A development in the infamous laptop story further proves the "Russian Disinformation" tale was itself disinformation, shaming a herd of craven media stenographers
Matt, I'm curious, what PTSD-like symptoms are you suffering as a result of having to stare at hours of video of oversized talking heads spewing cookie cutter bullshit in your direction.
I mean this sincerely because if I watch more than 5 minutes of Scarborough or Stelter I start to develop twitches in places I didn't even know could twitch.
So do all the corporate shill elite money grabbers that were depicted above sharing the one corporate approved trend line given to all of them.. Wolf, Christiane, MSNBJoe(ke), Rachel clowngirl, Keith, I lost my marbles... they all claim some superiority, but they are just lapdogs. Every one of them.
My favorite one now is Samantha Bee... Absolute laughable naive foolish brain dead idiots that read lines given to them so they may continue to live in 3 multi-million dollar houses and be catered to like gods. I know Samantha isn't on the level of news anchor, but she is one that really just rates with me. At least Jon Stewart and Bill Maher have had the sense to look outside the box and see they were and are being played.
Christiane claiming to be a journalist might be the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.
Regardless of your politics, you should be horrified that the corporate media colluded with Big Tech to swing the results of a presidential election by knowingly suppressing truth and publishing lies.
Jim, there is a "share" button that goes to any email and not just FB, TWTR, et al .... I share Matt & Glenn all the time and have even given "gift" subscriptions. Before inflation, LOL
It's hard to keep on being horrified when you've been horrified for so long. A kind of horror-exhaustion ensues. After awhile you need to take a walk. I mean, to just leave.
Alarmingly, this is the current media model -- whipping up niche audiences into a frenzy that, in turn, serves the commercial underpinning. As an old newspaperman (a shameful admission these days) I think we need a new mainstream media entirely unlike anything that now exists.
I have some ideas, but we all ought to be thinking about what form these new media would take. Substack, Matt's TK and a few other online sources are very positive. But the fact that they're available only electronically and exist in vast oceans of digital garbage automatically marginalizes them (the medium is indeed, and to a very great degree, the message).
As another old reporter, I agree that the dismissal of print media as outdated is a colossal mistake. I also wonder if no one has considered that eliminating it isn't part of the plan to control the narrative. After all, if the information is online, it can be altered at will; and just because there are places fighting to keep the originals available isn't a guarantee. When there's ink on paper, though, you have to run any change the same way, and you can't then pretend the original never existed.
I think this all comes down to people needing some reason, always the other guy, for why things are so bad now and getting worse.
It's the duopoly and those that continue to vote for them. Pointing at yourself with the thumb is more painful, but more honest than finger pointing at the other guy, who is doing the same to you. Tribalism is comforting, but not the solution.
Agreed. It's a race to the bottom - Bush II was "better than Gore", which begat "Hope and Change", which begat "I don't love Trump, but if he prevents Hillary from being elected........." which begat "He may be old and senile but he's better than Orange Man Bad"......WE are better than THIS. Time for new blood.
Well, at least that. Maybe a healthy dollop of mail in vote stuffing and digital shenanigans (Dominion's favorite son Eric Coomer comes to mind) thrown into the mix as well for extra flavor.
They shut down the posts Twitter account after removing the story. FB purposely put anything about the laptop to the bottom of everyone's feed. They both willingly admit to this. It is no secret. Those actions are the definition of "suppressing " a story
Quite right. It's a bit like some Soviet Russian objecting to criticism of the party's malfeasance by saying that "there'd been plenty of time for the people to view the original photos before we air-brushed them."
If you delete your shit post all my likes and your feckless feigned indignation will disappear too . Please don’t let your pride dissuade you from standing by your stupid. You could get a job at the intercept
The video from the top of the piece will disabuse you of the notion that the MSM was simply incurious. If not you are clearly just as "incurious" as they are, and for the same reasons.
No, it doesn't, because that's how you get President Trump...or worse, Trump only competent to really destroy the country!
Like, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, warmonger and HUAC-lover who actually tried floating in 2020 that Bernie Sanders(!) was a "Russian Asset"(!!!). There are few beings in the universe more hypocritically evil than she is....
So maybe we should add "Russian" to the list of commonly-accepted curse words in the English lexicon since everyone that disagrees with those in power and the MSM are now pegged as a being a Russian______ (fill in the blank).
Indeed. “Russian” as an epithet has become just as toothless-and pointless-as so many other previously powerful (read: appropriately employed) terms. Word games are their best skill, and most lucrative export.
If you are talking about the laptop and Ukraine in late 2020, then, yes, you can say they actively suppressed the truth. It was obvious and after Bobulinksi spoke out (at great personal cost), there was even greater reason to believe it was all true. They NEEDED Trump to lose. Ends justify the means.
The appalling thing about this entire story is not that they could have been "waiting for confirmation " and not wanting to publish false info. Its that they REPEATEDLY published false info about Trump with callousness and contempt yet stopped ppl from hearing anything at all that could have hurt Biden . I seriously hope ppl take a look at the Times article referenced above.... this should bother everyone. You may agree with the ideals of those committing these violations now, but that will not last foever.
Because given the choice between HUAC Biden and Donald Putin? I wish the Green Party would stop faffing around and start acting like a REAL political party!
I get not liking either party and would not fault you if that is your view. but i do not get the Donald Putin comment. Ppl always jump to call Trump a dictator or a monster and i think that sort of hyperbolic rhetoric does nothing good. It has caused a mass hysteria of severe Trump hatred that is not only unhealthy, it is mostly undeserved. Was he a saint? Hell no. He is a narcissistic egomaniac that does not like admitting defeat or failure. But That doesnt make him a monster ....lefties need to understand,The thing most ppl, especially middle America, loved about him was that he was not groomed for politics. He doesnt come off as this self righteous, snooty "perfect" person who sits at their trendy cafe on the coast looking down with disgust at all the "working class " avg joes that politicians ignore. They felt like there was FINALLY someone that was in their corner. All politicians are bought and paid for. Trump was just smart enough to tap into the one large cache of funding that the others seemed to forget existed. The American People. In his voters eyes as soon as they had representation in DC that really
cared about them ,the legacy media goes full throttle on trying to end his presidency ,no matter what it took. 90% of Trumps presidency was negative coverage. They NEVER gave him credit for anything he did that was good... that made his voters feel like it was an attack on them personally. In a way it was.....
My dad grew up in small town Texas ,as poor as you could get. didnt graduate H.S. he got into some trouble when he was a very young adult. He had to struggle his whole life for very little. I remember him coming home from working in a garage all day, his fingernails black with gear oil and the tips cracked and bleeding. He would eat diner and then head out for night classes for A/C and boiler repair. He moved furniture on the weekends. We had a small house that wasnt much. But it was ours. He rode a Harley that he built himself. He was very proud of what he had because he earned every damned bit of it. He was also proud to be an American. That meant something ro him. It was solidarity with all the other struggling lower working class citizens. They may not have much. But what little they DID have, it was THEIRS. They had that and the pride of being an American. THAT'S what Lee Greenwood's song is about. Standing up together with your neighbors and stating " we are in this together. Ive got your back and i know you have mine"
Every time someone unnecessarily ridicules Trump for BS reasons they need to realize that its people like my dad that you are actually bashing....
Lmao. I am aware that i kinda went off on that one a bit. But wholly sh%t! Do i feel better! 🙃
I think you're mistaking Liberals for Leftists. Most Lefties I know are well aware that the only "unique" thing about Donald Trump is his utter unwillingness to keep his tantrums to himself, or at least disguise them as "policy", "ethics", "morality", or any of the other terms NeoLibs like Hillary Rodham Clinton use.
The reason we need to try and convict Trump, and those in the White House and the Members of Congress who encouraged him, of Sedition is because we want the NEXT asshole to consider it, who will probably be much more successful, to know if s/he does s/he won't be able to hide behind her/his political party.
I know! My ex's niece was the person who first hipped me to Gropey Uncle Joe the Sexual Predator - but she voted for him in 2020 anyway because "Trump's too EVIL to be President!"
She didn't like my telling her that THAT was how we kept getting people like President Donald Trump....
Actually that was sarcastic, and pointed at the McResistance's obsession with Trump and Putin, to the point that they were cheering on homophobic "humor" about the two!
Which is the worse way for an outlet ostensibly dedicated to journalism to behave? a) Knowing the truth and suppressing it, or b) Having no interest in the truth and suppressing it?
I think B makes me despair more. Dishonesty alone is easier to fix than dishonesty combined with laziness.
That's the second time I've caught Dwhy talking that fascist shit about employers here, and I'm not here very much. Anybody know anything about this POS?
The laptop was easy to verify, but they chose to bury the story because of politics.
But now that we KNOW they lied about this shit, how about we actually start talking about what is ON the laptop and what it means? This is what my next article is going to be about, but I'm out sick today.
Shaming the media for being a bunch of whores is completely appropriate. But that's not where the story ends. And even now it seems that people don't want to face what the laptop means: Biden and those around him are provably corrupt. As his administration continues to ruin American life, you have to start wondering -- is this on purpose?
Alexander Hamilton , hello, I just read Robert Malone substack piece today on the Great Reset, which claims the elite are indeed screwing up the world to enable a totalitarian regime through the auspices of government electronic money.
It's just embarrassing that when we finally get to the evil supervillains with a plan to take over the world, it's gonna be like some cliched dystopian YA science fiction series. Ugh.
Power has always been the most corruptive of intoxicants. The more concentrated the power, the more destructive it's capabilities. I think this was figured out a long time ago. Likely predates the Book of Revelations.
It’s an antique way to the express oneself, referencing the Bible, I like it. The true myopia our time is that we think in terms of “end of history”, We fancy ourselves somehow immune to the mistakes of the past. This leads to the biggest mistake of all - we’ve abandoned our cultural inheritance - the knowledge passed down to us from those who have gone before. Such arrogance, such foolishness, we say lest we forget on remembrance day, but that’s a fraud, they died in vain because we learn nothing from their sacrifice, we blindly go head long towards our own conflagration.
There is nothing new about any of this. They've had a long time to work on this shit. Plan for a New American Century comes to mind (1999). And that seems recent.
I think it's a little confusing to us that "reducing the power and wealth of the USA" and "hollowing out the middle class so it is no longer seen as an achievable default life" might actually be secondary or peripheral goals in a greater plan.
Contrary to the political posturing, there is no special virtue to the middle class or small business. However they are people with the wherewithal to take some measure of power and wealth from the wealthy and credentialed. Their presence leads to the occasional Trump, that is, the occasional bit of tension within the duopoly where the people pulling strings behind the scenes have to show themselves when something goes amiss with the puppet show. If everyone in the "middle class" was upper middle class and worked for a corporation where you could get let go for saying the wrong thing, America would be much easier to control. Incidentally, this is the point of wokeism. It masquerades as a bizarre ideology with zealous partisans, but it is really just a tool for the elite to identify and weed out those who don't toe a party line.
Once they have, one too many times, used "conspiracy theorist!" as an "automatic dismissal card" for things that later turned out to be true, you start to open up to more legitimate analysis, disregarding "does it sound crazy" or "men is suits with titles handwave this".
A) Does the crazy theory have explanatory power? Especially of things that are otherwise hard to explain.
B) Has the crazy theory shown predictive value? "IF 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝐴 is true, then 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐵 will happen." and it does?
C) Does seemingly crazy theory comfortably accommodate common human inputs like cowardice, pride and greed (𝑐𝑢𝑖 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑜?)?
If so, you can throw out any reservations you might have based on defying consensus or conventional wisdom. This is too important to worry about being embarrassed.
Oh, almost forgot: Yes, incredible as it seems, it just might all be on purpose.
Answer (I believe): it is on purpose. The WEF has made it clear they want a great reset and new world order. They are in the process of implementing it by tearing apart the one nation that has/had a chance of resisting. If we can get some strong leadership in power they need to start ripping apart the federal government from top to bottom. The FBI/CIA/NSA need to be destroyed and replaced or completely overhauled. They are arms of leftists intent on destroying our country.
These idiots don't realize that 'normal' Americans are who actually enable American life. Central planning will end exactly as it always does -- massive suffering and death.
And, as always, the people on the ground will be far more clever than the rule-makers.
Wondering if there's anything more empowering than the ability to destroy under the auspice of virtue for those consumed by influence. Not only the killing of the masses but the sending of people to do it. Ah, and the riches that accompany it.
From Forbes Twitter feed 7h ago “ Reporter: "Sir, deterrence didn’t work. What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you’ve taken today?
President Biden: "Let’s get something straight... I did not say that, in fact, the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter."
there's never a "good time" for democratic processes to be flagrantly defrauded--whether it's done to fraudulently install a stage four senile dementia patient or a Socrates-of-our-time.
