Here’s a good rule of thumb: however blinkered and debased you might find the current political climate to be around matters of foreign policy, always assume you’re underestimating the problem by several orders of magnitude. Take, for instance, Congressman Tom Malinowski — the Democratic incumbent currently running for re-election in New Jersey’s seventh district. After an eminently distinguished, decades-long career deep inside the bowels of the foreign policy apparatus, permanent DC resident Malinowski “
"But… hold on a second. Malinowski had written in plain English that the “practical implications” of Biden calling for Putin’s ouster were “inescapable.” What exactly are those “inescapable practical implications,” if not that Putin must be removed from power? What other inference could possibly follow from Malinowski’s statement? For all his accomplishments in the illustrious field of “strategic communications,” there seemed to be a major disjuncture in this particular commutative effort. So I asked Malinowski again for clarification, but he glided off into the crowd for more awkward selfies and stilted chit-chat."
This must be what foreign policy wonks call 'strategic ambiguity.'
Thank you for this article. This kind of journalism is, absurdly, very unusual - that someone will ask a powerful person about their foreign policy views in specifics, rather than platitudes.
What a damming indictment of the country, that these two individuals are the best that an affluent congressional district has to offer. These two preening non-entities playing Napoleon as the world stands on the brink of disaster. It's far too serious to be even darkly comedic.
This Congress cannot remain in power. By this I will not be ambiguous - we need to vote in serious, considered people for whom foreign policy isn't a source of easy soundbites and big donations, but instead a sober and realistic calculus of the American interest and humanitarian concerns.
Anyone know anyone like that? Is there one in your district?
The times I often feel the most visceral "indictment of the country" is when I'm in a press "gaggle" or some other scenario where a bunch of journalists are asking politicians questions. The quality of the questions asked is almost always just bottom-of-the-barrel poor. Most embarrassing, I'm sorry to say, can often be local media, who are best understood as promotional representatives for their employers -- whose main task is to help their employer sell ads, in this case by pantomiming the role of a journalist in the presence of a Congressman for publicity purposes. I guarantee you that among the meager assembly of quasi-journalists at the Malinowski event, not a single one of them had even the slightest familiarity with his recent legislative record. Or even a desire to familiarize themselves
"So it’s at least nice to know that despite his extensive array of exceedingly high-status credentials — Rhodes Scholar, Ford Foundation, White House, State Department, Congress — Tom Malinowski is about on the same intellectual level as the internet trolls." A wonderfully written closing, but it's not nice to know, unless "nice" now means terrifying.
I have no real idea what's wrong with Democrat politicians these days. I don't know if they are stupid or have had a psychological break with reality. But they think the world is a Hollywood script and as long as you're cast as the good guy (though viewers might disagree about whether or not you're actually the good guy), nothing bad can happen. So men like Malinowski can basically reduce the Ukraine war to a lapel pin, a slogan, and billions in armament making his military donors happy and he thinks nothing bad will happen because that's not the way it's written.
And people like Malinowski and Schiff (and even Adam Kinzinger) don't want a free press; they want a "free to be owned" press, meaning they want to protect the "press" from accountability from people who want more than just a propaganda machine.
I blame "The West Wing". They all believe that it showed how politics really work. Just the right beliefs and a passionate speech (or witty rejoinder) will convince your opponents of their wrongness and surround all right minded people with your love, wisdom, and the shining light of your glorious righteousness. No need for details or hard work.
Wow, love your pieces Michael, you had us rolling on the floor at "...solidifying his claim to have collected a prize-winning assortment of bullshit job titles in DC." You're a man for the times, like HST. Please keep it up, and godspeed.
Gotta laugh at the hypocrisy of Democrats who want to campaign on my body my choice and democracy after years of mandated medical experiments, working class crushing lockdowns and censorship of critics for funding Nazis in Ukraine.. makes you wonder if they actually believe their own BS because they won't listen to anything but their true blue echo chamber.
It is tragic how stupid and short sighted our leaders are. Thank you for trying to interact with these morons. I loved the “bullshit” job titles line. I suppose we will continue this crazed foreign policy until we get our ass handed to us. Sad.
