Just wanted to thank the overwhelming number of people who responded to the call for freelance help yesterday. I’ve reached out to some already, others will be hearing from us in the next days, but in general, the breadth and intensity of the response is humbling. It seems a lot of people are feeling the same frustrations, and want to lend a hand. Thanks again, and we’ll try to respond to as many letters as we can in the next week or so, before getting to work, hopefully with your help.
Matt - I suspect that for each person who responded to your request there are at least five more who wish they had either the skills or the time to help you. The recognition of how much we are being propagandized by our government is growing wider by the day, and you're a large driver of that awareness. Please continue with your crucial work, on behalf of all of us who are paying attention.
I am one of the "five". How I wish to be younger than 87 with better eyes and ears! But I am with you in spirit, and wouldn't miss a word of what you write. Yeah, I'm a fan-girl.
Check out Grand Theft World. They have just together education courses with more to come. Not expensive. Sunday night they do a weekly long news roundup wrapped in historical context for free. I’ve been gently sharing with all ages cuz steadily we’ve been sooo propagandized & harmed. Covid brought all my suspicions into focus. On Rokfin & Rumble
Same here where the real news is concerned. As one of the elders still alive on planet earth, I'm grateful to the guides who have kept me alive and healthy enough to continue on a path of learning more each day.
Yes, me too, old but still alive! The social capital that is lost in the way of knowledge and experience by culling off the old ones shows how insane the world has become. The old ones know the promise and privilege of youth.
Matt, here's a direct contribution to dismantling the propaganda machine. Clapper now claims that Politico "distorted" what he and others said with the Russian disinfo letter in 2020 regarding Hunter Biden's laptop, lots of stories about this circulating currently.
True that! Only (can’t believe I’m saying that at 52, but feel like 70.) I have lived a life like a senior. I’m also one of the world’s most travelled peoples…..
If you really want to know more DM me….. But yeah I have seen the whole world……. Including all of China and most of Russia. Aaaand Africa, every State in Australia, all 50 States in the US, 90% of Latin America, most of Africa, and all of Asia. Whew, getting tired of just naming these places, let alone going there….. Of course I lived in some of them thanks to the US Government……..
I have been listening weekly to the audio version via my podcast app. It's captivating. And I've signed up for an introductory workshop, too. I'm also over 65 and unlikely to have much impact on those around me, but I'm going down this path, because it feels essential.
Thanks for that. Very interesting and since I'm retired, I have lots of time to view! They are long. Very nice group of people we have here. Our new world will be great!
I too would be one of the five. I am all about honesty, truth and sunlight, and if I can even help by editing something, I am willing. I have not ever written for any entity but am a fairly voracious reader and your exposure Matt, of the Twitter Files, and all that has followed, well, brings this old heart to tears. God Bless and keep you. Viva La Truth!
I'm 32. And had no clue where I was headed, was living a dead end life, working a dead end job and yours among other independents have inspired me to pay attention to the news and the polarity of the world, I never knew existed. I asked my father in 2002, I was 12, after learning about political parties in school, what he was, his answer was, "I'm not sure, I guess a democrat because republicans seem kinda against marijuana, and the wars and free speech and stuff like that, but the president is a republican, and I believe in America, so I guess I'm a republican right now, but none of that really matters to us right now, so I don't know", and that was it. We never spoke of politics again, he's 12 years passed on. I truly wish I'd known his perspective now. Anyways, I believe to my parents generation, party politics was a non-issue. And today's politics it's an Issue-Issue. I remember asking him that, and I remember being afraid of a draft when I was 12, I believe my party is Compassion/Freedom-absolutism, I believe that encompasses everything. And no one inspires that quite like the work of Matt Taibbi. And I thank you for shining your humanity through the work you do. And anything you need help with, literally anything, short of a capital crime, I am absolutely willing to do, for the causes you seem to stand for.
And thanks to all the others, including Elon Musk, for metaphorically breaking out the pitchforks and torches. We all have a part of this job to do, whether it is one person, one podcast, or one Congressional hearing at a time.
Thank you for what you are doing. My father escaped from two communist countries. He used to say that if we lose our freedom in America, then what...?
I've spent my life since my 20s talking about Free Speech as the cornerstone on Freedom. The radicals obviously agree with me...or they wouldn't be working to destroy it.
I enjoy your podcasts with Walter Kirn. Could you talk about what each of us can do ...specifically ... to save America.
To save America AND the rest of the world. Let’s remind our young ones of the Four Freedoms as proclaimed by Roosevelt. It can be a powerful focalizer for our co-operation.
Thomas Paine’s introduction to “Common Sense” rings true to this day. Freedom in America is waning, but this is the last refuge and best hope for all of mankind. It’s worth fighting for.
I have been and always will be anti- communist. I had the privilege of traveling all over Russia, the Middle East of Russia, well everywhere. Communism in all its forms sucks…..
I’m one of the most traveled people on the planet. 146 countries and counting (two more coming up) Literally every country in Europe. Almost every country in Asia (lived in India, Germany, Japan, Thailand, and married one of the last of them….. those places we’ve were worked around but I reached out and wow.,..But still I’ve been everywhere and still I want to travel…..it’s a sicknesss…..I know….
I'm 76. Spent my adult life on a college campus, as a student and teacher....watching it all building.
Radical leftists are now showing their colors because they have to. The election of President Trump cracked open Pandora's box; people like us could see who was hiding in the box.
They went into warp speed to reach their goal before WE stopped them.
Really I mean it. My Dad is 76 and he is dying from a number of things. Thank God you are alive and well. Yeah I’ve always been a conservative type of person, although I’ve veered off course a few times. But I’m conservative now and will always be……
And yeah you are right about Trump. Most people don’t like him but he served a good purpose in exposing the perfidy of the left. Honestly, I’m at the point where I’m about to declare that the left is just wrong on most issues…
We are all standing behind your stoutheart, Matt. Ever grateful for your courage, integrity, stamina, and humor! We are legion and we’ve got your back!
We are so appreciative of your work, it's a morale boost to know you are digging in! Gratitude and Respect, supporting you as best we can. Thank you, Matt.
I wish I had the qualifications to help but I will help the best way I can by subscribing to your Substack. Thank you for all your continuous hard work.
It is very odd that the people during the Nixon and Reagan eras who said they feared the government are now the ones who are most vicious in suppressing our rights. Those liberals at the time are now the worst of the worst. The Deep State always existed but was not as bold and in the spotlight as they are today. Now identified pretty accurately it is up to the voters and citizens to neutralize or put them in a position where they have little or no real power. Elected officials need to come to gather to save themselves as well as representative government. Deep States or shadow governments existing every form of government. Communists and others just "eliminate" them from time to time but we seem to put our collective heads in the sand and hope for the best. Individuals with courage need to be elected and move with strength and clarity against the Deep State. Won't be easy and could get ugly but it needs to be done. If the cancer of deep statism has gone too far the body cannot survive its removal. We are close.
Well said! And every thing they said they feared Trump was gonna do never happened. But under Biden, it is happening and these “ liberals” are cheering it on !
Which shows that neither the left nor the right side of politics can be trusted. We can start by identifying the honest politicians on both sides. They may be rare, but they exist. And then we must protect them from the attacks they are bound to endure.
I would say it is not about honest and dishonest. It is about understanding motivation. Politicians are politicians by career now, it is their one and only job and they get paid a lot in and out of office. So that is their motivation, but consider everyone who works in government.
Lets say you are a mid tier employee in parks and recreation in a city, you honestly like parks, you honestly think building them is good and you honestly want your department to groe and do more of what you are doing.
So having a bigger budget next year is the only way to do that. Lucky for you though you do not have to sell your work, you just take from the citizens and do what you know is best for them.
This is every level of government everywhere. They all want to grow their "company" (e.g. the water department, affordable housing.) And never is anyone saying we have enough of the tax payers money, because whoever says they don't want more money.
We pay more per student for education than any country in the world over 18,000 per chicld per year on average. And our kids can read, barely, well some of them can.
So lets not focus on left or right lets instead focus on holding everyone accountable. Do not vote for their bigger budgets instead demand to see what they even did with your money.
Social conservative or progressive I think we all need to get financially conservative or we might become facists by accident. The government is quickly becoming such a huge percentage of our GDP and the problem with that is their is no competition for the government, if they do a bad job or provide a bad service, you cant refuse to pay or take your business elsewhere.
More aspects of our economy should be private business, cities do not need billion dollars budgets just for buying property and playing monopoly, let the free economy decide what a city needs not some 25 year old college student who was appointed to the redevelopment board by a mayor who liked how they looked in a suit.
In a for profit business you are rewarded with more jobs by doing your jobs well. If you solve problems for a fixed estimate and get the job done right you can get referrals to do more jobs and make more money.
In government the best way to get more money is to do your job terribly and hold people hostage. If they keep the roads terrible you pay more taxes, if they do not educate your kids they get a school levy increase, if they can not find homes for the poor they get more money for that the more government fails the more money we give them to fail.
Isn't quite true: In retrospect, I don't think Trump was much of a departure from Uniparty Orthodoxy. Anti-Labor. Check. Repeal proposed safety regs intended to increase rail safety (among a long list of others). Check. Massive further tax cuts for the oligarchs. Check. Demoguery (rail agaisnt the Deep State and his fellow oligarchs, but change nothing for the better). Check. Rail against the Deep State sewer rats and then appoint a whole boat load to his admin. Check. Funnel more money into the Pentagon wealth transfer apparatus. Check. Yes, did not start any new wars that we know about, but kept the ones on tap going. Conditional check. Violated or walked away from treaties, following long established Uniparty tradition. Check. Was hated by the Deep State, viewed as some sort of interloper, made worse, because he mouthed some stuff outside of Uniparty Orthodoxy. (See demogoguery) True. ETC.
Matt wrote an article to the end that there was a lot of hullaballoo about Trump and Trump admin, but little substance.
Wrong Tony Sustak. Like him or hate him, Trump is the only national politician in at least 60 years to challenge the uniparty. You know this by the extreme lengths the uniparty has gone to (and continues to go to) to destroy him.
You're slaying me, Pacificus, really. But granted, while in office Trump challenged not only your beloved "uniparty" but also anyone who devoted more than a moment's thought to the Donald's "being." A whole lotta challenges from the big guy.
I am sorry for my lack of clarity, in what I wrote. I agree with your comment. I was appalled at the behavior of the Clinton Crime Family, the Deep State and the Main Stream Media. Trump won the election, fair and square.
The facts that someone of the ilk of Trump can win a presidential election, only to then have the office of the president undermined in every way "The Resistance" could drum up, speaks volumes to how far our political system has sunk and how rotten late state Empire is at its core.
The US has always been an oligarchy since its founding by white slave holding, landlords, with some smidgeons of democratic concessions to the populace, at the margins. But no issue of importance to the oligarchy, about the conduct of Empire, is ever contested at the ballot box.
