First reported by Michael Shellenberger, new details about the "Burisma leak" tabletop exercise of summer 2020 reveal a notable betrayal of principle by two famed papers
I'd say 100-percent of the mainstream media "pack" of pack journalists was "captured," but this isn't quite right. The NY Post wasn't.
Re: Covid narratives, they ALL followed the same script. No "Woodward and Bernstein" investigating any of those taboo/off-limits scandals.
I'm also struck by the pre-planning that goes into squelching any story that attacks the authorized narrative. The "fact checkers" and "misinformation" organizations were seeded months and years before they were asked to spring into action.
The establishment controls huge sums of money. The Big Guy cut on our last years budget was $730B, throw in the mexican cartels and you are close to $1T. In a world where you could find someone to do almost anything for $500, imagine what that kind of money buys.
I wrote a story on my Substack about Pfizer becoming a corporate sponsor of the SEC sports league. In fact, as far as I know, I'm the only journalist who wrote a story about this.
I don't think Pfizer really cares about supporting athletes of the Crimson Tide or Georgia Bulldogs. I think they spent $10 million to make sure no scientist at these 14 red state colleges ever did any kind of study that would debunk Pfizer's product.
So it was money well spent. They don't have to "sponsor" the Ivy League sports teams or Pac-12 conference schools. They KNOW those colleges are in the bag.
Here's my story. It was no great scoop. I read it in the fine print of the SEC's website and there was a quick blurb in Pfizer commercials that the company ran non-stop in televised football games. Prizer is/was now a "corporate sponsor" of the SEC and the SEC joined with Pfizer in encouraging "everyone" to get their boosters. However, I asked the SEC office if they were now encouraging all of their student-athletes to get those shots? They didn't answer my question.
Nor did the league run a big press release trumpeting the big partnership. Nor do I know how much Pfizer paid to be a corporate sponsor.
I do stick with my predictions: One day this partnership will be scrubbed from SEC websites. Also, I don't think any "scientist" at any SEC schools is going to produce any kind of vaccine study that ever embarrasses Pfizer.
I emailed a couple of sports reporters who cover the SEC and asked them if they were going to do stories on this announcement. None would answer my question.
Bill, I really don't believe that Pfizer's corporate sponsorship of the SEC is a strategy to "make sure no scientist at these 14 red state colleges ever did any kind of study that would debunk Pfizer's product."
Like most corporate sponsorships, Pfizer obviously views this as a means of repairing and boosting its reputation by associating itself with the tried and true, red, white and blue of All-American big time college football. It's marketing and public relations, nothing more I'm afraid.
Though I do like conjuring the image of Nick Saban and a few of his defensive lineman paying a visit to the Tuscaloosa laboratory of a "rogue" Crimson Tide chemist and tenured professor rumored to be working on a "study that would debunk Pfizer's product." To, you know, have a "word" with the good professor.
There's a reason you're the only journalist who wrote a story about this.
In praise of the "silent MINORITY" who are making Substack possible today and in the future. And we need as many great Substack writers (real journalists) as possible to prevail in this fight.
Here's my first-ever appeal to do what any successful sales rep must do - ask for the sale.
all you have to do is listen to all the different newscasts, even down to the local levels parroting the exact same thing about a given story. Its like the DNC sneds out its talking points, and the bobblehead anchors just read it verbatim.
They do. Anyone who gets the daily political emails from the DNC will have exactly the same talking points. Trump winning broke something. The last remaining pushback in the MSM disappeared. Now it just pure Narrative. Can't admit to anything that might all the "bad guys" to win again.
Yes, but the Empire is secretly constructing an armored space station with enough power to destroy and entire electoral process. President Biden (or more likely, one of his puppet masters) will proudly say, "Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational Ballet Harvest."
But we have found a flaw in the plans. A single determined person could set off a chain reaction to destroy the monstrosity. Should we prepare a shuttle for them just in case?
The issue is that they still fail to fully understand why Trump was elected. These "educated" elite continue to sit in their coastal High Rises, or gated communities surrounded by guards with guns, calling the middle of the country moronic Sheeple.
The irony is that's exactly what they are. Except there is a divine level of Hypocrisy to them as well. I was a Life Long Democrat raised by a union man. I say WAS. Years of exposing the corruption and rot of the United States led to some of the smarter people in the nation (read, not precisely educated), to understand that the few had once again gained power and are hoisting that old Caste system around us again. Now, we can argue fairly the choice of a loud mouth idiotic billionaire was poorly chosen, but what other options do you have in a rigged system?
The truth is.. the world is done. The old money has once again risen and taken over using the most highly educated rubes in the history of the planet to do their bidding and not bother to think outside their circle. It's why you can't "trust the science" or authorities anymore. They are the game, and they are the least intelligent people left.
Don't forget ace reporter Michael Shellenberger, member of the independent journalist resistance. Nice we have a list of the "so called journalists" and the news media they are affiliated, who are joining this evil cabal.
I hope this won't sit behind the paywall for long. I certainly appreciate getting to see it, but this needs wider exposure, particularly those Great Institutions of the media invoking silence as though their credibility stands unchallenged. The hypocrites must be made to face their hypocrisy.
On the contrary, I think they live in fear. Why else go to the extremes in hunting down and punishing those of Jan 6th? [And in contrast to the summer of Floyd that preceded it.] The TN and MT protests - disrupting the legitimate legislative work being done - were tests to see if they could do both at the same time (punish opposition and engage in the same behavior with no consequences).
They're behaving like dinosaurs who know the meteorite is on the way, trying with all their might to apply their useless magic to stopping the inevitable. Quite pathetic, really.
What, you mean that any of a million other Americans that don't speak Ukrainian and know nothing about the petroleum and natural gas business would be appointed to Burisma's board at a cool million bucks a year?
In my mind, the Right is the home of "rugged individualism" aka more-for-me, none-for-thee mentality. The Left is the home of those fighting for folks having a sense of shared responsibility for those in their community.
To preempt a response stating Obama-like politicians as representing the Left, Obama himself is effectively a Center-Right Neoliberal (fights for more corporate power, pro-war, etc.). Even Bernie Sanders is fairly centrist by European standards.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Calling liberals and center right politicians the left is a mind virus that has infected a lot of commenters on here. There seems to be no cure. Much like there being no cure for liberals’ TDS and fear of all things Russia. They both belong to cults.
Fair question. Let's eschew European standards or we will be calling conservatives liberals (as they are in Europe). And in reality, our spectrum is much narrower.
There is a left that dissociates from Democrats - but that isn't numerous enough to give much consideration. To the right of them, but still well to the left of oh say 80% of the country are the progressives, which are the left-wing of the Democratic Party. They tend to think they represent the whole country but they are in fact only a faction within the party; they make a lot of noise but don't actually get much done. Then there is the rest of the Democratic Party which no longer has any kind of conservative wing though it did up through the '60s.
Obama might be center-right in Europe but not in the U.S. where he is center maybe just left of center (at least in rhetoric if not reality). If you don't think he is slightly to the left of the country as a whole, you don't understand the spectrum here.
Thank you for the reminder that Matt is a person of the Left. I had forgotten. What is the Left? All of those who are not on the Right side of America existing under its Constitution, which by the way, Obama hated because it was framed in the negative. But he got around that rather easily by ignoring it and using his phone and pen. The big unravel started with his admin.....