Note the intensity of Glenn’s activity despite a serious health emergency in his family
• (re-tweet) unusual_whales @unusual_whales
JUST IN: Treasury Department officials have begun looking into whether they have the legal authority to start an investigation into the Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase because of Musk’s ties to foreign governments and investors, per the Washington Post.
Everybody knows exactly why this is happening.
• One day after a major story from @lhfang and @kenklippenstein proving the US Govt and Security State are directing Big Tech on what to censor, the #2 Senate Dem tries to radically restrict what "free speech" means in a way that contradicts all 1A caselaw:
Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin –“Free speech does not include spreading misinformation to downplay political violence.”
• By the way, one day after this massive story about the US Govt directing Big Tech censorship was published by a Dem-friendly site, with a popular left-wing figure as one of the reporters, neither CNN nor MSNBC invited them on, and no Dem politician has mentioned it.
Why is this?
• 2015, BBC: "Meet Twitter's second biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal"
If DC Dems want an excuse to investigate Musk's purchase of Twitter on "national security grounds" because he won't censor for them, they'll need a better excuse.
• Also, few things are more darkly hilarious than Dems pretending to be so deeply concerned about Musk's involvement with Saudis when it's the US Government that is single-handedly responsible for propping up the Saudi regime with arms and surveillance tech
• Americans are being conditioned -- by "journalists" of all people -- to believe it's immoral or mentally ill not to immediately and uncritically accept whatever institutions of authorities claim.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack: "Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary."
• To this very day, you can read articles in liberal corporate outlets branding as "conspiracy theorists" anyone asking about Nuland's comments - same for those who questioned claims about COVID vaccine efficacy and mask mandates, or *any* claim that the US Security State issues.
• The US corporate press is trying to train Americans to believe the first and most solemn duty of citizenship is instantly accept whatever institutions of authority tell you to believe. No wanting to see evidence, no noting contradictions: just happily recite what you're told.
• Rather than obey France's censorship order, Rumble turned its services off for France and will sue. But France should have no right to impose its censorship laws on the world.
• This is why I'm so proud to be working more with Rumble and why I believe in their free speech commitment. The easy thing to do would be to obey French politicians and remove anyone foreign governments demand. Rumble would rather lose France then submit to them.
There is a DIRECT connection between Russia-gate hoax concocted by St. Obama, Biden and Hillary and provoking capitalist Russia’s “Putin's war” by relentless NATO expansion.
The SAME lying team representing the US bipartisan War party.
Democracy and freedoms have left US – censorship is now nearly TOTAL; far worse than in Soviet Union 50 years ago.
The Deep State tyrants haven't yet started censoring web sites, just the social media companies they are literally monetarily partners in, think PRISM. Substack seems to be uncensored. If we start seeing alternative web sites dropping out of DNS we can be sure the coup is nearing completion and the roundups of 'extreme MAGA' imminent.
I'm frankly shocked at how many supposedly educated people are just lapping up the story they're being told that middle class white people are fascists because they voted for Trump.
(Another precious and timely tweets on our life in US democracy – Matt Taibbi just in less than two days)
• After every tragedy opportunists start proposing we outlaw video games or Marilyn Manson albums or, now, right-wing tweets.
We’re the world’s biggest weapons producer a dozen times over and I don’t ever hear proposals to stop that — nope, it must be tweets inspiring violence.
• The writer Isaac Babel once said the Soviets had taken away "but one right—the right to write badly." It's not free speech unless you protect the right to say things the majority finds reprehensible, toxic, incorrect.
• There's a long list of unprotected speech forms, from libel to incitement to threats to perjury, fraud, and so on. Most are narrowly defined and handled via litigation. We've never had a centralized MinTruth judging something amorphous and broad like "misinformation."
• The 2020 Iowa Caucus was the key disaster here. Tiny state, no result after 16 days, and even the New York Times was asking “WTF?” Instead of realizing quick results are essential to voter confidence and fixing the issue, we’re being asked to accept longer counts.
• I thought Biden was doing a decent job of selling “saving the guardrails of democracy,” but as you say, there was a major record scratch late in the speech.
