrat constituents, but making Pharma the heroes with a "vaccine" satisfied the palates of the normally anti-corporate left.
COVID was used to get rid of Trump. He was an outlier and was fucking things up for the grand control machine. They had to create a crisis to exploit. It allowed the machine to extend their tentacles further into our society
I think it was a convenient by-product. Never let a crisis go to waste.
Marie Curie was not aware of what she was doing to her body, so I am giving pharma the benefit of the doubt by assuming it was an accident.
Covering this up this accident is not forgivable on the part of Pharma, Media and Democrat politicians. Neither is the Democrat's further exploiting the aftermath to rig an election.
It was likely a careless accident by not so smart scientists. This should never be done in a crowded city. Maybe Antarctica. It may be a way to attack cancer, so like nuclear energy, some good may come of it.
The potential or weaponization is worse than nukes. It does not dissipate, it propagates. It could be tuned to ethnicity. We have been warned. Immediate action is warranted.
Terrible example, Democrats want single payer no more than Republicans. Funny thing, though, it works incredibly well in every other developed country and many that aren't in that category (US is behind both Costa Rica and Morocco, for example, and literally one place better than Cuba). So, this is not the canard to hang yourself from.
I would like to find out, but I more or less agree. Every country almost was over the top on Covid shots, for sure. And they all have universal healthcare. Actually, almost no one except us has it. We don't have universal healthcare and we were among the worst.
"Single payer" is a term of art so negative, so uninspiring, and so weak, that it can only have been coined to help stop what we here in Canada simply call, "Healthcare". It's not 'free' of course but it is socialised, and despite the many lies, it works far better than what they have in America.
Why not The Party? As a team trying to obtain common benefits, like a corporation does. It would be odd if they weren't doing that, dumb as they may appear to be. Power, status, place, financial rewards. Certainly they would try to back each other up and pass around what they thought were clever strategies. Too bad for them that they're not very bright.
That's the terrifying thing, no one is in charge as Yanis Varoufakis discovered to his horror when he tried to stop the EU from burning down Greece's economy, decision making is so diverse and spread through a system evolved through corruption, there is no single position/person who can make a decision that obstructs or impedes the momentum of corruption, even if they wanted to. The odds of finding someone that 'wants to' are slim to none in the first place as people who may resist are winnowed out early on in their careers, so even if someone did have a come to jeez moment it doesn't matter because it would require about 57 more, many in obscure alleyways of the machine to also have an epiphany at the same time.
Yes, the same Hillary who was Goldwater’s intern when he wanted to nuke the peasants of Nam and the same harridan who showed her objectivity on whistleblowers by insisting Snowden be brought home to “face the music”. No prejudice there, none.
The Clintons live in Chappaqua, in Westchester County, NY---not Manhattan. Interested in bullshit too, I see, which to your credit is largely the American Way.
No doubt it is a mass psychosis but it is a focused one using psychological techniques to control the masses exploiting insecurities and job paranoia. They are in high gear and entrenched now having taken over schools and the media. They have taken a long range methodical approach for years to reach this level of domination
Yes, this movement in the US goes back to the Sixties with easily identified individuals and groups. They wanted the attention and benefits. It has evolved and been taken over by insidious, faceless and nameless manipulators with the clear goal of destroying this country from the inside
The owners of the world don't need to coordinate because they all think alike. They socialize together, go to the same schools, belong to the same clubs etc.
How to get to them? I don't know, but we can at least theoretically vote their managers out of office if we could put aside our differences. It's that small group versus the rest of us. (unfortunately we're not as tightly knit as they are)
I think they all just drank their own koolaid. And just became a hive who lost all reason. It's been like that for a long time, but Trump totally sent them over the edge.
Matt are you keeping up with this Proud Boys trial? Really crazy stuff going on. The prosecution sent over "complete" files not realizing that the files themselves showed deleted information. The prosecution reviewed emails between the defense and their attorneys. When this was coming out in the trial, the judge shut it down for the day and sent the jury home. Now the DoJ is claiming that this file is classified and was sent in error, therefore this evidence is inadmissible. Amazingly, the judge agreed.
I keep hearing how the FBI is mostly good people just trying to do their job. But here the FBI has destroyed evidence germane to the defense. Should I think that some high-level dirtbag is orchestrating all of these attacks against constitutionally protected freedoms? Can we all agree that regardless of how the Bureau became politicized, that politicization has infiltrated the ranks? It's trickle down politics.
It occurred to me that the FBI and Fauci's NIH operate out of the same playbook: they create problems so they can get credit for creating solutions. Covid-19 and Jan 6 are exactly the same script.
More likely that they DID BUY that kind of PR. Same way you can see action movies made to promote shoot-them-up video games in the style of action play even if no such game is announced yet the idea is to make every movie market a game that can be merchandised.
The same way the laudable morals and ethics of FBI and police agents are promoted in movies and series.
Producers, directors, scriptwriters and stars have real power in determining the flavour of a scene. They have the power to insist on staff taking vaccines. If we can believe any of the exposures then stars are directed to do things they would rather not or tank their career, mostly with actresses but probably with actors too. We have proof in the elite status of some in Hollywood when we look at how they behaved towards plebs during this recent scam. They are a big part of the propaganda machine. Even the music industry is weaponised. popular new faces are groomed and given lyrics to sing that are written by a small group who can put any slant on a song.
It's called, "Copaganda" and we have been fed a never ending dose of it our whole lives. Millions now fervently believe that Harry Callahan could end all crime in the US, if only his "hands were not tied" by 'nonsense' like the Bill of Rights.
Not th3 case any longer. The FBI is corrupt, period. Maybe 1 in 1000 are decent at this point, orr have the spine to stand up for what is truth and proper.
I've got a childhood friend that's been an agent for several years now. His main concern is mostly just tracking down murderers and diddlers. He seems effective at that job. I wouldn't call him the best critical thinker in the world though.
When was the case? Under Hoover? Like when they were sending letters to MLK telling him that they only way out for him was to kill himself?
That letter, known as the "suicide letter," was sent to King in 1964 as approved and directed by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The letter, which was accompanied by an anonymous package containing recordings of King's extramarital affairs, accused King of being a "fraud" and a "dissolute, abnormal moral imbecile." The letter also suggested that King should take his own life to avoid the public exposure of his affairs.
The FBI's harassment of King was part of a larger effort by the agency, known as COINTELPRO (short for Counterintelligence Program), to undermine and discredit civil rights leaders and other political activists. The program involved the use of illegal surveillance, wiretapping, and other tactics to gather information and disrupt the activities of individuals and groups deemed to be subversive or a threat to national security.
The judiciary is the most corrupt out of the 3 branches of government. In my foreclosure defense case, the appellate Court manufactured a document and submitted if pre-dated into the docket to dismiss my case unlawfully.
Do NOT think the judiciary is honest. They wear black for a reason!
I can’t find your comment about the appeals court changing a document. But if you can prove this is called fraud upon the court and it has no statute of limitations.
The data leak reminds me of the memory holed story about Nicola Calipari. Calipari was an Italian intelligence officer who went to Iraq to secure the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been kidnapped by Iraqi militants. He got her too.
On March 4, 2005, Calipari and Sgrena were driving to the Baghdad airport, where they planned to catch a flight back to Italy, when their car approached a US military checkpoint near the airport. The soldiers at the checkpoint ordered the car to stop, but when it did not immediately comply, they opened fire on the vehicle. Calipari was killed in the shooting, while Sgrena was injured but survived.
The incident caused a diplomatic crisis between Italy and the United States, with Italy demanding an explanation and apology from the US government. An investigation into the incident was launched, and it was ultimately determined that the soldiers at the checkpoint had not followed proper procedures and had not been adequately trained in dealing with civilian vehicles.
In 2006, an Italian court acquitted the US soldier who fired the shots that killed Calipari, (of course they did) laughably citing "diplomatic immunity". However, in 2007, the families of Calipari and Sgrena filed a civil lawsuit in a US court against the US government, alleging that the soldiers at the checkpoint had acted negligently and recklessly. The lawsuit was later dismissed by a judge who ruled that the US government was immune from such lawsuits.
Like the FBI Excel file with it amateur hour deletions, there was a PDF file released about the shooting. The file was originally released by the US military, but the names of the soldiers had been redacted or "blacked out" to protect their identities.
Later, an Italian journalist named Giuseppe d'Avanzo was able to uncover the soldiers' names by using a simple computer trick. He found that the redacted text in the PDF file could be easily "unhidden" by copying and pasting it as unformatted text into a new document. This revealed the names of the soldiers who were present at the checkpoint, and d'Avanzo later published the names in an article for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
The judiciary is the most corrupt out of the 3 branches of government. In my foreclosure defense case, the appellate Court manufactured a document and submitted if pre-dated into the docket to dismiss my case unlawfully.
Do NOT think the judiciary is honest. They wear black for a reason!
I’m part of your “sudden increase in followers” and I can pinky-promise I’m not an adherent of any of your political beliefs. I’m here b/c I believe in free speech and truth no matter what. Totally agree with commenters who advise you to stay safe. Please! You are obviously over the target.
And some of us subscribed precisely because we were so appalled by their behavior, including the childish smears and innuendo and spine-chilling authoritarianism. It’s not like it would be difficult to, in my case, see decades of Dem Party registration, records of voting in only Dem primaries, not one day of registration as a Republican, and a record of small donations to only Dems, no Republicans. They will blithely and lazily smear anyone who dares to disagree. I have former friends who know exactly the kind of grinding, committed volunteer work I’ve done for decades for causes they more recently and loudly claim to care about. And according to them, saying some version of, for example, “Kendi and DiAngelo have surely written two of the most poorly-argued, divisive, and at times giddily cruel, dehumanizing books in recent decades” makes me “alt-right”, if not a “white supremacist”. There is such a deep insecurity beneath the aggressive sense of certainty characterizing that kind of reaction. They call you names and try to ostracize you from a larger social circle for disagreeing, rather than engage in a serious discussion.
This has nothing to do with workers owning the means of production.
The idea that any of our politicians is "communist" is absolutely laughable and betrays a complete lack of understanding of the basic premises at play.
Communism is when people do stuff I don't like, and the more I don't like it the more communister it is!
Fear of Communism is used as a bogey man against those who have been brainwashed to believe that what the USA has is Democracy and that it is a polar opposite of Communism.
Pol Pot arose as a direct product of Nixon dropping literally millions of bombs on Cambodia thus destroying their society. The Pathet Lao were a rump until you guys started to drop freedom bombs on them.
Pol Pot was a CINO (a commie in name only), mostly he was an insane human monster.
American liberals, in a desperate panic after 2016, injected themselves with the toxic brain virus called Critical Theory. It seemed like a smart move at the time: unleash the academic Red Guard on all their opponents, have them attacked with a barrage of bigotry accusations and threatened with loss of jobs and status unless they obeyed, then seed every institution in the country with loyal allies, all to regain even more power than the power that the Orange Usurper stole.
But now we're starting to see the side effects, one of the first being that liberals/Democrats seem to have picked up all the bad habits of the academic Marxists, the worst and ugliest being their style of thought: an obsession with rooting out ideological impurity and suppressing dissent; a worship of sacred dogma; the belief that anyone who disagrees isn't just mistaken but actively evil; an inability to compromise or accept good-faith disagreement (as in believing everyone not on your side suffers from some type of "false consciousness"); a bulletproof belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority; and the idea that every single moment and every single event (from your kids' bday party to a book you read to Thanksgiving at grandma's) is an intensely urgent political battle that must be fought to the death, so that good (THEM) prevails over evil (US).