I think Trump is disgusting. There is plenty of information about how Trump has conducted his personal and business life. Where ever one fancies themselves to be on the political spectrum, I think a person who keeps their word to the best of their ability, values their family, friends and community, understands that we are part of a community, will find Trump's bio and his behavior atrocious. He won against one of the most despicable politicians the US has ever vomited up for national office. Trump's argument that, "What have you got to loose, voting for me?" resinated with a large swath of the population. For good reason.
The US 'candidate selection process' broke down, that is how Trump gets in. The candidate selection process was working as expected, in its successful exclusion of Sanders, by contrast.
In fact, we can hear a Demoblican mantra getting cranked up now, that little "d" democracy will be best served if Biden has no opposition. No opposition to a "walking death rattle" (Jimmy Dore), the highlights of whose career is marked by never, ever having a real job; being a tool of the big Banksters who have fueled his campaigns; being a war mongerer abroad; a white supremacist at home and someone who was happy to get his 10% share of whatever grift his family members were engaged in, using their relationship to him, to grease the mechanism of that grift.
In short, Biden is the quintessential Neo-Liberal politician.
The "successes" in Trumps reign were on items that the Big Corporate Repubs (and Dems) have a consensus on: More tax cuts and give aways to the top 1/10th of one percent; Trash public safety, pour more money into the Military Industrial Complex; Ignore any of the crisis working people face as a result of 4 or 5 decades of Neo-Liberalism. But! Wait! Didn't Trump go after China? Yes! And what was the result, besides lots of storm and furry and antagonizing the rulers of China? The quantity of Chineese imports went up, as did the trade deficit with China.
For the reason you cited, Trump was no more effective at winding down the US's failed military adventures, than was Obummer, who might have tried a bit to do that, after he realized his policies were an abject failure and were hastening the decline of the US Empire, not propping it up.
In the long run, for the US Empire and maintaining US World Hegemony, Trump was a wash, compared to his predecessors.
Matt Taibbi wrote a good summation of the Trump presidency, along the lines I have outlined above, with more depth and a splash of humor. Taibbi was one of the first to loudly debunk the Clintonoid's, Dem's and Deep State's conspiracy against Trump.
I think, as a number of other people have pointed out, including Matt T, at some length, that Trump was far less of a challenge to the status quo than all the noise that was raised by the Deep State's allies. We have a coming together of the political concubines of the Deep State, the fully integrated into the Deep State's service MSM, and the people, we all know who are desparate to believe there is something of redemptive value in the Democratic Party (or the Repub. Party as well). People desparate to cling onto myths about power and its excercise, who are choosing not to know that what 'goes around, comes around' and doing their best to deny to themselves, that they could be next to be cast aside by the "System" as redundant to the needs of its oligarchs.
On the "goes around, comes around" front, Walter Kirn made the observation, that East Palestine, Ohio, looked like it was yet another victim of successful implimentation of Neo-Liberal politics in the Heart Land. Though, I live on a coast, the city I live in is one of those once industrial, now hollowed out and in a perpetual state of chronic acute financial distress. At the same time the train was coming off the tracks, creating a devastating crisis, E. Palestine's name sake in the Middle East, was yet again being savaged by the Zionist thugs who run Israel. Palestine has been suffering devastation since 1948, well before the dawn of the Neo-Liberal Era, that got my city and the town of E. Palestine. The same ruling elite that blesses the savaging of Palestine, then and today, blesses the conditions that led to the derailment. The derailment wasn't an act of God, it was the consequence of a series of decisions, made by real flesh and blood human beings. The confluence of those decisions make train wrecks inevitable. Generate enough train derailments and the likelihood of a real bad one, in a real bad place, becomes inevitable. Heil! Profits Uber Alles!
“You’ve seen a lot of quasi-reflective changes in the media” since Trump’s election in 2016, Taibbi said on the latest Recode Media. “One thing you haven’t seen is less coverage of Trump, like we’re doing more of it and we’re more profitable than ever. And that’s because this is what sells.”
“We replaced a million hours of Trump with a million hours of ‘Trump is bad,’” he added. “... We took a lot of heat during 2016 for giving him billions [of dollars worth] of free coverage and we had this fork in the road, like, are we going to cover him less, or are we going to cover in the same amount but in a different way? And then we chose Door No. 2.”
So far, Taibbi told BuzzFeed’s Steven Perlberg, he’s not convinced that journalists have accepted responsibility for “dumb[ing] down the process long before Trump even ran for president,” turning presidential elections into a reality show. And they may be over-estimating their understanding of regular people who voted for Trump."
"…Donald Trump is going to be a difficult case for future historians because he’s simultaneously the biggest liar and the most lied-about politician in American history. The standard propaganda lines about Trump are all incorrect. The usual technique involves sticking his name in headlines next to absurd disqualifying descriptors: “fascist,” “traitor,” “dictator,” and so on….
…Trump may have played cartoon Mussolini on the stump and reached for Hitlerian cliches in his campaign videos, but the dirty secret of the last four years — hidden from the broad mass of voters by both conservative and mainstream media — was that the president’s much ballyhooed strongman leanings were a fraud. Trump the Terrible was great TV, but away from cameras he was a fake despot who proved repeatedly that he didn’t know the first thing about how to exercise presidential power, even in his own defense….
…Trump entered the White House buried in scandals that had been foisted upon him by officials in his own government who were openly betraying him, illegally leaking intelligence about his administration to the press on a weekly if not daily basis. Not to say it would have been a good idea, but he could have hauled every last one of these leakers off to jail, legally, and in a few cases could even have done what Barack Obama did, and used secrecy laws to go after press antagonists as well….
…Instead of using these imperial powers to send commandos rappelling through the windows of people like Jim Comey, John Brennan or even David Ignatius in message-sending pre-dawn raids, the “fascist” Trump did nothing. Before inauguration, he sat like the dope he is in the Trump Tower while Comey pulled a J. Edgar Hoover to his face, promising to keep “close” a damaging report about a pee tape in a supposedly top secret meeting whose details would be on CNN within about ten minutes.
Trump lacked the sense to fire Comey in that moment, and as for the dozens of officials who afterward leaked classified intelligence to fuel what by then was an open campaign aimed at putting him, Trump, in jail, Trump was mostly too stupefied to root out and fire these people, much less arrest them. Meanwhile it was his Democratic opponents, and proxies like Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who were executing dramatic raids against people like Paul Manafort and even Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Democratic Senators like Mark Warner of Virginia and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii had the bright idea to threaten Internet platforms like Facebook with regulation unless they accepted direction on “ferreting out” content that foments “discord.” Had Trump pushed his Justice Department’s Antitrust Division to do something similar, we might have been looking at bans of the New York Times in recent weeks instead of the New York Post. In other words: in this and other areas, if Trump had even a drop of LBJ in his constitution, we’d have been in serious trouble. Instead, when Trump finally unholstered the Espionage Act to go after a political actor, it was to prosecute a sort-of ally in Julian Assange.
Trump prior to arriving in Washington spent decades managing his image in New York by buying local pols with contributions and promises of development deals, while pocketing newspaper editors with gossip and invites to booze-and-poon-tang parties….
…Most of what Trump actually did in office was lend his loopy signature to exactly the kind of initiatives the “swamp” of elite interests he supposedly ran against in 2016 secretly wanted anyway: a monstrous $1.9 trillion tax giveaway from 2017, this year’s multi-trillion, no-questions-asked bailout of the financial sector, the gutting of regulatory agencies like the EPA and OSHA beyond the wildest dreams of prior Republican administrations, an $82 billion one-year increase in the military budget, the heightening of drone strikes, even indicting Assange. It all testified to the fact that Trump’s image as a fist-shaking enemy of the establishment was as fraudulent as the degrees his online diploma-mill University used to give out.
Trump played populist in public, but his presidency was spent parked limp and hostage-like in a robe before a TV somewhere in the White House, watching in horror as the anchors of shows like Fox and Friends informed him about the Beltway power machine’s latest successful effort to shit all over him. His response, every time, was to sob into Twitter by his lonesome, often deep into the night. He seemed not to have a clue he was president, which again was mostly a good thing. Just this weekend, in his latest race-baiting campaign to accuse “Squad” members Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of being illegal people, he asked out loud, “Where is our Justice Department?” No one in the audience had the heart to cry out, “In your Executive Branch?”…
…Trump had so few people with a clue in his White House that a lot of his policy decisions ended up sounding like money-making schemes hatched in the basement by between-jobs poker buddies, whispering so their wives won’t hear….
…This pattern, of stepping on a rake before even getting to do the bad thing at scale, was a chief characteristic of the Trump presidency.
In modern America the president’s most important job might be using his or her voice to reassure the country. Trump not only lacks this ability, he finds ways to make huge portions of the population feel like passengers in a pilotless, plummeting jetliner every time he opens his mouth….
…Imagine being Trump’s ambassador to Nigeria or Mexico and having to come up with new ways to explain the boss’s Tweets every morning. He was the Ugly American caricature — an ignorant, self-centered, tasteless bigot — amplified to the scale of colossal art.
In sum, this man who secured the presidency because voters thought his blunt, unvarnished persona might prove a corrective to unchecked elite corruption proved incapable in office of doing anything except complain into his phone, and abuse himself like a zoo gorilla every time a camera was pointed in his direction. Used to getting his way as a petty corporate boss, he was uniquely toolless as a Beltway operator, a man who in a thousand years couldn’t figure out how to use the office to achieve something positive.
For all that, Trump comes perilously close to being a better choice than his Democratic opponent. That’s how revolting our situation is…
…Again, Trump was a dud as a leader, but many of the things that came out of his mouth — claiming to seek closer relations with North Korea, Russia, and Syria, for instance, or asking why we’re footing the bill for a NATO military alliance that hasn’t been relevant or useful since 1991, or referring to NAFTA in tones suggesting something less than religious awe — made him not just a pain in the ass to the D.C. Brahmins, but our very own domestic version of the “Hitler of the Month” club, a Noriega/Milosevic/Saddam/Assad-style mad interloper requiring immediate removal…."
I don’t think Trump was perfect and I really think he surrounded himself with people he shouldn’t have trusted HOWEVER, the reason I disagree that he’s part of the Uniparty is because of the nonstop, persistent attempts to remove him from office, roadblock his efforts at change and neutralize his supporters.
He is responsible for Christopher Wray leading the FBI though- which to this day, I don’t understand.
My opinion? Because he got conned by professional politicians aka con “me .” Combined with his “YUGE” ego thinking that everyone would like him and want him to succeed....look at what all Mitch McConnell did behind the scenes to work against him. Why? Ask George Carlin!
Trump made no effort to "change" anything while in office---it was four years much like the previous 50 for The Donald. Both gimlet eyes narrowed and focused on the main chance, always alert to the presence of the next opportunity and mark. A grifter never stops grifting.
I am sorry for my lack of clarity, in what I wrote. I agree with your comment. I was appalled at the behavior of the Clinton Crime Family, the Deep State and the Main Stream Media. Trump won the election, fair and square.
