60 Comments
Dec 11, 2023·edited Dec 11, 2023Liked by Matt Orfalea

QUESTION: What would it take for you and your team to have at least 10x the impact you're currently having? More money to hire more people? More sources? You're very prolific, but what are you bottlenecked on?

(You've having a lot of impact already of course, but there are only like 11 legit journalists left in a country of 330 million, so let's scale you up however we can!)

Expand full comment

People have to care.

Maybe 1 in 500 do.

Expand full comment
Dec 11, 2023·edited Dec 11, 2023Liked by Matt Orfalea

QUESTION: How do we create more Matt Taibbis?

I suspect that the bottleneck is (1) courage and (2) not knowing what to write about/how to get started.

In an attempt to address the latter: Can you tell us about your methodology so that more people know how to do hard-hitting fact-based journalism? How should one become an investigative journalist? How do you validate documents given to you by a source? How do you avoid being assassinated? 😅 Etc.

Expand full comment

Question: with the increasing popularity of Substack, how concerned are you that it may fall prey to some of the same forces that have degraded traditional journalistic media?

Expand full comment

Would love to hear how your Brooklyn town hall went.

Expand full comment

AUDIENCE MEMBER HOT TAKE: It’s been a minute since I’ve been back in Brooklyn and I forgot that Brooklynites sound like they’re arguing when they’re actually interrupting each other to agree. I was also surprised at the sting calling someone a Nazi apparently still has to it (I thought we collectively cried wolf on this term).

There was one moment where this guy, who showed up with a written statement, was yelling about harm done on the internet to trans and black and brown bodies. He capped his dissent with some unhinged yelling I think on behalf of harm done online (although I still weirdly feel like he was yelling in an inside voice). I guess people were split about the genuine-ness of that whole thing.

I slipped outside to ask him what that was about after it happened. He seemed actually disheartened, but maybe I’m naive. He asked me why I was there and I said to watch Matt talk and then said something about finding truth at the intersection of different perspectives. I thought that was pretty smart of me but he didn’t seem to care. He then asked me for a hug. I gave him a weird stranger-side-hug and he left.

POINT IS I think this person, like many people, take comfort in the idea that disinformation (not true stuff) and mean stuff on the internet come from some single Lovecraftian horror living in the servers, and therefore the defeat of it must be militarized and uniform or we’re all going to be harmed. The language around disinformation always suggests a call to action-- 'What to DO' about disinformation. I think there are people who feel very abandoned by the response “Individuals are allowed to say stuff that is not true and mean”. I would love a rebrand of “disinformation” to “not true stuff” so that what to do about it rings more like “what to do about bad weather, ingrown hairs, babies on planes, vending machines that dispense warm soda, bad tattoos, stretch marks, etc”.

Anyway, in a world where it's difficult to understand digitally what kind of room you're in (have never understood the dynamics of Twitter/X, I'm horrified to post even this comment) it was really nice to not have to guess at the scale or dynamics of the room.

Expand full comment

*****EDIT, I am definitely naive: @therealbiglie

Expand full comment

I have one question.

What the fuck?

This is a fairly all inclusive question since most of 21st century appears to be shitty & confusing rerun of the 20th century.

Almost as if God, everyone's favorite trickster, stuck the 20th century in a heavenly blender & then splatted the whole concoction, Jackson Pollock style, onto the walls of reality.

I realized a ways back that God seems to be a master of malicious pranking so none of this should actually surprise me.

But still, I'm slow and in need of a step by step walk through.

Thanks.

Expand full comment

I take the Gnostic viiew you seem to suggest.

Expand full comment

Can't wait. Will the video of the livestream be available to watch later? I'm a bit of a rube when it comes to youtube, but I can only really watch these once I get the kids to bed.

Expand full comment

I always watch them after the fact. The same link works.

Expand full comment

Thank you! I'm usually not one for livestreams but I make an exception when it's Matt Taibbi.

Expand full comment

Can you please also start Racket page on Rumble? I for one don’t appreciate that the censorious YouTube is profiting from your fine work more than necessary.

Expand full comment

Any chance of also using Rokfin & Rumble so folks who boycott Youtube have another option?

Expand full comment

I’ll second that

Expand full comment

In a recent podcast, Whitney Webb drew listeners attention to previous investigations she had done around CTI Leagues original areas: critical US infrastructure. Suggests the censorship is a side gig. Created by Ohad Zaidenberg. Are you familiar with her reporting, show casing the IDF linkage?

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/08/investigative-reports/meet-the-idf-linked-cybersecurity-group-protecting-us-hospitals-pro-bono/

Expand full comment

For Fuck’s Sake can we PLEASE have just one substack that doesn’t wade into the mess in the Levant?!!!!!!! Also censorship has existed in one for or another for millennia. “Created”🤦‍♂️

Expand full comment

LOL

created by, refers to CTI League, sir, not censorship. and if the news has ties to "the levant", then it has ties to the levant. or are you suggesting we censor the news reported here, because you feel triggered?

wtf

Expand full comment

Nice try at strawman. No, it’s just nice having a substack that’s about something else. Please.

Expand full comment

The mess in the Levant is ours, unfortunately. Whoever we are.

Expand full comment

Yes, but not every substack need touch on it.

Expand full comment
author

Looking forward to it!

Expand full comment
Dec 11, 2023·edited Dec 11, 2023

Well, 6:30 ET is still work time for most people on the west coast. This is not relevant to me personally (I almost never have time to tune into a live stream), but it's something worth thinking about.

But you're always going to lose somebody. So maybe don't sweat it and do it at what time is best for you. Presumably the rest of us can catch the rerun later.

Expand full comment

Thanks for all of your efforts to get the news out quickly. Love the livestreams.

Expand full comment

I'm curious to see if we're starting to establish a more direct link to the DNC and/or Democrat leadership. With CTI League, we've started to establish a direct link to the political establishment in the UK, but thusfar in the US, this stuff is getting laundered through the intelligence community and NGOs.

Expand full comment

Re: Visuals - either split screen or go screen in screen with the graphic being the largest. Another option is to just run the graphics full screen while you talk.

Expand full comment

A couple more questions.

Yesterday I saw a Biden official, Kirby I think, say that The Biden Administration will be concentrating on convincing the American people that a Ukrainian victory is essential for US security.

So maybe you could explain how a country, whose capitol is 4870 miles away from our capitol, is "essential" to our nation's security.

Especially since no one in America gave a second's thought to Ukraine before Russia invaded.

Also, does this mean that a Ukrainian victory will pave the way for Ukraine to become America's 52nd state.

The 51st state slot, is, I assume, going to be the 1/3 of Syria currently occupied by US troops since I heard a US official state, a few months ago, that the US military fought hard & earned the right to "own" that section of Syria.

Expand full comment

Are you serious? Syria as the 51st state? Dude, get the roster right. Israel holds that slot. Syria has got to take a ticket. BTW, the US need have the whole of Syria in the fold, just a new military base in the bread basket and petrocarbon rich region is all that is required.

Expand full comment

I beg to differ buddy. They've been a suburb of D.C. for a few decades.

Expand full comment

Isn't it the other way around?

Expand full comment

A clumsy attempt at being clever. The suburbs are not a state, just an outpost.

Expand full comment

Living in Japan as I do, 6:30 pm EST works pretty well for me as it is 8:30 AM and most of my work these days is in the afternoon and evenings.

Also, I'm assuming you'll share a separate post with the link when the time is nearer, correct?

You might also want to put it in this post, if possible.

Anyway, I'll be there!

Expand full comment