I don't know what's up ahead on the horizon, but people like this can't be reasoned with, they will not compromise, and they will gladly destroy anything or anyone in their way (including Matt Taibbi).
At some point they will have to be actively, totally opposed, defeated, dislodged and discredited. They really offer no other choice.
I'm not a philosopher, but I think given the dominance of critical theory in academia, we should try to grasp its main points and implications. My take is that it emphasizes 1) the importance of societal structures over individual efforts for understanding human outcomes, 2) that it is unrelentingly focused on the past and reinterpreting history in an effort to explain current social conditions, and 3) the history of human development needs to be understood solely as self-identified groups competing for power, in what appears to be a zero-sum game of resources and their distribution.
I believe the widespread adpoption and messaging of these critical theory tenets are the primary driver of the declining health of young people today. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently had a brilliant summation of this argument on his substack, that is written in non-technical language:
Although his argument focuses primarily on girls, it has much broader application. When you tell young people: 1) if you are white, you don't deserve what you have, and the country you thought you were proud of was actually founded in sin and to exploit people that don't look like you; 2) if you are non-white, that you have little chance of success because white people (especially men) will oppose you to retain their white supremacist power structure, and 3) your parents are complicit in this exploitation --- well you're going to end up with unhappy, hopeless young people. Throw on top the constant messaging that they are all going to fry in adulthood due to global warming and then you can mix in a soup of anxiety on top of the depression.
This philosophy is so destructive to society in so many ways. It also seemingly offers no hope or vision for a better future - we must continually navel gaze about historical injustices that occurred before most of us were born, and that we can't move forward until all that past is resolved (the work of which will never be done, of course).
the philosophy is so destructive to society bc the philosophy was designed to be destructive to society.
all of "Critical Studies" is a lie bc it is entirely a political project disguised as scholarship. in actual scholarship there are many questions and few answers, and the goal is to use reason, logic, research, debate etc to ascertain facts and gain new knowledge; Crit Studies is the reverse, you work backward from the answers which never change (capitalism is evil, nothing exists but power and "structures" etc) and the job of teachers and students is to bolster the preformed narratives and try to find ways to "change the world" ie preach your faith in class and in the larger world. you will never see a radical critique of any movement or idea of the left, bc Crit Studies is biased and one-sided, a machine designed to inflict a "radical critique" on enough sectors of society that they eventually collapse and hand power to the Left and their aspiring philosopher-kings.
The oddest part for me is how America (even the reddest of red states) funded and supported this campaign designed to attack its history, culture, civics etc for decades. Ours may be the first country in recorded history that encouraged and subsidized its own enemies and its own unraveling.
I remember civility in DC during the 70’s and 80’s; probably no less self-serving, but at least it was civil. The Left are nothing but demons in meat-suits now.
I'm left too. As in anti-war, civil libertarian who thinks everyone should have healthcare kind of left. There is no left like that in this country anymore.
I made more than a few brains explode during the Obama years by saying we should shut down the wars and Americans shouldn't pay another penny for healthcare until the money allocated for war was gone.
The very same corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who run the FBI, CIA, DHS, etc., etc., would be the ones running Medicare for all. The elite ruling class would get even richer and everyone else would get screwed.
I used to argue against this by saying, "Do you want the DMV running your hospital?" to point out govt.-run almost always means less-competence, more stultifying, arcane rules, and abs. no concern for or desire to serve the public.
These days I feel like Single Payer would quickly devolve into "Euthanize All the Cons!" The idea our govt., who will probably shortly suicide Taibbi and others over a censorship case, is going to work to extend the lives of its political opponents is, frankly, fantasy.
I can hear them now, "Well if you hate the govt. then it is pretty hypocritical to expect them to help you."
Yeah, I know how you feel, although I stay well away from libertarians as too many of them appear only interested in gaining the freedom to rip off everyone else. "Anarchopulco' shenanigans being a case in point.
It is almost touching to see that some still believe these problems can be reduced to a left/right thing as AFAIK, none of the dems are aware of let alone support any real left programs; add that to the fact that amerika's 'right' the rethugs go along with the same organised corruption whenever they are in power.
The only difference between the two halves of the uniparty being opposite positions on a limited range of carefully manufactured and exaggerated through a common ally the msm, issues that amerikans are encouraged to get hot under the collar about on one side or the other. What 'side' a citizen takes doesn't matter as these few 'hot-button' issues have been selected because they personally directly affect a minority of voters.
Yet as I said everyone is encouraged, nay forced by peer pressure, to take a stand on issues largely irrelevant to most, this is deliberate because it creates a point of difference on issues that everyone is debating but while doing so lose sight of the big issues, like single payer health care, banking regulation, railroad safety.
In other words issues to make ballot decisions on whose outcomes one way or t'other do not disturb the elites.
How about we agree that we would like a MUCH SMALLER federal government with term limits for all bureaucrats? Might that possibly limit the insiders' hostility toward lowly citizens?
There's a difference here between civil libertarians and libertarians, although there is overlap. Civil liberties here are protected constitutional liberties - freedom of speech, press, religion, search and seizure, right to privacy, etc. Even some of the nuttiest Republicans and Libertarians, and at least one of the most otherwise most odious Democrats, and (formerly) Independent Bernie Sanders used to find common ground on these in opposition to Bush Repubs and current Dems. They also tend to be anti-war as well.
That's a lot different from the economic libertarians.
Including universal healthcare isn’t in the same realm. That is more of a Left Wing operation of a grotesque bureaucratic system that can be controlled and manipulated easily. The medical system isn’t evenly administered but I haven’t seen a workable solution yet
It's what distinguishes, say, me from the likes of, say, Rand Paul. We can agree on civil liberties and be anti-war, and he's one of the only sane voices we have on those topics. But his view on economics is very different than mine. I'm an Independent who hates both parties and votes third party or write in these days. If a third party, it depends on who is the saner of the Greens of Libertarians. It was Gary in '12, Bernie write-in in '16, Greens in '20.
Third-party voting in a two-party system is the equivalent of home recycling. It may make one feel better about one's self (however fleeting), but effective political change (currently) is brought about by aggressively working within the system and not consuming products packaged in plastic is the only solution to plastic waste.
One of the problems with representative elected government is that, in most cases, it is easy to suborn or otherwise neutralize or destroy the representatives. The nominal ideology of the target does not seem to matter.
Yes - as my mom would say, please bring back the smoke-filled room. Say all the stupid crap to your voting base, then get in the pit and hash out solutions with your friends and enemies alike. All we see now is “I’m right and you’re wrong”, with no compromise to speak of. Pathetic!
Sorry Matt, but your party is totalitarian and sociopathic. They project their self hatred into others because they know what they do is wrong. It is the dark side of the light chasers. Their politics have become religion and therefore any means necessary is noble. They have got to be stopped.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
That’s hilariously revealing, unless it was meant to be parody.
“Your side” is also pretty revealing. Maybe the commenter is an independent who’s understandably done with the Dems. But, no, “your side” is by definition always honest and virtuous and “the other side” is always the opposite. Is that how it goes?
Both journalists are at least mainstream Democrats. Try a little honesty if it is possible. You are an uninformed, ignorant loon. Just what Party do you think Matt is part of. Can't answer? Because you are a dope.
I think he still wants to be a democrat and I understand why. I think the Democratic Party was healthy from about 1960-2012... but now it seems they have come full circle and are back into segregation. Totally different justification these days, but it’s remarkable how they end up back where they started.
Pick the party you like fool, you missed the entire topic, didn't matter what party, but likely too sophisticated for you to understand...I'd layoff the dope before posting again
Ken -- the topic was about the congressional hearing. You should watch it before calling other people names. The hearing was extremely lobsided. I'm not a fan of establishment republicans either -- but to remain on topic, as you suggest -- this was all about the hearing where Matt testified- and what he faced there and who he faced it from.
Everyone it seems who supports the truth is considered "partisan" by Democrat standards. These journalists are just reporting what they found in the twitter files. Others are free to take another position if the material warrants it. Either the US government directly influenced the content on social platforms or they did not. Reality is now "disinformation" if it cuts against a particular political narrative.
In the actions of the current Democrats, I am reminded of this quote from CS Lewis: "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
Good paraphrase, but whole quote is worth a read: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
Thank you! I could not find the entire quote...only the abbreviated one. The Democrats of today most definitely are willing to torment us without end...their consciences approve of all they do.
This quote/paraphrase precisely indicates why no one should be voting for any Democrat and should be voting for all Republicans. There is absolutely no relief with Democrats. And I am a current old school liberal who is one of those now accused of being alt-right. That is fine, I have been voting straight Republican tickets since and including 2020. In retrospect, should have been doing this a lot longer. I am ashamed now I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, but went for Jill Stein. Nothing in the world was getting me to vote for Hillary (or Biden).
For me from now on, the "FBI" becomes "Fat Tony." Just replace "FBI" in any given news lede with "Fat Tony," MAD LIBS-style, and see if it comes across any different.
E.g. "Fat Tony tested by attacks, politically explosive investigations":
Exactly. The things we don't like about Russia and China have more to do with the way their leaders tell citizens what they must think. China seems to have shushed Jack Ma, presumably because he was getting too prominent, and it now has imprisoned the very old head of an independent HongKong newspaper. Putin seems to have killed several dozen oligarchs who were insufficiently supportive of the invasion of Ukraine.
Another word for the trend is totalitarianism. That our tech hotshots seem happy to help the FBI and DHS censor social media and silence pesky dissidents suggests that learning to code is not enough to understand the importance of citizen participation in a democracy.
If one didn't know better one might conclude the Emperor is starting to realize he has no clothes. Keep shining the light Matt, it is assisting your vision too!
I’ve been thinking the same thing. The fact that the twitter files received a congressional hearing before major media acknowledged its existence is a turning point. I hope. I’m grateful for republicans. I feel dirty
Stay safe Matt. You might be in danger from these psychopaths.
For sure. Please don’t get Arkancided and wake up with multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the back of the head. And most definitely stay away from nailguns….
"Arkancided "
Ok, that was funny. Never heard it put that way before.
Haha, yeah….it’s just a crazy old “conspiracy theory” with a 50+ body count attributed to it. I’m sure there’s absolutely nothing tied to that famous first family from Arkansas. Pure coincidence. (Legal Disclaimer: This is satire and in no way to be construed as truth, fact or I’ll intentioned. *brought to you by Pfizer*).
Yeah, the only job more dangerous than working for that family is Junior Security Officer on one of Capt Kirk's away teams....
Was just thinking about Epstein donee Stacy Plackett.
Like that dude that just went up against the Clintons......found with a shot to the chest, no gun in sight, hung from a tree, but yeah, it was a "suicide."
The bankers were killing off people during the Great Financial Crime Spree too. There was one title dude who was suicided by nine shots from a nail gun. But, of course, he did that all by himself.
Did all of you guys just turn commentary about Matt's thoughts on civil liberties into a Vince Foster dystopia? Really?
One of the perennial charms of the Racket News threads. Taibbi closes his piece mentioning that among other things he was accused by the subcommittee of promoting conspiracy theories...and then the loyal commenters get down to business...
When the police came to the White House after finding Vince Foster’s body, the Clinton people were desperately carting files out of his office. Which suggests that they had no advance warning.