The facts that someone of the ilk of Trump can win a presidential election, only to then have the office of the president undermined in every way "The Resistance" could drum up, speaks volumes to how far our political system has sunk and how rotten late state Empire is at its core.
The US has always been an oligarchy since its founding by white slave holding, landlords, with some smidgeons of democratic concessions to the populace, at the margins. But no issue of importance to the oligarchy, about the conduct of Empire, is ever contested at the ballot box.
I think Trump is disgusting. There is plenty of information about how Trump has conducted his personal and business life. Where ever one fancies themselves to be on the political spectrum, I think a person who keeps their word to the best of their ability, values their family, friends and community, understands that we are part of a community, will find Trump's bio and his behavior atrocious. He won against one of the most despicable politicians the US has ever vomited up for national office. Trump's argument that, "What have you got to loose, voting for me?" resinated with a large swath of the population. For good reason.
The US 'candidate selection process' broke down, that is how Trump gets in. The candidate selection process was working as expected, in its successful exclusion of Sanders, by contrast.
In fact, we can hear a Demoblican mantra getting cranked up now, that little "d" democracy will be best served if Biden has no opposition. No opposition to a "walking death rattle" (Jimmy Dore), the highlights of whose career is marked by never, ever having a real job; being a tool of the big Banksters who have fueled his campaigns; being a war mongerer abroad; a white supremacist at home and someone who was happy to get his 10% share of whatever grift his family members were engaged in, using their relationship to him, to grease the mechanism of that grift.
In short, Biden is the quintessential Neo-Liberal politician.
The "successes" in Trumps reign were on items that the Big Corporate Repubs (and Dems) have a consensus on: More tax cuts and give aways to the top 1/10th of one percent; Trash public safety, pour more money into the Military Industrial Complex; Ignore any of the crisis working people face as a result of 4 or 5 decades of Neo-Liberalism. But! Wait! Didn't Trump go after China? Yes! And what was the result, besides lots of storm and furry and antagonizing the rulers of China? The quantity of Chineese imports went up, as did the trade deficit with China.
For the reason you cited, Trump was no more effective at winding down the US's failed military adventures, than was Obummer, who might have tried a bit to do that, after he realized his policies were an abject failure and were hastening the decline of the US Empire, not propping it up.
In the long run, for the US Empire and maintaining US World Hegemony, Trump was a wash, compared to his predecessors.
Matt Taibbi wrote a good summation of the Trump presidency, along the lines I have outlined above, with more depth and a splash of humor. Taibbi was one of the first to loudly debunk the Clintonoid's, Dem's and Deep State's conspiracy against Trump.
As a working class person I paid additional tax with my return in April of every year. Under Trump's tax cuts I finally got a refund check and I changed nothing in my taxable situation. So maybe they were across the board cuts. Just how massive were the cuts for the so called oligarchs?? The top 5% of tax payers carry the heaviest burden of individual taxes while the bottom 50% hardly pay anything.
The people "who hardly pay anything", are likely to be those in under valued, socially necessary jobs, which recieve low pay. Jobs which form a foundation upon which the rest of the economy could not function, if by some mystical process, they were swept away. Low valued workers pay taxes on pretty much everything they touch. The county I live in has a 10% sales tax (aka as value added taxes). The city I live in has a 10% utility users value added tax (which just went up, because our utility, Pacific Greed and Extort, got their friends on the Public Utilities Commission to give them another sweet rate hike.)
Rents are extortionate. If you are somehow low income and you own a house in my area, after the basic real estate taxes, there is a list of about a dozen bond measures and other such things, which add thousands of dollars to your real estate tax bill.
Real estate taxes are figured as a percentage of the assesed value of the property. I might add that that one's real estate tax bill stands on top of a speculation driven, inflation of home re-sale prices (or any real estate that actually changes hands to a new legal owner). So, here in CA, there can be a vast gulf between what 2 neighbors may pay in real estate taxes, for identical properties. The tax differentials are determined by how much inflation has taken place between the sales of the 2 houses.*
Meanwhile, as I am sure you know, rental income and speculative income is taxed at half the rate, that the income of some one who does productive, socially necessary labor. And if one is really up there in income, paying any taxes at all, is almost a badge of shame. One has failed to properly game the system.
Being poor in this society, is a pretty steep tax in itself.
*Real estate taxes are 1% of assesed value, using as the base number, the sale price of the house at the time of purchase, by the current owner. By law, assesments can only be raised 2% a year. After repeated bouts of speculation driven inflation in real estate sales prices, there can be a big difference in basic real estate bills, between identical properties.
Wow. Maybe you ought to go back to cnn. You sound just like them violated or walked away from illegal treaties, check. Lower taxes for the most effective tax cut in history, check. The world knew what four years of peace might look like, check. Inspired other nations to fight for freedom, check. Rail safety? Who gives a mad fuck? Eliminated needless regulations, snd the next step was their bureaucracies they enjoined,, check. Was lied to by every person near him and still managed to create the strongest economy this country has ever seen, check.
You left out his not only calling out the NATO cheats to pay their agreed upon share of assessments but I like how he bullied his way thru the gathered so called world leaders at one of their self aggrandizing "summits" stepping right up to the front of the pack.
I think Trump exposed the shadow government of unelected appointees, lobbyists and alphabet soup agencies and they panicked and broke cover in an all out effort to preserve their power and influence. Getting Trump at any cost became an obsession that borders on psychosis. Seems they would do and say anything to keep him at bay. He really had no alliances in the D.C. political club. Trump's surprise win caused many otherwise stable and judicious people to become unhinged and violate everything they ever believed in. Trump still has them nervous but their selection of Biden seems to be far worse, when the subject of a pending nuclear war raises its ugly head. The small clique that now runs the government appears way out of their comfort zone. They just wander from crises to crises without any central core of ideas that make sense. Joe is out to lunch and is part of the problem not the solution. 2024 might tell the tale.
Perhaps they objected to having a serial criminal with known ties to any number of international criminal syndicates...in the Oval Office...you never know...
Exactly!! I say this all the time! “ where have all the Hippies gone? Where are all the war hating Flower Children? You know who you are... made fun of my kilts, Peter Pan collars and headbands...well, I’m here begging you to start paying attention because we’re getting close to the point of no return!! My favorite meme on this is JFK saying “ Democrats, what have you done to my Party?”
And both parties are complicit- the Tea party which morphed into maga whether you align with them or not are the only folks truly displaying courage as US citizens. A third party- libertarian is needed to save the country
Jon, I fear you have fallen victim to the Third Party Fallacy, that is, you seem to think that it is the current political parties that are the problem, and that a new third party will fix it.Wrong. The problem is not in the parties, it is that all political parties are comprised of people, and that people are flawed. The best any new party could ever hope for would be a momentary period of idealism that would soon be replaced by the usual ambitions, rivalries, and corruptions of any other political party. Cause that's how people are. Do you disagree? Whatever promise a third party might represent likely wouild be snuffed out even before it ever came to power--indeed, it likely would not come to power before that happened.
The best we can do is to continue to work for some measure of progress and reform within the existing party structures, i.e., shifting the Republicans to a more populist stance. The dream that we can create a sort of Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Cleans Things Up party is an illusion and waste of time.
Flawed we are in thinking everyone will agree on the solution. But do you really believe the two party system is working? It’s failed just as John Adams predicted it would, specifically due to man’s(people’s) inherent selfishness. 32trillion in debt and the world on the brink of war strictly because pacifists want to wait for someone else to step up. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. This country came to being by men/women of action and principles. The hearings going on today bringing the corruption to task is only happening because of a handful of courageous and true civil servants stood their ground. Enjoy standing aside.
The Tea Party was gaining success and getting individuals elected to public office when the Obama Administration illegally set the IRS on them and other govt. agencies were weaponized against individuals who were organizing and supporting their local Tea Party chapters. The movement was crippled and was taken over by different factions that survived the Obama illegal purge. Trumps MAGA movement sprung from the same wellspring of discontent as the original Tea Party. Problem was it was a personality based movement while the Tea Party was issue oriented.
Well, the conventional wisdom is that MAGA is personality driven, but as usual, the coventional wisdom is wrong. The core of Trump's appeal was his platform of bring home the troops, bring home the jobs, secure the border. This is a program that something like 60% of the public would support if Trump's at times out of control personality didn't knock it down 10 percentage points or more.
But yes, Obama's weaponization of the IRS against the Tea Party is another one of his crimes for which he should be punished. Maybe someday.
My father was a partisan with Tito's army during WW2. During an ambush on a German truck convoy he was shot trying to save an injured comrade. Some other partisans returned to save both him and the other partisan. They never left their fighters behind. Because of his courage he and the others were lauded as heroes and given the appropriate medals.
After the war it was a different story. He got a great job and everything was fine until he saw how corrupt and oppressive the Communist system was; party members and officials had become, as Milovan Djilas had said, "a new class." My father was never a member of the party but he was a democratic socialist and remained so until the end of his life. He wrote a manuscript that he wanted to publish about how wrong things were but someone reported him to the Yugoslav authorities and he had to run for his life.
Even being a decorated, Nazi fighting war hero didn't save my father from totalitarian oppression. For me personally my father's example is part of why I think the work you are doing is so incredibly important. Freedom of expression and speech are a huge part of what makes us human. It is more than worth fighting for, it is worth dying for.
As a 70's teenager and over 65 year old now, I recognize the importance of free speech. I have always been a contrarian. I don't want to or have need to follow the crowd. If something didn't seem right to me I observed both sides and went with the one that supported my moral stance (which, admittedly, has been fluid in the past). One fact is true: without the complete picture, we are all being influenced by an untruth or partial truth. Thank you for putting yourself "on the line" so to speak, so the rest of us can benefit.
Hey Matt, I was just sitting down to write a cover letter. I have 20 years of experience with DoS and DoD contracts and grants. I was fired from DoS for reporting the wrong doing by contractors. The DoS Inspector General found that I had suffered 'retaliation prohibited by law' I did get a 'settlement' but not my job back. I know this stuff-really well. I hope I am not to late to be considered.
Get the message out man. Between the Twitter Files, the Gerth story, the Hersh story, and a million other things, you'd think that there'd be some admittance of guilt, or at least soul-searching among the media-DC-Hollywood-actual-disinformation blob, but it seems to be getting worse and not better.
The bizarre AOC rants during the Twitter hearings, where she continues to claim the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian/right wing disinformation, are something else: a total denial of basic reality. I don't know how sensible, non-partisan people can turn this mess around, but keep fighting the good fight.
OK, throw in my hat ! I've been monitoring free speech since my days as East European bureau chief of The New York Times, as CBS News correspondent dividing my time between Paris and Moscow. Then as president of the Overseas Press Club of America, now as a CNN columnist and founder of SubStack's Andelman Unleashed ... so don't hesitate to call on me!
I love seeing journalists with experience in the MSM recognize the value of Matt's work. We need more old hands like you to come forward and publicly recognize the importance of the work he's doing, both for our country and to save journalism from itself.