Yeah, Trump was a clown (promo for Matt's book: Insane Clown President), but not in the depths of worst Presidents. Certainly not down there with Reagan and Bush 2. Or Woodrow Wilson. Or a shit-ton of boys from the 19th century. There are incompetent Presidents (e.g., Hoover) and then there are bad Presidents. What Wilson did to civil liberties, what Reagan did to the concept of economic striving in America, what Bush 2 did to the Constitution, in general? Now we have a new category--clown President. Not as bad as the bad ones, probably about on par with the incompetents.
Another book plug: Douglas Brinkley's "The Unfinished Presidency," about Jimmy Carter's achievements after leaving office.
I’m sure there were bad and incompetent presidents in the 19th century that we don’t know much about, but most of the criticisms you mention do not refer to competence or character but to political positions you have a problem with. Yes, Bush’s Patriot Act was a threat to the Constitution and you didn’t mention Reagan’s subversion of the will of Congress with Iran Contra, but no other president
Have you heard of a hip-hop group called Insane Clown Posse? I have a very strong suspicion Matt's use of "clown" in his title might be some sarcastic metaphor. No one who observed the 2016 campaign could have any surprise at all that it was described as more circus-like than most.
My apologies, but I don't have the energy to respond to everything else you write. Some I might agree with, some I might disagree with, but some I can't even tell if you're talking about Matt Taibbi or Matt Gaetz.
In hindsight, the (real) left should have seen this coming and supported Trump and not the corrupt establishment. He was, in the words of Michael Moore, "the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHekdQSiXg
You can kick up a real hornet's nest by pointing out that Trump and Sanders were mining the same vein of populism - just from different banks of the creek.
It was Donald Trump LIKE NO OTHER from the beginning of his campaign for the Presidency in 2015 who informed Americans, including myself, about the Deep State and its Agenda and the Fake News corporate Media that justifies them.
Leftist Matt Taibbi continues the Trump/MAGA campaign of exposing the FAKE corporate media for the cynical, two-faced, duplicitous, lying, manipulative Machiavellians that they are.
An odd couple, Trump and Taibbi, are they not? Both Patriots.
Trump is a convicted fraudster, e.g., Trump "University, an accused rapist, and an inveterate shameless liar who bilks contractors out of their money by not paying his bills. He's a scumbag, and anyone who trusts that gasbag deserves the screwing they will inevitably get. However, that doesn't mean that he hasn't occasionally been right about a very small number of things. To be clear: there is no one in US politics who is actually left, i.e., a democratic socialist. Not AOC, not Ilhan Omar, and not Bernie "Military Pork Barrel" Sanders. It's one of the primary reasons that your country is the shithole that it has become.
Donald Trump has NOT been convicted of anything. Accusations are NOT proof. He is innocent of any crime until proven guilty with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Insults do not prove anything.
He was found to have committed fraud in 2016 and ordered to pay $25 million in damages. Technically, it was not a criminal conviction but he was found to have committed fraud via his fraudulent "university." The rape accusation is being heard in civil court as I type this. He's a pathological liar and a lifelong P.o.S. who was trained by the godfather of all Pieces of Shit, Roy Cohn.
And, no: No one named Obama is an actual leftist. No leftist has ever been elected president. The Dems and the GOP are both servants of the empire and its military-industrial complex. The rest is just propaganda and noise.
A simple rule of life by which I live: all politicians are liars and grifters. Never be a fan and never trust them as far as you can throw their severed heads. All parties are tribal and utterly controlled by big money. There is zero hope for change in the electoral system unless the change being sought is to screw the working and middle classes even harder, as well as ruining the environment.
Well said. I have an honest question to the room, which I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer: What is it about Trump that you hate so much?
Trump is an unattractive man in every respect, and he lost me at Operation Warp Speed. Yet, for example, I think it is a good idea to staunch the bleed of jobs from America, particularly as we are bringing in so many foreigners. I understand that people don’t like Trump as a person, and that he speaks like a swine, but, for example, I see him as having less blood on his hands than St. Obama. Again, my question is sincere.
He said he wanted to break down the swamp which was politics as usual. They felt threatened. He called out the fake news. They might lose their power. Personally I did not hate him so I don’t get it either.
Sam Harris said the quiet part out loud though, they simply did not care what happened to us and America they need to destroy him and his supporters. I’m still appalled at the depth of hatred we witnessed.
It must be some kind of a very contagious mass psychosis. I see no other explanation. I myself have experienced a wide range of emotions related to Trump: first, I couldn’t believe such a vulgar, poorly educated and uncultured dude with shady business deals and bad taste could be elected our President lol; I thought we deserved better. Then I was disgusted by his poorly written and delivered speeches and his unwillingness to compromise, silly me. I thought if only he went to hug George Floyd’s family, things could be different. Then I saw how his enemies treated him and began to feel sorry for him and admire his resilience. I do not like or respect him, but those who hate him with such animal passion as many do, they simply belong to a mental asylum. Every single thing they are doing now or thinking of doing is to prevent Trump’s return to power. They are obsessed with it, and, for some inexplicable reason, scared to death of this prospective. And this pathological fear and hatred of Trump is turning our country into a Stalinist regime with censorship and persecution of dissidents. Surreal.
Your handle gave me the first belly laugh I've had all day. Brilliant. Thank you!!!
Part of what you're identifying is black-and-white thinking. People had such a visceral reaction to him that they were unable to see the (few) positives, including the not starting new wars. I like to think my former Progressive allies had their brains broken by Trump. They can't discriminate.
Take Tucker Carlson, for example. Some of the things he said were fabulous. I could feel the truth in them, that no one else was willing to say. And other things I profoundly disagreed with. That's how a brain is supposed to work.
Trump's mortal sin was the fact he denied a coronation to Hillary, something she was promised that night when she and Obama ran from the journalists and hid in Feinstein's house "for a talk." She waited for eight long years to be president, but he and the "basket of deplorables," who dared not vote for her, stopped her.
Her trademark cackling, "We came, we saw, he died," about Qaddafi morphed into raging hatred toward Trump and her following madness. She was the one who ordered that fabrication, the "Steele Dossier," and with everyone on board of the Russiagate train, the insanity started to ripple in all facets of society.
Fast forward, and what we have is rising totalitarianism that has nothing to do with the Trump years: being dislikable for the "elite"; he despised them, and they hated him for it. He was an ideal boogeyman. Now, argument or discussion is not possible. That's a trademark of a totalitarian regime they've been creating for us and it's now here to stay for a long, long time.
My dislike for him is mainly based on his current (since 2020 election) proclivity to put his needs/desires at a higher priority than the good of the country.
So, prior to November, 2020, Trump DIDN'T put his needs/desires at a higher priority than....anyone, or anything? Are we talking about the same guy? Crooked real estate developer from NYC? That guy?
To be fair, he primed the media with accusations of the 2016 electing being rigged - against him. Those with functioning memories will recall that Obama made a point of pooh-poohing that. It is the remarkable pivot when the election produced his unexpected victory that is breathtaking in it's speed and cynicism.
First of all, I was never impressed by Life Styles of the Rich and Famous or reality tv. Second, when Trump rode down the escalator and said Mexicans were drug dealers and rapists, he was talking about the hard working families of my students.
When you talk about presidents with blood on their hands, it was Woodward, a hero to many here, who revealed that Trump knew full well how deadly covid was all the while telling the public it was a hoax.