Telling people in advance the results will take a long time, when the polls look dire, will massively increase paranoia
• Re-tweet -- Walter Kirn @walterkirn: That speech tonight was not a campaign speech. It did not have any real persuasive value or political intent. It was a speech specifically meant to manage and mold expectations about the vote-counting process.
• Even if I knew exactly what happened at Pelosi’s place I wouldn’t be blaming it on a lack of censorship. By that standard we should be wiping out the White Album to stop future Mansons or Blink 182 to prevent Columbines, and so on. Don’t you ever get tired of these arguments?
• If you don’t understand that free speech has to include things you personally consider odious, you don’t really believe in it.
• Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or you really don’t get it, but current law doesn’t come close to allowing prohibition of any post-factum speech downplaying the Pelosi attack. The standard is, you can ban someone saying, “Go in the house and hit him with a hammer.”
• Durbin is wrong here, and he surely knows the real standard for prohibiting speech (incitement to imminent lawless action), so the real question is why a Democratic Senator is going out of his way to incorrectly redefine what free speech means.
• I’m looking forward to a new episode of "TK Live" with to talk about "Truth Cops” With Ken Klippenstein" tomorrow at 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT. Join us!
• Very strange — for the second time, I discovered Twitter believed I’d muted
@thomaschattwill, though I never did. Related to that weird de-verification episode somehow maybe? Anyone else have that happen, with anyone?
• I read the article. The premise is ludicrous: because Glenn disagrees with U.S./neocon policy, he loves Putin. Just like the New Yorker “Bane of their Resistance” piece, it assumes something must be wrong, an evil pathology at work, when actually — he just disagrees with you.
I don't participate directly in Twitter, though I do have a lot of exposure to it. I don't trust it, or any social media, frankly. Instead, I'm forced to go through a round-robin of sources regularly so that I can discern a reasonable view of reality from the 'competing' narratives. It takes a lot of work, frankly.
NPR
PBS News Hour
CBS Nightly News
Local News
Real Clear Politics
Steve Sailer
Michael Tracey
Michael Singer
Michael Whitney
Glenn Greenwald
Matt Taibi
Bari Weiss
Glenn Loury
Paul Craig Roberts
Ted Rall
Kunsler
Tucker Carlson
John McWhorter
Caitlin Johnstone
Eugyppius
Scott Alexander
Michell Malkin (although she has retired)
Michael Hudson
Pepe Escobar
Z Man
The Vinyard of the Saker
Moon of Alabama
Lew Rockwell
Alex Barenson
Andy Ngo
... others
Granted, that list slants rightward but one has to read widely to have a decent understanding of what the world is like these days. All this research takes hours per day for me to complete. I'm fortunate I have the time. Most people don't have the time, and as a result are forced to trust whatever NPR is playing on the radio on Morning Edition, or whatever shows up in their social media feeds. Turns out that with modern technology it is pretty easy to gaslight most of the people all of the time.
Probably we should outlaw social media entirely. It serves few good purposes. Certainly, the Internet should be illegal for under-18 in almost all circumstances.
We'll get a Republican wave on November 8. The governor flips to red will be consequential. Then, the entire DNC apparatus including legacy media will become election deniers, and we know this because Biden has laid the groundwork for it just last night. Inflation will continue. Mitch McConnel will stay in charge and McCarthy will be left unable to get anything done, even with a massive advantage in the House.
One interesting developoment, 'The Squad' seems to want to go anti-war and their recanted letter is a shot across the bow of the mainstream Democrats. Is there potential here for a hard left/maga right coalition to put an end to the Ukraine shenanigans? Some hope, yes, but a false flag in Ukraine is a real risk and then we're in real peril.
One thing is certain, middle white America will continue to be marginalized and othered until they are eventually separated from their heritage and birthright.
Looks like a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Let's hope that new congressmen such as Joe Kent can inject some reason and reality into the new Congress.