In a democratic system, _good-faith_ blunders come with giving the people a decisive voice in _freely and openly choosing_ the president at the primary and general-election ballot-boxes. Biden's installation in the White House was no such thing. Rather, it was the antithesis of a democratic process being allowed to work--with the result, however deplorable in the eyes of some, to be respected: it was democracy's murder most foul.
When an American G.I. was filmed in a Vietnmese village setting fire to a thatched-roof of a peasant's hut, even as, clueless to the irony, he explained his act to the reporter and cameraman by saying, "We have to destroy the village in order to save it", today's aging Dem leaders, then the youthful anti-war protesters, were shocked and disgusted.
Today, they're holding the Zippo lighter to the Constitution of the United States and using the same rationale to justify their act.
______________
(the now-sanitized archives in this, our marvlous age of information, make the photographic evidence hard to find and review : Peter Arnett reported from Bến Tre in Kien Hoa Province, February 7th, 1968.)
When there is no planting and harvest in Ukraine this season because of this obscenity, there will be consequences for the countries that rely on Ukrainian agriculture. This will be tragic.
Meanwhile, President Hairsniffer makes a throwaway comment that food shortages are coming to our country, but we should just suck it up. While I've resisted believing in "conspiracies," the cascade of not-helpful actions by this administration is turning me into a believer.
It will happen. The Soviet Union...I mean...Russia is the world's 2nd largest producer of potash. I'm sure China will buy all they can while many other leaders stand on their morals while their people starve.
There is no such entity as the "petrodollar." It's a mythological beast, a myth. And nothing is forcing the US dollar to be the reserve currency of the world. Or as Forbes succinctly explains:
"Those who believe that oil being traded in U.S. dollars gives the U.S. economy a unique advantage in the global economy have it exactly the wrong way around. The U.S. economy is the central economy in the global system because it is the most open, innovative, and productive economy in the world, and because of this, the U.S. dollar is the most convenient, liquid and reliable medium of exchange."
Like everything else on planet earth, however, the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency almost certainly has a historical expiration date. But I wouldn't start hoarding rubles and yuan just yet.
The petrodollar is just another way to drive demand for dollars. A US taxpayer has to have dollars to pay taxes, so that creates demand for dollars. An oil importer had to have dollars to buy oil, so that creates demand for dollars.
"Anyone can make their own currency. The trick is to get anyone else to accept it."
Yeah it's not like everybody independently came to the conclusion that USD was the way to go.
Now everybody who's stuck holding dollars to buy stuff they need got fleeced when the government printed the value of those dollars away. You'll note that doesn't only apply to foreign governments, but also you and me.
I doubt he's paid, just a typical member of the Ukrainian diaspora, grestgrandpa emigrated to Canada after joining the SS. And not a particularly well-informed one, either.
The US dollar is used because it is the most secure. The minute that it is not used will mean that some other currency has a stronger guarantee to maintain its value. If you dont believe me, trade in your savings for rubles..........Exactly
More than a few nations have expressed a desire to move away from the USD as the world's fiat currency. This has gone on since 9/11 but it never gained much traction until recently. It's quite possible we'll see the petrodollar be supplanted by the "petroyuan" in our lifetimes.
Funny how time and circumstances can make the seemingly impossible become reality, ain't it?
Killing the laptop story was one of the most egregious, shameful and obvious examples of the corporate media’s corruption. Nice job, Matt Taibbi, although I bet everyone reading your piece already knew or suspected this.
Yep we all knew, but I sincerely appreciate Matt doing the deep dive and coming back with the names and citations that document the villainy. We all need the guy who goes down into the sewers and wades thru feces to bust up the fatberg.
HOWEVER. (And here's where we discover if their perfidy is beyond recourse)
Many in the 4th Estate seem to think it a valid course of action to just...ignore it when people call them out. Or, alternatively, gaslight the accuser. "No, YOU are a Russian asset!"
They seem to be unafraid of being caught in their whorish behavior, confident they will be able to ignore, gaslight or handwave it away. Not so many years ago I would have considered that outlandish. Now...I don't know.
Read 1984. They are not afraid of being caught. The whole point is to be caught and called out so they can identify those who will repeat the lie and those in further need of re-education.
Right. Yes, we're serving ourselves and deception is one of our greatest tools, along with cognitive dissonance. The truth is too terrible to believe. WTF are you going to do about it? Like being diagnosed with terminal impotency. Akin to how the mafia wants you to know whose responsible for the killing only GOV is the biggest gang there is.
Yes, this is precisely the problem. Since all of mass and social media are in thrall to the same forces, they can lie with total disregard for consequences, secure in the knowledge that no one will call them out.
I'm interested in watching The New York _Times_ try to figure out how to survive as a newspaper when it loses the subcribers it deserves to lose. The same goes for CNN, MS-NBC, and all the others who sell out the principles of honest journalistic practice.
Honestly, eventually, people shall figure out that they don't _have_ to frequent MacDonald's, belong to Facebook, use Twitter, Google or Amazon, pay to be lied to by cable television or any for-profit press.
When, at a restaurant, you're served crappy food, you can send it back. If the restaurant won't replace it with something good, you can leave--and you don't have to come back. Those who do deserve what they get.
Well, you are more optimistic about woke media implosion than I am. Such a scenario would require critical thinking skills of the readership, which I would suggest is nowhere in evidence. We have had at least six years of this gaslighting from the prestige press and their popularity (if we can use NYT subscription numbers as a proxy) has only grown.
You would have to be an idiot to take at face value Ukraine reports about Russian problems... and Russian reports of Russian triumphs. It's a war. What you hear may be true. It may be false. Be wary of anyone whose narrative aligns with their interests.
Bit more than? Civilization was an early favorite of mine and that was early 90s.
But in all seriousness, Ace Combat is a goofy Japanese fighter plane game and the whole Ghost thing just felt like one of their plot lines. It was uncanny and weird.
I do know at least one general was killed. Which is very telling. That shows how Russians fight. Their generals are actually leading the troops. Not sitting in bunkers.
Body counts are the kind of things that will get worked out by historians. In conditions like Ukraine no one is keeping reliable counts. The US military is wealthy enough that they try to recover every lost soldier. As a result they do keep good counts, they just don't publish then. As for Russian KIAs, the Ukrainian figure is probably inflated, the NATO/Pentagon. figure seems more reasonable, the Russian MOD figure seems absurdly low. When its is all said and done, the real numbers will emerge. That said, I've seen a lot of images of Russian troops rotting in open fields and woods, or charred in military vehicles. Its anyone counts ting them? There is chaos in war, calamities invite chaos. We still don't have an exact count of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. There were people that just vanished but there was simply no body to confirm a death.
I really want to hear what the Intercept editors have to say for themselves. How can they ever show themselves in public after this? I'd love to hear from Ryan too.
The Intercept is a hollowed out shell. The Trump years ripped the mask of objectivity away from very wide swaths of the US media and academe. If you read the comment sections of the NYT and the WaPo these days, it is largely filled with kool-aid drinkers. You can read a recipe in cooking omelets, for example, and there will be assholes complaining that eggs just don’t taste right anymore since Trump was President and how Jared Kushner is responsible. Sadly these comments get a lot of likes.
This is 24/7 news cycle. Ignoring failures has become the industry norm. Highly insulated. Getting paid for different reasons. Clicks and likes and macro narratives. The truth is subjective. Bigger fish to fry. Winning elections, for example.
Knew it a year ago. Anyone paying a modicum of attention knew the story was true. Biden INC has been corrupt for decades. He simply upped his game as VP
Fair enough. The question, though, is how do you distinguish a lie from the truth? That's what is puzzling to me. Maybe confirmation bias comes into play?
Single facts don't matter. It is the preponderance of facts that matter. I won't believe any single piece of information I see until I can get some validation. For example today, there was a report that the Russian Defense Minister Shoigu had a heart attack. It set off a twitter mob. Me, I can wait a day or two. Did he have a heart attack? Possibly. Will the story be confirmed in more than one place, by say Al Jazeera, Bellingcat, BBC, OSINTtechnical, Russian MOD,pick your poison. If so, I think he probably had a heart attack. If no corroboration appears, I treat it as noise, in other words bullshit. Both sides will try to spin a war story or two each and every day. Sometimes they try to convince you of something, other times they simple want to blow smoke and obscure an unpleasant fact. You have to expect lies in wartime. That said, not everything the Russians or the Ukrainians say is a lie. It just needs to be assessed. It ultimately is a signal to noise issue. You have to take all the information available to you. Try to separate out the absolute bullshit from the possible bullshit from the stuff that at least smells reliable, then try to piece it together in a way that makes sense to you and then, wait. If you put the work in objectively, keep an open mind, consider a range of reliable sources that might even conflict, try to get more context by familiarizing yourself with reliable histories, at then least you can make an honest stab at the truth. If you are wrong, it won't be because you are stupid, cynical or dishonest, it will be because your logic failed you. Nothing to be ashamed of, you can learn and adapt your logic. I run across people who are convinced that the mainstream media lies all the time. They are wrong. Everyone is trying to convince you of something and while the MSM still have an agenda, but can get things right to. Likewise, the so called alternative media gets thing wrong too. If anyone had a lock n the truth it would be game over. The reliability of sources changes to, The Intercept is a different paper today than it was 5 years ago. So even liars may be telling the truth, and even information from biased sources may be the most reliable and honest at the moment. Confirmation bias, in my mind, happens when a person has already made up their mind and has locked in on the solution before the analysis is done. It is a manifestation of staid, lazy thinking. I ran across it a lot in my working life. Sadly, I found academics (social science tests) fell for it the most. An open, curious, skeptical mind is the best defense against lies. If you have an open mind that is will ng to consider new facts and data, you eventually develop a nose for bullshit and it almost become second nature. It is still work. Sorry to ramble. Now you can insult me again.
Well, how do you know all these sources are not feeding you the information from the same origin? Bellingcat as a reliable source? Sorry, I cannot accept that.
Preponderance of evidence suggests that Ukraine is losing - badly. If Russia lost 15000, how many is on the losing side? What does the Western media report?
I don't doubt the work you put into your news gathering. I doubt you are getting good information. As we say in the business - garbage in, garbage out.
For example, I'm certain you are convinced Ukraine is winning. Why would anyone thing that? Because Kiev hasn't been razed to the ground yet? What about a thought that Russia doesn't fight the same way US/NATO do? Russia destroys armies, not countries. For god's sake, there is still internet in the country!
You see, as you may have guessed I grew up with a lot of propaganda spewing every day. So I have a nose for it. And I've never seen more of it than in the USA.
Here is a little anecdote. The day I realized US media is complete shit. It was the Labor Day, 1998. Some steroid-pumped gorilla hit some record home run. That was the topic most of the news I saw that day spent on. Not a minute about the actual Labor Day. The struggles of the unions, socialists, communists, workers - you name them. That's when I realized that the Americans are being actively dumbed down. The results of that are seen today.
I’m not seeing the Ukrainians losing. The Russian goal was to install a new regime in 2 weeks. They have not reached their objectives. Now it is a war of attrition. The Russian economy is just starting to feel sanctions. Apparently, Russia’s 2 largest tank factories have closed, no spare parts. For some reason Belarus did not join the war. These are all tells. Once an army of aggression stops advancing, they are by definition losing. That’s just simple military history. Invading Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan was easy. Holding it was a bitch and everyday we tried to hold it, the Vietnamese, the afghans, the Iraqs won. Same with Hitler, same with Rome. As for your opinion of people being dumbed down, they have been dumbed down in Russia to. The average Russian thinks the loss of McDonalds is a tragedy but they have no opinion about the invasion of Ukraine.
True. you've got to sprinkle in a little truth now and them to maintain the illusion of credibility and plausible deniability. Most media consumers don't want to work that hard anyway. Ignorance is BLISS.
Thanks Matt. I like the way you're turning up the temperature in your recent articles. What I don't get about the Biden scandal is why adding 1+1 is so difficult? Hunter Biden is a crack head who posts zero value to any company let along an energy company in the Ukraine, EXCEPT that he's a gate to his father, VP and now Prez. What were the "positions" and "salaries" intended to do except buy off or at the least gain access to his old man? Prez said Hunter was "the smartest guy he knew." Nice to be in that company. Keep pushing Matt. At some point this ugly boil has got to pop.
Let's not miss that Romney had a connection with this. The whole DC establishment plays these games and none of 'em (including Bernie and Lizzie) give a flying fuck about people like us.
So would a lot of people. I am so disheartened by events, history, my government, media that I have no faith there will be consequences. I am guessing that the next election is going to be a shitshow.
We live in a Potemkin reality manufactured by the corporate media and increasingly, Big Tech. Thank god for Substack to allow at least some of us to peer out of Plato’s Cave.