Technically Obama set up the killing of the 8 year old al-Awlaki daughter, Nawar/ "Nora" as well. The attack was planned for the first week after Trump was inaugurated, and Trump did not over-rule (may not have even known). and to those who say it was Trump, not Obama, Obama also commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence and she was released on May 17, 2021, about four months after Trump became President (he may not have known about that either. He never seemed in the loop.)
I have referred to it in the past as assassination by robot plane of American citizens who had not been arrested, charged, indicted, tried, convicted, sentenced, or had appeals considered for any crime that I'm aware of. Much less a capital crime.
He tried multiple times to pull out of Syria—Obama promised that there would never be boots on the ground in Syria—and Trump tried to avoid conflict with Russia. Now the so-called left tells us nukes are Safe & Effective.
Are you talking about Reset Button Hillary? Because I don't think the Hillary that helped grease the skids on the Uranium One sale to Russia was going to be any sort of impediment to Putin.
More likely, if Hillary had won in 2016, we wouldn't be talking about Ukraine today, because it would all be over but for the Ukrainian crying years ago.
As a retired/recovering journalist, there was a time (10+ years ago) that I supervised young reporters at a small daily newspaper. What struck me was the lack of competition among the reporters. It wasn't only that they lacked the "fire in the belly" to beat the atrocious local TV reporters, but they didn't even seem to care if their stories were good enough/important enough for page 1. I never once heard a reporter complain that his story was more important than a co-worker's story, or better written, "So why isn't MY story on page 1?"
I found this puzzling since Back When I Was a Reporter, there was a competitive tension in the newsroom.
I attribute this cultural change to the Participation Trophy mentality, the abolition of school Honor Roll (that was once even published in local newspapers!). This new generation seemed to drift through life with no sense of urgency.
So, I offer this observation to add to the destruction of media today. The media are part of one big club, with everyone sitting at the Cool Kids' Table.
Your note took me back. I grew up in a relatively rural area of Western PA and the town's weekly newspaper would print the Honor Roll for both junior high schools and the senior high school. It was one of the bricks in a wall of Community.
Yes it was! My family owned a neighborhood retail store and knew all their customers. Dad always reported when customers told him that they'd seen my name on the Honor Roll printed in the local weekly newspaper.
It also printed the names & photos of graduating seniors when they chose what college to attend, as well as graduating seniors who enlisted in the military.
I tried to print the local schools' Honor Rolls when I became a newspaper editor. The school guidance departments said, "We don't do that any more. It makes the other students feel bad."
Great. Hurt feelings trump celebration of achievement.
Oh, how times have changed! My teachers were quite forward about telling one that he had not made the honor roll that term. They thought of it as motivation as I'm sure yours did.
I think the current crew grew up dreaming of becoming Woodward and Bernstein, entitled to attend Georgetown soirées and dress up in tuxes at the White House correspondents’ dinner. So they have just become self-satisfied stooges, as this piece attests. I am only relieved that Matt and his pals are courageous old time reporters.
I'm confident many of them have no knowledge of Woodward and/or Bernstein. Much less Daniel Ellsberg, who BTW has only months to live. Who will write his obituary? Certainly not these nincompoops.
Rather than "Tabletop Exercise" which is so benign, why not label it what it really was, a "War Game"? It's no exaggeration to say the press has waged a war against the American people.
How is this not proof that the 2020 election was stolen? These people are perpetrating a coup d’état, which renders American democracy hollow. American democracy is a sham. The people I am referring to are the people held in the highest regard in the society. America is a lie.
(I think the rest of the world knows this, America is a murderous thug on the world stage.)
You realize your children are being taught by teachers in secondary school, and in the Academy that are fully on board with this sort of deception . You know they’re turning your children into liars. Go speak to them, your children, they are not on this side. Please don’t think because Matt and a few other people are calling bullshit, that this is winning. The enemy resides in your basement.
We know it was NOT stolen because honest and competent government officials counted every legal ballot, and only legal ballots, accurately, with scrupulous care. Government officials never lie or mislead us; the historical record is clear.
OK, ask yourself this - who do you know, personally, that would have changed their vote from Biden to Trump because of Hunter? It works both ways for that matter, what circumstances would've caused a Trump voter to change to Biden? At best, you might get someone to not show up at the polls because they are so discouraged with the choice there.
On the one hand, to prove out in practice what the exercise had floated. After all, the exercise wasn't about the laptop - it was about how to act in concert without obvious coordination. And on the other, it probably is fair to say it might have cost Biden some votes, just not ones that would flip to Trump.
right, so they were worried it would cost them the election. Not via flipped votes but via no shows. Enough people saying "whats the difference, Biden is just as bad, why even vote?" could be the margin of difference and the laptop story could have had that kind of impact. Reverse the story and make it Donald Jr and its a biden landslide. They knew how dangerous this was
It’s a good point but the laptop is a single instance in a relentless, whole of society effort to subvert accurate information with an ambient political conditioning. If people in a position of authority view you as somehow dangerous should you receive accurate information then you are a captive and your rulers by dint of their own efforts are your enemy.
The "Trusted News Initiative," billed as an effort to counter (suppress) "misinformation," has likely resulted in a large increase in the number of people who *mistrust* the news. This could be a feature rather than a bug.
Hannah Arendt wrote that the ideal totalitarian subject isn't the devoted Nazi or the devoted Communist, but the person who no longer knows *what* to believe.
Propaganda is used because it works. Advertising is used because it works. Had they shown the other side of the tub with Uncle Joe smoking a crack pipe opposite Hunter, he would have lost.
Why do people believe that Trump is worse than all of the rest of them as far as ethics or smiling in your face goes? Because everyone they ever heard of is saying it repeatedly. Every google search is gamed to present the narrative. One might think, well, they are probably onto something and are right. But then look back at all those same people paling around with Trump back in the day. Why did they do it then and turn on him now?
Well, we can't actually answer that question because we cannot know what the aftermath of a more honestly and widely reported story would have been. Would there have been many more questions raised by sources other than the President about Mr. Biden's integrity? Would the media have badgered him more persistently about his anodyne non-responses to the charges of corruption? If so, would Mr. Biden have lost his cool and exposed his real character? Consider how few voters would have had to change their minds to alter the outcome of the election. A shift of 33,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, Nebraska, and Wisconsin would have given the electoral college to President Trump.
Consider also that Zuck spent $400M to swing 110,000 votes from Trump to Biden instead of Hilliary. About $3K per vote. How many votes can you harvest at $3K each?
Surely you know some Biden voters you could ask. Can you assess the impact across the entire country - no, but you can at least test the contention to a degree. So, anyone?
Well, as I pointed out, it's not that straightforward. Counterfactual history is always a crapshoot at best, so let's focus instead on addressing the issue before us today.
I don’t think you know what was in the laptop: evidence that Biden himself got a 10% cut of Hunter’s fees. The laptop isn’t important because of what it tells us about Hunter. It’s important because of what it tells us about Joe. Many people were unsure whom to vote for. The information most certainly would have changed the votes of many people who had thought of Joe Biden as an honorable and basically honest man. He isn’t, and the laptop emails made that clear.
The beacon of hope comes from the rise of citizen journalism and the ever-increasing obviousness of the co-opting of the corporate media by government and corporate interests. Once someone recognizes the propaganda there is no coming back, so the influence of the corporate media must wane over time I think.