The 'disinformation' propaganda is not only re political nonsense - but used to deceive people about the felonious actions of the domestic financial terrorism by Wall Street, hedge funds, pension plan management, private portfolio, etc., etc., protected still by the leaders and law enforcement who have yet to do a damned thing about the financial crisis they imposed on the American People in massive 30,000+ illegal taking of property - continues but not a peep about any of it because the financial elite continue to be aided and abetted; enabled by our 'leaders' - don't forget this part of the 'propaganda machine' which Matt so wonderfully exposed years ago- but has been ignored since. Thanks for your work Matt!!
Matt, if you will continue to tell the truth as you see it, and without partisanship, I will continue to support you. There are a very few others whose voices I trust as I do yours. I'm glad Elon entrusted you with this important work.
Adding a voice to the groundswell of gratitude for being a pro-free thought, speech and action oriented journalist and proponent.
And while you must already know this, as your contributions escalate, your personal information and safety will be at greater risk. Truth tellers historically become "dangerous enemies" and therefore good targets for evil adversaries and malicious behaviors.
Take good care young man! Your message is essential to those who preserve and protect our freedoms. Godspeed.
Wonderful work. I too am grateful like many here. I haven't liked it for years beginning with the NSA stuff. Hopefully this does result in some substantive changes and who knows, Watergate level impact on our country. If only other reporters had been doing their jobs........
Just as others who have responded here already, my mom and grandmother escaped Communists and Nazis both.
I owe it to their bravery and their fighting spirit to preserve the country that saved them from authoritarian Hell and allowed me to be born into freedom.
I know exactly what I am seeing in our country today. I know it from the family stories I was told, and I am so hopeful, now, that we can put a stop to this spreading authoritarianism.
America is a truly grand experiment of Enlightenment philosophies enacted. If the principles of freedom of thought and speech are not sacrosanct here, then they exist nowhere.
God bless you, Matt. If I cannot help, I can still pray.
Just lay off the "deep state." Use of the useless phrase flatters no one. It also doesn't exist. And those who abuse it mercilessly are destined for Dante's 9th Circle of Hell.
So grateful for what you are doing. Who knew it would come to this? So weird and alarming! Just like science fiction, only real. Smart to seek help from your audience, because, yes, we are with you and we are legion. Matt, you are an essential weather vane because, besides your reporting itself, what they say about you is wonderfully revealing. I trust the likes of you and Walter Kirn and Bari Weiss. Thank God you guys are there!
"It seems a lot of people are feeling the same frustrations, and want to lend a hand." Actually, we are legion. And glued to your Substack and podcast like our fathers, during the dark years of the Revolution, were glued to the radio for the Voice of America broadcasts. I'm talking about Castro's Revolution. You do the math.
I never would have believed I would come to distrust all MSM and social platforms, the government, and all agencies. Twitter, substacks carefully chosen, and alternative video sources are the only ones I use. We have been utterly BETRAYED by entities that must be exposed and criminally charged.
A huge thank you for all you do, but specifically this new project! When I saw your “help wanted” email I literally jumped out of my chair in joy. After the initial excitement passed, all I could think about was how groundbreaking you and your organization have become. A flexible, project focused and deeply experienced team can be equal to the corporate press in resources which should scare the crap out of those who do not have our best interests at heart! Few people get a chance to change the world. I hope you’re one of them!
Matt--you're a brave man, leading the way in the most urgent political struggle of our time. You're also funny and smart, with a keen sense of the absurd (a true survival skill at the current historical moment.) I'm filled with admiration and gratitude. Keep writing!
We need to bring back democracy in the US, including into US now “state media” -- no mention of Twitter Files, US Nord Stream act of war against Germany, a total collapse of Russia-gate DNC/CIA hoax, etc.
Instead we have DNC/St. Obama war monger Samantha Powers right now “spreading democracy” (regime change) in -- Hungary
That rotten c$&t should be dead by now, easily convicted of treason. Wtf? Seems to me exposing Americans to harm from her lofty perch and using the power granted to her by absolutely nothing, gets her a death sentence.
Thank you for the twitter files.The vaccine effed up my health and it was good to hear rep Mace tell twitter executives that it affected her too and that twitter censoring scientists who tried to stop it caused real harm in the real world. Yet they claim calling a transvestite by the right gender is causing real harm which it is not. The left and the media are truly evil. I really hope this government either reforms or falls due to revolution or collapse.
So grateful for your presence. For all the life affirming work you're so passionately engaged in. The ideas and data that help us make better choices...
Looking back to the early 1950's, and knowing where America is today, perhaps Senator Joseph McCarthy should be revisited, and his inquiries studied in more depth. He, like Donald Trump now, was endlessly vilified by Marxist mouths who feared truth as the destructive #1 enemy to what they now call democracy.
True self-governance under our Constitution is the antithesis of centralized control as evident in the recent actions of our federal government. Thanks for your contribution to the free marketplace of ideas based upon truth. The Truth is like a lion. You don't need to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself. - Saint Augustine
Thank you Matt. Like others I’ll help by subscribing. We desperately need voices like yours that communicate the objective truth and follow the truth wherever it leads, no matter the side, the team, the party. Keep going. More will come.
Freedom of speech means just that. Disinformation misinformation are words invented lately to shut people up. Journalists mostly today are part of an agenda that long ago has decoupled itself from the function of the fourth estate. Matt Bari Glenn and their colleagues are what remains of it.
Amidst the lies and the snarkiness (my word) that try to overwhelm us, you and your colleagues are a lifeline to reality and decency. Thank you so much.
From the time I was sixteen, I am a gun-violence survivor. This copyrighted nonfiction material incorporates some of Mr. Taibbi’s Twitter Files…please enjoy.
Without first correcting the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterm election, how can Pres Trump be sure of a fair 2024 election? My personal belief is that through fraud, waste, and abuse to blatantly manipulate the public and stall, Special Counsel Smith was appointed by Mr. Garland who was appointed by Mr. Biden who uses an ally of Mr. Obama. Obama is living what he calls his, “third term presidency” and according to Dan Bongino, “uses people close to him [influence peddling] to set up Biden” and hackle other amazing citizens of our great nation America. This is happening, “while [Mr. ] Garland conspired to conceal [Mr.] Biden illegal possession of federal classified documents prior to the 2022 midterm Elections.” Our beautiful America’s legal and voting systems in desperate need of repair from the horrible damage done by Obama’s terrorist organization (TO).
I came across this shocking Dr. Richard Flemming’s interview https://prosecutenow.io/ (stroll down to 6th topic) confirming among others, 1) “man-made COVID-19, a bio-weapon [against our beautiful America] and gain of function research” 2) “illegal HIV injections” 3) Dr. Fleming also shares, “HIV virus inserted in COVID-19 virus to make COVID-19 virus more potent, lethal” and 4) “no pandemic could have occurred without the release of this man-made virus” (paraphrased).
Matt - I suspect that for each person who responded to your request there are at least five more who wish they had either the skills or the time to help you. The recognition of how much we are being propagandized by our government is growing wider by the day, and you're a large driver of that awareness. Please continue with your crucial work, on behalf of all of us who are paying attention.
I am one of the "five". How I wish to be younger than 87 with better eyes and ears! But I am with you in spirit, and wouldn't miss a word of what you write. Yeah, I'm a fan-girl.
At 72 I also lack the skills but what makes me sad is how easily manipulated the younger generations are. We need to help wake them up!
Check out Grand Theft World. They have just together education courses with more to come. Not expensive. Sunday night they do a weekly long news roundup wrapped in historical context for free. I’ve been gently sharing with all ages cuz steadily we’ve been sooo propagandized & harmed. Covid brought all my suspicions into focus. On Rokfin & Rumble
Same here where the real news is concerned. As one of the elders still alive on planet earth, I'm grateful to the guides who have kept me alive and healthy enough to continue on a path of learning more each day.
Yes, me too, old but still alive! The social capital that is lost in the way of knowledge and experience by culling off the old ones shows how insane the world has become. The old ones know the promise and privilege of youth.
Matt, here's a direct contribution to dismantling the propaganda machine. Clapper now claims that Politico "distorted" what he and others said with the Russian disinfo letter in 2020 regarding Hunter Biden's laptop, lots of stories about this circulating currently.
Except, he forgot that he said “To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work” on CNN . Not it "might be" or it "had hallmarks", just "is": https://twitter.com/CastonChris/status/1625276729563521025
True that! Only (can’t believe I’m saying that at 52, but feel like 70.) I have lived a life like a senior. I’m also one of the world’s most travelled peoples…..
If you really want to know more DM me….. But yeah I have seen the whole world……. Including all of China and most of Russia. Aaaand Africa, every State in Australia, all 50 States in the US, 90% of Latin America, most of Africa, and all of Asia. Whew, getting tired of just naming these places, let alone going there….. Of course I lived in some of them thanks to the US Government……..
I have been listening weekly to the audio version via my podcast app. It's captivating. And I've signed up for an introductory workshop, too. I'm also over 65 and unlikely to have much impact on those around me, but I'm going down this path, because it feels essential.
Thanks for that. Very interesting and since I'm retired, I have lots of time to view! They are long. Very nice group of people we have here. Our new world will be great!
You can awaken someone who is sleeping, but can not awaken someone pretending to be asleep.
A bucket of ice water is worth considering.
Do Wharf Rats sleep? ;)
Only at low tide.
You just need to be really curious, know how to read, and be somewhat organized. That's it! And you can do it independently too! :)
I am as curious as a cat, truly lol.
Well I’m only’ 52 but I indendify with the older set.
Ditto to Ruth’s reply. So many seniors don’t bother or don’t know to go online to get the real news, I try to forward as much I can. God help us!
I’m 71, and I refuse to be a techno dinosaur! I have friends who still only write checks! My “kids” don’t own checkbooks !
You go girl! 87 and still sharp as a tack!
Me too!
From the looks of the thread I suggest
The Mature Women's Brigade
Not a woman but volunteer to play the dawg
Lie on the porch and bark at bad smellers
If I'm still awake.
We can help. Contact through www.TheAmericanReport.org
You are wise belong your years. Just so you know I woke up yesterday with a designer cat laying on top of me and purring loudly
A Bengal
Pix!
I spend a lot of time following links and suggestions in the comments sections, so everyone amplifies truth who posts here.
True… and “we” also have demonstrated the collective desire to address free speech and censorship while staying above the “ frictional fray!”
and fictional fray
I almost included that as well seeing a lot of fiction is the source of the fray!
Haha... right?? :D
Frenkle, you're too annoying to be anything other than annoying.
I can't think of any cohort that would be more avoidable than a cohort who "amplified truth."
Obviously he's not censoring you. Cool down. Get a grip. Check the hysteria.
Yup! Right here 🙋♀️cheering you on! And wanting to help this work any way I can!!
I too would be one of the five. I am all about honesty, truth and sunlight, and if I can even help by editing something, I am willing. I have not ever written for any entity but am a fairly voracious reader and your exposure Matt, of the Twitter Files, and all that has followed, well, brings this old heart to tears. God Bless and keep you. Viva La Truth!