*sigh* For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in the Third World and in developed countries should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
Fact: Putin and his regime are intent on eliminating Ukrainian V. Zelensky and his supporters--so far, by every violent means at his (Putin's) disposal except, at this writing, overtly used chemical/biological or tactical nuclear weapons. Putin and Zelensky are genuine foes. Theirs is not some international pantomime of war-theatre.
Fact: In dispute and driving the conflict ,now and for some decades already, is Putin and Zelensky's polar opposite views on the matter of Ukraine's being or not being culturally, socially, politically simply and in effect Russia's hegemonic-property to do with as it may please and suit whomever happens to be the current ruler of Russia.
So, (American) observers of this have choices:
they can choose between Putin's regime or Zelensky's--and try to explain and justify their choice. In this case, they're going to prefer one over the other in some more or less general or specific way
they can decide, if they choose to, that Putin and Zelensky are each in his own way too monstrous for any wise person to choose between them. (Just how they manage that morally and intellectually while also looking the balance of historical fact over the past forty years squarely in the face is something which escapes me But anyone who can do that can have five minutes of my attention.)
they can assert (and act (that is, refuse to act) on the assertion) that "this isn't our fight, our problem"--and hope they're right over the long-term
they can reason that, while it isn't our fight, we can and ought to lend serious material support (in arms and ammunition) to Zelensky's forces, hoping he'll win (and help bring about what they perhaps secretly hope for: "somebody please get rid of this Putin guy _so we don't have to_."
If Putin's aims are realized, Ukraine shall look like and be a very different kind of place for its indigenous people to live their lives--those lives shall be in many and important ways, much or entirely less free and not-of-their-choosing than should be the case if Zelensky's forces repulse the Russian invasion to all but an insignificant degree.
Where, in that, is the "completely false" content?
Most Americans know that Russia is about to lose. The Ghost of Kiev is taking care of business. Together with the snakes on the plane, er, on the island.
Trump is obviously a human anal wart and a malignant tumor of a man, but he gave America the great gift of a stress test of our country and its institutions and revealed the obvious truth we all suspected but no longer can ignore: our elite class (in every sphere of life) has no loyalty to anything but to themselves and their gold-plated positions, and they will do or say anything to maintain their status no matter how much it may poison our society or even destroy their own long-term credibility.
Since he came down that escalator, we have seen journalists refuse to do the basic job of journalists (and to proudly transform into mendacious propagandists), professors ignore any fealty to truth or reason to run with the Resistance herd, doctors ignore their Hippocratic oaths, for basically everyone in any position of authority not explicitly Conservative to proudly lie with a straight face and respond with a tantrum when called on it.
As we've seen from other societies, once an elite class becomes brazenly dishonest and expects its subjects to parrot obvious lies while caring about nothing but maintaining their exalted positions, serious and ugly social upheaval eventually follows.
speaking as a fat spoiled entitled and lazy american, i don't think any of us alive know what level of misery that will entail, and we def don't wanna live through it!
Agreed, but it’s already in the works thanks to the hubris of the ruling political class. They’ve pissed off so much of the world, everyone except the US, Canada, Europe and Australia will be doing business with Russia and China using other currencies.
IMHO this is a great comment. Huge wake-up call on how bureaucracy is in charge of almost every facet of our lives. Why/when did that happen?
We have our own oligarchs in this country. They control the money, the message, and what is acceptable. The shameless corruption of our government is not even subtle; it is how it works. How in God's name do you get to be (insert public office here) for decades? And they all are now millionaires (at least).
If we are still a country in November, I can't wait to see the voter turnout. I am predicting a landslide of early voting in every state. And those will not be Democratic votes.
No, but it’s quite miraculous how they increasingly turn into Democratic votes… and I really try to be reasonable about this. I live in Western Colorado, traditionally red, trending purple .. but even in our county, after the 2020 election, after the election was certified, boxes of misplaced votes were “ discovered” . It gives one pause.
I am a firm believer in no votes accepted at the polls after they close on election night. Everybody in America has had time to mail it in, go to early voting, etc. That thousands of votes trickle in days/weeks later is a scam.
It was probably as far back as 2017 that I realized that no matter what the future might bring - Trump was fated to achieve two huge accomplishments I'd very much hoped for. First, to deny HRC the White House forever. Second, to expose the MSM for the lying cheerleaders that they had become and now are even to greater excess.
I know a few lefties who somehow cannot see Biden in the same light. They should be happy that he denied Trump a second term. Beyond that, I cannot fathom how anyone continues to defend anything and everything Biden does (see: 75% of registered Dems and 98% of all MSM personalities). It cannot rationally be explained by anything other than rote tribalism. Which is soberingly dangerous..........
We have really begun to move into a post-Enlightenment postliterate tribal society, so most people's beliefs are almost entirely dictated by their tribe and its dogma.
Most of our disputes are more theological than rational, and there's no talking someone out of their religion (esp when adherence to tribe and dogma funds a very swank elite lifestyle that also allows you to preen as morally superior).
When i got your comment i was reading Lucretius (in the Rolfe Humphries translation, which I cannot recommend highly enough), and had just read these lines:
"What a man really is, the time to learn
Comes when he stands in danger or in doubt."
I think we learned a great deal about our elite class members when they were faced by the danger of Trump (and the doubts he engendered about their right to rule).
Well said. no time like the present for a third party to say NO to the swamp denizens,,, but sadly, the Swamp creatures figured out this gig decades ago and threw away the keys… I will continue to vote but acknowledge that I have no say in who the preselected candidates are …. Term limits? Mandatory retirement ? I don’t know, but this shit show is not the least bit amusing anymore… if Trump had iterated the verbal bombs Biden dropped in the last 72 hours, Pelosi would have already filed impeachment papers… the hypocricy is steroidal.
Bravo!! I sadly have to disagree that “ we all suspected to be true.” I think the average American barely dips their toes into the cesspool aka our government. And when that corrupt elitism is left unchecked by a complicit media of willing lap dogs, then any interloper will be deemed an evil opportunist … they could have regular hair color, perfect elocution and manners, brilliant acumen and intellect and they would still be tarred, feathered and run out of town. Term limits is a slippery slope, but how do we end this gravy train hoax ?
The truth was out there about the laptop two years ago, and nobody did anything. I couldn't believe that the story was buried because I read about everything that's being discussed now back in late 2020, but....
The truth about COVID was out there starting in Dec of 2019 when the physician who warned his friends about the new virus was disappeared, and then 'died of COVID', but of course it was bats. The story was out there in the first qtr of 2020 that this was a highly contagious but very weak virus (weaker than the previous five flu seasons), but all of that was buried and we were instead exposed to a panicdemic which caused hundreds of thousands of lives in collateral damage and trillions of dollars of economic harm, until the truth finally came out two years later.
When it became impossible to hire entry level workers in the third qtr of 2021 due to the $15/hr federal unemployment program and all small businesses had to enact 10-20% pay increases, which always trickle up in an organization, and then rose prices to accommodate it, we were told it was transitory, even though everyone knew the small business costs and prices were never going back down, and now we know the truth.
I won't even bother with Russiagate, perhaps the worst example of the press conspiring to distort the truth.
The common theme is that if you actually have a curious mind and do your own research instead of reading headlines, the truth is always out there far ahead of the media.
Russiagate was a farce, but it pales in comparison to the lies told to get us going into Iraq, both in human suffering, money wasted and eventual real harm done to our long term national interests.
Just remember Bush parading a supposedly comical video of him looking for WMD's in the Oval Office before an appreciate WH correspondents' dinner crowd in 2003, when US war dead were nearing 500, Iraqi dead far more and that supposed reason for the invasion had been proven false.
For sheer craven inhumanity and don't give a fuck, US elites and the media that covers them, are unbeatable.
The emperor has no clothes and those that cover him go to the same clothier.
For every fake wokist flying the Ukrainian flag, I am asking - where are the flags of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and dozens and dozens of others?
Obama had an answer for that; the same one he had for not charging Bush with war crimes. All that is in the past and we now have to look forward. Of course, that principle remarkably disappeared when Manning, Snowden or Assange were the subject.
Never thought I'd hate anyone like I did Bush, but Oshama came as close as it's possible to do so.
If you were as dialed in to the American political scene as you often claim to be you would observe that Obama's "sellout" date was in 1997 when he first ran for the Illinois State Senate. And Obama is not and has never been a fake. Like P.T. Barnum before him and Donald Trump after him, he knew precisely what he was selling and exactly what you were buying.
Maybe 'fake' is not the most precise word do describe Obama the man. What he sold to the people was fake and it's hard to fault the people for craving all that hope and change..
Yes but that requires a little curiosity and a little work. Seen a Hollywood movie lately, literally comic books on the screen. Thinking is so passe, just give me spectacle, that's EZ.
I argue that it takes considerable curiosity and a LOT of work. There is a lot of comforting, but wrong, information out there. And there is a lot of bias confirming, but wrong, information out there. Thinking and working through it all to come to a solid conclusion is pretty difficult. Easy is, of course, the way most people are going to choose...Just put my shows on, the world is in good hands.
Actually, go to Real Clear Politics. They always print articles representing both sides of issues. It doesn't take a lot more googling to fact check after that.
I would agree if you want to know all the details. I just spent a couple of hours listening to an ex weapons inspector Scott Ritter give a pretty good breakdown on the war in the Ukraine. He had knowledge that I could never track down. I listened to another US Colonel for an extended period last week. Of course, USMC General Smedley Butler will tell you All you really know about the empire and it's kinetic and wars by other means. Of course, if you need "personalities" and flashing lights you'll be bamboozled by the best money can buy.
Yes they are; considering the resources they have available, they do incredible investigative journalism. Ben Norton is amazing too, like Aaron and Max, just amazing journalism.
You mean those digital cartoons that a few big stars are placed in the middle of?
Only go to indie movies and just saw "The Outfit" which was a story with zero special effects and real characters speaking real dialogue, all taking placing in a "bespoke" clothing store.
Unfortunately, as I've seen following the release of the Mueller Report, the Kavanaugh circus, the 2020 twin COVID and Election messes and the cover-up and continued lack of curiosity on the Hunter laptop - the MSM has no desire and indeed no incentive to admit their errors or hew closer to reality. They are playing to a salivating hate-Trump hate-Republicans audience that has no intellectual curiosity whatsoever.
I actually am expecting a Shakespearean ending, where the press realizes the impact of their malfeasance, and attempts to reverse it, but at that point it's too late and freedom of speech is forever lost.
I hear people say that this is not a time to talk about Hunter's laptop because of the situation in Ukraine. But if the media hadn't suppressed the Biden laptop story, Trump may have prevailed, and with Trump in office it's certainly conceivable that Russia does not invade. So this laptop story is huge.
I also wonder what can be done now that pretty much the entire nation is aware that nearly the entirety of the media is a branch of a certain political party. We know this beyond the shadow of a doubt, so what can we do?
I've been saying for years that once Putin identifies the right American mark with the Hottystop downloads on his laptop, say goodbye to Ukraine! But Hunter Biden? My money was on Tom Cotton. You know behind that grim visage Tom-Tom's got that Clintony Arkansas thing going full throttle. Hunter it is, though.
"that pretty much the entire nation is aware that nearly the entirety of the media is a branch of a certain political party"
if only this were true...as someone who lives ensconced in the Blue bubble, i assure you that the members of the Blue Tribe would rather be waterboarded with Drano than admit this.
fealty to the tribe and its dogma supercedes all other considerations including truth, fact, reason, logic, integrity etc...
but if you're here with matt and the rest of us freaks, you prolly know all this already...
Matt should add a laugh emoji…it’s all such a hysterical fucking joke, except it’s our reality… cue Nancy Pelosi with the dangling hands and wagging fingers “ Americans need to unite in support of the Ukraine, it’s really not the time to be distracted by supporters of the January 6th insurrection who won’t accept that they lost”….
That he wouldn’t wasn’t claimed. Don’t you think the fact he didn’t while DJT was in office but did before and after might at least lend credence to the possibility?
Guess anything is possible...if I were Putin though and the U.S. President stated NATO was obsolete, I might wait a bit to see if he was re-elected and then wait to walk into Ukraine...
I think Trump was told that if he didn't follow the program something would happen to him. Just my intuition from seeing movies about the Mafia.
I know very little about Putin, but his change from careful calculation to what might be called a risky, even reckless sequence of moves, strikes me as the behavior of a person who has received new and threatening information and feels that a quick and substantial response is necessary.
Even hard left pundants have admitted this... Trump was unpredictable and will defend his pride. Not a man to play chicken with, so to speak. So yes, i agree that this war would not have happened if he was in office. Also, the comment about Putin fearing or respecting Trump is what i find hilarious. We are waaayyyy past the Trump /Russian collusion story.