Did the principle ever exist in the first place? Or was it just a commercial decision based on the country largely turning on the Vietnam War. Certainly, with Watergate the Washington Post hated Nixon so they were happy to publish embarrassing info that turned his landslide 1972 victory into resigning two years later. I wonder if we look back and impute higher motives to the news media of that time than they actually had. Both Watergate and Russiagate were certainly high water marks for the Washington Post business model.
Point well made. I seriously doubt the Pentagon Papers would have been treated the same had it been a Democrat president in the White House. The media have never been truly ethical. If they had been, they still would be.
I think ethics, such as they are, often take a backseat to business decisions and the personal views of whoever happens to own the newspaper at that time and how they feel about the nation at that time.
The Pentagon Papers did span America's Vietnam involvement which included both Republican and Democrat administrations. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon.
It looks more and more like Watergate was a CIA setup and Woodward and Bernstein just their chosen propaganda vehicles rather than the intrepid reporters of popular myth. The tape of Nixon talking to then-CIA director Richard Helms about how “they both know who killed John” and how it would be a shame if someone, not Nixon of course but someone, revealed the CIA’s dirty tricks dept to the public is pretty instructive. Nixon completely sounds like he knows he is being set up and is trying to threaten Helms to get him to back off.
I read Matt's book Hate Inc. again. His theory is that the movie "All the President's Men" made reporting look like a glamorous job. In reality, while it can sometimes be interesting, even exciting, it can also be boring, tedious, annoying or frustrating.
Also, in most cases, it's not a job in which you do it for the money.
Truth be told, I imagine a lot of today's generation got into the business thinking they'd be rich and famous, when in reality, that's a long shot -- and furthermore, the "famous" part is not the reason one should get into journalism.
But was the country turning against the Vietnam War a truly spontaneous turn, or was it planned? Sy Hersh did say that the stuff he published were usually because on someone the inside and at the top wanted the stuff leaked. Maybe the MIC knew Vietnam was going nowhere and wanted a convenient off-ramp?
Can you imagine being a self-respecting journalist and agreeing to take part in such a mind control experiment? As if it even needs pointing out, the fingerprints of the intelligence community are all over this. And let's not forget: when the Hunter Biden laptop leak actually came out, there was a clear trail back to the computer repair shop where the drug-addled scion had left it (for over a year, was it?) and never denied doing so. And the media STILL had the cojones to call it a Russian disinformation campaign. Well played, spooks and lame-asses.
Just to synthesize my own take from Matt's piece: The media is saying that the public can no longer be trusted with the truth. Because they might make political decisions based on the truth that we, the media, abhor. Only the elites in government, technology, and media can know the truth because the impulses of the public must be CONTROLLED.
in 2016 Americans made the fatal error of voting in the wrong candidate, and this must never be allowed to happen again. They're just protecting Democracy™!
Well researched Matt. Keep hammering those nails into the coffin of main stream media! Hopefully sufficient awareness of how co-opted and corrupt they have become will help healthy alternative media sources flourish.
Suppression leads to repression and is in fact a form of it. That's the issue, Matt. Media sites are enabling repressive, rather than representative, governance. And they're proud to do so.
The irony is that if Russia wanted to sow mistrust in America's media, these guys are doing the work for them. These bumbling fools and the sanctimonious belief that *they* should be the arbiters of reality for everyone else.
(Deep) State Media no longer are America's media. They serve the Establishment, the Elites who, as Karl Rove said, CREATE our reality.
I'm curious who gave Hunter Biden's laptop (or a copy) for the Aspen Institute "war games" exercises. My guess is the FBI, which would be worse case. They had the laptop since 2019, and have been reticent when questioned about it by Congress. If the FBI is the root of the Aspen exercises, resulting in the coordination of social media, State Media, and the DNC operatives to lie about what's on the laptop, and bury the corruption scandal under "Russian disinformation", isn't this more of a Coup than what the deluded (and unarmed) Trumpers did on Jan 6th?
Borrowed from 'The Only News That's Fit To Print' -J. Peder Zane in Real Clear Politics today.
'The conversation stoked my queasy feeling that we’re living in a dystopian George Orwell novel. Our government and leading news operations insistently deceive and mislead, achieving their intended effect on my pals and millions of others. But their ministry of truth is more sieve than iron curtain. Enough honest information leaks through so that some of us can still figure out what’s really going on.
The result is an agonizing form of torture as we try to keep from downing amidst the waves of lies.'
Thanks for your groundbreaking and professional work on this subject.
FYI: there is a new link to the document, “Partnership for a Healthy Digital Public Sphere” that should work now.
OMG Matt has his guns on the big ships of the empire. Queue another alphabet agency inquiry in matts personal life.
I'd say 100-percent of the mainstream media "pack" of pack journalists was "captured," but this isn't quite right. The NY Post wasn't.
Re: Covid narratives, they ALL followed the same script. No "Woodward and Bernstein" investigating any of those taboo/off-limits scandals.
I'm also struck by the pre-planning that goes into squelching any story that attacks the authorized narrative. The "fact checkers" and "misinformation" organizations were seeded months and years before they were asked to spring into action.
The establishment controls huge sums of money. The Big Guy cut on our last years budget was $730B, throw in the mexican cartels and you are close to $1T. In a world where you could find someone to do almost anything for $500, imagine what that kind of money buys.
I wrote a story on my Substack about Pfizer becoming a corporate sponsor of the SEC sports league. In fact, as far as I know, I'm the only journalist who wrote a story about this.
I don't think Pfizer really cares about supporting athletes of the Crimson Tide or Georgia Bulldogs. I think they spent $10 million to make sure no scientist at these 14 red state colleges ever did any kind of study that would debunk Pfizer's product.
So it was money well spent. They don't have to "sponsor" the Ivy League sports teams or Pac-12 conference schools. They KNOW those colleges are in the bag.
Here's my story. It was no great scoop. I read it in the fine print of the SEC's website and there was a quick blurb in Pfizer commercials that the company ran non-stop in televised football games. Prizer is/was now a "corporate sponsor" of the SEC and the SEC joined with Pfizer in encouraging "everyone" to get their boosters. However, I asked the SEC office if they were now encouraging all of their student-athletes to get those shots? They didn't answer my question.
Nor did the league run a big press release trumpeting the big partnership. Nor do I know how much Pfizer paid to be a corporate sponsor.
I do stick with my predictions: One day this partnership will be scrubbed from SEC websites. Also, I don't think any "scientist" at any SEC schools is going to produce any kind of vaccine study that ever embarrasses Pfizer.
I emailed a couple of sports reporters who cover the SEC and asked them if they were going to do stories on this announcement. None would answer my question.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-southeastern-conference-is-now
I do not think Georgia is.
Bill, I really don't believe that Pfizer's corporate sponsorship of the SEC is a strategy to "make sure no scientist at these 14 red state colleges ever did any kind of study that would debunk Pfizer's product."
Like most corporate sponsorships, Pfizer obviously views this as a means of repairing and boosting its reputation by associating itself with the tried and true, red, white and blue of All-American big time college football. It's marketing and public relations, nothing more I'm afraid.
Though I do like conjuring the image of Nick Saban and a few of his defensive lineman paying a visit to the Tuscaloosa laboratory of a "rogue" Crimson Tide chemist and tenured professor rumored to be working on a "study that would debunk Pfizer's product." To, you know, have a "word" with the good professor.
There's a reason you're the only journalist who wrote a story about this.
....um, what?
In praise of the "silent MINORITY" who are making Substack possible today and in the future. And we need as many great Substack writers (real journalists) as possible to prevail in this fight.