It’s also worth noting that Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape, is still alive, four decades later.
Why kill someone when the media are ready to bury them for you?
I’ve heard it for years but I have a well worn tinfoil hat. Pray for Matt, it’s a war of good vs evil. I’ve experienced supernatural protection in times of trouble, it’s real.
Prayer work's. Truth is light.
Prayer is very real for me. Had many miracles in my life the last few years.
Two words: Mark MIddleton. Look it up.
'Arkancided'?
Refers to the statistically improbable number of Clinton associates who’ve died under mysterious circumstances.
Jeez, Matt sure deserves better readers.
It’s a common term, I thought. I pray often for the truth tellers and their protection.
I don't think he's talking about you when he says Matt deserves better readers.
Because people like the Clintons would never murder someone right?
Gaddafi, captured by her drones, beaten, then sodomised with a knife, then tortured to death, would disagree, but he can't because Hillary had him killed. And then laughed and laughed about it.
Your mere skepticism is meaningless.
Billary said, "We came, we saw, he died."
Then I think her leaked emails set the record straight when it changed that to, "We came, we saw, I needed someone to murder so I could prove my presidential bona fides, he died."
Admittedly not as catchy as the edited version.
They’re ruthless. How many people died mysteriously in the hotel just before testifying? I lost track of the count. & the child trafficking in their home state.. it goes on& on..
As is your entire comment.
It was a joke.
For those that don't mind a Clinton murder joke, check out the clip of Norm MacDonald on "The View".
Presumably
https://youtu.be/Z3PP_SWHUQQ?t=108
For those who want people to watch something, include a link. Thanks.
Amazing how little they comprehend that with Norm, half the joke is the absurdity of the delivery
Thanks, I’m starving for comedy. Seems it’s been cancelled.
The best possible sign of Matt's influence and reach would be for him to have readers from all walks of life. I think it's a very positive sign that he even has readers like you.
What the fuck does that mean?
He does. When do you go back to WaPo?
I'm not necessarily saying all of those accusations are true, but when Hillary Clinton asked whether it would be possible to drone Julian Assange and made it clear she wasn't joking after people initially laughed, I wouldn't put much past her or Bill.
Hillary is clearly that rare thing, a female psychopath. And for a psychopath humans are just dots, and if one of those dots stops moving?
“Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stop moving — forever? If I offered you twenty thousand for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”
— Harry Lime in The Third Man
Like you?
Why yes, as a matter of fact.
Like you?
I disagree. Even humorless drones (or "NPCs" as the kids call them nowadays) are welcome here.
They need to be here too , very much so.
Whitney Webb has covered the more unbelievable examples. Ron Brown and much of the Commerce Department, who were heavily involved in Chinagate (Hillary's model for Russiagate?), crashed in Croatia, killing many including several who survived the crash or were involved at the airport. Ron Brown infamously was found to have a bullet hole in his skull.
These things happen. With regularity in America now.
I remain committed to knowing nothing about Arkanciding, including the two guys who died and the third guy who changed his identity.
heh..
By stay safe I hope you don't mean stay quiet. https://youtu.be/1NVnfM_H7TY
It might be wise to hire a food taster, at the very least.
Broad fucking daylight. Any broadcast that'll have home. Stay as loud and public as ya can ,Matt.
These fuckers are just gonna be amazingly vile history some day.
Can't come soon enough.
They are not necessarily trying to silence Matt, what they are trying to do is scare the hell out of anyone who is even thinking about following in his footsteps.
Tow the party line and you can be a million dollar a year man, worshipped by millions. Tell the truth and you will wind up on SubStack.
I see it as a two-pronged approach. For someone as well known and respected as Matt (especially after that risible Congressional "panel"), Michael, Bari, etc. they are too big to simply scare into silence. So long as they don't pull a Scott Adams and say or write something that can get them formally cancelled by the SJW shock troops.
The only option the swamp really has is to discredit them, as that grotesque thing from the Virgin Islands and her co-conspirators attempted to do. Not only did they fail spectacularly, they embarrassed themselves and their party by coming off as both unbelievably petty and utterly uninformed about the subject.
The fear factor is directed at us proles. Speak up and risk being branded a domestic terrorist as the FBI bursts through your front door with a battering ram at 4 AM, tosses flash bangs into your infants crib, and shoots the family dog. That'll teach you to shut your mouth. And the reason why these sorts of stunts are played up on the MSM, to reinforce the "message" that you'd better toe the line. Or else.
Though as I write this, I'm recalling MTG and how many times a member of Congress can be SWATed....
I don't worry so much about Matt's bank. Sure, I wish he made Hannity or Maddow money (I wish you and I did too!), but I think he's happy being rich, and not needing to be super rich. Same with Glenn. More power to 'em.
The evildoers gangstalk anyone who speaks up.
100,000 subscribers x $50 yr. = $5,000,000 - whatever the fee substack charges
Yes, that's true, but most will never see that many. Point taken though.
substack is immensely more important than the old organizations we used to call the media but are now propaganda outlets staffed, as we see from twitter files, by government gs guys with one point to make. i see they're already setting up 'misinformation' rules for financial news.
every thinking person needs to get on here just like you. it's gonna be under surveillance just as sure as God made little green apples but it is where free people can stand in a public forum.
SubStack is where the great, the wonderful, Sy Hersh came to Truth Tell.
So yeah! :)
Substack is a treasure trove of truth (pardon the alliteration), unfortunately it still falls far outside the mainstream for most of America's brain dead muppets. SS exists for those of us seeking the unvarnished facts -- which, to paraphrase Jack Nicolson, most people just can't handle, let alone be bothered to search for.
Well, that's his business revenue. He has people on his payroll.
But he's doing all right.
per hundred thousand
They charge 10% of subscriber fee https://substack.com/ scroll down to “Substack basics” ... It’s free to get started on Substack. If you turn on paid subscriptions, Substack will keep a 10% cut of revenues for operating costs like development and customer support. There are no hidden fees and we only make money when writers do.
Although strangely DWS (another psychopath or sociopath btw) was like "You make an awful lot of money, don't you?" I don't doubt that she and the others are trying to intimidate everyone into being good boys and girls, but that remark of hers seems to be at odds with the message they want to send.
Or drive...
https://youtu.be/5QAPdXqnrAA
#michaelhastings
Hastings wrote in his book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan," that he received a death threat from a former McChrystal staff member.
"We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write," the staffer threatened, according to Hastings, who calmly responded: "Well, I get death threats like that about once a year, so no worries."
Hastings went on to say: "I wasn't disturbed by the claim. Whenever I'd been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me."
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conspiracy-theories-abound-michael-hastings-death-article-1.1377392
Dim-witted, poor-impulse-control psychopaths.
I'm worried about that too. They seem to hate him as much as they do Assange.
The key ID feature was when government charged Assange with rape allegations, a few months after WikiLeaks published the Manning documents. Taibbi will probably soon see pedo charges. Fabricate and pin the most hated of sex crimes on him in order to turn the public.
God I hope not, but I'd be foolish to rule it out. Although didn't they try to make him out to be a rapist or something before, years ago?
I was thinking the same thing as I watched the questioning. I believe he's already been in danger for some time, protected somewhat by his large public following. If anything suspicious happens to him, God help the response.
A personal commitment to share Substack articles and expand the reach and impact of subscription journalism coupled with a centered shift in personal conversation toward preservation of the Republic and the Constitution supported by letter writing campaign's to American elected political leadership.
As a homeowner fighting foreclosure and an anti-foreclosure advocate, I received FOUR death threats. FOUR. And one came from the legislatorsat my Statehouse. These corrupt fuckers mean business. Fortunately, I told each fucker that I had a huge 51 state network and if they killed me, I would become a martyr, so bring it on!
I’ve been fighting banks 21 years. Won vs US Bank now I’m winning vs Wells. They did try to break into my house and broke into my car, and stole my dog house which was weird. But when they threatened me on YouTube I called in my network who went crazy with comments. YouTube shows your video more with a bunch of comments so it backfired on them! They’ve tried other tactics hasn’t stopped me.
I finally settled when I caught the appellate court fabricating a document to unlawfully dismiss my case. I got their fraud captured in court certified documents. And all the sudden, the crooked banks were willing to settle. I moved and was able to buy a house outright with the settlement. Good luck to you! And good luck to the upcoming victims of bank fraud
Finally found this. That’s good they settled. Fraud upon the court has no statute of limitations.
I settled with US Bank but then my money went into my rental for extraordinary repairs & attorneys fees for years of illegal evictions - now Wells Fargo owes that to me!! That’s fight #2.
Trust me I wish I had just bought a house then instead of standing on me lease but my autistic son didn’t want to move then. Had no idea that despite hiring attorneys I would be in this situation nine years later.
What are the words "might be" doing in there? Of course he, and others similarly situated, are in danger. The only question is to what degree.
My hope is that he can be as lucky as Glenn, who's arguably been a thorn in the side of the establishment for longer than Matt has, but whom up until now the establishment has only tried to discredit as opposed to imprisoning or "disappearing" him.
I didn't know there was any other kind, other than "grave".
yes these people are evil if ever there was evil.
I’m kinda glad this is finally sinking in. The Left does not play by the rules and they take no prisoner. If calling yourself Republican is too hard to swallow, well at least you can take sancage in knowing they won’t dynamite your house in the night.....
If you don't think both sides are abhorrent, you haven't been following politics very long. Remember, the right assassinated JFK, MLK, RFK, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton.
Elijah Muhammad is not the “right” by any stretch of the imagination. Malcolm X actually met with the KKK in the early 60s-nothing came of it, but he was objectively in far more physical danger from his own people than literal white racists.
The mafia/mob assassinated JFK & likely RFK as well.
Uhh, if that's what you believe.....?
I didn't catch where he said he had information leading to the arrest and conviction of Hillary Clinton. [evil grin]
No kidding. If I were in Matt's shoes -- or Shellenberger's or Bari Weiss' -- I'd be very wary of my surroundings, who's lurking in the shadows or whatnot. For the deep state, it's probably a very small step from the type of systemic censorship that these journalists have documented to the type that's biologically permanent.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Matt. You take the most flack when you’re directly over the target. The psychopaths go full on mentally ballistic when they get called out for their Machiavellian schemes and scams. Wear the old term “Muckraker” with great pride. I’m proud to support your Substack (I think it’s some kind of webpage, or something, I’m not really sure). :/
Did you think both Matt and Michael Shellenberger were too laid back in their responses, especially since those asking the questions were aggressive and rude? His response to Wasserman-Schultz, whose face looks like it's made out of rubber, was particularly laid back. Her statement suggested he was just prostituting himself to make money on the Twitter files, as opposed to a journalistic endeavor to bring the truth to the American people. I know it's his style. Citizens United allowed the corporate world the opportunity to give lots of money to candidates of their choice, since their just people, right? Our politicians take their money to finance their campaigns and the money givers get top priority on their agenda, as opposed to those who elected them into office. Now that's a good example of prostituting one's self.
I really don’t think that. I do think that Matt and Mike were trying to keep their composure in what was sometimes a very hostile environment. The mistake they made was thinking that they were going to appear before a congressional committee that would be reasonable, respectful and thoughtful; and that they could use a logical thought process structure to talk about the issue at hand. I think they did a fine job considering the circumstances. My personal verbal reaction, had I been in their shoes, would have made Caligula blush with shame. I do my best to treat people with kindness and respect in the real world - which is why it’s so disheartening to have watched two good journalists, who were trying their best to report the truth, go through such a disgusting silly ordeal.