I understand learning that most of what you have been force fed by "trusted" news outlets for years has been a bunch of BS but the only way to grow and move on past that is accepting it....
Putin most likely did fear Trump. Trump was an unknown and in ways similar to Reagan, he put forth a belligerent persona. Putin grabbed the Crimea when Obama was in power and just waited until he felt the US would not have a sufficient response to deter him. Joe is completely incompetent so Putin obviously thought that the time was ripe. Our military is incompetent (see Afghanistan) and has an incompetent leader. I have no idea why you would think that is hilarious.
Don't forget our "diplomats", who are mostly warmed over Clinton hacks, are frighteningly incompetent. The whole administration - from potus and veep to the natsec contingent - seem pretty woefully out of depth.
I especially shudder to hear anyone call it "genocide" - that's like a bat signal to Sam Powers to plug for a carte-blanche unleashing of military carnage.
You should take this with a handful of salt. Apparently Trump said that Putin talked nukes with him, and Trump said something like - set off a nuke and I'll push that button. And Trump said that Putin believed him like 5, maybe 10%. Which was enough.
I'll take a look and see if i can find where i read that.
Now Joe apparently didn't rule out a first strike. I actually find the potential loss of those churches (and art) tragic. Guess we'll still have the beautiful music and literature, even if they're cancelled now.
Adverserial press -- what's that? In 2020, the fix was in for Biden. The establishment wanted their "nothing will fundamentally change" man back, this time in the big chair, even if he's addled and saddled with a VP who giggles.
The election wasn't "stolen" from Trump, but it sure was fixed as much as it could be for Biden. The corruption here is as breathtaking as it was brazen.
So it's senile Joe and infantile Harris leading us toward World War III. Well, god bless America -- we'll need it.
I think the answer is no - sides have been chosen and honest commentary by the press is frowned upon.
What about National Public Radio - when it broke they considered the Biden laptop story to be “beneath them’ and would not even discuss it - I remember they issued some meaningless press release about it - how dishonest do they look now? The answer is very dishonest, but I regularly listen to NPR and they have issued no retractions.
I know how hard it was for me to break away from all those friendly folks at NPR. My car radio choices were so limited. I discovered that radio silence wasn't all that bad and that in a pinch country/western would do better than NPR. It was hard but it was worth it.
I believe NPR is now run by the guy who used to be in charge of VOA. In 2012 propaganda aimed at US citizens became legal (not that it ever stopped them previously). I quit NPR when Car Talk ended.
“Are we ever getting the press back?” Are you kidding? We lost the press in 1980 during the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. I haven’t trusted a thing they say ever since. Operation Mockingbird is in full control.
Matt likely has institutional loyalty and would like to see something like a robust Fourth Estate return. It won't happen in my lifetime unless we bring back the guillotine.
Goes back a long way before Reagan. In mid-20th century, the establishment press was a big and very important business. Its owners and managers often had a seat at the table of big guys -- or thought they did. They behaved accordingly. Sort of like the tech oligarchs today, although nowhere near as wealthy.
Well, we were fortunate then! Reagan was one of our best-informed and educated Presidents and had many successes, definitely ranked better than any President since then.
You meant "He IS an idiot surrounded by handlers,", since you are referring to Joe Biden, after all.
Ronald Reagan was indeed intelligent and very well-informed. The Democratic media attacked him regularly, but that stopped in 2001, when the book "Reagan in his own hand" was published, showing that he personally researched and wrote his 600+ radio broadcasts during the 1970s. He was indeed well-informed about a wide range of international and national topics that were important to his Presidency.
And Steven Hayward's two-volume history of Reagan's life in politics, 1964 through 1989, "The Age of Reagan" made Reagan's intelligence, knowledge, and logical thinking totally clear to all. Today no informed person disputes that.
He was literally demented after Hinckley shot him. His administration ushered in all tHe worst neocons and neoliberal policies that destroyed America in the years since. And he should’ve been impeached as even he thought he would be.
That was the view promoted by the Democrats, but it is no longer. You should read the books I mentioned in order to understand the truth about Reagan.
Or, if you don't have time to read, at least read about his speech at the Berlin Wall. Peter Robinson wrote the speech and describes how Reagan battled the people in his administration who opposed his statements:
Reagan was the dim, affably incurious, reliably upbeat retrograde hired pitchman for the psychopathic neo-liberals and neo-cons whose excremental cloud seeding in the 1980s precipitated today's never-ending American shit storms.
The entire catalog of Reagan's personal ideas and thoughts, before, during or after his presidency, never elevated above or beyond the content of a 1954 30-second radio commercial for a Westinghouse washing machine.
Yeah, the 1980s, when terrorists were called freedom fighters and stealing from the poor to give to the rich became fashionable again. His schtick became so popular, the Democrats adopted it. Now we live in a country where fascism is normalized. Hope Ronnie and Madeleine are enjoying their stay in the inferno. Can’t wait for Henry to join them.
This is all great but the NYT, WaPo, CNN and the rest of the one voice media are still burying the story and the White House will only say Hunter doesnt work for the Government. So what if the NYT finally fesses up if the buried story stays buried. If you dont read Matt, Greenwald or the NY Post you'd never know about this.
It's being reported in the British presses, both respectable and tabloids. Even the Daily Mail now has an article about how Hunter got funding for bio labs in Ukraine. When something first appears in the DM, it pops up in the Times or Telegraph a few weeks later.
People are aware. The conservative half of America is certainly aware. Which only makes the integrity collapse of the mainstream press even worse. Especially a press that would rather pretend there's no way to define a woman.
Good point on the British press. Yes the conservative half of America knows but it’s the insulated progressives who think they are smarter and know better who need the wake up call.
I don't think it's progressives. At least I hope not. It is the progressive journalists that are bursting the media balloon. It's the fake liberals (neoliberals?) who are marching in lockstep.
How does the British press square the Hunter information, especially about the biolabs with what Russians are saying? How do they square it with what they were saying before?
Corporate media types forgive themselves for the Hunter laptop lies with the comforting thought it denied Donald Trump a second term. There is little to no consideration for the damage done to their credibility or reputations. That is because they have no reputation. Like the obese pie eater, there is nothing they can or want to do about it. It takes too much psychic energy to admit their professional failures.
May I add the not very ethical Savannah Guthrie, who shredded the MAGA hat wearing teenager on air, knowing full well that he had said or done nothing.
I love my job
Matt, I'm curious, what PTSD-like symptoms are you suffering as a result of having to stare at hours of video of oversized talking heads spewing cookie cutter bullshit in your direction.
I mean this sincerely because if I watch more than 5 minutes of Scarborough or Stelter I start to develop twitches in places I didn't even know could twitch.
It's a gift and a curse
Better you than me.
And we love your work.
So do all the corporate shill elite money grabbers that were depicted above sharing the one corporate approved trend line given to all of them.. Wolf, Christiane, MSNBJoe(ke), Rachel clowngirl, Keith, I lost my marbles... they all claim some superiority, but they are just lapdogs. Every one of them.
My favorite one now is Samantha Bee... Absolute laughable naive foolish brain dead idiots that read lines given to them so they may continue to live in 3 multi-million dollar houses and be catered to like gods. I know Samantha isn't on the level of news anchor, but she is one that really just rates with me. At least Jon Stewart and Bill Maher have had the sense to look outside the box and see they were and are being played.
Christiane claiming to be a journalist might be the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.
We too ;)
OMG that mashup had crying I was laughing so hard at hunter's laugh. Exemplary work. Thank you!
Outstanding work...the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Oh, that's pure gold!
Regardless of your politics, you should be horrified that the corporate media colluded with Big Tech to swing the results of a presidential election by knowingly suppressing truth and publishing lies.
Amen. Sure wish Matt would allow this piece to be shared with non-subscribers.
He often makes a piece free after 1-2 weeks or so, which seems more than fair to me.
Jim, there is a "share" button that goes to any email and not just FB, TWTR, et al .... I share Matt & Glenn all the time and have even given "gift" subscriptions. Before inflation, LOL
Duuuh. Too much time on flake book. Life is better, indeed much better without it.
This article is also posted on Scheerpost.com, which is a great site for non-corporate takes on US and global events.
It wasn't collusion or suppressing the truth. It was 'fortifying' the election. See Time Magazine 5 Feb 2021.
It was both. The article in Time Magazine is an anomaly in a sea of usual pablum printed by them.
Facts
They did the same in 2004 when the NYT sat on the story about Bush creating a surveillance program that spied on us all, after having denied it.
They are quite cozy sidling up to power, rubbing shoulders with anyone outside that circle is what makes them uncomfortable.
Journalism capture. You want access you play OUR game
Access. So they can ask those hard follow up questions they're so famous for.
Turns out it's only access to more propaganda.
It's hard to keep on being horrified when you've been horrified for so long. A kind of horror-exhaustion ensues. After awhile you need to take a walk. I mean, to just leave.
Alarmingly, this is the current media model -- whipping up niche audiences into a frenzy that, in turn, serves the commercial underpinning. As an old newspaperman (a shameful admission these days) I think we need a new mainstream media entirely unlike anything that now exists.
I have some ideas, but we all ought to be thinking about what form these new media would take. Substack, Matt's TK and a few other online sources are very positive. But the fact that they're available only electronically and exist in vast oceans of digital garbage automatically marginalizes them (the medium is indeed, and to a very great degree, the message).
As another old reporter, I agree that the dismissal of print media as outdated is a colossal mistake. I also wonder if no one has considered that eliminating it isn't part of the plan to control the narrative. After all, if the information is online, it can be altered at will; and just because there are places fighting to keep the originals available isn't a guarantee. When there's ink on paper, though, you have to run any change the same way, and you can't then pretend the original never existed.
I wish they game up in searches but they don't.
I think this all comes down to people needing some reason, always the other guy, for why things are so bad now and getting worse.
It's the duopoly and those that continue to vote for them. Pointing at yourself with the thumb is more painful, but more honest than finger pointing at the other guy, who is doing the same to you. Tribalism is comforting, but not the solution.
Agreed. It's a race to the bottom - Bush II was "better than Gore", which begat "Hope and Change", which begat "I don't love Trump, but if he prevents Hillary from being elected........." which begat "He may be old and senile but he's better than Orange Man Bad"......WE are better than THIS. Time for new blood.
Please, please new blood. And younger blood (I'm 72 so I am NOT anti elderly).
... again
there should be little doubt that corporate media's sole purpose is manipulation of public opinion and election influence.
Well, at least that. Maybe a healthy dollop of mail in vote stuffing and digital shenanigans (Dominion's favorite son Eric Coomer comes to mind) thrown into the mix as well for extra flavor.
Tough to be horrified when you are not surprised.
They shut down the posts Twitter account after removing the story. FB purposely put anything about the laptop to the bottom of everyone's feed. They both willingly admit to this. It is no secret. Those actions are the definition of "suppressing " a story
Damn, bro...really? Stick to the cowbell.
You are blind by ideology.
Quite right. It's a bit like some Soviet Russian objecting to criticism of the party's malfeasance by saying that "there'd been plenty of time for the people to view the original photos before we air-brushed them."
2016? You mean when a game show host defeated Hillary Clinton after she cheated in the primary?
You can tell they’re knowingly suppressing the truth by how they act.
Like how if I want to know you’re a retard, I read your posts.
🤣
If you delete your shit post all my likes and your feckless feigned indignation will disappear too . Please don’t let your pride dissuade you from standing by your stupid. You could get a job at the intercept
You’re lying. It’s todays theme I guess
An apathetic or incurious media is just as much a tool of the state as a fully captured one.
>> An apathetic or incurious media...
Relies on apathetic and incurious population.
We get the leaders we deserve. We have the media we enable.
No, I’m just poking a hole in your stupid attempt to deflect with bullshit.
How do I know?
You clearly didn’t watch the fucking video.
He's just saying you put the goalposts on a baseball field, and crooked.
The video from the top of the piece will disabuse you of the notion that the MSM was simply incurious. If not you are clearly just as "incurious" as they are, and for the same reasons.
and you were incurious to the video. Got it.
Your mother was a babushka, and your father a Commodore 64
Dude, quit while you are a head.
Some types of heads don’t quit
Maybe it was just incurious and apathetic comedy.
At this point, what difference does it make?
No, it doesn't, because that's how you get President Trump...or worse, Trump only competent to really destroy the country!
Like, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, warmonger and HUAC-lover who actually tried floating in 2020 that Bernie Sanders(!) was a "Russian Asset"(!!!). There are few beings in the universe more hypocritically evil than she is....
So maybe we should add "Russian" to the list of commonly-accepted curse words in the English lexicon since everyone that disagrees with those in power and the MSM are now pegged as a being a Russian______ (fill in the blank).