Here's my first-ever appeal to do what any successful sales rep must do - ask for the sale.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-the-2-percent
Collusion? Corruption? Criminal enterprise to defraud the American people? Any civil suits possible?
You'd think with the kind of resources they have that the gatekeepers could come up with more plausible "facts".
1000x on your "worst among us" characterization.
They're proving you right on a daily basis.
all you have to do is listen to all the different newscasts, even down to the local levels parroting the exact same thing about a given story. Its like the DNC sneds out its talking points, and the bobblehead anchors just read it verbatim.
They do. Anyone who gets the daily political emails from the DNC will have exactly the same talking points. Trump winning broke something. The last remaining pushback in the MSM disappeared. Now it just pure Narrative. Can't admit to anything that might all the "bad guys" to win again.
Decades ago, Noam Chomsky wrote that any Soviet commissar would envy the discipline of the supposedly free Western press.
Yes, but the Empire is secretly constructing an armored space station with enough power to destroy and entire electoral process. President Biden (or more likely, one of his puppet masters) will proudly say, "Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational Ballet Harvest."
I find your lack of faith disturbing....
But we have found a flaw in the plans. A single determined person could set off a chain reaction to destroy the monstrosity. Should we prepare a shuttle for them just in case?
Yes, Happy May 4th to you too. :)
The big ships of the empire are taking on water. I sense a hint of panic when they send their weaponized agencies after the truth-tellers.
They don't even have to send them. There are ambitious players everywhere.
Including the MSM.
The issue is that they still fail to fully understand why Trump was elected. These "educated" elite continue to sit in their coastal High Rises, or gated communities surrounded by guards with guns, calling the middle of the country moronic Sheeple.
The irony is that's exactly what they are. Except there is a divine level of Hypocrisy to them as well. I was a Life Long Democrat raised by a union man. I say WAS. Years of exposing the corruption and rot of the United States led to some of the smarter people in the nation (read, not precisely educated), to understand that the few had once again gained power and are hoisting that old Caste system around us again. Now, we can argue fairly the choice of a loud mouth idiotic billionaire was poorly chosen, but what other options do you have in a rigged system?
The truth is.. the world is done. The old money has once again risen and taken over using the most highly educated rubes in the history of the planet to do their bidding and not bother to think outside their circle. It's why you can't "trust the science" or authorities anymore. They are the game, and they are the least intelligent people left.
Don't forget ace reporter Michael Shellenberger, member of the independent journalist resistance. Nice we have a list of the "so called journalists" and the news media they are affiliated, who are joining this evil cabal.
Matt has his guns trained on their flagships, for sure. Cue the alphabet agencies' attack on his character.
I hope this won't sit behind the paywall for long. I certainly appreciate getting to see it, but this needs wider exposure, particularly those Great Institutions of the media invoking silence as though their credibility stands unchallenged. The hypocrites must be made to face their hypocrisy.
Declassé to reply to yourself, but I really just want to shout in the face of every person named in this piece: WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Likely response: Better than you, peasant.
Deplorables
yes oh hello french revolution good to see you
Tumbril rides preceded helicopters.
They don't care. None of them. They just don't give a fuck.
On the contrary, I think they live in fear. Why else go to the extremes in hunting down and punishing those of Jan 6th? [And in contrast to the summer of Floyd that preceded it.] The TN and MT protests - disrupting the legitimate legislative work being done - were tests to see if they could do both at the same time (punish opposition and engage in the same behavior with no consequences).
They want to instill fear. A great motivator.
We are ruled by persons whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of sociopaths.
How would a sociopath react?
They're behaving like dinosaurs who know the meteorite is on the way, trying with all their might to apply their useless magic to stopping the inevitable. Quite pathetic, really.
Spot on. They live in fear that the populist Right and Left might somehow find a way to work together to displace them.
I wouldn't say it this way exactly, but agree with you.
I have been feeling that energy lately
Love your work, Michael. You killed it on Rogan.
Not declassé until someone adds a postscript option.
BTW well said.
America's calling, Tom Wolfe.
Matt unlocked it--saw at his Twitter feed.
Damn, that's going to go to my head!
They won’t believe it. If it’s not from the corporate press they’ve been brainwashed to believe it’s right wing.
I understand your pov but am also a big fan of Matt and his colleagues getting paid for their work.
Hear, hear!
What, you mean that any of a million other Americans that don't speak Ukrainian and know nothing about the petroleum and natural gas business would be appointed to Burisma's board at a cool million bucks a year?
As bad as Trump was, the left's reaction to him is way worse.
In the pantheon on American Presidents, Trump does not come close to being "bad".
The left's reaction to him is an odd combination of authoritarian and utterly childish.
It shows a pathetic vulnerability to state propaganda, as long as it's laced with a few progressive buzzwords.
The left would live by Lord of the Flies if they were allowed to.
I'm curious, who do you consider the "Left"?
In my mind, the Right is the home of "rugged individualism" aka more-for-me, none-for-thee mentality. The Left is the home of those fighting for folks having a sense of shared responsibility for those in their community.
To preempt a response stating Obama-like politicians as representing the Left, Obama himself is effectively a Center-Right Neoliberal (fights for more corporate power, pro-war, etc.). Even Bernie Sanders is fairly centrist by European standards.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Calling liberals and center right politicians the left is a mind virus that has infected a lot of commenters on here. There seems to be no cure. Much like there being no cure for liberals’ TDS and fear of all things Russia. They both belong to cults.
Fair question. Let's eschew European standards or we will be calling conservatives liberals (as they are in Europe). And in reality, our spectrum is much narrower.
There is a left that dissociates from Democrats - but that isn't numerous enough to give much consideration. To the right of them, but still well to the left of oh say 80% of the country are the progressives, which are the left-wing of the Democratic Party. They tend to think they represent the whole country but they are in fact only a faction within the party; they make a lot of noise but don't actually get much done. Then there is the rest of the Democratic Party which no longer has any kind of conservative wing though it did up through the '60s.
Obama might be center-right in Europe but not in the U.S. where he is center maybe just left of center (at least in rhetoric if not reality). If you don't think he is slightly to the left of the country as a whole, you don't understand the spectrum here.
Most Europeans on the left consider Sanders as center-right. Our liberals are their reactionaries. There isn't a leftist anywhere near Washington DC.
Thank you for the reminder that Matt is a person of the Left. I had forgotten. What is the Left? All of those who are not on the Right side of America existing under its Constitution, which by the way, Obama hated because it was framed in the negative. But he got around that rather easily by ignoring it and using his phone and pen. The big unravel started with his admin.....
This is how humans have been ruled by ruthless minorities for most of civilization. Most of the humans on earth today suffer this sort of rule.
Regarding your first sentence: not the worst, but certainly bad. In a compromising mood, I might settle for "profoundly embarrassing".
Yeah, Trump was a clown (promo for Matt's book: Insane Clown President), but not in the depths of worst Presidents. Certainly not down there with Reagan and Bush 2. Or Woodrow Wilson. Or a shit-ton of boys from the 19th century. There are incompetent Presidents (e.g., Hoover) and then there are bad Presidents. What Wilson did to civil liberties, what Reagan did to the concept of economic striving in America, what Bush 2 did to the Constitution, in general? Now we have a new category--clown President. Not as bad as the bad ones, probably about on par with the incompetents.