💯 One of the five!
So true!
Correct, but probably at least double your estimate.
I'm 32. And had no clue where I was headed, was living a dead end life, working a dead end job and yours among other independents have inspired me to pay attention to the news and the polarity of the world, I never knew existed. I asked my father in 2002, I was 12, after learning about political parties in school, what he was, his answer was, "I'm not sure, I guess a democrat because republicans seem kinda against marijuana, and the wars and free speech and stuff like that, but the president is a republican, and I believe in America, so I guess I'm a republican right now, but none of that really matters to us right now, so I don't know", and that was it. We never spoke of politics again, he's 12 years passed on. I truly wish I'd known his perspective now. Anyways, I believe to my parents generation, party politics was a non-issue. And today's politics it's an Issue-Issue. I remember asking him that, and I remember being afraid of a draft when I was 12, I believe my party is Compassion/Freedom-absolutism, I believe that encompasses everything. And no one inspires that quite like the work of Matt Taibbi. And I thank you for shining your humanity through the work you do. And anything you need help with, literally anything, short of a capital crime, I am absolutely willing to do, for the causes you seem to stand for.
"Just wanted to thank the overwhelming number of people who responded to the call for freelance help yesterday."
You earned this response, brother. Lead on.
Amen, 100%.
And thanks to all the others, including Elon Musk, for metaphorically breaking out the pitchforks and torches. We all have a part of this job to do, whether it is one person, one podcast, or one Congressional hearing at a time.
Thank you for what you are doing. My father escaped from two communist countries. He used to say that if we lose our freedom in America, then what...?
I've spent my life since my 20s talking about Free Speech as the cornerstone on Freedom. The radicals obviously agree with me...or they wouldn't be working to destroy it.
I enjoy your podcasts with Walter Kirn. Could you talk about what each of us can do ...specifically ... to save America.
Thank you.
My father also used to me: Never keep quiet. Learn the facts...and when the subject comes up..speak up.
To save America AND the rest of the world. Let’s remind our young ones of the Four Freedoms as proclaimed by Roosevelt. It can be a powerful focalizer for our co-operation.
Your allready doing that in your own way.
Thomas Paine’s introduction to “Common Sense” rings true to this day. Freedom in America is waning, but this is the last refuge and best hope for all of mankind. It’s worth fighting for.
Amen!
Seriously, reach out to me….480-925-1933
I’m trying to reach you, but not working. Call me.
I texted you. Did you get my text?
Eva
Nope! Try again!
480-925-1933
Is your email 480 632 4738. Then yes.
No please text me again.
Yes I did but I can’t figure the thing out…….
Or maybe I did….I get hundreds of emails a day from companies, etc…,,,
I have been and always will be anti- communist. I had the privilege of traveling all over Russia, the Middle East of Russia, well everywhere. Communism in all its forms sucks…..
No need to thank me…..I’ve hated communist governments since I was a child.
I’m one of the most traveled people on the planet. 146 countries and counting (two more coming up) Literally every country in Europe. Almost every country in Asia (lived in India, Germany, Japan, Thailand, and married one of the last of them….. those places we’ve were worked around but I reached out and wow.,..But still I’ve been everywhere and still I want to travel…..it’s a sicknesss…..I know….
Every been everywhere? Been that done that.
Given my work history I can’t reply. But trust me I’m on your side. Reach out to me.
Wow you are wise beyond your years…ll
Kris,
I'm 76. Spent my adult life on a college campus, as a student and teacher....watching it all building.
Radical leftists are now showing their colors because they have to. The election of President Trump cracked open Pandora's box; people like us could see who was hiding in the box.
They went into warp speed to reach their goal before WE stopped them.
I feel like we are kindred spirits. Please write me back.
Thank you for your response.
Really I mean it. My Dad is 76 and he is dying from a number of things. Thank God you are alive and well. Yeah I’ve always been a conservative type of person, although I’ve veered off course a few times. But I’m conservative now and will always be……
And for what it’s worth I have been highly trained to hate communist countries. Grrrrrr
And yeah you are right about Trump. Most people don’t like him but he served a good purpose in exposing the perfidy of the left. Honestly, I’m at the point where I’m about to declare that the left is just wrong on most issues…
Tell me more about your university experience
Wow you really are wise. I never liked Trump but he did a service to the country….
I’ve been to every Communiist Coubtry. Hate them and afraid our Country will become one of them.
We are all standing behind your stoutheart, Matt. Ever grateful for your courage, integrity, stamina, and humor! We are legion and we’ve got your back!
We are so appreciative of your work, it's a morale boost to know you are digging in! Gratitude and Respect, supporting you as best we can. Thank you, Matt.
I wish I had the qualifications to help but I will help the best way I can by subscribing to your Substack. Thank you for all your continuous hard work.
Get 'em!
"I love my country but fear my government." Folks used to say this during Nixon (Watergate) and Reagan (Iran-Contra) terms.
The Deep State (yes, it exists) is a thousand times more dangerous, and especially more so when a complicit political party holds power.
It is very odd that the people during the Nixon and Reagan eras who said they feared the government are now the ones who are most vicious in suppressing our rights. Those liberals at the time are now the worst of the worst. The Deep State always existed but was not as bold and in the spotlight as they are today. Now identified pretty accurately it is up to the voters and citizens to neutralize or put them in a position where they have little or no real power. Elected officials need to come to gather to save themselves as well as representative government. Deep States or shadow governments existing every form of government. Communists and others just "eliminate" them from time to time but we seem to put our collective heads in the sand and hope for the best. Individuals with courage need to be elected and move with strength and clarity against the Deep State. Won't be easy and could get ugly but it needs to be done. If the cancer of deep statism has gone too far the body cannot survive its removal. We are close.
Well said! And every thing they said they feared Trump was gonna do never happened. But under Biden, it is happening and these “ liberals” are cheering it on !
Which shows that neither the left nor the right side of politics can be trusted. We can start by identifying the honest politicians on both sides. They may be rare, but they exist. And then we must protect them from the attacks they are bound to endure.
“Identifying honest politicians”....sadly, that doesn’t take very long.
I shouldn’t reply, given that I worked for ‘the man’ for 23 years….but you are both right. The monster feeds itself……
I would say it is not about honest and dishonest. It is about understanding motivation. Politicians are politicians by career now, it is their one and only job and they get paid a lot in and out of office. So that is their motivation, but consider everyone who works in government.
Lets say you are a mid tier employee in parks and recreation in a city, you honestly like parks, you honestly think building them is good and you honestly want your department to groe and do more of what you are doing.
So having a bigger budget next year is the only way to do that. Lucky for you though you do not have to sell your work, you just take from the citizens and do what you know is best for them.
This is every level of government everywhere. They all want to grow their "company" (e.g. the water department, affordable housing.) And never is anyone saying we have enough of the tax payers money, because whoever says they don't want more money.
We pay more per student for education than any country in the world over 18,000 per chicld per year on average. And our kids can read, barely, well some of them can.
So lets not focus on left or right lets instead focus on holding everyone accountable. Do not vote for their bigger budgets instead demand to see what they even did with your money.
Social conservative or progressive I think we all need to get financially conservative or we might become facists by accident. The government is quickly becoming such a huge percentage of our GDP and the problem with that is their is no competition for the government, if they do a bad job or provide a bad service, you cant refuse to pay or take your business elsewhere.
More aspects of our economy should be private business, cities do not need billion dollars budgets just for buying property and playing monopoly, let the free economy decide what a city needs not some 25 year old college student who was appointed to the redevelopment board by a mayor who liked how they looked in a suit.
In a for profit business you are rewarded with more jobs by doing your jobs well. If you solve problems for a fixed estimate and get the job done right you can get referrals to do more jobs and make more money.
In government the best way to get more money is to do your job terribly and hold people hostage. If they keep the roads terrible you pay more taxes, if they do not educate your kids they get a school levy increase, if they can not find homes for the poor they get more money for that the more government fails the more money we give them to fail.
Yeah Governmaent (Big G) just wants to grow itself. Part of why I seperated from it.
I would add your comment isn’t entirely correct. I worked for the government for 23 years, and I have always been conservative.
Isn't quite true: In retrospect, I don't think Trump was much of a departure from Uniparty Orthodoxy. Anti-Labor. Check. Repeal proposed safety regs intended to increase rail safety (among a long list of others). Check. Massive further tax cuts for the oligarchs. Check. Demoguery (rail agaisnt the Deep State and his fellow oligarchs, but change nothing for the better). Check. Rail against the Deep State sewer rats and then appoint a whole boat load to his admin. Check. Funnel more money into the Pentagon wealth transfer apparatus. Check. Yes, did not start any new wars that we know about, but kept the ones on tap going. Conditional check. Violated or walked away from treaties, following long established Uniparty tradition. Check. Was hated by the Deep State, viewed as some sort of interloper, made worse, because he mouthed some stuff outside of Uniparty Orthodoxy. (See demogoguery) True. ETC.
Matt wrote an article to the end that there was a lot of hullaballoo about Trump and Trump admin, but little substance.
Wrong Tony Sustak. Like him or hate him, Trump is the only national politician in at least 60 years to challenge the uniparty. You know this by the extreme lengths the uniparty has gone to (and continues to go to) to destroy him.
You're slaying me, Pacificus, really. But granted, while in office Trump challenged not only your beloved "uniparty" but also anyone who devoted more than a moment's thought to the Donald's "being." A whole lotta challenges from the big guy.
Oh Fedspar, I couldn't decipher what your putdown even means. How am I supposed to respond to it?
I am sorry for my lack of clarity, in what I wrote. I agree with your comment. I was appalled at the behavior of the Clinton Crime Family, the Deep State and the Main Stream Media. Trump won the election, fair and square.
The facts that someone of the ilk of Trump can win a presidential election, only to then have the office of the president undermined in every way "The Resistance" could drum up, speaks volumes to how far our political system has sunk and how rotten late state Empire is at its core.
The US has always been an oligarchy since its founding by white slave holding, landlords, with some smidgeons of democratic concessions to the populace, at the margins. But no issue of importance to the oligarchy, about the conduct of Empire, is ever contested at the ballot box.
I think Trump is disgusting. There is plenty of information about how Trump has conducted his personal and business life. Where ever one fancies themselves to be on the political spectrum, I think a person who keeps their word to the best of their ability, values their family, friends and community, understands that we are part of a community, will find Trump's bio and his behavior atrocious. He won against one of the most despicable politicians the US has ever vomited up for national office. Trump's argument that, "What have you got to loose, voting for me?" resinated with a large swath of the population. For good reason.
The US 'candidate selection process' broke down, that is how Trump gets in. The candidate selection process was working as expected, in its successful exclusion of Sanders, by contrast.
In fact, we can hear a Demoblican mantra getting cranked up now, that little "d" democracy will be best served if Biden has no opposition. No opposition to a "walking death rattle" (Jimmy Dore), the highlights of whose career is marked by never, ever having a real job; being a tool of the big Banksters who have fueled his campaigns; being a war mongerer abroad; a white supremacist at home and someone who was happy to get his 10% share of whatever grift his family members were engaged in, using their relationship to him, to grease the mechanism of that grift.