I am not sure that money has corrupted politics. The "reforms" Congress made to the laws governing campaign contributions took away transparency. Most money now comes from PACs and it is very difficult to follow the money there.
it only takes some $306 mn to rent 51 senators, wholesale, for a presidential term. You do that, and you have a "LOCK" on a $23Trillion economy: you decide if prez is impeached, no matter what he or she does. You sit on all federal judge appointments. you decide spending. war appropriation. ambassadorships. Sheldon adelson spent in this ballpark for YEARS. (No doubt DNC partakes the same money with a different acting-job/limited-hangout outwardly)
ALARM BELLS SHOULD BE RINGING.
60% of the money in all senate races is "non-local", from outside the jurisdiction.
this is exactly the problem, the private sector money is now too big, and key politicians too cheap, relatively speaking. Just think...what is the Maga "movement"? it's wholesale leasing/rental of an entire party apparatus (GOP) to the extent that ONE ORANGE MAN can then be the powerbroker stand-in for the entire GOP. Ostensibly this is the outward story ( i have no reason to doubt it ) . Nonetheless, it represents an even lower low. Previously money purchased pols, but retail, one at a time, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Now they have pols in a wholesale block purchase. With this....all FURTHER lobbying funds go...NOT to the GOP, but the ONE ORANGE MAN! A new, further low in Murican corruption!
What will this phase, and these specific instances of propaganda and intimidation, seem like to a society 50 years from now? I have to believe we're going to grow past this, perhaps necessarily after a near-armegheddon scare.
Also, why do some of us expend so much cognitive energy, trying to 'figure out' why we haven't been contacted by intelligent aliens if they exist? It should be obvious.
It should be pretty clear to those paying attention that the US is at War with Russia. It is a planned War. Long-planned (ref: Victoria Nuland). The US intentional War against Russia in Ukraine is almost completely supported at every level of the Federal Government. Congress overwhelmingly approved funding it, and in so doing Declared War formally -if you fund it, you approve it. All hands are on-deck and the propaganda is flowing freely. Same as the War on Covid, which was the dress rehearsal.
It all would be executed roughly the same had Trump won in 2020.
If a dirty bomb explodes in Ukraine, it's likely to happen before November 8.
I don't know; I think Trump could have held this off for another few years even if inadvertently. Clearly, the war we are seeing was planned going back to 2014 and I'd argue it really goes back to 2010, when the managerial class and AWFL's were being bombarded with a media campaign that stressed how homophobic Russia was during the Sochi Olympics. Previously, these people were anti-war coming out of the Bush years and famously laughed off Mitt Romney's statement in 2012 that Russia was our biggest geopolitical foe (hur-dur, the '80s called).
I hope the complete paradigm change among this class of people is looked back at decades from now as one of the most insidious (and effective) propaganda campaigns in human history.
"I think Trump could have held this off for another few years even if inadvertently."
I think I can grant you that. He did approve sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, and once the funding got approved in Congress I don't see how he could have prevented it. When the State Department wants a war, they get a war. What is very disturbing to me is my realization that the deep state just keeps on doing whatever it wants to do regardless of who is elected. In this way, our Democracy really is in danger.
I also thought Mitt Romney was crazy about his Russia warning. I should have paid more attention.
"I hope the complete paradigm change among this class of people is looked back at decades from now as one of the most insidious (and effective) propaganda campaigns in human history." - Me too, but right now I'm much more worried about us surviving long enough to be the victors who write the history. If the deep state wins, they'll just erase it all from history and create a cover story that they teach our great grandchildren.
Are you at all concerned that there may be problems with the election on Nov 8? The legacy media narrative seems to have shifted into overdrive with the 'Democracy in Peril' storyline. It feels like they are setting the stage for something nefarious.
"Are you at all concerned that there may be problems with the election on Nov 8?"
I'm more concerned that there will be worse problems in 2024 based on the likely result of the upcoming November 8th (GOP takes house). The so-called fortification of the 2020 election was a reaction to the result of 2016.
What you'll see kick into overdrive after this round is the effort to abolish or entirely reform the Electoral College. They either want to abolish the Electoral College and hope for the best with the popular vote, or they want to make the Electoral College a star chamber like committee to mimic the DNC that straight up selects the preferred outcome.
I doubt that the DNC vampire squid shuttered their secret 'cabal.' The question is, does it have plans for post-2022 election? I think so.