Another book plug: Douglas Brinkley's "The Unfinished Presidency," about Jimmy Carter's achievements after leaving office.
Hoover was wedded to a philosophy that was unhelpful in the face of the Great Depression but he was not incompetent.
But no other president encouraged a mob to attack the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
Ok. Explain where he explicitly said that. Quotes only.
I’m sure there were bad and incompetent presidents in the 19th century that we don’t know much about, but most of the criticisms you mention do not refer to competence or character but to political positions you have a problem with. Yes, Bush’s Patriot Act was a threat to the Constitution and you didn’t mention Reagan’s subversion of the will of Congress with Iran Contra, but no other president
Have you heard of a hip-hop group called Insane Clown Posse? I have a very strong suspicion Matt's use of "clown" in his title might be some sarcastic metaphor. No one who observed the 2016 campaign could have any surprise at all that it was described as more circus-like than most.
My apologies, but I don't have the energy to respond to everything else you write. Some I might agree with, some I might disagree with, but some I can't even tell if you're talking about Matt Taibbi or Matt Gaetz.
Makes you wonder, don’t it?🤔
In hindsight, the (real) left should have seen this coming and supported Trump and not the corrupt establishment. He was, in the words of Michael Moore, "the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHekdQSiXg
You can kick up a real hornet's nest by pointing out that Trump and Sanders were mining the same vein of populism - just from different banks of the creek.
Indeed. On trade, Trump sounded more like Dick Gebhardt than Mitt Romney
Dick Gebhardt was a long-time hero until he came a lobbyist in 2005.
Free trade is great. But like most utopian ideas, it rarely exists.
Exactly. In 2015, Trump and Sanders were both opposed to illegal immigration, NAFTA and free trade, the war on terror, and the Affordable Care Act.
The Socialist sold out for personal gain and the New York businessman remained true.
Well said Curmudgeon. It is the essential political truth of the Trump era.
Didn't Billary insinuate that Bernie was also a Kremlin stooge and that his Bernie Bros. were a group of misogynistic women haters?
Just a different version of Trump, the pussy grabbing Russian asset, that has ridden the top of the Democratic Hit Parade for 7 long years.
This is why they were worried about the Bernie Bro's.
Great statement. Kudos.
It was Donald Trump LIKE NO OTHER from the beginning of his campaign for the Presidency in 2015 who informed Americans, including myself, about the Deep State and its Agenda and the Fake News corporate Media that justifies them.
Leftist Matt Taibbi continues the Trump/MAGA campaign of exposing the FAKE corporate media for the cynical, two-faced, duplicitous, lying, manipulative Machiavellians that they are.
An odd couple, Trump and Taibbi, are they not? Both Patriots.
Trump is a convicted fraudster, e.g., Trump "University, an accused rapist, and an inveterate shameless liar who bilks contractors out of their money by not paying his bills. He's a scumbag, and anyone who trusts that gasbag deserves the screwing they will inevitably get. However, that doesn't mean that he hasn't occasionally been right about a very small number of things. To be clear: there is no one in US politics who is actually left, i.e., a democratic socialist. Not AOC, not Ilhan Omar, and not Bernie "Military Pork Barrel" Sanders. It's one of the primary reasons that your country is the shithole that it has become.
Donald Trump has NOT been convicted of anything. Accusations are NOT proof. He is innocent of any crime until proven guilty with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Insults do not prove anything.
Is Micehlle Obama an actual Leftist?
Is Michelle Obama a true Democratic Socialist?
Michelle 2024?
He was found to have committed fraud in 2016 and ordered to pay $25 million in damages. Technically, it was not a criminal conviction but he was found to have committed fraud via his fraudulent "university." The rape accusation is being heard in civil court as I type this. He's a pathological liar and a lifelong P.o.S. who was trained by the godfather of all Pieces of Shit, Roy Cohn.
And, no: No one named Obama is an actual leftist. No leftist has ever been elected president. The Dems and the GOP are both servants of the empire and its military-industrial complex. The rest is just propaganda and noise.
A simple rule of life by which I live: all politicians are liars and grifters. Never be a fan and never trust them as far as you can throw their severed heads. All parties are tribal and utterly controlled by big money. There is zero hope for change in the electoral system unless the change being sought is to screw the working and middle classes even harder, as well as ruining the environment.
Had they trusted the truth, which was ugly enough, they'd still have some credibility.
Yeah, and don't forget the left trying really hard to start WW3:to avenge 2016.
Well said. I have an honest question to the room, which I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer: What is it about Trump that you hate so much?
Trump is an unattractive man in every respect, and he lost me at Operation Warp Speed. Yet, for example, I think it is a good idea to staunch the bleed of jobs from America, particularly as we are bringing in so many foreigners. I understand that people don’t like Trump as a person, and that he speaks like a swine, but, for example, I see him as having less blood on his hands than St. Obama. Again, my question is sincere.
He said he wanted to break down the swamp which was politics as usual. They felt threatened. He called out the fake news. They might lose their power. Personally I did not hate him so I don’t get it either.
Sam Harris said the quiet part out loud though, they simply did not care what happened to us and America they need to destroy him and his supporters. I’m still appalled at the depth of hatred we witnessed.
It must be some kind of a very contagious mass psychosis. I see no other explanation. I myself have experienced a wide range of emotions related to Trump: first, I couldn’t believe such a vulgar, poorly educated and uncultured dude with shady business deals and bad taste could be elected our President lol; I thought we deserved better. Then I was disgusted by his poorly written and delivered speeches and his unwillingness to compromise, silly me. I thought if only he went to hug George Floyd’s family, things could be different. Then I saw how his enemies treated him and began to feel sorry for him and admire his resilience. I do not like or respect him, but those who hate him with such animal passion as many do, they simply belong to a mental asylum. Every single thing they are doing now or thinking of doing is to prevent Trump’s return to power. They are obsessed with it, and, for some inexplicable reason, scared to death of this prospective. And this pathological fear and hatred of Trump is turning our country into a Stalinist regime with censorship and persecution of dissidents. Surreal.
"I’m still appalled at the depth of hatred we witnessed."
That sentence should not be past tense. It's ongoing and getting more severe.
Your handle gave me the first belly laugh I've had all day. Brilliant. Thank you!!!
Part of what you're identifying is black-and-white thinking. People had such a visceral reaction to him that they were unable to see the (few) positives, including the not starting new wars. I like to think my former Progressive allies had their brains broken by Trump. They can't discriminate.
Take Tucker Carlson, for example. Some of the things he said were fabulous. I could feel the truth in them, that no one else was willing to say. And other things I profoundly disagreed with. That's how a brain is supposed to work.
Trump's mortal sin was the fact he denied a coronation to Hillary, something she was promised that night when she and Obama ran from the journalists and hid in Feinstein's house "for a talk." She waited for eight long years to be president, but he and the "basket of deplorables," who dared not vote for her, stopped her.
Her trademark cackling, "We came, we saw, he died," about Qaddafi morphed into raging hatred toward Trump and her following madness. She was the one who ordered that fabrication, the "Steele Dossier," and with everyone on board of the Russiagate train, the insanity started to ripple in all facets of society.