In short, Biden is the quintessential Neo-Liberal politician.
The "successes" in Trumps reign were on items that the Big Corporate Repubs (and Dems) have a consensus on: More tax cuts and give aways to the top 1/10th of one percent; Trash public safety, pour more money into the Military Industrial Complex; Ignore any of the crisis working people face as a result of 4 or 5 decades of Neo-Liberalism. But! Wait! Didn't Trump go after China? Yes! And what was the result, besides lots of storm and furry and antagonizing the rulers of China? The quantity of Chineese imports went up, as did the trade deficit with China.
For the reason you cited, Trump was no more effective at winding down the US's failed military adventures, than was Obummer, who might have tried a bit to do that, after he realized his policies were an abject failure and were hastening the decline of the US Empire, not propping it up.
In the long run, for the US Empire and maintaining US World Hegemony, Trump was a wash, compared to his predecessors.
Matt Taibbi wrote a good summation of the Trump presidency, along the lines I have outlined above, with more depth and a splash of humor. Taibbi was one of the first to loudly debunk the Clintonoid's, Dem's and Deep State's conspiracy against Trump.
I think, as a number of other people have pointed out, including Matt T, at some length, that Trump was far less of a challenge to the status quo than all the noise that was raised by the Deep State's allies. We have a coming together of the political concubines of the Deep State, the fully integrated into the Deep State's service MSM, and the people, we all know who are desparate to believe there is something of redemptive value in the Democratic Party (or the Repub. Party as well). People desparate to cling onto myths about power and its excercise, who are choosing not to know that what 'goes around, comes around' and doing their best to deny to themselves, that they could be next to be cast aside by the "System" as redundant to the needs of its oligarchs.
On the "goes around, comes around" front, Walter Kirn made the observation, that East Palestine, Ohio, looked like it was yet another victim of successful implimentation of Neo-Liberal politics in the Heart Land. Though, I live on a coast, the city I live in is one of those once industrial, now hollowed out and in a perpetual state of chronic acute financial distress. At the same time the train was coming off the tracks, creating a devastating crisis, E. Palestine's name sake in the Middle East, was yet again being savaged by the Zionist thugs who run Israel. Palestine has been suffering devastation since 1948, well before the dawn of the Neo-Liberal Era, that got my city and the town of E. Palestine. The same ruling elite that blesses the savaging of Palestine, then and today, blesses the conditions that led to the derailment. The derailment wasn't an act of God, it was the consequence of a series of decisions, made by real flesh and blood human beings. The confluence of those decisions make train wrecks inevitable. Generate enough train derailments and the likelihood of a real bad one, in a real bad place, becomes inevitable. Heil! Profits Uber Alles!
Excerpts about Trump in Matt's words:
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/18/17992608/matt-taibbi-rolling-stone-fairway-substack-newsletter-donald-trump-steven-perlberg-media-podcast
“You’ve seen a lot of quasi-reflective changes in the media” since Trump’s election in 2016, Taibbi said on the latest Recode Media. “One thing you haven’t seen is less coverage of Trump, like we’re doing more of it and we’re more profitable than ever. And that’s because this is what sells.”
“We replaced a million hours of Trump with a million hours of ‘Trump is bad,’” he added. “... We took a lot of heat during 2016 for giving him billions [of dollars worth] of free coverage and we had this fork in the road, like, are we going to cover him less, or are we going to cover in the same amount but in a different way? And then we chose Door No. 2.”
So far, Taibbi told BuzzFeed’s Steven Perlberg, he’s not convinced that journalists have accepted responsibility for “dumb[ing] down the process long before Trump even ran for president,” turning presidential elections into a reality show. And they may be over-estimating their understanding of regular people who voted for Trump."
https://www.racket.news/p/the-worst-choice-ever
"…Donald Trump is going to be a difficult case for future historians because he’s simultaneously the biggest liar and the most lied-about politician in American history. The standard propaganda lines about Trump are all incorrect. The usual technique involves sticking his name in headlines next to absurd disqualifying descriptors: “fascist,” “traitor,” “dictator,” and so on….
…Trump may have played cartoon Mussolini on the stump and reached for Hitlerian cliches in his campaign videos, but the dirty secret of the last four years — hidden from the broad mass of voters by both conservative and mainstream media — was that the president’s much ballyhooed strongman leanings were a fraud. Trump the Terrible was great TV, but away from cameras he was a fake despot who proved repeatedly that he didn’t know the first thing about how to exercise presidential power, even in his own defense….
…Trump entered the White House buried in scandals that had been foisted upon him by officials in his own government who were openly betraying him, illegally leaking intelligence about his administration to the press on a weekly if not daily basis. Not to say it would have been a good idea, but he could have hauled every last one of these leakers off to jail, legally, and in a few cases could even have done what Barack Obama did, and used secrecy laws to go after press antagonists as well….
…Instead of using these imperial powers to send commandos rappelling through the windows of people like Jim Comey, John Brennan or even David Ignatius in message-sending pre-dawn raids, the “fascist” Trump did nothing. Before inauguration, he sat like the dope he is in the Trump Tower while Comey pulled a J. Edgar Hoover to his face, promising to keep “close” a damaging report about a pee tape in a supposedly top secret meeting whose details would be on CNN within about ten minutes.
Trump lacked the sense to fire Comey in that moment, and as for the dozens of officials who afterward leaked classified intelligence to fuel what by then was an open campaign aimed at putting him, Trump, in jail, Trump was mostly too stupefied to root out and fire these people, much less arrest them. Meanwhile it was his Democratic opponents, and proxies like Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who were executing dramatic raids against people like Paul Manafort and even Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Democratic Senators like Mark Warner of Virginia and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii had the bright idea to threaten Internet platforms like Facebook with regulation unless they accepted direction on “ferreting out” content that foments “discord.” Had Trump pushed his Justice Department’s Antitrust Division to do something similar, we might have been looking at bans of the New York Times in recent weeks instead of the New York Post. In other words: in this and other areas, if Trump had even a drop of LBJ in his constitution, we’d have been in serious trouble. Instead, when Trump finally unholstered the Espionage Act to go after a political actor, it was to prosecute a sort-of ally in Julian Assange.
Trump prior to arriving in Washington spent decades managing his image in New York by buying local pols with contributions and promises of development deals, while pocketing newspaper editors with gossip and invites to booze-and-poon-tang parties….
…Most of what Trump actually did in office was lend his loopy signature to exactly the kind of initiatives the “swamp” of elite interests he supposedly ran against in 2016 secretly wanted anyway: a monstrous $1.9 trillion tax giveaway from 2017, this year’s multi-trillion, no-questions-asked bailout of the financial sector, the gutting of regulatory agencies like the EPA and OSHA beyond the wildest dreams of prior Republican administrations, an $82 billion one-year increase in the military budget, the heightening of drone strikes, even indicting Assange. It all testified to the fact that Trump’s image as a fist-shaking enemy of the establishment was as fraudulent as the degrees his online diploma-mill University used to give out.
Trump played populist in public, but his presidency was spent parked limp and hostage-like in a robe before a TV somewhere in the White House, watching in horror as the anchors of shows like Fox and Friends informed him about the Beltway power machine’s latest successful effort to shit all over him. His response, every time, was to sob into Twitter by his lonesome, often deep into the night. He seemed not to have a clue he was president, which again was mostly a good thing. Just this weekend, in his latest race-baiting campaign to accuse “Squad” members Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of being illegal people, he asked out loud, “Where is our Justice Department?” No one in the audience had the heart to cry out, “In your Executive Branch?”…
…Trump had so few people with a clue in his White House that a lot of his policy decisions ended up sounding like money-making schemes hatched in the basement by between-jobs poker buddies, whispering so their wives won’t hear….
…This pattern, of stepping on a rake before even getting to do the bad thing at scale, was a chief characteristic of the Trump presidency.
In modern America the president’s most important job might be using his or her voice to reassure the country. Trump not only lacks this ability, he finds ways to make huge portions of the population feel like passengers in a pilotless, plummeting jetliner every time he opens his mouth….
…Imagine being Trump’s ambassador to Nigeria or Mexico and having to come up with new ways to explain the boss’s Tweets every morning. He was the Ugly American caricature — an ignorant, self-centered, tasteless bigot — amplified to the scale of colossal art.
In sum, this man who secured the presidency because voters thought his blunt, unvarnished persona might prove a corrective to unchecked elite corruption proved incapable in office of doing anything except complain into his phone, and abuse himself like a zoo gorilla every time a camera was pointed in his direction. Used to getting his way as a petty corporate boss, he was uniquely toolless as a Beltway operator, a man who in a thousand years couldn’t figure out how to use the office to achieve something positive.
For all that, Trump comes perilously close to being a better choice than his Democratic opponent. That’s how revolting our situation is…
…Again, Trump was a dud as a leader, but many of the things that came out of his mouth — claiming to seek closer relations with North Korea, Russia, and Syria, for instance, or asking why we’re footing the bill for a NATO military alliance that hasn’t been relevant or useful since 1991, or referring to NAFTA in tones suggesting something less than religious awe — made him not just a pain in the ass to the D.C. Brahmins, but our very own domestic version of the “Hitler of the Month” club, a Noriega/Milosevic/Saddam/Assad-style mad interloper requiring immediate removal…."
I don’t think Trump was perfect and I really think he surrounded himself with people he shouldn’t have trusted HOWEVER, the reason I disagree that he’s part of the Uniparty is because of the nonstop, persistent attempts to remove him from office, roadblock his efforts at change and neutralize his supporters.
He is responsible for Christopher Wray leading the FBI though- which to this day, I don’t understand.
My opinion? Because he got conned by professional politicians aka con “me .” Combined with his “YUGE” ego thinking that everyone would like him and want him to succeed....look at what all Mitch McConnell did behind the scenes to work against him. Why? Ask George Carlin!
Trump made no effort to "change" anything while in office---it was four years much like the previous 50 for The Donald. Both gimlet eyes narrowed and focused on the main chance, always alert to the presence of the next opportunity and mark. A grifter never stops grifting.
What does “gimlet eyes” mean?
I am sorry for my lack of clarity, in what I wrote. I agree with your comment. I was appalled at the behavior of the Clinton Crime Family, the Deep State and the Main Stream Media. Trump won the election, fair and square.
The facts that someone of the ilk of Trump can win a presidential election, only to then have the office of the president undermined in every way "The Resistance" could drum up, speaks volumes to how far our political system has sunk and how rotten late state Empire is at its core.
The US has always been an oligarchy since its founding by white slave holding, landlords, with some smidgeons of democratic concessions to the populace, at the margins. But no issue of importance to the oligarchy, about the conduct of Empire, is ever contested at the ballot box.