I am shocked by how calm they were in the footage I’ve seen. This is a treacherous situation, reminiscent of the Moscow Show Trials. Seeing powerful politicians spinning scurrilous narratives—as Matt has exposed above—is not the hallmark of a healthy democracy but of a burgeoning tyranny.
I really hoped he would turn the tables during the hearing and declare that the seated representatives are public servants, sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes the 1st Amendment. It might do the public some good to see the accredited, talented, courageous journalist give a needed, succinct civics lesson. Yes, restraint is most often prudent, but the slumbering masses need a jolt of truth.
Public Servants? No, "That's not how this works."
Again. The Twitter file's happened because of our personal investment in subscription journalism and commitment to a new healthy truth/fact based national dialogue. WE'RE WINNING!! The Republican Party is malleable right now and America is watching and listening.
Yea but because capitalists bit them in the ass.
Twitter gets bought, then Matt et al, whom Musk knew, for sure, from their independent work, supported by us, get unfettered access.
But for that how would anyone really know how far our government has fallen to ideological zealots?
This must be how ordinary people felt about McCarthy, but even that isn’t on this scale.
Today, I sense extreme economic danger to us all from our last weekends (effective) $19T bank guarantee nationalizing that systemic risk.
This administration is wreckless, our corporate leaders often act like idiots, and most hiring is DEI.
Matt and a few others can help turn that tide.
I’ll support them as much as possible.
I like your positivity!
The dying cockroach position doesn't help anybody. Most of the psyop is to talk over the top of healthy human reality (our Constitution is healthy human) and convince us we're powerless.
It occurs to me that an Oscar slap gets more MSM attention than actual scandals now.
Burgeoning tyranny?
Touché! But you know there’s plenty of room for this to get much worse. I’m writing this from Paris, which means a thought criminal like me can still travel. And here we are all happily, angrily blathering against the state. These are no small things. Magadan is a probable destination for this show. Until the final destination I plan to enjoy the dying embers of Western Civ.
Too many people think it can't happen here.
The best way to keep people imprisoned is to make sure that they never know that they are in prison.
That said, the establishment's increasing reliance on overt censorship and open repression of dissent is not a sign that the establishment is feeling self-assured. Quite the opposite.
I just closed my LinkedIn account who censored my posts to SBV execs. Fuck the censorship industrial complex. I wont play in their games anymore. No more social media for me. Ever.
Just read that airlines will soon require than anyone who flies with them has to provide a "mugshot".
Every minute of every hour, they tighten it down more and more.
Try and tell a zoomer about this stuff and they literally don't any concept of what you are talking about.
Blather is fine, that's the genius of freeish speech, you can say anything. Now go find someone who will listen.
While they're not (yet) in chains, Matt and Mike were brought before the Inquisitors for blathering against the state.
Exploding, and metastasizing.
Just wait till they get the surveillance AI's online.
"Not a sparrow will fall"
Let's do lunch some day soon as I've always wanted to hear a first hand account of what really went down at the "Moscow Show Trials."
Public wouldn't have seen it if he did that.
No one is saying they had to act in kind, just more assertive in their statements and their responses. Look, you might disagree with a friend and when you do you're polite, respectful of your differences, but not when you are dealing with adversaries, and they are. No one is saying he should rant and rave, just more assertive, louder. I'm not saying he should have gotten up and hit two timing Wasserman-Schultz in the head.
Point taken. Respect.
The truth is that the congresspeople were not there to hear Matt and Mike's testimony. They were there to get their opinions into the Congressional record. They certainly did not want M & M's comments to be entered into the record. One day the record will be referenced, and we can't have the truth being represented there. Only one narrative is allowed.
“Be careful as we might release The Wasserman Files!”
Wasn’t she removed from being democrat party election hack, I mean head a few years back? Seem to remember something she was involved in. I was a democrat then. Not anymore.
In 2016, Wasserman was removed from her position as head of the Democratic National Committee, after WikiLeaks e-mails showed that she was improperly tilting the Democratic nomination process towards Hillary and away from Bernie.
She is still a congressperson from Florida, and quite a piece of work, as her questioning of Matt demonstrated in glorious technicolor.
She was also chief cheerleader for Hillary during the '08 primaries, saying over and over that Democrat "Superdelegates" could decide to vote for Hillary even if Obama had won their state.
Thanks. I remember now. It was kind of disappointing at the time. Not that it’s at all surprising now. Cheaters.
Yes, but only about 1% of the American public remembers that, if they ever knew, which is unlikely.
Don't be disheartened. Act.
"The mistake they made was thinking that they were going to appear before a congressional committee that would be reasonable, respectful and thoughtful; and that they could use a logical thought process structure to talk about the issue at hand."
Good guess. Why would anyone above the age of seven believe in that ahistorical, fact free nonsense?
Yep. But that was the point of their exercise. Obfuscation of their own corruption and ineptitude.
No, Matt& Michael were not” too laid back.” They exemplified calmness & integrity. Such very rare traits these days in the humans on the planet.
Yes, but in my opinion, not in this case. My point is not to be critical, and some are responding as if that was my intent. It is not.
Fair enough, but to your point, in preparing witnesses, the lawyerly advice is to say as little as possible under cross-examination and wait for redirect, which is what they both did.
And politically, the Dems hurt themselves quite enough.
Maybe so, but not if they are on TV and the world is watching.
Exactly.
They were not on trial.
Yes, I do think they were too laid back. It would have been cool if they'd had an Al Pacino style "I'd take a flame thrower to this place" speech ready to go, but DWS probably would have wheeled out the until-now-secret Congressional guillotine on the spot.
More seriously, IMHO, Matt should have told DWS that when he took on the Twitter Files, he actually expected he would lose both money and social media followers because millions of people like DWS would be really angry with him.
Put me down for flame thrower. DWS started her blather with a reference to ethics. Personally I would have asked how a person who resigned from the DNC for corrupting democracy could have the gall.
Tim Canova has lots of nice things to say about Debbie and Brenda Snipes, who illegally destroyed the paper ballots in the 2016 primary.
As Hillary has said "No evidence, no crime."
Perfect imagery, she is the creature from hell. I'm sending several hundred dollars to Bernie's campaign just thinking maybe no more war, and she's two timing him looking for a Clinton win, the devil herself. Now Bernie with his sweetheart welcome for Clinton wouldn't get a dime from me.
Hillary branded Bernie as a Putin Puppet (along with Trump, Jill Stein, Tulsi and likely many others).
At least when Rachel Maddow did the same-- "literally"-- to OAN they took her to court (of course the judge ruled that Maddow-- who probably makes more money than Taibbi- is an "entertainer" not a news-person, and thus there was no defamation, she was just exercising her Free Speech. OAN was ordered to pay Maddow's >$200,000 legal fees).
I can't stand Maddow, and at one time I liked her, but she and those like her is one of the reasons democrats have become so ruthless. They were given free rein during the Trump years. They could push the lie of Russia-gate and garner support from the press and even left wing sites, like Amy Goodman. They were supported by the deep state and courted by neocons and any celebrity could spew Trump hate even calling for his death, so is it any wonder they behave in in an authoritarian manner in regard to dealing with the issue of freedom of speech? They lie when it comes to calling the Jan 6 riot an insurrection, then push for an unconstitutional Jan 6 committee to substantiate their lie. Their authoritarian demeanor supported by many was on full display at the meeting with Taibbi.
Sanders never even fought back against the smear that PTUIN! supported him. Nader has washed his hands of this man. That says a lot.
That's the right call by Nader, although sadly Nader believed RussiaGate. I know that no one is right about everything, but it was still disappointing for me.
Sanders has voted for war repeatedly. After Sander voted no on the invasion of Iraq in 03, in his cute performative way, he then voted several times to fund it when few were paying attention. He has since said that he regretted that, which is yet more performance.
Bernie's role in the great psychodrama is as the designated rebel. Sanders and his wife Jane are "good friends" with the Bidens, they have dinner parties.
I have come to understand that. The dems were not always so self serving. Thomas Franks books take you on their journey of their decline, and citizens united passed by the Supreme Court really didn't help.
Thanks for the book tip, Fran...yeah, Thomas Frank is among the most perceptive obervers of what is going on. I'll check it out.
Spot on, Bill Owen. Yes, the Bern is a putz of the first order...another example of the hypocrisy of the system....Trump remains the only national politician in my lifetime who has taken this system on, which is why he is still so popular in spite of his many flaws.
Trump didn't and has never "taken the system on." This "system" you so casually and opaquely reference is the same "system" that has enriched (in your lifetime) a charlatan and serial criminal such as your man Trump while simultaneously impoverishing millions of Americans.
Trump merely took advantage of a "system" that was clearly screwing 90% of the population and rode his revanchist rhetoric to electoral victory. Helped greatly by the crude and cynical political strategy the cretinous Steve Bannon and other fascist whisperers whispered in his ear along the way.
Trump is, however, the first politician in your "lifetime" (how many years stacked up in your "lifetime?") to say the quiet part out loud, the sort of stuff which has always attracted and turned on the worst elements of American society. Always. From the very beginning. You can see the zebra, Pacificus---now start looking for the stripes.
Nope. This isn't a movie it's our live's. Always remain calm when dealing with viper's.
"Did you think both Matt and Michael Shellenberger were too laid back in their responses....?"
One of the things I learned back in the days of USENET was to drive my opponents crazy by never losing my cool, never turning nasty, never failing to be polite. (Something I had gotten from martial arts long ago in a different world.) Those who are stupid or evil or fools can't help revealing themselves; you don't have to do it. Although in the case of the goons Mr. Taibbi was up against, I might have let a light snicker escape for the benefit of DWSh and Tinfoil Hat Man.
Just to see Matt slightly shaking his head in wonder and Michael's faint smile was enough for me...superior in every way to their interrogators.
They looked weak. They got beat.
Matt and Michael did well, under the circumstances. You can't mount much of a case if you're not allowed to speak.
True.
No one said they had to act like their interrogators, but I do think they were too low key in their responses which might make people see them as intimidated, and provide their accusers with more credibility. Their distain also says, I don't hold you, or what you claim in high regard.
I was not impressed. This is not usenet.
I really like Matt, but he is not a mud wrestler.
I think both were completely flabbergasted by the total lack of ethics displayed by Plackett, W-Schultz and Garcia. The calm responses they gave in response to these evil, Stasi inquisitors made me envision the ocean of difference between Matt and Mike, and the complete abandonment of any pretense by the democrats to follow our Constitution.
I had the same take on it that you did, because we know their work and the truth of it, but democrats watching didn't see it the way we did, and their silence only made them look guilty of the accusations thrown at them. People I know who are democrats have already expressed that opinion to me, and you can't say anything to them.
Perhaps, but committed progressives squeed so hard during the hearings they damaged their vocal chords. They debate like schoolchildren for real, it is not performative.
https://youtu.be/fH-z61ghvV8?t=38
I saw clips of Turley responding to Wasseman-Schultz and he came across as lethargic, like he skipped a good night's sleep. The democrats during Trump's term in office came off as an authoritarian lot, and they go lots of backing even from the left who hated Trump and used no sense of objectivity in their reporting and even swallowed up Russia-gate. That kind of back-up including that which they got from the FBI and CIA can make people feel invincible, and make them feel like no one should question them. They're following a political agenda of world wide hegemony. now that's pretty authoritarian. I just read Taibbi voted for Joe Biden, Good grief.