Fast forward, and what we have is rising totalitarianism that has nothing to do with the Trump years: being dislikable for the "elite"; he despised them, and they hated him for it. He was an ideal boogeyman. Now, argument or discussion is not possible. That's a trademark of a totalitarian regime they've been creating for us and it's now here to stay for a long, long time.
at a purely psychological level, I think the Trump hatred is motivated by pure emotion.
let me explain.
to the person suffering from TDS, there is tremendous dissonance between the reality of Trump and their emotional response.
his gross, crude, egotistical way of speaking and acting, triggers them so much that they are having a visceral disgust reaction.
so they have to make the reality of Trump match their emotional perception of him.
it’s not enough to be a disgusting carnival barker, he must be a Russian agent and the next Hitler.
this is the animating spirit behind the Trump Derangement Syndrome...
My dislike for him is mainly based on his current (since 2020 election) proclivity to put his needs/desires at a higher priority than the good of the country.
So, prior to November, 2020, Trump DIDN'T put his needs/desires at a higher priority than....anyone, or anything? Are we talking about the same guy? Crooked real estate developer from NYC? That guy?
To be fair, he primed the media with accusations of the 2016 electing being rigged - against him. Those with functioning memories will recall that Obama made a point of pooh-poohing that. It is the remarkable pivot when the election produced his unexpected victory that is breathtaking in it's speed and cynicism.
First of all, I was never impressed by Life Styles of the Rich and Famous or reality tv. Second, when Trump rode down the escalator and said Mexicans were drug dealers and rapists, he was talking about the hard working families of my students.
When you talk about presidents with blood on their hands, it was Woodward, a hero to many here, who revealed that Trump knew full well how deadly covid was all the while telling the public it was a hoax.
I unreservedly hate his transformation into Orange of Mussolini's stylish black.
It's really hysterical, the people who kept insisting he was Hitler reborn when every cue he took was from Rome.
I hate how he is openly and publicly a racist, a sexist, and a misogynist.
Is that a satisfactory answer?
No - you need to actually provide the receipts. You're just repeating what you've been told.
Technically Obama set up the killing of the 8 year old al-Awlaki daughter, Nawar/ "Nora" as well. The attack was planned for the first week after Trump was inaugurated, and Trump did not over-rule (may not have even known). and to those who say it was Trump, not Obama, Obama also commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence and she was released on May 17, 2021, about four months after Trump became President (he may not have known about that either. He never seemed in the loop.)
I have referred to it in the past as assassination by robot plane of American citizens who had not been arrested, charged, indicted, tried, convicted, sentenced, or had appeals considered for any crime that I'm aware of. Much less a capital crime.
He tried multiple times to pull out of Syria—Obama promised that there would never be boots on the ground in Syria—and Trump tried to avoid conflict with Russia. Now the so-called left tells us nukes are Safe & Effective.
The way Hillary would have?
Are you talking about Reset Button Hillary? Because I don't think the Hillary that helped grease the skids on the Uranium One sale to Russia was going to be any sort of impediment to Putin.
More likely, if Hillary had won in 2016, we wouldn't be talking about Ukraine today, because it would all be over but for the Ukrainian crying years ago.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
!TRUMP! is Goldstein except that in this edition it is seven years of hate.
bingo
As a retired/recovering journalist, there was a time (10+ years ago) that I supervised young reporters at a small daily newspaper. What struck me was the lack of competition among the reporters. It wasn't only that they lacked the "fire in the belly" to beat the atrocious local TV reporters, but they didn't even seem to care if their stories were good enough/important enough for page 1. I never once heard a reporter complain that his story was more important than a co-worker's story, or better written, "So why isn't MY story on page 1?"
I found this puzzling since Back When I Was a Reporter, there was a competitive tension in the newsroom.
I attribute this cultural change to the Participation Trophy mentality, the abolition of school Honor Roll (that was once even published in local newspapers!). This new generation seemed to drift through life with no sense of urgency.
So, I offer this observation to add to the destruction of media today. The media are part of one big club, with everyone sitting at the Cool Kids' Table.
It's pitiful.
Your note took me back. I grew up in a relatively rural area of Western PA and the town's weekly newspaper would print the Honor Roll for both junior high schools and the senior high school. It was one of the bricks in a wall of Community.
Yes it was! My family owned a neighborhood retail store and knew all their customers. Dad always reported when customers told him that they'd seen my name on the Honor Roll printed in the local weekly newspaper.
It also printed the names & photos of graduating seniors when they chose what college to attend, as well as graduating seniors who enlisted in the military.
I tried to print the local schools' Honor Rolls when I became a newspaper editor. The school guidance departments said, "We don't do that any more. It makes the other students feel bad."
Great. Hurt feelings trump celebration of achievement.
Oh, how times have changed! My teachers were quite forward about telling one that he had not made the honor roll that term. They thought of it as motivation as I'm sure yours did.
I think the current crew grew up dreaming of becoming Woodward and Bernstein, entitled to attend Georgetown soirées and dress up in tuxes at the White House correspondents’ dinner. So they have just become self-satisfied stooges, as this piece attests. I am only relieved that Matt and his pals are courageous old time reporters.
I'm confident many of them have no knowledge of Woodward and/or Bernstein. Much less Daniel Ellsberg, who BTW has only months to live. Who will write his obituary? Certainly not these nincompoops.
Or else they'll consult Wikipedia.
Rather than "Tabletop Exercise" which is so benign, why not label it what it really was, a "War Game"? It's no exaggeration to say the press has waged a war against the American people.
Thanks for naming names, dates, places, and evidence.
Makes me sick e.g. want to vomit. How could journalism come to this level of conspiracy and contempt for the general public?
How is this not proof that the 2020 election was stolen? These people are perpetrating a coup d’état, which renders American democracy hollow. American democracy is a sham. The people I am referring to are the people held in the highest regard in the society. America is a lie.
(I think the rest of the world knows this, America is a murderous thug on the world stage.)
You realize your children are being taught by teachers in secondary school, and in the Academy that are fully on board with this sort of deception . You know they’re turning your children into liars. Go speak to them, your children, they are not on this side. Please don’t think because Matt and a few other people are calling bullshit, that this is winning. The enemy resides in your basement.
We know it was NOT stolen because honest and competent government officials counted every legal ballot, and only legal ballots, accurately, with scrupulous care. Government officials never lie or mislead us; the historical record is clear.
Indubitably
OK, ask yourself this - who do you know, personally, that would have changed their vote from Biden to Trump because of Hunter? It works both ways for that matter, what circumstances would've caused a Trump voter to change to Biden? At best, you might get someone to not show up at the polls because they are so discouraged with the choice there.
If the Laptop story wouldn't have made any difference, why did they pull out all the stops to suppress it?
On the one hand, to prove out in practice what the exercise had floated. After all, the exercise wasn't about the laptop - it was about how to act in concert without obvious coordination. And on the other, it probably is fair to say it might have cost Biden some votes, just not ones that would flip to Trump.
right, so they were worried it would cost them the election. Not via flipped votes but via no shows. Enough people saying "whats the difference, Biden is just as bad, why even vote?" could be the margin of difference and the laptop story could have had that kind of impact. Reverse the story and make it Donald Jr and its a biden landslide. They knew how dangerous this was
It’s a good point but the laptop is a single instance in a relentless, whole of society effort to subvert accurate information with an ambient political conditioning. If people in a position of authority view you as somehow dangerous should you receive accurate information then you are a captive and your rulers by dint of their own efforts are your enemy.
The "Trusted News Initiative," billed as an effort to counter (suppress) "misinformation," has likely resulted in a large increase in the number of people who *mistrust* the news. This could be a feature rather than a bug.