I think Trump is disgusting. There is plenty of information about how Trump has conducted his personal and business life. Where ever one fancies themselves to be on the political spectrum, I think a person who keeps their word to the best of their ability, values their family, friends and community, understands that we are part of a community, will find Trump's bio and his behavior atrocious. He won against one of the most despicable politicians the US has ever vomited up for national office. Trump's argument that, "What have you got to loose, voting for me?" resinated with a large swath of the population. For good reason.
The US 'candidate selection process' broke down, that is how Trump gets in. The candidate selection process was working as expected, in its successful exclusion of Sanders, by contrast.
In fact, we can hear a Demoblican mantra getting cranked up now, that little "d" democracy will be best served if Biden has no opposition. No opposition to a "walking death rattle" (Jimmy Dore), the highlights of whose career is marked by never, ever having a real job; being a tool of the big Banksters who have fueled his campaigns; being a war mongerer abroad; a white supremacist at home and someone who was happy to get his 10% share of whatever grift his family members were engaged in, using their relationship to him, to grease the mechanism of that grift.
In short, Biden is the quintessential Neo-Liberal politician.
The "successes" in Trumps reign were on items that the Big Corporate Repubs (and Dems) have a consensus on: More tax cuts and give aways to the top 1/10th of one percent; Trash public safety, pour more money into the Military Industrial Complex; Ignore any of the crisis working people face as a result of 4 or 5 decades of Neo-Liberalism. But! Wait! Didn't Trump go after China? Yes! And what was the result, besides lots of storm and furry and antagonizing the rulers of China? The quantity of Chineese imports went up, as did the trade deficit with China.
For the reason you cited, Trump was no more effective at winding down the US's failed military adventures, than was Obummer, who might have tried a bit to do that, after he realized his policies were an abject failure and were hastening the decline of the US Empire, not propping it up.
In the long run, for the US Empire and maintaining US World Hegemony, Trump was a wash, compared to his predecessors.
Matt Taibbi wrote a good summation of the Trump presidency, along the lines I have outlined above, with more depth and a splash of humor. Taibbi was one of the first to loudly debunk the Clintonoid's, Dem's and Deep State's conspiracy against Trump.
As a working class person I paid additional tax with my return in April of every year. Under Trump's tax cuts I finally got a refund check and I changed nothing in my taxable situation. So maybe they were across the board cuts. Just how massive were the cuts for the so called oligarchs?? The top 5% of tax payers carry the heaviest burden of individual taxes while the bottom 50% hardly pay anything.
The people "who hardly pay anything", are likely to be those in under valued, socially necessary jobs, which recieve low pay. Jobs which form a foundation upon which the rest of the economy could not function, if by some mystical process, they were swept away. Low valued workers pay taxes on pretty much everything they touch. The county I live in has a 10% sales tax (aka as value added taxes). The city I live in has a 10% utility users value added tax (which just went up, because our utility, Pacific Greed and Extort, got their friends on the Public Utilities Commission to give them another sweet rate hike.)
Rents are extortionate. If you are somehow low income and you own a house in my area, after the basic real estate taxes, there is a list of about a dozen bond measures and other such things, which add thousands of dollars to your real estate tax bill.
Real estate taxes are figured as a percentage of the assesed value of the property. I might add that that one's real estate tax bill stands on top of a speculation driven, inflation of home re-sale prices (or any real estate that actually changes hands to a new legal owner). So, here in CA, there can be a vast gulf between what 2 neighbors may pay in real estate taxes, for identical properties. The tax differentials are determined by how much inflation has taken place between the sales of the 2 houses.*
Meanwhile, as I am sure you know, rental income and speculative income is taxed at half the rate, that the income of some one who does productive, socially necessary labor. And if one is really up there in income, paying any taxes at all, is almost a badge of shame. One has failed to properly game the system.
Being poor in this society, is a pretty steep tax in itself.
*Real estate taxes are 1% of assesed value, using as the base number, the sale price of the house at the time of purchase, by the current owner. By law, assesments can only be raised 2% a year. After repeated bouts of speculation driven inflation in real estate sales prices, there can be a big difference in basic real estate bills, between identical properties.
Wow. Maybe you ought to go back to cnn. You sound just like them violated or walked away from illegal treaties, check. Lower taxes for the most effective tax cut in history, check. The world knew what four years of peace might look like, check. Inspired other nations to fight for freedom, check. Rail safety? Who gives a mad fuck? Eliminated needless regulations, snd the next step was their bureaucracies they enjoined,, check. Was lied to by every person near him and still managed to create the strongest economy this country has ever seen, check.
I think the people in eastern Ohio care about rail safety.
Tell me about it! My timing on that comment was almost prescient, but backwards. I'm wondering who owns the track there? W. B.?
Not to mention the people in Tucson.
You left out his not only calling out the NATO cheats to pay their agreed upon share of assessments but I like how he bullied his way thru the gathered so called world leaders at one of their self aggrandizing "summits" stepping right up to the front of the pack.
I left out so much. These retards are tiring. It's like beating your head against a wall, talking to these fucking imbeciles.
Straight white constitutionally [white] man sees Trump as kemosabe, news at eleven.
How can it be Uniparty to both sign a treat and walk away from them, e.g. Iran?
I think Trump exposed the shadow government of unelected appointees, lobbyists and alphabet soup agencies and they panicked and broke cover in an all out effort to preserve their power and influence. Getting Trump at any cost became an obsession that borders on psychosis. Seems they would do and say anything to keep him at bay. He really had no alliances in the D.C. political club. Trump's surprise win caused many otherwise stable and judicious people to become unhinged and violate everything they ever believed in. Trump still has them nervous but their selection of Biden seems to be far worse, when the subject of a pending nuclear war raises its ugly head. The small clique that now runs the government appears way out of their comfort zone. They just wander from crises to crises without any central core of ideas that make sense. Joe is out to lunch and is part of the problem not the solution. 2024 might tell the tale.
Perhaps they objected to having a serial criminal with known ties to any number of international criminal syndicates...in the Oval Office...you never know...
Exactly!! I say this all the time! “ where have all the Hippies gone? Where are all the war hating Flower Children? You know who you are... made fun of my kilts, Peter Pan collars and headbands...well, I’m here begging you to start paying attention because we’re getting close to the point of no return!! My favorite meme on this is JFK saying “ Democrats, what have you done to my Party?”
Good points, NotMe$. Yes, we now know that all those principled liberals back then were just fascists waiting to happen once they held power.
Ya, ok, right, right.
Spot on
And both parties are complicit- the Tea party which morphed into maga whether you align with them or not are the only folks truly displaying courage as US citizens. A third party- libertarian is needed to save the country
Jon, I fear you have fallen victim to the Third Party Fallacy, that is, you seem to think that it is the current political parties that are the problem, and that a new third party will fix it.Wrong. The problem is not in the parties, it is that all political parties are comprised of people, and that people are flawed. The best any new party could ever hope for would be a momentary period of idealism that would soon be replaced by the usual ambitions, rivalries, and corruptions of any other political party. Cause that's how people are. Do you disagree? Whatever promise a third party might represent likely wouild be snuffed out even before it ever came to power--indeed, it likely would not come to power before that happened.
The best we can do is to continue to work for some measure of progress and reform within the existing party structures, i.e., shifting the Republicans to a more populist stance. The dream that we can create a sort of Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Cleans Things Up party is an illusion and waste of time.
Flawed we are in thinking everyone will agree on the solution. But do you really believe the two party system is working? It’s failed just as John Adams predicted it would, specifically due to man’s(people’s) inherent selfishness. 32trillion in debt and the world on the brink of war strictly because pacifists want to wait for someone else to step up. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. This country came to being by men/women of action and principles. The hearings going on today bringing the corruption to task is only happening because of a handful of courageous and true civil servants stood their ground. Enjoy standing aside.
You're sexy when you get your Hofstadter on, you know that?
Fedspar, I can only hope I have a fraction of Prof Hofstadter's knowledge and insight. But you are correct, his work was/is an inspiration.
Stop hitting on me!
The Tea Party was gaining success and getting individuals elected to public office when the Obama Administration illegally set the IRS on them and other govt. agencies were weaponized against individuals who were organizing and supporting their local Tea Party chapters. The movement was crippled and was taken over by different factions that survived the Obama illegal purge. Trumps MAGA movement sprung from the same wellspring of discontent as the original Tea Party. Problem was it was a personality based movement while the Tea Party was issue oriented.
Well, the conventional wisdom is that MAGA is personality driven, but as usual, the coventional wisdom is wrong. The core of Trump's appeal was his platform of bring home the troops, bring home the jobs, secure the border. This is a program that something like 60% of the public would support if Trump's at times out of control personality didn't knock it down 10 percentage points or more.
But yes, Obama's weaponization of the IRS against the Tea Party is another one of his crimes for which he should be punished. Maybe someday.
Well I did complete 23 years of Gonrernmet Servise. Thank you very much. But also believe it has gotten out of contr
Control. Sorry I’m a control freak, haha.
Maybe that’s why the CIA hired me.
Thanks, but I'll pass on that prescription.
Keep the pressure on until they can't ignore you...
My father was a partisan with Tito's army during WW2. During an ambush on a German truck convoy he was shot trying to save an injured comrade. Some other partisans returned to save both him and the other partisan. They never left their fighters behind. Because of his courage he and the others were lauded as heroes and given the appropriate medals.
After the war it was a different story. He got a great job and everything was fine until he saw how corrupt and oppressive the Communist system was; party members and officials had become, as Milovan Djilas had said, "a new class." My father was never a member of the party but he was a democratic socialist and remained so until the end of his life. He wrote a manuscript that he wanted to publish about how wrong things were but someone reported him to the Yugoslav authorities and he had to run for his life.
Even being a decorated, Nazi fighting war hero didn't save my father from totalitarian oppression. For me personally my father's example is part of why I think the work you are doing is so incredibly important. Freedom of expression and speech are a huge part of what makes us human. It is more than worth fighting for, it is worth dying for.
As a 70's teenager and over 65 year old now, I recognize the importance of free speech. I have always been a contrarian. I don't want to or have need to follow the crowd. If something didn't seem right to me I observed both sides and went with the one that supported my moral stance (which, admittedly, has been fluid in the past). One fact is true: without the complete picture, we are all being influenced by an untruth or partial truth. Thank you for putting yourself "on the line" so to speak, so the rest of us can benefit.
Hey Matt, I was just sitting down to write a cover letter. I have 20 years of experience with DoS and DoD contracts and grants. I was fired from DoS for reporting the wrong doing by contractors. The DoS Inspector General found that I had suffered 'retaliation prohibited by law' I did get a 'settlement' but not my job back. I know this stuff-really well. I hope I am not to late to be considered.
Another can of worms can be opened, to be fed to those who could be fed some of their own medicine.
Email him.
Thanks,I did
Get the message out man. Between the Twitter Files, the Gerth story, the Hersh story, and a million other things, you'd think that there'd be some admittance of guilt, or at least soul-searching among the media-DC-Hollywood-actual-disinformation blob, but it seems to be getting worse and not better.