I do think their laid back demeanour was an asset and added to their credibility. It amplified the ridiculousness of those who jumped at every chance to chastise them. They reminded me of horrible abusive teachers that love the abuse of power bestowed in the process..."I didnt ask you a question...I want more time".
Well, they did come across as abusive authority figures, you see it and I do, and like myself you support his work and it's importance in regard to free speech. However most of the audience watching don't even know him, or his work on Twitter, and the majority are not even paying attention. Johnathan Turley was also cross examined and here is a headline from and article that quotes him, Turley: 'Twitter Files Hearing Was A "Soviet Show Trial," Democrats Used It To Attack Free Speech And A Free Press." I saw a short video clip of Turley going through the same thing, and he seemed rather taken aback by their accusations and demeanor, at least in that short clip. You certainly don't want people to see that the democrats can render you speechless, or have the power to do so.
I don’t think being more aggressive would have been a good idea. In fact they were probably hoping they would - because then they can call them partisans.
Being more assertive does not mean one has to be aggressive.
No, they weren't too laid back in that setting. They should have never gone there in the first place. But, it is not the place to fight back or argue. It was a lose-lose situation for them always.
Probably your right, no winning them over, but they did have an audience that were watching from home.
Agree with you, but also understand it would be hard to crawl down to DWS’ level to legitimize her comments with a one-on response.
Yup…”kill ‘em’ with kindness” is a philosophy I try to subscribe to. Those kinds of people generally have no problem with showing themselves to be the mental midgets that they truly are. I’ll take truth and integrity over posing as some kind of holier than thou fraud everyday of the week, and twice on Sunday.
That was Matt's best burn there, saying that the info from the hack was true.
I can't stand her either. No, he doesn't have to crawl under the table and scream, and call her names, just more assertive.
I agree, though I think for the most part they weren't really allowed to. They would get forced into yes/no answers, cut off when trying to explain, or simply not even being given the opportunity to respond. I felt that Matt and Michael were taking their oaths seriously, and so felt compelled to give truthful answers that were necessarily complicated, and those complications made them look wishy washy or uncertain, because these assholes are so used to blanket bullshit definitive statements, like the kinds they were making themselves.
I found the format of these hearings to be really unhelpful for actually getting at the truth. I feel like maybe witnesses should be given an opportunity to respond after each committee member has their 5 minutes, especially since the whole point of the meeting is to hear from the witnesses.
I don't disagree that they were shut down, but it would have been better had they spoken up, and louder. I've seen Glen Greenwald really stand up to people like them. I'm not being critical of them personally, and I know Matt is more subdued in his responses, but it's like the whole thing went no where. The only thing I came away with is knowing the decision I made to disassociate myself from the democratic party during the Trump years was reaffirmed as a very wise decision.
I saw a clip of Matt Walsh's recent appearance before a committee and that was a great example of not taking any shit from these assholes. I thought he did a great job of making them look stupid.
Thanks, Ill look that up.
They were limited as to what they could do. They tried to speak up many times and were overruled/quieted by the questioner. "You don't get to ask questions" was said many times.
The reptilian part of my brain would've liked it a lot if he'd answered DWS by telling her to go fuck herself, or if he theatrically yawned while Allred was lecturing him, stuff like that. However, I think that might have been doing them a favor; just as people willing to say so are now pointing out how childish and petty the Democrats were, if Matt and/or Michael had been confrontational then there would be all of these pieces in The Atlantic and The Daily Beast and so on about "Look at how these 'journalists' talked to Democrats, clearly they have an axe to grind and that's one more reason why none of you should trust them."
I also don't know what it takes to be charged with contempt of Congress, whether being rude right back could have set them up for that or not.
I am not saying they should be confrontational, just a lot more assertive in their position. I have felt for quite some time that the democrats during the Trump years were quite authoritarian and the reason they could be, is that the media and many on the left supported their lie of Russia-gate and most went on a brutal attack of Trump, with no shades of grey anywhere. They even managed to impeach him in the house. They were supported by the deep state, and the neocons even shifted to their side, which is telling. If they didn't instigate Jan 6, I feel they were complicit on some level, and then made the claim a riot was an insurrection. They moved on with a January 6 comm, which was unconstitutional on many levels, and even tried to prevent Tucker Carlson from showing a different perspective on what happened on that day. . No one is saying they should have been rude, but definitely supported their case more forcefully. The democrats were engaged in preventing freedom of speech on Twitter and the CIA backs them up when it comes to Hunter Biden's laptop. Russian disinformation? The Intercept wouldn't even allow Greenwald his story on the lap top. The very fact that the democrats came across in that combative and disrespectful manner shows just how authoritarian they have become. Yeah they should have been confronted. Their hatred of Trump even gave free rein to hate speech calling for Trump's death, by non other then two bit actors.
All of that is true about Democrats. Never thought I'd live to see the day when Republicans would be better or less bad than Democrats, but it's here. (And since people like MTG were victims of the very censorship that they're arguing against, I can believe that at least some of them are sincere about wanting to put an end to censorship instead of just grandstanding to make themselves look righteous.)
The question is what to do about it, either to stop them cold or failing that to show them that they can't do this kind of crap without pushback of one kind or another. You could be right about it being better for Matt and Michael to have handled it differently. And I could be wrong about what I say next, and here's what I say next...
I'm thinking about how these exchanges play to the normies who see them. Matt and Michael are being pretty civil, all things considered, and the Democrats in that hearing are coming across like bullies. Like, yes, authoritarians. Jimmy Dore's video about this, which I haven't watched it yet, is entitled "Dems Attack ‘Twitter Files’ Journalists & Completely Clown Themselves!" I want to believe that this is what most people who saw those exchanges took away as well.
The vast majority of people don't watch this. I think most people are not tuned into what is going on at all. My brother with a phd in neurology thinks Maddow can tell him all he needs to know. I rest my case. I watched Jimmy Dore on on this one, and Aaron Mate is there as well. Good listening. I was always a registered democrat and during the Trump years became an independent, which means voting Republican also.
I totally felt the same way, particularly given how one sided the format is in who gets to control the conversation. I also think there needs to be more pushback when people demand yes or no answers. I get that it can stop a hostile witness from waffling, but telling a person what answer they are allowed to give is basically not allowing them to answer at all. You might as well say, "please just answer yes to the following question"...
you nailed it.
Totally.
But that's just who Matt is. Schellenberger, who I don't know, did better, but not much better. Greenwald would have gutted them.
Matt's strength is his writing.
An experienced litigator would be the only people to gut those fuckers. All of those people are attorneys, so they have years of experience promoting lies as facts.
they are different skills. Though, I think Greenwald could come off as shrill. I dont have a lot of respect for people like DWS but they know how to play to their base and the MSM will aid them. I would be very wary to get in a shouting match with them in this forum.
The old sayig dont argue with an idiot, people wont know the difference pops to mind.
As noted elsewhere in this discussion, the committee did not allow the witnesses to respond. They could have raised Vyshinsky from the dead and had him conduct the "questioning." Greenwald would never have been allowed to do his lawyerly-discursive thing.
you are right, though members on oth sides tend to do that - it is very disappointing
The first time i saw Greenwald he was pretty young, and was confronted by two older politicians that thought he was easy prey, oh, but were they mistaken.
Glenn Greenwald is an attorney as well as being a journalist. It takes a litigator to understand how to think fast when you are being berated by attorneys from legislative bodies. They count on that.
I think Matt and Michael did fantastic for not being attorneys!
Karen, almost everyone I know is a democrat, and I have spoken to a few who saw what went on, and thought people like Wasserman Schultz put them in their place. I am not being critical of them on a personal level, but already some people have said to me they couldn't, defend their position because they had none. Democrats have become loud, aggressive, and combative and their supporters are no different. Johnathan Turley was subjected to the same crap and also felt pushed into a corner, and wrote a scathing piece on them.
Ugh, that sounds awful, Fran. Well, my other reply to you described what I hoped was true, and I really hope that although people who are dumb enough to still vote blue no matter who feel that way, that those who do not vote blue no matter who and those who have given up on the Democratic Party entirely comprise a majority of Americans and are disgusted by the way DWS and those other shitheads acted.
You need new friends.
They wouldn’t have showed up for him
I would suspect replying in kind would have played into their hands
No, to me it looked like they got the upper hand, not that I believed them, but no doubt many did. Just look at how they pushed the lie of Russia-gate, and it's been disputed and yet many if not most people continue to believe it.
Human moral reality is not what the psyop say's it is.
Honestly, I think this is a really dumb question. They were fine. They were exactly as they should’ve been. They were perfect.
Well, not to offend, but you sound like the democrats during that hearing who want me to tell you what you want to hear. Forget about it.
Haha
Took an extended gander at your substack. Heartened to see Taibbi's still attracting the Walter Lippmann types to HIS substack...
You can only be a whistleblower if you are accusing Republicans. Ridiculous
As a former DNC member, I'm truly embarrassed to have ever been associated with what's now the Democratic Party.
https://beyondspin.wordpress.com/2023/03/12/welcome-to-my-upside-down-world/
Welcome to my upside down world
I hear ya Beyond Spin. my parents were both very active Texas Democrats in the 70’s and 80’s. I remember going to fundraisers and voting drives with them. I was taught that the Democrats were the working class party that stood up for the little guys and fought like Hell to protect free speech, free thinking and the First Amendment.
well, I don’t have to explain what happened since then, but lets just say I will never vote blue no matter who for the long, foreseeable future.
I am disgusted that I spent decades voting for these people while passionately trying to persuade other to vote the same.
maybe it was always like this. maybe I am too naive.
at one point tho, I thought they were the good guys.
this is too sad...
"...at one point tho, I thought they were the good guys."
A lot of us did. And maybe, once upon a time, they Dems were "the good guys."
But not now.
#metoo. I really don’t know if they were ever the good guys, but I was raised to think they were and turned 18 the year Bush won, which reinforced that belief of mine we he said he opposed foreign intervention then blew up Iraq for no reason. I really didn’t even start paying attention to any Republican candidate until 2016ish. I’m grateful I ate some humble pie, but having young kids feel immense guilt I helped usher in some of the lunatics destroying their generation and robbing them of freedoms they have to be taught they should have been entitled to.
I’ve been registered all parties through the year s. Sadly they work for themselves now, not for us. None of them should be so rich as public servants!
No, you weren’t naive. Me and most of my family and friends were in the same boat. The Democrats actually WERE the good guys back then, but now the script has been flipped and they are firmly in bad guy camp, along with most Republicans. It truly is the Uniparty. Sadly, most of my family and peers are still in the “blue no matter who” camp...
The lesson here is never be too sure you're the good guys, because that's how you become the bad guys. We've all passed this test this time around. It's just so distressing how many failed it.
Truth be told, the politic that has informed my adult life has been a choice between the Bad Guys and the Worse Guys...I think that still holds.
Flipped over!!! Keep sharing truth!
‘We Had To Destroy The Republic In Order To Save It.’
I feel you pain, BP. World peace, civil liberties & the supporting the working class used to be Democrat core values. Now they are deemed the telltale signs of a right wing terrorist.