It's hardly recent - in fact, you could say it's Hillary Rodham Clinton bringing back a Golden Oldie from when SHE was a Goldwater Girl!
Indeed. “Russian” as an epithet has become just as toothless-and pointless-as so many other previously powerful (read: appropriately employed) terms. Word games are their best skill, and most lucrative export.
If you are talking about the laptop and Ukraine in late 2020, then, yes, you can say they actively suppressed the truth. It was obvious and after Bobulinksi spoke out (at great personal cost), there was even greater reason to believe it was all true. They NEEDED Trump to lose. Ends justify the means.
“Ends justify the means” seems to be the calling card for pretty much every mouthpiece with a voice, bf it MSM or government.
Many religions espouse it too. It has an interesting history, that phrase...
The appalling thing about this entire story is not that they could have been "waiting for confirmation " and not wanting to publish false info. Its that they REPEATEDLY published false info about Trump with callousness and contempt yet stopped ppl from hearing anything at all that could have hurt Biden . I seriously hope ppl take a look at the Times article referenced above.... this should bother everyone. You may agree with the ideals of those committing these violations now, but that will not last foever.
Can I despise BOTH sides equally?
Because given the choice between HUAC Biden and Donald Putin? I wish the Green Party would stop faffing around and start acting like a REAL political party!
I get not liking either party and would not fault you if that is your view. but i do not get the Donald Putin comment. Ppl always jump to call Trump a dictator or a monster and i think that sort of hyperbolic rhetoric does nothing good. It has caused a mass hysteria of severe Trump hatred that is not only unhealthy, it is mostly undeserved. Was he a saint? Hell no. He is a narcissistic egomaniac that does not like admitting defeat or failure. But That doesnt make him a monster ....lefties need to understand,The thing most ppl, especially middle America, loved about him was that he was not groomed for politics. He doesnt come off as this self righteous, snooty "perfect" person who sits at their trendy cafe on the coast looking down with disgust at all the "working class " avg joes that politicians ignore. They felt like there was FINALLY someone that was in their corner. All politicians are bought and paid for. Trump was just smart enough to tap into the one large cache of funding that the others seemed to forget existed. The American People. In his voters eyes as soon as they had representation in DC that really
cared about them ,the legacy media goes full throttle on trying to end his presidency ,no matter what it took. 90% of Trumps presidency was negative coverage. They NEVER gave him credit for anything he did that was good... that made his voters feel like it was an attack on them personally. In a way it was.....
My dad grew up in small town Texas ,as poor as you could get. didnt graduate H.S. he got into some trouble when he was a very young adult. He had to struggle his whole life for very little. I remember him coming home from working in a garage all day, his fingernails black with gear oil and the tips cracked and bleeding. He would eat diner and then head out for night classes for A/C and boiler repair. He moved furniture on the weekends. We had a small house that wasnt much. But it was ours. He rode a Harley that he built himself. He was very proud of what he had because he earned every damned bit of it. He was also proud to be an American. That meant something ro him. It was solidarity with all the other struggling lower working class citizens. They may not have much. But what little they DID have, it was THEIRS. They had that and the pride of being an American. THAT'S what Lee Greenwood's song is about. Standing up together with your neighbors and stating " we are in this together. Ive got your back and i know you have mine"
Every time someone unnecessarily ridicules Trump for BS reasons they need to realize that its people like my dad that you are actually bashing....
Lmao. I am aware that i kinda went off on that one a bit. But wholly sh%t! Do i feel better! 🙃
I think you're mistaking Liberals for Leftists. Most Lefties I know are well aware that the only "unique" thing about Donald Trump is his utter unwillingness to keep his tantrums to himself, or at least disguise them as "policy", "ethics", "morality", or any of the other terms NeoLibs like Hillary Rodham Clinton use.
The reason we need to try and convict Trump, and those in the White House and the Members of Congress who encouraged him, of Sedition is because we want the NEXT asshole to consider it, who will probably be much more successful, to know if s/he does s/he won't be able to hide behind her/his political party.
Thank you. Totally agree.
If you didn’t despise both equally, I’d be concerned.
I know! My ex's niece was the person who first hipped me to Gropey Uncle Joe the Sexual Predator - but she voted for him in 2020 anyway because "Trump's too EVIL to be President!"
She didn't like my telling her that THAT was how we kept getting people like President Donald Trump....
WHO WILL VANQUISH THE GUY FROM THE APPRENTICE? YOU, OLD MAN OVER THERE. STOPPING SNIFFING WOMEN AND RUN FOR PRESIDENT.
The mind reels.
What did Donald do that makes him equal to Putin?
No one said they were equal. Our distaste for them is.
Those are different things, and perfectly reasonable things to believe.
Correction: our distaste for the right and the left was the subject, I think. Regardless, as far as I’m concerned you can lump Putin in with them.
Actually that was sarcastic, and pointed at the McResistance's obsession with Trump and Putin, to the point that they were cheering on homophobic "humor" about the two!
I wonder that you obsess about that so much.
Which is the worse way for an outlet ostensibly dedicated to journalism to behave? a) Knowing the truth and suppressing it, or b) Having no interest in the truth and suppressing it?
I think B makes me despair more. Dishonesty alone is easier to fix than dishonesty combined with laziness.
Imagine this story on the other foot. Do you think they would be “incurious then?
Hillary has a "Trump Piss Tape" she'd love to sell you....
Oh, but she could make it a "BERNIE Piss Tape" if that would make her *FIRST* *WOMAN* *PRESIDENT*!!!!
>> How do you conclude that?
Simple. Use eyes, ears and most importantly - brain.
About as likely as Bagdad Bob was apathetic and incurious.
Lol
Eat shit you fuck.
That's the second time I've caught Dwhy talking that fascist shit about employers here, and I'm not here very much. Anybody know anything about this POS?
Who fucking cares?
Being himself is bad enough.
I hope your grandchildren read it. It will explain a lot about the country they inherited
If they are anything like Chrystia Freeland, they will be very proud.
The laptop was easy to verify, but they chose to bury the story because of politics.
But now that we KNOW they lied about this shit, how about we actually start talking about what is ON the laptop and what it means? This is what my next article is going to be about, but I'm out sick today.
Shaming the media for being a bunch of whores is completely appropriate. But that's not where the story ends. And even now it seems that people don't want to face what the laptop means: Biden and those around him are provably corrupt. As his administration continues to ruin American life, you have to start wondering -- is this on purpose?
Bigger shame on the FBI for burying it and still concealing it to continue their collusion in the 2020 “election”.
FBI exists to cover such shit up. And to destroy leftist movements.
To cover up CIA and deep state shit. It's a team game.
I quit wondering in 2003
"As his administration continues to ruin American life, you have to start wondering -- is this on purpose?"
Of course it is. The take down of America is an essential pre-condition for "the Great Reset."
Alexander Hamilton , hello, I just read Robert Malone substack piece today on the Great Reset, which claims the elite are indeed screwing up the world to enable a totalitarian regime through the auspices of government electronic money.
It's just embarrassing that when we finally get to the evil supervillains with a plan to take over the world, it's gonna be like some cliched dystopian YA science fiction series. Ugh.
Not only will it be awful and horrific, it will also be inane. It's hard to get more dystopian than that!
So...does the Bible's Book of Revelation seem so far fetched now?
That’s a very old fashion perspective, I like it.
Power has always been the most corruptive of intoxicants. The more concentrated the power, the more destructive it's capabilities. I think this was figured out a long time ago. Likely predates the Book of Revelations.
It’s an antique way to the express oneself, referencing the Bible, I like it. The true myopia our time is that we think in terms of “end of history”, We fancy ourselves somehow immune to the mistakes of the past. This leads to the biggest mistake of all - we’ve abandoned our cultural inheritance - the knowledge passed down to us from those who have gone before. Such arrogance, such foolishness, we say lest we forget on remembrance day, but that’s a fraud, they died in vain because we learn nothing from their sacrifice, we blindly go head long towards our own conflagration.
William James Inkjust now
That's why Hitler is so secretively admired. Like the preacher who constantly condemns fornication and heads to the prostitutes bed after his sermon.
The New New World Order
There is nothing new about any of this. They've had a long time to work on this shit. Plan for a New American Century comes to mind (1999). And that seems recent.
I think it's a little confusing to us that "reducing the power and wealth of the USA" and "hollowing out the middle class so it is no longer seen as an achievable default life" might actually be secondary or peripheral goals in a greater plan.
Contrary to the political posturing, there is no special virtue to the middle class or small business. However they are people with the wherewithal to take some measure of power and wealth from the wealthy and credentialed. Their presence leads to the occasional Trump, that is, the occasional bit of tension within the duopoly where the people pulling strings behind the scenes have to show themselves when something goes amiss with the puppet show. If everyone in the "middle class" was upper middle class and worked for a corporation where you could get let go for saying the wrong thing, America would be much easier to control. Incidentally, this is the point of wokeism. It masquerades as a bizarre ideology with zealous partisans, but it is really just a tool for the elite to identify and weed out those who don't toe a party line.
Once they have, one too many times, used "conspiracy theorist!" as an "automatic dismissal card" for things that later turned out to be true, you start to open up to more legitimate analysis, disregarding "does it sound crazy" or "men is suits with titles handwave this".
A) Does the crazy theory have explanatory power? Especially of things that are otherwise hard to explain.
B) Has the crazy theory shown predictive value? "IF 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝐴 is true, then 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐵 will happen." and it does?
C) Does seemingly crazy theory comfortably accommodate common human inputs like cowardice, pride and greed (𝑐𝑢𝑖 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑜?)?
If so, you can throw out any reservations you might have based on defying consensus or conventional wisdom. This is too important to worry about being embarrassed.
Oh, almost forgot: Yes, incredible as it seems, it just might all be on purpose.
One of the driest jokes the world has ever seen would be that Alex Jones was right all along.
Answer (I believe): it is on purpose. The WEF has made it clear they want a great reset and new world order. They are in the process of implementing it by tearing apart the one nation that has/had a chance of resisting. If we can get some strong leadership in power they need to start ripping apart the federal government from top to bottom. The FBI/CIA/NSA need to be destroyed and replaced or completely overhauled. They are arms of leftists intent on destroying our country.
These idiots don't realize that 'normal' Americans are who actually enable American life. Central planning will end exactly as it always does -- massive suffering and death.
And, as always, the people on the ground will be far more clever than the rule-makers.
Wondering if there's anything more empowering than the ability to destroy under the auspice of virtue for those consumed by influence. Not only the killing of the masses but the sending of people to do it. Ah, and the riches that accompany it.
Perfect woke storm.
If I wanted to destroy America's way of life, I would attack the petrodollar that forces the USD to be the reserve currency of the world.
What have we seen the last couple weeks? Saudi Arabia discussing selling oil in Yuan and Russia demanding rubles for oil.
Wait until we get to the food shortages Biden mentioned only in Warsaw.
From Forbes Twitter feed 7h ago “ Reporter: "Sir, deterrence didn’t work. What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you’ve taken today?
President Biden: "Let’s get something straight... I did not say that, in fact, the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter."
They probably want to tie those Depends over his mouth. The whole world heard that sentence.
It is a bad time to have a stage four senile dementia patient with the nuclear football.
there's never a "good time" for democratic processes to be flagrantly defrauded--whether it's done to fraudulently install a stage four senile dementia patient or a Socrates-of-our-time.
In a democratic system, _good-faith_ blunders come with giving the people a decisive voice in _freely and openly choosing_ the president at the primary and general-election ballot-boxes. Biden's installation in the White House was no such thing. Rather, it was the antithesis of a democratic process being allowed to work--with the result, however deplorable in the eyes of some, to be respected: it was democracy's murder most foul.
When an American G.I. was filmed in a Vietnmese village setting fire to a thatched-roof of a peasant's hut, even as, clueless to the irony, he explained his act to the reporter and cameraman by saying, "We have to destroy the village in order to save it", today's aging Dem leaders, then the youthful anti-war protesters, were shocked and disgusted.
Today, they're holding the Zippo lighter to the Constitution of the United States and using the same rationale to justify their act.
______________
(the now-sanitized archives in this, our marvlous age of information, make the photographic evidence hard to find and review : Peter Arnett reported from Bến Tre in Kien Hoa Province, February 7th, 1968.)
Millions of poor will suffer and die. Political instability will increase
When there is no planting and harvest in Ukraine this season because of this obscenity, there will be consequences for the countries that rely on Ukrainian agriculture. This will be tragic.
Meanwhile, President Hairsniffer makes a throwaway comment that food shortages are coming to our country, but we should just suck it up. While I've resisted believing in "conspiracies," the cascade of not-helpful actions by this administration is turning me into a believer.