Hannah Arendt wrote that the ideal totalitarian subject isn't the devoted Nazi or the devoted Communist, but the person who no longer knows *what* to believe.
Subsequent polls seem to show a different outcome had the electorate been aware of the suppressed info on Hunter's laptop.
Propaganda is used because it works. Advertising is used because it works. Had they shown the other side of the tub with Uncle Joe smoking a crack pipe opposite Hunter, he would have lost.
Why do people believe that Trump is worse than all of the rest of them as far as ethics or smiling in your face goes? Because everyone they ever heard of is saying it repeatedly. Every google search is gamed to present the narrative. One might think, well, they are probably onto something and are right. But then look back at all those same people paling around with Trump back in the day. Why did they do it then and turn on him now?
Well, we can't actually answer that question because we cannot know what the aftermath of a more honestly and widely reported story would have been. Would there have been many more questions raised by sources other than the President about Mr. Biden's integrity? Would the media have badgered him more persistently about his anodyne non-responses to the charges of corruption? If so, would Mr. Biden have lost his cool and exposed his real character? Consider how few voters would have had to change their minds to alter the outcome of the election. A shift of 33,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, Nebraska, and Wisconsin would have given the electoral college to President Trump.
Consider also that Zuck spent $400M to swing 110,000 votes from Trump to Biden instead of Hilliary. About $3K per vote. How many votes can you harvest at $3K each?
Surely you know some Biden voters you could ask. Can you assess the impact across the entire country - no, but you can at least test the contention to a degree. So, anyone?
Well, as I pointed out, it's not that straightforward. Counterfactual history is always a crapshoot at best, so let's focus instead on addressing the issue before us today.
I don’t think you know what was in the laptop: evidence that Biden himself got a 10% cut of Hunter’s fees. The laptop isn’t important because of what it tells us about Hunter. It’s important because of what it tells us about Joe. Many people were unsure whom to vote for. The information most certainly would have changed the votes of many people who had thought of Joe Biden as an honorable and basically honest man. He isn’t, and the laptop emails made that clear.
"Many people were unsure whom to vote for."
That I doubt very much. No one voted FOR Biden, that would be like voting for cabbage. Every Biden vote was anti-Trump.
I was unsure who to vote for.
Is it “lying” if those children don’t know what the truth is themselves?
Useful idiots. They make your progeny idiots, hum, lying is better?
Yes
I’m afraid the horse has already ‘left’ the barn - I don’t see this trend reversing any time soon.
The beacon of hope comes from the rise of citizen journalism and the ever-increasing obviousness of the co-opting of the corporate media by government and corporate interests. Once someone recognizes the propaganda there is no coming back, so the influence of the corporate media must wane over time I think.
and the Tech companies are strangling that hope in the crib.
Substack and Elon’s Twitter seem to be fighting the tide at least
they are trying but it is david vs Goliath. one can hope.
Did the principle ever exist in the first place? Or was it just a commercial decision based on the country largely turning on the Vietnam War. Certainly, with Watergate the Washington Post hated Nixon so they were happy to publish embarrassing info that turned his landslide 1972 victory into resigning two years later. I wonder if we look back and impute higher motives to the news media of that time than they actually had. Both Watergate and Russiagate were certainly high water marks for the Washington Post business model.
Point well made. I seriously doubt the Pentagon Papers would have been treated the same had it been a Democrat president in the White House. The media have never been truly ethical. If they had been, they still would be.
I think ethics, such as they are, often take a backseat to business decisions and the personal views of whoever happens to own the newspaper at that time and how they feel about the nation at that time.
The Pentagon Papers did span America's Vietnam involvement which included both Republican and Democrat administrations. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon.
The NYT wouldn't print the Pentagon Papers today. Instead they would sic the CIA on Daniel Ellsberg.
It looks more and more like Watergate was a CIA setup and Woodward and Bernstein just their chosen propaganda vehicles rather than the intrepid reporters of popular myth. The tape of Nixon talking to then-CIA director Richard Helms about how “they both know who killed John” and how it would be a shame if someone, not Nixon of course but someone, revealed the CIA’s dirty tricks dept to the public is pretty instructive. Nixon completely sounds like he knows he is being set up and is trying to threaten Helms to get him to back off.
I read Matt's book Hate Inc. again. His theory is that the movie "All the President's Men" made reporting look like a glamorous job. In reality, while it can sometimes be interesting, even exciting, it can also be boring, tedious, annoying or frustrating.
Also, in most cases, it's not a job in which you do it for the money.
Truth be told, I imagine a lot of today's generation got into the business thinking they'd be rich and famous, when in reality, that's a long shot -- and furthermore, the "famous" part is not the reason one should get into journalism.
But was the country turning against the Vietnam War a truly spontaneous turn, or was it planned? Sy Hersh did say that the stuff he published were usually because on someone the inside and at the top wanted the stuff leaked. Maybe the MIC knew Vietnam was going nowhere and wanted a convenient off-ramp?
Can you imagine being a self-respecting journalist and agreeing to take part in such a mind control experiment? As if it even needs pointing out, the fingerprints of the intelligence community are all over this. And let's not forget: when the Hunter Biden laptop leak actually came out, there was a clear trail back to the computer repair shop where the drug-addled scion had left it (for over a year, was it?) and never denied doing so. And the media STILL had the cojones to call it a Russian disinformation campaign. Well played, spooks and lame-asses.
they are saving democracy, to them they are the hero's
Just to synthesize my own take from Matt's piece: The media is saying that the public can no longer be trusted with the truth. Because they might make political decisions based on the truth that we, the media, abhor. Only the elites in government, technology, and media can know the truth because the impulses of the public must be CONTROLLED.
in 2016 Americans made the fatal error of voting in the wrong candidate, and this must never be allowed to happen again. They're just protecting Democracy™!
Well researched Matt. Keep hammering those nails into the coffin of main stream media! Hopefully sufficient awareness of how co-opted and corrupt they have become will help healthy alternative media sources flourish.
Suppression leads to repression and is in fact a form of it. That's the issue, Matt. Media sites are enabling repressive, rather than representative, governance. And they're proud to do so.
Their side is in power.
The irony is that if Russia wanted to sow mistrust in America's media, these guys are doing the work for them. These bumbling fools and the sanctimonious belief that *they* should be the arbiters of reality for everyone else.
(Deep) State Media no longer are America's media. They serve the Establishment, the Elites who, as Karl Rove said, CREATE our reality.
I'm curious who gave Hunter Biden's laptop (or a copy) for the Aspen Institute "war games" exercises. My guess is the FBI, which would be worse case. They had the laptop since 2019, and have been reticent when questioned about it by Congress. If the FBI is the root of the Aspen exercises, resulting in the coordination of social media, State Media, and the DNC operatives to lie about what's on the laptop, and bury the corruption scandal under "Russian disinformation", isn't this more of a Coup than what the deluded (and unarmed) Trumpers did on Jan 6th?
Borrowed from 'The Only News That's Fit To Print' -J. Peder Zane in Real Clear Politics today.
'The conversation stoked my queasy feeling that we’re living in a dystopian George Orwell novel. Our government and leading news operations insistently deceive and mislead, achieving their intended effect on my pals and millions of others. But their ministry of truth is more sieve than iron curtain. Enough honest information leaks through so that some of us can still figure out what’s really going on.
The result is an agonizing form of torture as we try to keep from downing amidst the waves of lies.'
Thanks for your groundbreaking and professional work on this subject.