I’m waiting for some swine at the podium to announce that they had to destroy the republic in order to save it, because that is what they are accomplishing. September 11th with its Patriot Act started the process, but the Trump chimera really got the ball rolling. Covid hysteria accelerated the process of stifling debate. January 6th was this regime’s Reichstag moment, petrifying the faithful into braying for establish concentration camps.
Back when the body politic had a functioning mind, most people saw blanket censorship, surveillance, propaganda & perpetual war as pillars of tyranny, not democracy. Today these are the core values of the Democrat faithful.
"I’m waiting for some swine at the podium to announce that they had to destroy the republic in order to save it"
They did.
Build Back Better wtf To build back, you need to destroy.
Things were going very well, this lying old guy gets power, and announces the tag line Build Back Better. Combined with Obama's Third Term, we were warned.
So I take it you believe that our nation's infrastructure is just fine and needs little upkeep or rebuilding? If so you'll especially enjoy the collapse of the power grid when and if electric cars become affordable to more than Delorean collectors, bitcoin enthusiasts and monied liberals.
Left/Right is a false construct introduced to confuse and control.
Until the majority of Americans come to understand that they are being tag-teamed, that power plays good cop, bad cop with us, then nothing will change, nothing can change.
"Both" sides agree on all the "important" stuff, like endless war, the wealth transfer, and condition free LOVE for Israel, just to name a few.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
― Gore Vidal
It's not upside down..
It's Communism. These people will lock you up if can get away with it.
They don't care and won't stop until a clear majority can see things clearly
No it's not "communism". It's fascism, the merger of state and corporate power
https://beyondspin.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/fascism-is-the-merger-of-state-and-corporate-power/
Vasily Grossman wrote the "War and Peace" for WWII in the two-volume "Stalingrad" and "Life and Fate".
I can't recommend them enough, and they provide a wonderful look at Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany. They are both hellish societies, but you realize that what we all hate about them is not the economic system. (one derives from capitalism and one from communism). What makes them awful is that they are authoritarian police states based on fear, where everyone is afraid to talk.
That's the danger we are facing now in the US, and what the people need to do is put aside theoretical differences and unite behind removing the bought politicians of both parties and scaling back the national security state spying and policing agencies.
Exactly. I am amazed that people don't see it.
Instead of nationalizing the private sector, the left has co-opted it to push its ideology.
The problem is that if you bring it up, the left says it is impossible because fascism is "right wing." Why? because Wikipedia says so. So it can't be true.
Communism?
Communism didn't put giant corporations in control of the Congress and the Senate.
Why don't you get the ball rolling by starting to see things more clearly.
I'm a longtime voter for Democratic Party candidates, but at this point am feeling extremely alienated from the party. Called up my Congressional rep today and spoke with an actual live staffer.
My Congresscritter isn't on the Weaponized Gov't Subcommittee, but I let him know that I was completely disgusted by his fellow party members' anti-First Amendment conduct and if he and his party wanted my vote they'd better start standing up for my rights.
It seems likely that in 2024 there will be a rematch in the presidential election. It also appears that the Democratic Party is doing everything in its power to lose that election. I don't think that the Republican Party is any better in general, probably worse in fact, but if the Democratic Party thinks I'm going to keep on showing up and filling in bubbles for them, then they've got another thing coming.
Thanks for the link
It is obviously a coordinated approach. My question, as it’s always been, is who exactly is in charge of this? Obviously a very destructive force but well organized and effective. It’s going to take more than these hearings to cleanse the body politic and it needs to be a very forceful campaign. What is it going to be?
You raise a great point and it’s something that I think of often. Qui bono? I don’t believe for one second that these people don’t know exactly what the game plan is. Who is the marionette master pushing us off the cliff is my question.
This is too coordinated, and quickly, to be a coincidental, random group. This is well thought out and carried out. Someone is giving specific instruction on a constant basis. I’m not suggesting that it’s one person exactly but it is at best a small group.
Yes it comes from groups like the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderburgs. It sounds like conspiracy theory until one actually researches it and realizes it’s true.
Conspiracies to gain and hold power, by whatever means, are totally real, and that's why they push back so hard on those of us who don't buy their elaborate facades and cover stories.
Obama, who came from nowhere, and who had accomplished little in his life, was clearly purpose-built by the deep state to take power. His mom, Sydney, was CIA too.
I agree. Obama was recruited from central casting. Vermont has a politician named Becca Ballint who mysteriously showed up in a small town, got elected a couple times to the state legislative and suddenly she gets elected as the state’s only US House representative with the help of a million dollars of crypto money from FTX which she refuses to return. Definitely a plant
There's small group running the plays in the US. My gut says Obama is one of the ring leaders. How to get those who aren't already sociopaths to go along with your wishes? Well, if they want to play big, they're drugged and wind up with compromising photos held against them (think child porn). Then they'll dance like a marionette. And the more they dance, the more money they get, and at that point are too far gone mentally to ever come back.
Exactly why we need information about Epstein clients and will never get it. Washington, Wall Street, judiciary, all compromised or blackmailed!
Yeah, Obama is a candidate but I think he’s just a front man. Just a jive talking Putney Swope con artist
I used to think that too, but remember Obama comes with a CIA background and from Chicago politics, which is as dirty as they come.
International criminal finance looted and destroyed capitalism in the name of capitalism. European's are being arrested for speech and thought crime's. Euthanasia law's have been expanded in some European countries and Canada to include those suffering anxiety and depression in some cases over social status and finances.
DNC/WEF/CCP/IMF Environmentalism = Access to cheap throw away labor/unhampered exploitation of all natural resources. --- They are slaver's and the same psychopath's who machine gunned women and children in Ludlow,Colorado, murdered striker's at Lawrence, Massachusetts and are driving the Cobalt trade in the Congo. It's not something else. International criminal finance doesn't like you or your Constitution.
You're using the possessive form incorrectly.
Plural nouns do not take the possessive form unless it demonstrates the following:
"The possessive form is used with nouns referring to people, groups of people, countries, and animals. It shows a relationship of belonging between one thing and another."
Example: Mike R.'s grammatical crimes are forgivable---if corrected immediately.
"..I know what I know... I said what I said.. that's a thing that I keep in the back of my head..."
Epstein worked for Mossad, this is clear.
Who cares who gets 'elected' even in a rigged, broken, system when all you have to do is blackmail the winner.
If they can't blackmail them, they buy them, and if that fails, they kill them.
In my opinion, much of this stems from covid. It created a frenzy and in the panic the bad guys slipped up and exposed themselves.
The pharmaceutical industry has captured media and congress. It is the number one revenue source for both of these groups. Imagine if it were discovered that the lab leak were caused by the joint efforts of the Pharma industry. Who else does gain of function benefit if not Pharma?
There is not enough equity in the Pharmaceutical industry to repay the damage caused to the planet by the careless release of this pathogen. I say it is the worst man made environmental disaster in history. If the Pharma giants were sued in a global class action, first their reputation would completely collapse. If found guilty, the resulting damage payments would bankrupt every one of them. Media would need a new revenue stream, and so would congressmen and senators.
No one is more motivated to hide the truth than these entities.
Democrats had the added benefit of relaxing election laws to the point of an easy fixing of the presidential race, which completely explains their unnatural alliance with any large corporate interest. Normally an alliance with any big corporation would be distasteful for Democrat constituents, but making Pharma the heroes with a "vaccine" satisfied the palates of the normally anti-corporate left.
https://www.pharmatimes.com/news/pfizer_to_build_r_and_d_facility_in_wuhan,_china_984211
The one entity that answers to no one. The administrative state.
COVID was used to get rid of Trump. He was an outlier and was fucking things up for the grand control machine. They had to create a crisis to exploit. It allowed the machine to extend their tentacles further into our society
I think it was a convenient by-product. Never let a crisis go to waste.
Marie Curie was not aware of what she was doing to her body, so I am giving pharma the benefit of the doubt by assuming it was an accident.
Covering this up this accident is not forgivable on the part of Pharma, Media and Democrat politicians. Neither is the Democrat's further exploiting the aftermath to rig an election.
It was likely a careless accident by not so smart scientists. This should never be done in a crowded city. Maybe Antarctica. It may be a way to attack cancer, so like nuclear energy, some good may come of it.
The potential or weaponization is worse than nukes. It does not dissipate, it propagates. It could be tuned to ethnicity. We have been warned. Immediate action is warranted.
I don’t think it was an accident, I think it was released on purpose.
And what entity would love to eliminate competition by limiting negotiating power to a body selected by easily bribed politicians via single payer?
Terrible example, Democrats want single payer no more than Republicans. Funny thing, though, it works incredibly well in every other developed country and many that aren't in that category (US is behind both Costa Rica and Morocco, for example, and literally one place better than Cuba). So, this is not the canard to hang yourself from.
I always liked the idea of single payer, as our medical system is best described by the screamed obscenities of the screwed-over.
However, at this point I would be unable to trust them not to mandate every single shitty untested pharma product they can push through.
Like, socialism would be great, if we could find a way to do it that doesn't involve socialists.
I would like to find out, but I more or less agree. Every country almost was over the top on Covid shots, for sure. And they all have universal healthcare. Actually, almost no one except us has it. We don't have universal healthcare and we were among the worst.
I think the US would find a way to screw it up.
"Single payer" is a term of art so negative, so uninspiring, and so weak, that it can only have been coined to help stop what we here in Canada simply call, "Healthcare". It's not 'free' of course but it is socialised, and despite the many lies, it works far better than what they have in America.
No one ever marched to "pay" for something.
I like to caution my "Progressive " friends to remember they may not always have their guys in power.
I ask them if they would like having Donald Trump in control of their health care.
That's trolling.
And which party promotes single payer, Obamacare, Medicare for all?
Starting in the late sixties, Democrats have been getting high on drugs literally and figuratively.
Why not The Party? As a team trying to obtain common benefits, like a corporation does. It would be odd if they weren't doing that, dumb as they may appear to be. Power, status, place, financial rewards. Certainly they would try to back each other up and pass around what they thought were clever strategies. Too bad for them that they're not very bright.
That's the terrifying thing, no one is in charge as Yanis Varoufakis discovered to his horror when he tried to stop the EU from burning down Greece's economy, decision making is so diverse and spread through a system evolved through corruption, there is no single position/person who can make a decision that obstructs or impedes the momentum of corruption, even if they wanted to. The odds of finding someone that 'wants to' are slim to none in the first place as people who may resist are winnowed out early on in their careers, so even if someone did have a come to jeez moment it doesn't matter because it would require about 57 more, many in obscure alleyways of the machine to also have an epiphany at the same time.
Exactly, "it's the system, stupid".
No one person can possibly even perturb its orbit, let alone 'fix' it.
Real change will only become possible if the people become conscious. Sadly the only way for them to become conscious is if we have real change.
Hillary Clinton has entered the chat.
Yes, the same Hillary who was Goldwater’s intern when he wanted to nuke the peasants of Nam and the same harridan who showed her objectivity on whistleblowers by insisting Snowden be brought home to “face the music”. No prejudice there, none.
I was thinking of telling Matt to avoid Arkansas
The Clintons are not living with the plebes in Arkansas. They're in Manhattan with the other lizard people.
The Clintons live in Chappaqua, in Westchester County, NY---not Manhattan. Interested in bullshit too, I see, which to your credit is largely the American Way.
It was meant as an example that people who cross them end up dead
No one controls the Hive Mind. It just exists.
There’s always a queen bee calling the tune.