It will happen. The Soviet Union...I mean...Russia is the world's 2nd largest producer of potash. I'm sure China will buy all they can while many other leaders stand on their morals while their people starve.
There is no such entity as the "petrodollar." It's a mythological beast, a myth. And nothing is forcing the US dollar to be the reserve currency of the world. Or as Forbes succinctly explains:
"Those who believe that oil being traded in U.S. dollars gives the U.S. economy a unique advantage in the global economy have it exactly the wrong way around. The U.S. economy is the central economy in the global system because it is the most open, innovative, and productive economy in the world, and because of this, the U.S. dollar is the most convenient, liquid and reliable medium of exchange."
Like everything else on planet earth, however, the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency almost certainly has a historical expiration date. But I wouldn't start hoarding rubles and yuan just yet.
LOL Ok auntie.
Citing Forbes? LOL Avoid the Cool-Aid Auntie. It's been spiked
She must’ve forgotten the new account password.
The petrodollar is just another way to drive demand for dollars. A US taxpayer has to have dollars to pay taxes, so that creates demand for dollars. An oil importer had to have dollars to buy oil, so that creates demand for dollars.
"Anyone can make their own currency. The trick is to get anyone else to accept it."
Yeah it's not like everybody independently came to the conclusion that USD was the way to go.
Now everybody who's stuck holding dollars to buy stuff they need got fleeced when the government printed the value of those dollars away. You'll note that doesn't only apply to foreign governments, but also you and me.
The paid troll you’re responding to is literally repeating talking points that have been promulgated everywhere including fucking Investopedia.
You’re talking to a paid troll who posts under multiple handles.
Still as stupid and the day is long. Good to know.
I doubt he's paid, just a typical member of the Ukrainian diaspora, grestgrandpa emigrated to Canada after joining the SS. And not a particularly well-informed one, either.
Whistle past that graveyard
The US dollar is used because it is the most secure. The minute that it is not used will mean that some other currency has a stronger guarantee to maintain its value. If you dont believe me, trade in your savings for rubles..........Exactly
More than a few nations have expressed a desire to move away from the USD as the world's fiat currency. This has gone on since 9/11 but it never gained much traction until recently. It's quite possible we'll see the petrodollar be supplanted by the "petroyuan" in our lifetimes.
Funny how time and circumstances can make the seemingly impossible become reality, ain't it?
Or maybe having a government (and president) that's been bought by China......
Yes, my friend. It is on purpose.
Here's the finished article:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/now-that-were-done-pretending-hunters
Killing the laptop story was one of the most egregious, shameful and obvious examples of the corporate media’s corruption. Nice job, Matt Taibbi, although I bet everyone reading your piece already knew or suspected this.
Yep we all knew, but I sincerely appreciate Matt doing the deep dive and coming back with the names and citations that document the villainy. We all need the guy who goes down into the sewers and wades thru feces to bust up the fatberg.
Many many apologies if you are eating.
I agree, calling them out by name is important. That’s the beauty of the internet, liars have a hard time denying their sins.
HOWEVER. (And here's where we discover if their perfidy is beyond recourse)
Many in the 4th Estate seem to think it a valid course of action to just...ignore it when people call them out. Or, alternatively, gaslight the accuser. "No, YOU are a Russian asset!"
They seem to be unafraid of being caught in their whorish behavior, confident they will be able to ignore, gaslight or handwave it away. Not so many years ago I would have considered that outlandish. Now...I don't know.
Read 1984. They are not afraid of being caught. The whole point is to be caught and called out so they can identify those who will repeat the lie and those in further need of re-education.
Right. Yes, we're serving ourselves and deception is one of our greatest tools, along with cognitive dissonance. The truth is too terrible to believe. WTF are you going to do about it? Like being diagnosed with terminal impotency. Akin to how the mafia wants you to know whose responsible for the killing only GOV is the biggest gang there is.
Absolutely no accountability in late stage America(except disorderly tourists)
Yes, this is precisely the problem. Since all of mass and social media are in thrall to the same forces, they can lie with total disregard for consequences, secure in the knowledge that no one will call them out.
I'm interested in watching The New York _Times_ try to figure out how to survive as a newspaper when it loses the subcribers it deserves to lose. The same goes for CNN, MS-NBC, and all the others who sell out the principles of honest journalistic practice.
Honestly, eventually, people shall figure out that they don't _have_ to frequent MacDonald's, belong to Facebook, use Twitter, Google or Amazon, pay to be lied to by cable television or any for-profit press.
When, at a restaurant, you're served crappy food, you can send it back. If the restaurant won't replace it with something good, you can leave--and you don't have to come back. Those who do deserve what they get.
Well, you are more optimistic about woke media implosion than I am. Such a scenario would require critical thinking skills of the readership, which I would suggest is nowhere in evidence. We have had at least six years of this gaslighting from the prestige press and their popularity (if we can use NYT subscription numbers as a proxy) has only grown.
Are you, in fact, ready to denounce the Ghost of Kiev?
You would have to be an idiot to take at face value Ukraine reports about Russian problems... and Russian reports of Russian triumphs. It's a war. What you hear may be true. It may be false. Be wary of anyone whose narrative aligns with their interests.
Indeed. each side distributes propaganda. Fortunately, there is more than just the official sources.
Every bad actor writing their own scripts. Hollywood's gift to the global community. Can't wait for the awards ceremonies.
It strikes me that the worst Ace Combat game was Assault Horizon. It was placed in the real world too, just like the Ghost.
Can't say I can relate. The last game I played was Quake ||. Oh and after that I played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. That was what, 20 years ago?
Bit more than? Civilization was an early favorite of mine and that was early 90s.
But in all seriousness, Ace Combat is a goofy Japanese fighter plane game and the whole Ghost thing just felt like one of their plot lines. It was uncanny and weird.
I don’t suppose you believe the reported body count of Russian generals either.
Reported by who?
No. Of course I do not. I don't believe the narrative spun about the Russian body count. Do see the link below.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-know-it-hurts-but.html
https://waronfakes.com/
I do know at least one general was killed. Which is very telling. That shows how Russians fight. Their generals are actually leading the troops. Not sitting in bunkers.
Body counts are the kind of things that will get worked out by historians. In conditions like Ukraine no one is keeping reliable counts. The US military is wealthy enough that they try to recover every lost soldier. As a result they do keep good counts, they just don't publish then. As for Russian KIAs, the Ukrainian figure is probably inflated, the NATO/Pentagon. figure seems more reasonable, the Russian MOD figure seems absurdly low. When its is all said and done, the real numbers will emerge. That said, I've seen a lot of images of Russian troops rotting in open fields and woods, or charred in military vehicles. Its anyone counts ting them? There is chaos in war, calamities invite chaos. We still don't have an exact count of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. There were people that just vanished but there was simply no body to confirm a death.
Turns out at least one of the dead generals is alive and well. I saw a video of him from yesterday. Probably a Russian fake, eh?
You do. That's what's important.
I really want to hear what the Intercept editors have to say for themselves. How can they ever show themselves in public after this? I'd love to hear from Ryan too.
The Intercept is a hollowed out shell. The Trump years ripped the mask of objectivity away from very wide swaths of the US media and academe. If you read the comment sections of the NYT and the WaPo these days, it is largely filled with kool-aid drinkers. You can read a recipe in cooking omelets, for example, and there will be assholes complaining that eggs just don’t taste right anymore since Trump was President and how Jared Kushner is responsible. Sadly these comments get a lot of likes.
This is 24/7 news cycle. Ignoring failures has become the industry norm. Highly insulated. Getting paid for different reasons. Clicks and likes and macro narratives. The truth is subjective. Bigger fish to fry. Winning elections, for example.
Knew it a year ago. Anyone paying a modicum of attention knew the story was true. Biden INC has been corrupt for decades. He simply upped his game as VP
So, media is corrupt. And yet you use exact same media to advance your fantasies about Russia. How do you square this circle?
Sometimes liars tell the truth. It is not about morality and ethics, it is about circumstance. You know that as well as anyone.
Fair enough. The question, though, is how do you distinguish a lie from the truth? That's what is puzzling to me. Maybe confirmation bias comes into play?
Single facts don't matter. It is the preponderance of facts that matter. I won't believe any single piece of information I see until I can get some validation. For example today, there was a report that the Russian Defense Minister Shoigu had a heart attack. It set off a twitter mob. Me, I can wait a day or two. Did he have a heart attack? Possibly. Will the story be confirmed in more than one place, by say Al Jazeera, Bellingcat, BBC, OSINTtechnical, Russian MOD,pick your poison. If so, I think he probably had a heart attack. If no corroboration appears, I treat it as noise, in other words bullshit. Both sides will try to spin a war story or two each and every day. Sometimes they try to convince you of something, other times they simple want to blow smoke and obscure an unpleasant fact. You have to expect lies in wartime. That said, not everything the Russians or the Ukrainians say is a lie. It just needs to be assessed. It ultimately is a signal to noise issue. You have to take all the information available to you. Try to separate out the absolute bullshit from the possible bullshit from the stuff that at least smells reliable, then try to piece it together in a way that makes sense to you and then, wait. If you put the work in objectively, keep an open mind, consider a range of reliable sources that might even conflict, try to get more context by familiarizing yourself with reliable histories, at then least you can make an honest stab at the truth. If you are wrong, it won't be because you are stupid, cynical or dishonest, it will be because your logic failed you. Nothing to be ashamed of, you can learn and adapt your logic. I run across people who are convinced that the mainstream media lies all the time. They are wrong. Everyone is trying to convince you of something and while the MSM still have an agenda, but can get things right to. Likewise, the so called alternative media gets thing wrong too. If anyone had a lock n the truth it would be game over. The reliability of sources changes to, The Intercept is a different paper today than it was 5 years ago. So even liars may be telling the truth, and even information from biased sources may be the most reliable and honest at the moment. Confirmation bias, in my mind, happens when a person has already made up their mind and has locked in on the solution before the analysis is done. It is a manifestation of staid, lazy thinking. I ran across it a lot in my working life. Sadly, I found academics (social science tests) fell for it the most. An open, curious, skeptical mind is the best defense against lies. If you have an open mind that is will ng to consider new facts and data, you eventually develop a nose for bullshit and it almost become second nature. It is still work. Sorry to ramble. Now you can insult me again.
Well, how do you know all these sources are not feeding you the information from the same origin? Bellingcat as a reliable source? Sorry, I cannot accept that.
Preponderance of evidence suggests that Ukraine is losing - badly. If Russia lost 15000, how many is on the losing side? What does the Western media report?
I don't doubt the work you put into your news gathering. I doubt you are getting good information. As we say in the business - garbage in, garbage out.
For example, I'm certain you are convinced Ukraine is winning. Why would anyone thing that? Because Kiev hasn't been razed to the ground yet? What about a thought that Russia doesn't fight the same way US/NATO do? Russia destroys armies, not countries. For god's sake, there is still internet in the country!
You see, as you may have guessed I grew up with a lot of propaganda spewing every day. So I have a nose for it. And I've never seen more of it than in the USA.
Here is a little anecdote. The day I realized US media is complete shit. It was the Labor Day, 1998. Some steroid-pumped gorilla hit some record home run. That was the topic most of the news I saw that day spent on. Not a minute about the actual Labor Day. The struggles of the unions, socialists, communists, workers - you name them. That's when I realized that the Americans are being actively dumbed down. The results of that are seen today.
I’m not seeing the Ukrainians losing. The Russian goal was to install a new regime in 2 weeks. They have not reached their objectives. Now it is a war of attrition. The Russian economy is just starting to feel sanctions. Apparently, Russia’s 2 largest tank factories have closed, no spare parts. For some reason Belarus did not join the war. These are all tells. Once an army of aggression stops advancing, they are by definition losing. That’s just simple military history. Invading Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan was easy. Holding it was a bitch and everyday we tried to hold it, the Vietnamese, the afghans, the Iraqs won. Same with Hitler, same with Rome. As for your opinion of people being dumbed down, they have been dumbed down in Russia to. The average Russian thinks the loss of McDonalds is a tragedy but they have no opinion about the invasion of Ukraine.
True. you've got to sprinkle in a little truth now and them to maintain the illusion of credibility and plausible deniability. Most media consumers don't want to work that hard anyway. Ignorance is BLISS.
WJI, ?
Yep, inexcusable. And I said as much in a letter to the WSJ editors when I dropped my subscription.
..."in a letter to the WSJ editors when I dropped my subscription"
and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done.