The bizarre AOC rants during the Twitter hearings, where she continues to claim the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian/right wing disinformation, are something else: a total denial of basic reality. I don't know how sensible, non-partisan people can turn this mess around, but keep fighting the good fight.
OK, throw in my hat ! I've been monitoring free speech since my days as East European bureau chief of The New York Times, as CBS News correspondent dividing my time between Paris and Moscow. Then as president of the Overseas Press Club of America, now as a CNN columnist and founder of SubStack's Andelman Unleashed ... so don't hesitate to call on me!
I love seeing journalists with experience in the MSM recognize the value of Matt's work. We need more old hands like you to come forward and publicly recognize the importance of the work he's doing, both for our country and to save journalism from itself.
A CNN columnist? The credibility of the entire CNN network does not bode well for any honest reporter.
I urge you to find other work, and save yourself.
True!
Please email him!
The 'disinformation' propaganda is not only re political nonsense - but used to deceive people about the felonious actions of the domestic financial terrorism by Wall Street, hedge funds, pension plan management, private portfolio, etc., etc., protected still by the leaders and law enforcement who have yet to do a damned thing about the financial crisis they imposed on the American People in massive 30,000+ illegal taking of property - continues but not a peep about any of it because the financial elite continue to be aided and abetted; enabled by our 'leaders' - don't forget this part of the 'propaganda machine' which Matt so wonderfully exposed years ago- but has been ignored since. Thanks for your work Matt!!
3109901025
Matt, if you will continue to tell the truth as you see it, and without partisanship, I will continue to support you. There are a very few others whose voices I trust as I do yours. I'm glad Elon entrusted you with this important work.
Adding a voice to the groundswell of gratitude for being a pro-free thought, speech and action oriented journalist and proponent.
And while you must already know this, as your contributions escalate, your personal information and safety will be at greater risk. Truth tellers historically become "dangerous enemies" and therefore good targets for evil adversaries and malicious behaviors.
Take good care young man! Your message is essential to those who preserve and protect our freedoms. Godspeed.
Yes, we, the people must stand around you to protect you from the attacks that are bound to be devised. Together we can fend them off.
Wonderful work. I too am grateful like many here. I haven't liked it for years beginning with the NSA stuff. Hopefully this does result in some substantive changes and who knows, Watergate level impact on our country. If only other reporters had been doing their jobs........
Just as others who have responded here already, my mom and grandmother escaped Communists and Nazis both.
I owe it to their bravery and their fighting spirit to preserve the country that saved them from authoritarian Hell and allowed me to be born into freedom.
I know exactly what I am seeing in our country today. I know it from the family stories I was told, and I am so hopeful, now, that we can put a stop to this spreading authoritarianism.
America is a truly grand experiment of Enlightenment philosophies enacted. If the principles of freedom of thought and speech are not sacrosanct here, then they exist nowhere.
God bless you, Matt. If I cannot help, I can still pray.
I would watch for saboteurs and moles.
Narrative control won’t go quietly
Thanks, I was diligently waiting for that one.
Speaking of saboteurs and moles! I present to you, Fedspar.
He also bats for team pedo. Go look at his comments from the trans activist post last month.
Fedspar, by the way, where's your running mate Deep State Gene? Haven't seen him on site lately. Hope I didn't hurt his feelings!
Witless morons rarely hurt the feelings of others, no matter how hard they try. So don't sweat it Pacificus, don't sweat it.
C'mon Fedspar, that's just nasty.
Just lay off the "deep state." Use of the useless phrase flatters no one. It also doesn't exist. And those who abuse it mercilessly are destined for Dante's 9th Circle of Hell.
It was. Apologies.
Comes with the territory these daze !
So grateful for what you are doing. Who knew it would come to this? So weird and alarming! Just like science fiction, only real. Smart to seek help from your audience, because, yes, we are with you and we are legion. Matt, you are an essential weather vane because, besides your reporting itself, what they say about you is wonderfully revealing. I trust the likes of you and Walter Kirn and Bari Weiss. Thank God you guys are there!
There are a lot of us who are horny for some truthful reporting. Thank you.
No wonder you are horny with a nickname like snakebite. Perhaps a dating game setup with 3 guys calling themselves Maddog
Horny for truth. I’ve been post-sexual for decades.
Right on Granny! Thank you for sharing. Especially when many calling themselves leftists believe you can get an STD from the truth.
Well I’m only 52 and haven’t had sex since my 11 year old was conceived.
Matt, thank YOU. This work will be groundbreaking. Can't wait for the book(s)!
I want the whole truth, nothing but the truth!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWSx0bBiNIs
"It seems a lot of people are feeling the same frustrations, and want to lend a hand." Actually, we are legion. And glued to your Substack and podcast like our fathers, during the dark years of the Revolution, were glued to the radio for the Voice of America broadcasts. I'm talking about Castro's Revolution. You do the math.
Let’s call it ‘Matt Math’.
Exactly!
Thanks a lot for your work
I never would have believed I would come to distrust all MSM and social platforms, the government, and all agencies. Twitter, substacks carefully chosen, and alternative video sources are the only ones I use. We have been utterly BETRAYED by entities that must be exposed and criminally charged.
Matt,
A huge thank you for all you do, but specifically this new project! When I saw your “help wanted” email I literally jumped out of my chair in joy. After the initial excitement passed, all I could think about was how groundbreaking you and your organization have become. A flexible, project focused and deeply experienced team can be equal to the corporate press in resources which should scare the crap out of those who do not have our best interests at heart! Few people get a chance to change the world. I hope you’re one of them!
Bless you , there Is hope, the narrow MSM narrative represents a tiny fraction of the population
This is the way!
Matt--you're a brave man, leading the way in the most urgent political struggle of our time. You're also funny and smart, with a keen sense of the absurd (a true survival skill at the current historical moment.) I'm filled with admiration and gratitude. Keep writing!
Matt and Elon !
Please use my free Vimeo films, which are topical, in any way that can help...
"JFK's Last Interview" - Vimeo.com/202454658 - password: NOV2163
"Lock-Down" - Vimeo.com/172188619 - password: Quixote
"Orwell for President" - Vimeo.com/213378911 - password: 2plus2equals5
"Dog Tags" - Vimeo.com/179744578 - password: DogTagsnew
Keep up the good work!
R. C. Reynolds
screenwriter/filmmaker
I sent this to my writer friends.
Good idea,,, I have two I can forward to!
We need to bring back democracy in the US, including into US now “state media” -- no mention of Twitter Files, US Nord Stream act of war against Germany, a total collapse of Russia-gate DNC/CIA hoax, etc.
Instead we have DNC/St. Obama war monger Samantha Powers right now “spreading democracy” (regime change) in -- Hungary
That rotten c$&t should be dead by now, easily convicted of treason. Wtf? Seems to me exposing Americans to harm from her lofty perch and using the power granted to her by absolutely nothing, gets her a death sentence.
https://rumble.com/v299aod-this-is-horrible-and-putin-says-no-more-redacted-with-natali-and-clayton-mo.html
Scott Ritter – Hydrogen Cyanide gas in Ukraine – US and OPCW silence
Thank you for the twitter files.The vaccine effed up my health and it was good to hear rep Mace tell twitter executives that it affected her too and that twitter censoring scientists who tried to stop it caused real harm in the real world. Yet they claim calling a transvestite by the right gender is causing real harm which it is not. The left and the media are truly evil. I really hope this government either reforms or falls due to revolution or collapse.
Ready for a revolution. Don't see it changing with words.these fucking cretins only understand one thing. Brute force. And we win that one every time.
Keep it goin Matt!!
Matt,
Contact me to bring your information to The Intelligence Briefing on The Salem Radio Network and to The National Security Hour on iHeart Radio.
Mary Fanning
Email him please
So grateful for your presence. For all the life affirming work you're so passionately engaged in. The ideas and data that help us make better choices...
Looking back to the early 1950's, and knowing where America is today, perhaps Senator Joseph McCarthy should be revisited, and his inquiries studied in more depth. He, like Donald Trump now, was endlessly vilified by Marxist mouths who feared truth as the destructive #1 enemy to what they now call democracy.
You are confusing fascists with “marxists”
Beware plants and saboteurs, Matt.
That comes with the territory. Everywhere.
Don’t hire any fbi!
Fbi
True self-governance under our Constitution is the antithesis of centralized control as evident in the recent actions of our federal government. Thanks for your contribution to the free marketplace of ideas based upon truth. The Truth is like a lion. You don't need to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself. - Saint Augustine
The light of truth, always shines through darkness. Unbiased is honest. People are dying from lies. Keep shining the light!
Thank you Matt. Like others I’ll help by subscribing. We desperately need voices like yours that communicate the objective truth and follow the truth wherever it leads, no matter the side, the team, the party. Keep going. More will come.
Freedom of speech means just that. Disinformation misinformation are words invented lately to shut people up. Journalists mostly today are part of an agenda that long ago has decoupled itself from the function of the fourth estate. Matt Bari Glenn and their colleagues are what remains of it.
I wish I could help but I know my limitations!
Amidst the lies and the snarkiness (my word) that try to overwhelm us, you and your colleagues are a lifeline to reality and decency. Thank you so much.
OK, just tell us what you need Matt, to keep doing what you are doing. This is important work.
I am an investigative reporter since 1975, and would love to assist you in any way. I love your work!
Betsy Combier
betsy@advocatz.com
Editor, Advocatz.com
Friday, August 26, 2022
US Office of Special Counsel
1730 M Street
Washington, DC 20036
Dear Honorable Special Counsel Kerner:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:5b8e5514-83eb-4739-a408-de5eb6cae301
From the time I was sixteen, I am a gun-violence survivor. This copyrighted nonfiction material incorporates some of Mr. Taibbi’s Twitter Files…please enjoy.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:0c75c464-f7f3-3b7f-afa2-b26e6419c6b9
Without first correcting the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterm election, how can Pres Trump be sure of a fair 2024 election? My personal belief is that through fraud, waste, and abuse to blatantly manipulate the public and stall, Special Counsel Smith was appointed by Mr. Garland who was appointed by Mr. Biden who uses an ally of Mr. Obama. Obama is living what he calls his, “third term presidency” and according to Dan Bongino, “uses people close to him [influence peddling] to set up Biden” and hackle other amazing citizens of our great nation America. This is happening, “while [Mr. ] Garland conspired to conceal [Mr.] Biden illegal possession of federal classified documents prior to the 2022 midterm Elections.” Our beautiful America’s legal and voting systems in desperate need of repair from the horrible damage done by Obama’s terrorist organization (TO).
I came across this shocking Dr. Richard Flemming’s interview https://prosecutenow.io/ (stroll down to 6th topic) confirming among others, 1) “man-made COVID-19, a bio-weapon [against our beautiful America] and gain of function research” 2) “illegal HIV injections” 3) Dr. Fleming also shares, “HIV virus inserted in COVID-19 virus to make COVID-19 virus more potent, lethal” and 4) “no pandemic could have occurred without the release of this man-made virus” (paraphrased).
Please email him
Don’t have the email!
Keep up the great work.