No doubt it is a mass psychosis but it is a focused one using psychological techniques to control the masses exploiting insecurities and job paranoia. They are in high gear and entrenched now having taken over schools and the media. They have taken a long range methodical approach for years to reach this level of domination
The Left's Long March Through The Institutions. But who controls the left? I keep coming back to the Hive Mind / Borg.
Whatever "the left" is.
The Left is the Borg.
Yes, this movement in the US goes back to the Sixties with easily identified individuals and groups. They wanted the attention and benefits. It has evolved and been taken over by insidious, faceless and nameless manipulators with the clear goal of destroying this country from the inside
Mass opinion control is perfected science.
The left is hierarchical, that is for sure. I just think it is a mass psychosis and nobody is in charge.
Follow the money.
No one is "in charge". Think of this in terms of competing power centres run by psychopaths.
The owners of the world don't need to coordinate because they all think alike. They socialize together, go to the same schools, belong to the same clubs etc.
How to get to them? I don't know, but we can at least theoretically vote their managers out of office if we could put aside our differences. It's that small group versus the rest of us. (unfortunately we're not as tightly knit as they are)
But most of us are stupid, ignorant and lazy, so we got that going for us.
I think they all just drank their own koolaid. And just became a hive who lost all reason. It's been like that for a long time, but Trump totally sent them over the edge.
Trump didn’t send over the edge. They built him to send their thralls over the edge. An sadly it worked, and is still working.
Matt are you keeping up with this Proud Boys trial? Really crazy stuff going on. The prosecution sent over "complete" files not realizing that the files themselves showed deleted information. The prosecution reviewed emails between the defense and their attorneys. When this was coming out in the trial, the judge shut it down for the day and sent the jury home. Now the DoJ is claiming that this file is classified and was sent in error, therefore this evidence is inadmissible. Amazingly, the judge agreed.
Julie Kelly has been posting the evidence:
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1635287709286797312
I keep hearing how the FBI is mostly good people just trying to do their job. But here the FBI has destroyed evidence germane to the defense. Should I think that some high-level dirtbag is orchestrating all of these attacks against constitutionally protected freedoms? Can we all agree that regardless of how the Bureau became politicized, that politicization has infiltrated the ranks? It's trickle down politics.
The FBI is extraordinarily corrupt. People have rightly lost faith in the organization.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-fedsurrection-hoax
It occurred to me that the FBI and Fauci's NIH operate out of the same playbook: they create problems so they can get credit for creating solutions. Covid-19 and Jan 6 are exactly the same script.
It’s been corrupt since J Edgar.
Hey Brad! Is water still wet?
"I keep hearing how the FBI is mostly good people just trying to do their job."
----------
I think this is a result of a million TV shows with the agent who's "willing to do what it takes" to get "the bad guy". Can't buy that kind of PR.
More likely that they DID BUY that kind of PR. Same way you can see action movies made to promote shoot-them-up video games in the style of action play even if no such game is announced yet the idea is to make every movie market a game that can be merchandised.
The same way the laudable morals and ethics of FBI and police agents are promoted in movies and series.
Producers, directors, scriptwriters and stars have real power in determining the flavour of a scene. They have the power to insist on staff taking vaccines. If we can believe any of the exposures then stars are directed to do things they would rather not or tank their career, mostly with actresses but probably with actors too. We have proof in the elite status of some in Hollywood when we look at how they behaved towards plebs during this recent scam. They are a big part of the propaganda machine. Even the music industry is weaponised. popular new faces are groomed and given lyrics to sing that are written by a small group who can put any slant on a song.
Dale Cooper!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uxQjydfBOU&t=19s
It's called, "Copaganda" and we have been fed a never ending dose of it our whole lives. Millions now fervently believe that Harry Callahan could end all crime in the US, if only his "hands were not tied" by 'nonsense' like the Bill of Rights.
Not th3 case any longer. The FBI is corrupt, period. Maybe 1 in 1000 are decent at this point, orr have the spine to stand up for what is truth and proper.
I've got a childhood friend that's been an agent for several years now. His main concern is mostly just tracking down murderers and diddlers. He seems effective at that job. I wouldn't call him the best critical thinker in the world though.
When was the case? Under Hoover? Like when they were sending letters to MLK telling him that they only way out for him was to kill himself?
That letter, known as the "suicide letter," was sent to King in 1964 as approved and directed by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The letter, which was accompanied by an anonymous package containing recordings of King's extramarital affairs, accused King of being a "fraud" and a "dissolute, abnormal moral imbecile." The letter also suggested that King should take his own life to avoid the public exposure of his affairs.
The FBI's harassment of King was part of a larger effort by the agency, known as COINTELPRO (short for Counterintelligence Program), to undermine and discredit civil rights leaders and other political activists. The program involved the use of illegal surveillance, wiretapping, and other tactics to gather information and disrupt the activities of individuals and groups deemed to be subversive or a threat to national security.
The FBI was a political organization from its inception. Wake up, sailor.
The judiciary is the most corrupt out of the 3 branches of government. In my foreclosure defense case, the appellate Court manufactured a document and submitted if pre-dated into the docket to dismiss my case unlawfully.
Do NOT think the judiciary is honest. They wear black for a reason!
I can’t find your comment about the appeals court changing a document. But if you can prove this is called fraud upon the court and it has no statute of limitations.
I'm not going back into court. Ever.
That may not be solely up to you.
The data leak reminds me of the memory holed story about Nicola Calipari. Calipari was an Italian intelligence officer who went to Iraq to secure the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been kidnapped by Iraqi militants. He got her too.
On March 4, 2005, Calipari and Sgrena were driving to the Baghdad airport, where they planned to catch a flight back to Italy, when their car approached a US military checkpoint near the airport. The soldiers at the checkpoint ordered the car to stop, but when it did not immediately comply, they opened fire on the vehicle. Calipari was killed in the shooting, while Sgrena was injured but survived.
The incident caused a diplomatic crisis between Italy and the United States, with Italy demanding an explanation and apology from the US government. An investigation into the incident was launched, and it was ultimately determined that the soldiers at the checkpoint had not followed proper procedures and had not been adequately trained in dealing with civilian vehicles.
In 2006, an Italian court acquitted the US soldier who fired the shots that killed Calipari, (of course they did) laughably citing "diplomatic immunity". However, in 2007, the families of Calipari and Sgrena filed a civil lawsuit in a US court against the US government, alleging that the soldiers at the checkpoint had acted negligently and recklessly. The lawsuit was later dismissed by a judge who ruled that the US government was immune from such lawsuits.
Like the FBI Excel file with it amateur hour deletions, there was a PDF file released about the shooting. The file was originally released by the US military, but the names of the soldiers had been redacted or "blacked out" to protect their identities.
Later, an Italian journalist named Giuseppe d'Avanzo was able to uncover the soldiers' names by using a simple computer trick. He found that the redacted text in the PDF file could be easily "unhidden" by copying and pasting it as unformatted text into a new document. This revealed the names of the soldiers who were present at the checkpoint, and d'Avanzo later published the names in an article for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
The judiciary is the most corrupt out of the 3 branches of government. In my foreclosure defense case, the appellate Court manufactured a document and submitted if pre-dated into the docket to dismiss my case unlawfully.
Do NOT think the judiciary is honest. They wear black for a reason!
I’m part of your “sudden increase in followers” and I can pinky-promise I’m not an adherent of any of your political beliefs. I’m here b/c I believe in free speech and truth no matter what. Totally agree with commenters who advise you to stay safe. Please! You are obviously over the target.
And some of us subscribed precisely because we were so appalled by their behavior, including the childish smears and innuendo and spine-chilling authoritarianism. It’s not like it would be difficult to, in my case, see decades of Dem Party registration, records of voting in only Dem primaries, not one day of registration as a Republican, and a record of small donations to only Dems, no Republicans. They will blithely and lazily smear anyone who dares to disagree. I have former friends who know exactly the kind of grinding, committed volunteer work I’ve done for decades for causes they more recently and loudly claim to care about. And according to them, saying some version of, for example, “Kendi and DiAngelo have surely written two of the most poorly-argued, divisive, and at times giddily cruel, dehumanizing books in recent decades” makes me “alt-right”, if not a “white supremacist”. There is such a deep insecurity beneath the aggressive sense of certainty characterizing that kind of reaction. They call you names and try to ostracize you from a larger social circle for disagreeing, rather than engage in a serious discussion.
Again it's called Communism..
See gulags and pol pot to see what follows
This has nothing to do with workers owning the means of production.
The idea that any of our politicians is "communist" is absolutely laughable and betrays a complete lack of understanding of the basic premises at play.
Communism is when people do stuff I don't like, and the more I don't like it the more communister it is!
"This has nothing to do with workers owning the means of production."
Well, in practice, neither does communism.
Yeah, so true, but these guys will never stop using that term. Just as they could not say what it means at gunpoint.
Communism was just another boogie man used to justify endless war.
Fear of Communism is used as a bogey man against those who have been brainwashed to believe that what the USA has is Democracy and that it is a polar opposite of Communism.
You clearly don't know what communism is.
Pol Pot arose as a direct product of Nixon dropping literally millions of bombs on Cambodia thus destroying their society. The Pathet Lao were a rump until you guys started to drop freedom bombs on them.
Pol Pot was a CINO (a commie in name only), mostly he was an insane human monster.
Like all Commies
Was Nixon a commie?
What are you- one of these "Real communism has never been tried"guys..
"I’m not an adherent of any of your political beliefs."
None of them? Really?
American liberals, in a desperate panic after 2016, injected themselves with the toxic brain virus called Critical Theory. It seemed like a smart move at the time: unleash the academic Red Guard on all their opponents, have them attacked with a barrage of bigotry accusations and threatened with loss of jobs and status unless they obeyed, then seed every institution in the country with loyal allies, all to regain even more power than the power that the Orange Usurper stole.
But now we're starting to see the side effects, one of the first being that liberals/Democrats seem to have picked up all the bad habits of the academic Marxists, the worst and ugliest being their style of thought: an obsession with rooting out ideological impurity and suppressing dissent; a worship of sacred dogma; the belief that anyone who disagrees isn't just mistaken but actively evil; an inability to compromise or accept good-faith disagreement (as in believing everyone not on your side suffers from some type of "false consciousness"); a bulletproof belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority; and the idea that every single moment and every single event (from your kids' bday party to a book you read to Thanksgiving at grandma's) is an intensely urgent political battle that must be fought to the death, so that good (THEM) prevails over evil (US).
I don't know what's up ahead on the horizon, but people like this can't be reasoned with, they will not compromise, and they will gladly destroy anything or anyone in their way (including Matt Taibbi).
At some point they will have to be actively, totally opposed, defeated, dislodged and discredited. They really offer no other choice.
I'm not a philosopher, but I think given the dominance of critical theory in academia, we should try to grasp its main points and implications. My take is that it emphasizes 1) the importance of societal structures over individual efforts for understanding human outcomes, 2) that it is unrelentingly focused on the past and reinterpreting history in an effort to explain current social conditions, and 3) the history of human development needs to be understood solely as self-identified groups competing for power, in what appears to be a zero-sum game of resources and their distribution.