Thanks Matt. I like the way you're turning up the temperature in your recent articles. What I don't get about the Biden scandal is why adding 1+1 is so difficult? Hunter Biden is a crack head who posts zero value to any company let along an energy company in the Ukraine, EXCEPT that he's a gate to his father, VP and now Prez. What were the "positions" and "salaries" intended to do except buy off or at the least gain access to his old man? Prez said Hunter was "the smartest guy he knew." Nice to be in that company. Keep pushing Matt. At some point this ugly boil has got to pop.
Let's not miss that Romney had a connection with this. The whole DC establishment plays these games and none of 'em (including Bernie and Lizzie) give a flying fuck about people like us.
Romney plus Biden plus Kerry plus Zelenskyy are all connected.
Interesting. Many of the same names clutching pearls on Jan 6 of memory. I noticed a line drawn there, now I know why.
Would love to see them all exposed and held accountable, but not holding my breath
So would a lot of people. I am so disheartened by events, history, my government, media that I have no faith there will be consequences. I am guessing that the next election is going to be a shitshow.
Yes. I would say that the average reader here has better credentials for getting the Burisma job than Hunter Biden.
Right now, I’m considering volunteering myself to fill in for Kamala. I cannot imagine what the EU community’s take is on her….
Only Sasha and Malia had better credentials at the time.
I still do! :)
No question. I would have been a real asset(except for no political connections)
This abscess goes straight to the core.
More like a late stage cancer
We live in a Potemkin reality manufactured by the corporate media and increasingly, Big Tech. Thank god for Substack to allow at least some of us to peer out of Plato’s Cave.
Literally every single thing most Americans know about this war is completely false.
At this point pretty much everything most Americans “know” about everything is completely false. Except for we enlightened few of course :-).
It honestly doesn’t take much. Just a little curiosity and a lack of enthusiasm for cult ritual.
The sad human reality is, conformity feels real good to the average person.
*sigh* For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in the Third World and in developed countries should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
"Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people." Enough to console you in your darker moments I trust.
True but that's in short supply, always was but it's on a new level now.
Sadly as much as I try there is so much I don’t know or worse things I think I know which are wrong
That is a rather enlightened, if dangerous, realization.
Fact: Putin and his regime are intent on eliminating Ukrainian V. Zelensky and his supporters--so far, by every violent means at his (Putin's) disposal except, at this writing, overtly used chemical/biological or tactical nuclear weapons. Putin and Zelensky are genuine foes. Theirs is not some international pantomime of war-theatre.
Fact: In dispute and driving the conflict ,now and for some decades already, is Putin and Zelensky's polar opposite views on the matter of Ukraine's being or not being culturally, socially, politically simply and in effect Russia's hegemonic-property to do with as it may please and suit whomever happens to be the current ruler of Russia.
So, (American) observers of this have choices:
they can choose between Putin's regime or Zelensky's--and try to explain and justify their choice. In this case, they're going to prefer one over the other in some more or less general or specific way
they can decide, if they choose to, that Putin and Zelensky are each in his own way too monstrous for any wise person to choose between them. (Just how they manage that morally and intellectually while also looking the balance of historical fact over the past forty years squarely in the face is something which escapes me But anyone who can do that can have five minutes of my attention.)
they can assert (and act (that is, refuse to act) on the assertion) that "this isn't our fight, our problem"--and hope they're right over the long-term
they can reason that, while it isn't our fight, we can and ought to lend serious material support (in arms and ammunition) to Zelensky's forces, hoping he'll win (and help bring about what they perhaps secretly hope for: "somebody please get rid of this Putin guy _so we don't have to_."
If Putin's aims are realized, Ukraine shall look like and be a very different kind of place for its indigenous people to live their lives--those lives shall be in many and important ways, much or entirely less free and not-of-their-choosing than should be the case if Zelensky's forces repulse the Russian invasion to all but an insignificant degree.
Where, in that, is the "completely false" content?
Most Americans know that Russia is about to lose. The Ghost of Kiev is taking care of business. Together with the snakes on the plane, er, on the island.
Here is an interesting video I came across today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFe9SW05zzA
Also:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-know-it-hurts-but.html
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/ukraine-nato-united-states-russian-casualties/
They're not privileged as we are to be set straight by Sevender, The Troll Whisperer.
2 great refs in one comment. WIN.
Potemkin's Cave.
They call it the metaverse
Trump is obviously a human anal wart and a malignant tumor of a man, but he gave America the great gift of a stress test of our country and its institutions and revealed the obvious truth we all suspected but no longer can ignore: our elite class (in every sphere of life) has no loyalty to anything but to themselves and their gold-plated positions, and they will do or say anything to maintain their status no matter how much it may poison our society or even destroy their own long-term credibility.
Since he came down that escalator, we have seen journalists refuse to do the basic job of journalists (and to proudly transform into mendacious propagandists), professors ignore any fealty to truth or reason to run with the Resistance herd, doctors ignore their Hippocratic oaths, for basically everyone in any position of authority not explicitly Conservative to proudly lie with a straight face and respond with a tantrum when called on it.
As we've seen from other societies, once an elite class becomes brazenly dishonest and expects its subjects to parrot obvious lies while caring about nothing but maintaining their exalted positions, serious and ugly social upheaval eventually follows.
He was infinitely better than Biden.
But the mean tweets!
With de-dollarization on the horizon, I’d say that day is not far off.
speaking as a fat spoiled entitled and lazy american, i don't think any of us alive know what level of misery that will entail, and we def don't wanna live through it!
Agreed, but it’s already in the works thanks to the hubris of the ruling political class. They’ve pissed off so much of the world, everyone except the US, Canada, Europe and Australia will be doing business with Russia and China using other currencies.
Cough up the 30 trill....
We might actually have to produce things that other people actually want and are willing to pay for.
We might even have to get jobs.
IMHO this is a great comment. Huge wake-up call on how bureaucracy is in charge of almost every facet of our lives. Why/when did that happen?
We have our own oligarchs in this country. They control the money, the message, and what is acceptable. The shameless corruption of our government is not even subtle; it is how it works. How in God's name do you get to be (insert public office here) for decades? And they all are now millionaires (at least).
If we are still a country in November, I can't wait to see the voter turnout. I am predicting a landslide of early voting in every state. And those will not be Democratic votes.
No, but it’s quite miraculous how they increasingly turn into Democratic votes… and I really try to be reasonable about this. I live in Western Colorado, traditionally red, trending purple .. but even in our county, after the 2020 election, after the election was certified, boxes of misplaced votes were “ discovered” . It gives one pause.
I am a firm believer in no votes accepted at the polls after they close on election night. Everybody in America has had time to mail it in, go to early voting, etc. That thousands of votes trickle in days/weeks later is a scam.
I had to edit my comment,..I meant the Western Slope is traditionally Red…
It was probably as far back as 2017 that I realized that no matter what the future might bring - Trump was fated to achieve two huge accomplishments I'd very much hoped for. First, to deny HRC the White House forever. Second, to expose the MSM for the lying cheerleaders that they had become and now are even to greater excess.
I know a few lefties who somehow cannot see Biden in the same light. They should be happy that he denied Trump a second term. Beyond that, I cannot fathom how anyone continues to defend anything and everything Biden does (see: 75% of registered Dems and 98% of all MSM personalities). It cannot rationally be explained by anything other than rote tribalism. Which is soberingly dangerous..........
We have really begun to move into a post-Enlightenment postliterate tribal society, so most people's beliefs are almost entirely dictated by their tribe and its dogma.
Most of our disputes are more theological than rational, and there's no talking someone out of their religion (esp when adherence to tribe and dogma funds a very swank elite lifestyle that also allows you to preen as morally superior).
When i got your comment i was reading Lucretius (in the Rolfe Humphries translation, which I cannot recommend highly enough), and had just read these lines:
"What a man really is, the time to learn
Comes when he stands in danger or in doubt."
I think we learned a great deal about our elite class members when they were faced by the danger of Trump (and the doubts he engendered about their right to rule).
Well said. no time like the present for a third party to say NO to the swamp denizens,,, but sadly, the Swamp creatures figured out this gig decades ago and threw away the keys… I will continue to vote but acknowledge that I have no say in who the preselected candidates are …. Term limits? Mandatory retirement ? I don’t know, but this shit show is not the least bit amusing anymore… if Trump had iterated the verbal bombs Biden dropped in the last 72 hours, Pelosi would have already filed impeachment papers… the hypocricy is steroidal.
Bravo!! I sadly have to disagree that “ we all suspected to be true.” I think the average American barely dips their toes into the cesspool aka our government. And when that corrupt elitism is left unchecked by a complicit media of willing lap dogs, then any interloper will be deemed an evil opportunist … they could have regular hair color, perfect elocution and manners, brilliant acumen and intellect and they would still be tarred, feathered and run out of town. Term limits is a slippery slope, but how do we end this gravy train hoax ?
The truth was out there about the laptop two years ago, and nobody did anything. I couldn't believe that the story was buried because I read about everything that's being discussed now back in late 2020, but....
The truth about COVID was out there starting in Dec of 2019 when the physician who warned his friends about the new virus was disappeared, and then 'died of COVID', but of course it was bats. The story was out there in the first qtr of 2020 that this was a highly contagious but very weak virus (weaker than the previous five flu seasons), but all of that was buried and we were instead exposed to a panicdemic which caused hundreds of thousands of lives in collateral damage and trillions of dollars of economic harm, until the truth finally came out two years later.
When it became impossible to hire entry level workers in the third qtr of 2021 due to the $15/hr federal unemployment program and all small businesses had to enact 10-20% pay increases, which always trickle up in an organization, and then rose prices to accommodate it, we were told it was transitory, even though everyone knew the small business costs and prices were never going back down, and now we know the truth.
I won't even bother with Russiagate, perhaps the worst example of the press conspiring to distort the truth.
The common theme is that if you actually have a curious mind and do your own research instead of reading headlines, the truth is always out there far ahead of the media.
Russiagate was a farce, but it pales in comparison to the lies told to get us going into Iraq, both in human suffering, money wasted and eventual real harm done to our long term national interests.
Just remember Bush parading a supposedly comical video of him looking for WMD's in the Oval Office before an appreciate WH correspondents' dinner crowd in 2003, when US war dead were nearing 500, Iraqi dead far more and that supposed reason for the invasion had been proven false.
For sheer craven inhumanity and don't give a fuck, US elites and the media that covers them, are unbeatable.
The emperor has no clothes and those that cover him go to the same clothier.
For every fake wokist flying the Ukrainian flag, I am asking - where are the flags of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and dozens and dozens of others?
Obama had an answer for that; the same one he had for not charging Bush with war crimes. All that is in the past and we now have to look forward. Of course, that principle remarkably disappeared when Manning, Snowden or Assange were the subject.
Never thought I'd hate anyone like I did Bush, but Oshama came as close as it's possible to do so.
No wonder Michelle loves W so much.
I realized Obomber is a sellout or a complete fake when he voted to give the telcos immunity in the summer of 2008.
When someone is first elected to the Senate, they are assigned a fellow existing Senator as a mentor.
Oshama's was Joe Lieberman.
Any questions?
I didn't know that. And no, no more questions :)
If you were as dialed in to the American political scene as you often claim to be you would observe that Obama's "sellout" date was in 1997 when he first ran for the Illinois State Senate. And Obama is not and has never been a fake. Like P.T. Barnum before him and Donald Trump after him, he knew precisely what he was selling and exactly what you were buying.
I definitely wasn't following Obama in '97 :)
Maybe 'fake' is not the most precise word do describe Obama the man. What he sold to the people was fake and it's hard to fault the people for craving all that hope and change..
I think she’s embarrassed by him & his seeming descent into his own dementia
I also think they think Biden is an idiot
Good question
Yes but that requires a little curiosity and a little work. Seen a Hollywood movie lately, literally comic books on the screen. Thinking is so passe, just give me spectacle, that's EZ.
I argue that it takes considerable curiosity and a LOT of work. There is a lot of comforting, but wrong, information out there. And there is a lot of bias confirming, but wrong, information out there. Thinking and working through it all to come to a solid conclusion is pretty difficult. Easy is, of course, the way most people are going to choose...Just put my shows on, the world is in good hands.
Actually, go to Real Clear Politics. They always print articles representing both sides of issues. It doesn't take a lot more googling to fact check after that.
RCP is one of the few sites that will give you both sides of a story
Most stories (if about supposed reality) have more than two sides. The binary approach can be manipulated too.
Good site, I agree
I would agree if you want to know all the details. I just spent a couple of hours listening to an ex weapons inspector Scott Ritter give a pretty good breakdown on the war in the Ukraine. He had knowledge that I could never track down. I listened to another US Colonel for an extended period last week. Of course, USMC General Smedley Butler will tell you All you really know about the empire and it's kinetic and wars by other means. Of course, if you need "personalities" and flashing lights you'll be bamboozled by the best money can buy.
Aaron and Max are just great, aren't they? :)
Yes they are; considering the resources they have available, they do incredible investigative journalism. Ben Norton is amazing too, like Aaron and Max, just amazing journalism.
You mean those digital cartoons that a few big stars are placed in the middle of?
Only go to indie movies and just saw "The Outfit" which was a story with zero special effects and real characters speaking real dialogue, all taking placing in a "bespoke" clothing store.
"Are we ever getting the press back?" My guess is no. It's up to you and the other Substackerati. Thanks, and glad you're here.
You are now the press. The old press is dead
The Press is dead! Long live the Press!
Unfortunately, as I've seen following the release of the Mueller Report, the Kavanaugh circus, the 2020 twin COVID and Election messes and the cover-up and continued lack of curiosity on the Hunter laptop - the MSM has no desire and indeed no incentive to admit their errors or hew closer to reality. They are playing to a salivating hate-Trump hate-Republicans audience that has no intellectual curiosity whatsoever.
I actually am expecting a Shakespearean ending, where the press realizes the impact of their malfeasance, and attempts to reverse it, but at that point it's too late and freedom of speech is forever lost.
NYT editorial piece from last week may signal…something…
I think I missed it; which one?
That was fantastic!
I hear people say that this is not a time to talk about Hunter's laptop because of the situation in Ukraine. But if the media hadn't suppressed the Biden laptop story, Trump may have prevailed, and with Trump in office it's certainly conceivable that Russia does not invade. So this laptop story is huge.
I also wonder what can be done now that pretty much the entire nation is aware that nearly the entirety of the media is a branch of a certain political party. We know this beyond the shadow of a doubt, so what can we do?
That laptop and more importantly what’s on it is the reason for the war. Did people think this is really a coincidence?
The laptop is not the reason for the war. Rather, the reason for the laptop is same as the reason for the war.
The reason is empire.
I've been saying for years that once Putin identifies the right American mark with the Hottystop downloads on his laptop, say goodbye to Ukraine! But Hunter Biden? My money was on Tom Cotton. You know behind that grim visage Tom-Tom's got that Clintony Arkansas thing going full throttle. Hunter it is, though.
"that pretty much the entire nation is aware that nearly the entirety of the media is a branch of a certain political party"
if only this were true...as someone who lives ensconced in the Blue bubble, i assure you that the members of the Blue Tribe would rather be waterboarded with Drano than admit this.
fealty to the tribe and its dogma supercedes all other considerations including truth, fact, reason, logic, integrity etc...
but if you're here with matt and the rest of us freaks, you prolly know all this already...
Matt should add a laugh emoji…it’s all such a hysterical fucking joke, except it’s our reality… cue Nancy Pelosi with the dangling hands and wagging fingers “ Americans need to unite in support of the Ukraine, it’s really not the time to be distracted by supporters of the January 6th insurrection who won’t accept that they lost”….
Why do you say it Trump was in office Russia would not invade? Is it because Putin feared or respected Trump...that is kind of hilarious...
That he wouldn’t wasn’t claimed. Don’t you think the fact he didn’t while DJT was in office but did before and after might at least lend credence to the possibility?
Guess anything is possible...if I were Putin though and the U.S. President stated NATO was obsolete, I might wait a bit to see if he was re-elected and then wait to walk into Ukraine...
I think Trump was told that if he didn't follow the program something would happen to him. Just my intuition from seeing movies about the Mafia.
I know very little about Putin, but his change from careful calculation to what might be called a risky, even reckless sequence of moves, strikes me as the behavior of a person who has received new and threatening information and feels that a quick and substantial response is necessary.
These two hypotheses are not contradictory.
Even hard left pundants have admitted this... Trump was unpredictable and will defend his pride. Not a man to play chicken with, so to speak. So yes, i agree that this war would not have happened if he was in office. Also, the comment about Putin fearing or respecting Trump is what i find hilarious. We are waaayyyy past the Trump /Russian collusion story.
I understand learning that most of what you have been force fed by "trusted" news outlets for years has been a bunch of BS but the only way to grow and move on past that is accepting it....
Putin most likely did fear Trump. Trump was an unknown and in ways similar to Reagan, he put forth a belligerent persona. Putin grabbed the Crimea when Obama was in power and just waited until he felt the US would not have a sufficient response to deter him. Joe is completely incompetent so Putin obviously thought that the time was ripe. Our military is incompetent (see Afghanistan) and has an incompetent leader. I have no idea why you would think that is hilarious.
Don't forget our "diplomats", who are mostly warmed over Clinton hacks, are frighteningly incompetent. The whole administration - from potus and veep to the natsec contingent - seem pretty woefully out of depth.
I especially shudder to hear anyone call it "genocide" - that's like a bat signal to Sam Powers to plug for a carte-blanche unleashing of military carnage.
You should take this with a handful of salt. Apparently Trump said that Putin talked nukes with him, and Trump said something like - set off a nuke and I'll push that button. And Trump said that Putin believed him like 5, maybe 10%. Which was enough.
I'll take a look and see if i can find where i read that.
“All those beautiful Moscow Churches... gone”
Now Joe apparently didn't rule out a first strike. I actually find the potential loss of those churches (and art) tragic. Guess we'll still have the beautiful music and literature, even if they're cancelled now.
Adverserial press -- what's that? In 2020, the fix was in for Biden. The establishment wanted their "nothing will fundamentally change" man back, this time in the big chair, even if he's addled and saddled with a VP who giggles.
The election wasn't "stolen" from Trump, but it sure was fixed as much as it could be for Biden. The corruption here is as breathtaking as it was brazen.
So it's senile Joe and infantile Harris leading us toward World War III. Well, god bless America -- we'll need it.
>> "nothing will fundamentally change" man back
And yet how profoundly wrong he was when making that statement...
The giggling VP
She lives in DC
She fooled all the others
But she didn't fool me.
Matt,
I think the answer is no - sides have been chosen and honest commentary by the press is frowned upon.
What about National Public Radio - when it broke they considered the Biden laptop story to be “beneath them’ and would not even discuss it - I remember they issued some meaningless press release about it - how dishonest do they look now? The answer is very dishonest, but I regularly listen to NPR and they have issued no retractions.
I know how hard it was for me to break away from all those friendly folks at NPR. My car radio choices were so limited. I discovered that radio silence wasn't all that bad and that in a pinch country/western would do better than NPR. It was hard but it was worth it.
I miss the whole morning of classical music at work - I can’t turn it on for one minute now without going nuts. Ditto New Yorker
Check out Charles Wesley Godwin, if you want to discover great country music no one knows about
I believe NPR is now run by the guy who used to be in charge of VOA. In 2012 propaganda aimed at US citizens became legal (not that it ever stopped them previously). I quit NPR when Car Talk ended.
They never did figure out how to ruin "Car Talk"! I suppose that cars are the great equalizers. We're all the victims of our cars.
Ha! It’s ‘Donna with a -Camero’
It's not National Public Radio anymore. As Harry Shearer says, "NPR - it stands for nothing!"
They used to call it 'National Pentagon Radio' back in the Bush years; for obvious reasons.
At least NRP apologized -- like a year ago.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/npr-admits-major-error-after-claiming-hunter-biden-laptop-reports-discredited
They’ve moved on to fulsomely enthusiastic interviews of literal Nazis.
That's really not much of a retraction. From saying "has been discredited" to "numerous news organizations cast doubt" isn't exactly owning the truth.
I hate that NPR keeps receiving funding, given it's clear-as-day partisan reporting.
That's fair.
But gang rapes were cool. With no evidence
“Are we ever getting the press back?” Are you kidding? We lost the press in 1980 during the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. I haven’t trusted a thing they say ever since. Operation Mockingbird is in full control.
Matt likely has institutional loyalty and would like to see something like a robust Fourth Estate return. It won't happen in my lifetime unless we bring back the guillotine.
2022 problems require 1789 solutions.
"The guillotines' aim is ever true,
the game's in choosing necks!"
It is sad and depressing to be in and dedicated to an institution that is deteriorating and corrupting itself. I sympathize, I’m a surgeon.
Goes back a long way before Reagan. In mid-20th century, the establishment press was a big and very important business. Its owners and managers often had a seat at the table of big guys -- or thought they did. They behaved accordingly. Sort of like the tech oligarchs today, although nowhere near as wealthy.
Well, we were fortunate then! Reagan was one of our best-informed and educated Presidents and had many successes, definitely ranked better than any President since then.
He was an idiot surrounded by handlers. Jeebus!
You meant "He IS an idiot surrounded by handlers,", since you are referring to Joe Biden, after all.
Ronald Reagan was indeed intelligent and very well-informed. The Democratic media attacked him regularly, but that stopped in 2001, when the book "Reagan in his own hand" was published, showing that he personally researched and wrote his 600+ radio broadcasts during the 1970s. He was indeed well-informed about a wide range of international and national topics that were important to his Presidency.
And Steven Hayward's two-volume history of Reagan's life in politics, 1964 through 1989, "The Age of Reagan" made Reagan's intelligence, knowledge, and logical thinking totally clear to all. Today no informed person disputes that.
He was literally demented after Hinckley shot him. His administration ushered in all tHe worst neocons and neoliberal policies that destroyed America in the years since. And he should’ve been impeached as even he thought he would be.
That was the view promoted by the Democrats, but it is no longer. You should read the books I mentioned in order to understand the truth about Reagan.
Or, if you don't have time to read, at least read about his speech at the Berlin Wall. Peter Robinson wrote the speech and describes how Reagan battled the people in his administration who opposed his statements:
https://news.stanford.edu/2019/11/06/reagans-mr-gorbachev-tear-down-this-wall-was-almost-left-unsaid/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-06-oe-mann6-story.html
https://macmillan.yale.edu/event/struggle-over-reagans-tear-down-wall-speech
President Reagan clearly did not have any dementia in 1987!
Reagan was the dim, affably incurious, reliably upbeat retrograde hired pitchman for the psychopathic neo-liberals and neo-cons whose excremental cloud seeding in the 1980s precipitated today's never-ending American shit storms.
The entire catalog of Reagan's personal ideas and thoughts, before, during or after his presidency, never elevated above or beyond the content of a 1954 30-second radio commercial for a Westinghouse washing machine.
Yeah, the 1980s, when terrorists were called freedom fighters and stealing from the poor to give to the rich became fashionable again. His schtick became so popular, the Democrats adopted it. Now we live in a country where fascism is normalized. Hope Ronnie and Madeleine are enjoying their stay in the inferno. Can’t wait for Henry to join them.
Watch "The Reagans" on Showtime. You may learn something.
Exhibit A, proving how well, dumb, Americans are. Sorry about the generalization.
This is all great but the NYT, WaPo, CNN and the rest of the one voice media are still burying the story and the White House will only say Hunter doesnt work for the Government. So what if the NYT finally fesses up if the buried story stays buried. If you dont read Matt, Greenwald or the NY Post you'd never know about this.
It's being reported in the British presses, both respectable and tabloids. Even the Daily Mail now has an article about how Hunter got funding for bio labs in Ukraine. When something first appears in the DM, it pops up in the Times or Telegraph a few weeks later.
People are aware. The conservative half of America is certainly aware. Which only makes the integrity collapse of the mainstream press even worse. Especially a press that would rather pretend there's no way to define a woman.
Good point on the British press. Yes the conservative half of America knows but it’s the insulated progressives who think they are smarter and know better who need the wake up call.
I don't think it's progressives. At least I hope not. It is the progressive journalists that are bursting the media balloon. It's the fake liberals (neoliberals?) who are marching in lockstep.
Progressives cannot exercise judgment if they only get their information from variations of state media.
Good point. My hope is they don't.
How does the British press square the Hunter information, especially about the biolabs with what Russians are saying? How do they square it with what they were saying before?
The "one voice media"
Nice one, J Pat!
Corporate media types forgive themselves for the Hunter laptop lies with the comforting thought it denied Donald Trump a second term. There is little to no consideration for the damage done to their credibility or reputations. That is because they have no reputation. Like the obese pie eater, there is nothing they can or want to do about it. It takes too much psychic energy to admit their professional failures.
Mark Zuckerberg and Leslie Stahl are the face of evil in our time
I guess the face of evil is heavily botoxed
They were never coming back in black uniforms and boots.
Oh, that's good. What was that saying about bible wrapped in the flag - or something like that?
Can’t quite recall, but we’re on the same vibe.
Allegedly, Putin indulges as well ;)
May I add the not very ethical Savannah Guthrie, who shredded the MAGA hat wearing teenager on air, knowing full well that he had said or done nothing.
Leslie Stahl? Time to layoff the 60 Minutes reruns.
Why? Leslie Stahl is a neolib corporate shill who relished taking apart Trump. Like I think she got off on humiliating him.