I believe the widespread adpoption and messaging of these critical theory tenets are the primary driver of the declining health of young people today. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently had a brilliant summation of this argument on his substack, that is written in non-technical language:
https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls
Although his argument focuses primarily on girls, it has much broader application. When you tell young people: 1) if you are white, you don't deserve what you have, and the country you thought you were proud of was actually founded in sin and to exploit people that don't look like you; 2) if you are non-white, that you have little chance of success because white people (especially men) will oppose you to retain their white supremacist power structure, and 3) your parents are complicit in this exploitation --- well you're going to end up with unhappy, hopeless young people. Throw on top the constant messaging that they are all going to fry in adulthood due to global warming and then you can mix in a soup of anxiety on top of the depression.
This philosophy is so destructive to society in so many ways. It also seemingly offers no hope or vision for a better future - we must continually navel gaze about historical injustices that occurred before most of us were born, and that we can't move forward until all that past is resolved (the work of which will never be done, of course).
the philosophy is so destructive to society bc the philosophy was designed to be destructive to society.
all of "Critical Studies" is a lie bc it is entirely a political project disguised as scholarship. in actual scholarship there are many questions and few answers, and the goal is to use reason, logic, research, debate etc to ascertain facts and gain new knowledge; Crit Studies is the reverse, you work backward from the answers which never change (capitalism is evil, nothing exists but power and "structures" etc) and the job of teachers and students is to bolster the preformed narratives and try to find ways to "change the world" ie preach your faith in class and in the larger world. you will never see a radical critique of any movement or idea of the left, bc Crit Studies is biased and one-sided, a machine designed to inflict a "radical critique" on enough sectors of society that they eventually collapse and hand power to the Left and their aspiring philosopher-kings.
The oddest part for me is how America (even the reddest of red states) funded and supported this campaign designed to attack its history, culture, civics etc for decades. Ours may be the first country in recorded history that encouraged and subsidized its own enemies and its own unraveling.
"Conform or be cast out"
"liberals/Democrats seem to have picked up all the bad habits of the academic Marxists {LIST}"
You seem to have forgotten writing lengthy footnotes/endnotes and later insisting all the truly important knowledge was contained therein.
hey, they picked up all the bad habits, not me ;))
We’ll said. Couldn’t agree more
Well said.....
I remember civility in DC during the 70’s and 80’s; probably no less self-serving, but at least it was civil. The Left are nothing but demons in meat-suits now.
Matt's "left." And that's the saddest thing of all. What happened to the Democratic Party?
I'm left too. As in anti-war, civil libertarian who thinks everyone should have healthcare kind of left. There is no left like that in this country anymore.
I made more than a few brains explode during the Obama years by saying we should shut down the wars and Americans shouldn't pay another penny for healthcare until the money allocated for war was gone.
The sad thing is that Bernie Sanders probably said that then too.
The very same corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who run the FBI, CIA, DHS, etc., etc., would be the ones running Medicare for all. The elite ruling class would get even richer and everyone else would get screwed.
I used to argue against this by saying, "Do you want the DMV running your hospital?" to point out govt.-run almost always means less-competence, more stultifying, arcane rules, and abs. no concern for or desire to serve the public.
These days I feel like Single Payer would quickly devolve into "Euthanize All the Cons!" The idea our govt., who will probably shortly suicide Taibbi and others over a censorship case, is going to work to extend the lives of its political opponents is, frankly, fantasy.
I can hear them now, "Well if you hate the govt. then it is pretty hypocritical to expect them to help you."
Most likely. It's a good time to be old.
Yeah, I know how you feel, although I stay well away from libertarians as too many of them appear only interested in gaining the freedom to rip off everyone else. "Anarchopulco' shenanigans being a case in point.
It is almost touching to see that some still believe these problems can be reduced to a left/right thing as AFAIK, none of the dems are aware of let alone support any real left programs; add that to the fact that amerika's 'right' the rethugs go along with the same organised corruption whenever they are in power.
The only difference between the two halves of the uniparty being opposite positions on a limited range of carefully manufactured and exaggerated through a common ally the msm, issues that amerikans are encouraged to get hot under the collar about on one side or the other. What 'side' a citizen takes doesn't matter as these few 'hot-button' issues have been selected because they personally directly affect a minority of voters.
Yet as I said everyone is encouraged, nay forced by peer pressure, to take a stand on issues largely irrelevant to most, this is deliberate because it creates a point of difference on issues that everyone is debating but while doing so lose sight of the big issues, like single payer health care, banking regulation, railroad safety.
In other words issues to make ballot decisions on whose outcomes one way or t'other do not disturb the elites.
How about we agree that we would like a MUCH SMALLER federal government with term limits for all bureaucrats? Might that possibly limit the insiders' hostility toward lowly citizens?
"... I stay well away from libertarians..."
There's a difference here between civil libertarians and libertarians, although there is overlap. Civil liberties here are protected constitutional liberties - freedom of speech, press, religion, search and seizure, right to privacy, etc. Even some of the nuttiest Republicans and Libertarians, and at least one of the most otherwise most odious Democrats, and (formerly) Independent Bernie Sanders used to find common ground on these in opposition to Bush Repubs and current Dems. They also tend to be anti-war as well.
That's a lot different from the economic libertarians.
Including universal healthcare isn’t in the same realm. That is more of a Left Wing operation of a grotesque bureaucratic system that can be controlled and manipulated easily. The medical system isn’t evenly administered but I haven’t seen a workable solution yet
It's what distinguishes, say, me from the likes of, say, Rand Paul. We can agree on civil liberties and be anti-war, and he's one of the only sane voices we have on those topics. But his view on economics is very different than mine. I'm an Independent who hates both parties and votes third party or write in these days. If a third party, it depends on who is the saner of the Greens of Libertarians. It was Gary in '12, Bernie write-in in '16, Greens in '20.
Third-party voting in a two-party system is the equivalent of home recycling. It may make one feel better about one's self (however fleeting), but effective political change (currently) is brought about by aggressively working within the system and not consuming products packaged in plastic is the only solution to plastic waste.
One of the problems with representative elected government is that, in most cases, it is easy to suborn or otherwise neutralize or destroy the representatives. The nominal ideology of the target does not seem to matter.
Yes - as my mom would say, please bring back the smoke-filled room. Say all the stupid crap to your voting base, then get in the pit and hash out solutions with your friends and enemies alike. All we see now is “I’m right and you’re wrong”, with no compromise to speak of. Pathetic!
Sorry Matt, but your party is totalitarian and sociopathic. They project their self hatred into others because they know what they do is wrong. It is the dark side of the light chasers. Their politics have become religion and therefore any means necessary is noble. They have got to be stopped.
You've been divided and utterly conquered.
Your neighbour is 99.9% just like you.
Thinking you identified the wrong party...your side is a freak show of lies and unlawful ignorance...
D/R One Party State at the top. The Establishment laughs when they see the plebes fighting over meaningless party lables.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
― Gore Vidal
Bingo
Maybe it’s their advisors who are misguided.
“Unlawful ignorance”!
That’s hilariously revealing, unless it was meant to be parody.
“Your side” is also pretty revealing. Maybe the commenter is an independent who’s understandably done with the Dems. But, no, “your side” is by definition always honest and virtuous and “the other side” is always the opposite. Is that how it goes?
So, you found the comment doubly revealing? Good for you
Both journalists are at least mainstream Democrats. Try a little honesty if it is possible. You are an uninformed, ignorant loon. Just what Party do you think Matt is part of. Can't answer? Because you are a dope.
"Just what Party do you think Matt is part of. "
Don't really want to speak for him, but he did say he's an Independent.
More and more of us are
Latest snapshot - Gallup voter affiliation by party
2023 Feb 1-23 R - 27 I - 44 D - 28
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
I think he still wants to be a democrat and I understand why. I think the Democratic Party was healthy from about 1960-2012... but now it seems they have come full circle and are back into segregation. Totally different justification these days, but it’s remarkable how they end up back where they started.
Agreed . They are the party of conformity and obedience, goose stepping in perfect alignment.
Pick the party you like fool, you missed the entire topic, didn't matter what party, but likely too sophisticated for you to understand...I'd layoff the dope before posting again
Ken -- the topic was about the congressional hearing. You should watch it before calling other people names. The hearing was extremely lobsided. I'm not a fan of establishment republicans either -- but to remain on topic, as you suggest -- this was all about the hearing where Matt testified- and what he faced there and who he faced it from.
Or better start a new one and then do a complete revision of your society.
That may never happen, but you have to try.
The three party's - Republican, Democrat, Uniparty - have shed their scales revealing the two party reset - For the People and Enemy of the People.
Puppy love, one of the more ironic screen names here.
I do fall fast. Love me some puppies
You sound very partisan!
Everyone it seems who supports the truth is considered "partisan" by Democrat standards. These journalists are just reporting what they found in the twitter files. Others are free to take another position if the material warrants it. Either the US government directly influenced the content on social platforms or they did not. Reality is now "disinformation" if it cuts against a particular political narrative.
Democrats took Rush's song "Subdivisions" as a how-to guide.
Did you watch the hearing?
Keep fighting the good fight. Your readers/supporters know the difference between the search for truth and the urge to suppress.
In the actions of the current Democrats, I am reminded of this quote from CS Lewis: "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
Good paraphrase, but whole quote is worth a read: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
Thank you! I could not find the entire quote...only the abbreviated one. The Democrats of today most definitely are willing to torment us without end...their consciences approve of all they do.
"Let government by Vice be done;
Vice hath Conscience -- Virtue, none."
Thanks for this Jrod
This quote/paraphrase precisely indicates why no one should be voting for any Democrat and should be voting for all Republicans. There is absolutely no relief with Democrats. And I am a current old school liberal who is one of those now accused of being alt-right. That is fine, I have been voting straight Republican tickets since and including 2020. In retrospect, should have been doing this a lot longer. I am ashamed now I didn't vote for Trump in 2016, but went for Jill Stein. Nothing in the world was getting me to vote for Hillary (or Biden).
We are told that yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech.
What if there is a fire in the theater? Doesn't it then become a duty?
Folks, this does not smell like it's coming from the popcorn machine.
Matt, keep up the great work. You are doing amazing reporting!
Demonization for the act of questioning the FBI's motives could only be called "authoritarian".
For me from now on, the "FBI" becomes "Fat Tony." Just replace "FBI" in any given news lede with "Fat Tony," MAD LIBS-style, and see if it comes across any different.
E.g. "Fat Tony tested by attacks, politically explosive investigations":
https://apnews.com/article/fbi-trump-wray-biden-classified-documents-833e12a2c57cf289d61238127172a6a5
Love mad libs! Gonna use that from now on!
Exactly. The things we don't like about Russia and China have more to do with the way their leaders tell citizens what they must think. China seems to have shushed Jack Ma, presumably because he was getting too prominent, and it now has imprisoned the very old head of an independent HongKong newspaper. Putin seems to have killed several dozen oligarchs who were insufficiently supportive of the invasion of Ukraine.
Another word for the trend is totalitarianism. That our tech hotshots seem happy to help the FBI and DHS censor social media and silence pesky dissidents suggests that learning to code is not enough to understand the importance of citizen participation in a democracy.
If one didn't know better one might conclude the Emperor is starting to realize he has no clothes. Keep shining the light Matt, it is assisting your vision too!
If the twitter files were really just a nothing burger and everything described therein was legitimate, why are the dems so over the top mad?
I’ve been thinking the same thing. The fact that the twitter files received a congressional hearing before major media acknowledged its existence is a turning point. I hope. I’m grateful for republicans. I feel dirty
That is one hell of a picture.
Yikes...I had the same reaction. Not exactly the look of warm and caring public servants.