Some people are saying that Trump will be elected speaker of the house when Republicans take over. Whether it is McCarthy or Trump (or someone else), it would be a huge mistake for a Republican controlled House to pass Electoral College reform. What would be really nice is for them to restore the Senate so that Senators are appointed by the States, as it was originally. As it is now, the States don't have any representation in Congress.
(Another precious and timely tweets on our life in US democracy – Matt Taibbi just in less than two days)
• After every tragedy opportunists start proposing we outlaw video games or Marilyn Manson albums or, now, right-wing tweets.
We’re the world’s biggest weapons producer a dozen times over and I don’t ever hear proposals to stop that — nope, it must be tweets inspiring violence.
• The writer Isaac Babel once said the Soviets had taken away "but one right—the right to write badly." It's not free speech unless you protect the right to say things the majority finds reprehensible, toxic, incorrect.
• There's a long list of unprotected speech forms, from libel to incitement to threats to perjury, fraud, and so on. Most are narrowly defined and handled via litigation. We've never had a centralized MinTruth judging something amorphous and broad like "misinformation."
• The 2020 Iowa Caucus was the key disaster here. Tiny state, no result after 16 days, and even the New York Times was asking “WTF?” Instead of realizing quick results are essential to voter confidence and fixing the issue, we’re being asked to accept longer counts.
• I thought Biden was doing a decent job of selling “saving the guardrails of democracy,” but as you say, there was a major record scratch late in the speech.
Telling people in advance the results will take a long time, when the polls look dire, will massively increase paranoia
• Re-tweet -- Walter Kirn @walterkirn: That speech tonight was not a campaign speech. It did not have any real persuasive value or political intent. It was a speech specifically meant to manage and mold expectations about the vote-counting process.
• Even if I knew exactly what happened at Pelosi’s place I wouldn’t be blaming it on a lack of censorship. By that standard we should be wiping out the White Album to stop future Mansons or Blink 182 to prevent Columbines, and so on. Don’t you ever get tired of these arguments?
• If you don’t understand that free speech has to include things you personally consider odious, you don’t really believe in it.
• Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or you really don’t get it, but current law doesn’t come close to allowing prohibition of any post-factum speech downplaying the Pelosi attack. The standard is, you can ban someone saying, “Go in the house and hit him with a hammer.”
• Durbin is wrong here, and he surely knows the real standard for prohibiting speech (incitement to imminent lawless action), so the real question is why a Democratic Senator is going out of his way to incorrectly redefine what free speech means.
• I’m looking forward to a new episode of "TK Live" with to talk about "Truth Cops” With Ken Klippenstein" tomorrow at 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT. Join us!
• Very strange — for the second time, I discovered Twitter believed I’d muted
@thomaschattwill, though I never did. Related to that weird de-verification episode somehow maybe? Anyone else have that happen, with anyone?
• I read the article. The premise is ludicrous: because Glenn disagrees with U.S./neocon policy, he loves Putin. Just like the New Yorker “Bane of their Resistance” piece, it assumes something must be wrong, an evil pathology at work, when actually — he just disagrees with you.
The entire political system is rubbish! Have you heard Biden's "messaging"? Preaching "don't be violent, folks!" "Condemn what leads to the violence" etc etc. WHO EXACTLY IS THAT MESSAGING FOR? His base and his voters are NOT the ones to be directing that messaging to! And the GOP, LOL, ivy-league news flash: they're not interested in Biden! Of course, the swamps ivy league political strategists KNOW THIS. So what gives?
The entire Murican political system is ...how shall we call it....corrupt. Both parties take money from the same sources. Only the acting jobs on the outside remain. There are no progressives, no left, no liberals. Just sleep walking people.
I'd consider Putin over the current dems; the dems version of autocratic rule is detestable in comparison. Heck, without all the western interference in their economy, Russia might become a wonderful place.
I would venture that 'inescapable practical implications' means, in part, padding the coffers of the war machine donors to the swamp pols in DC.
"But… hold on a second. Malinowski had written in plain English that the “practical implications” of Biden calling for Putin’s ouster were “inescapable.” What exactly are those “inescapable practical implications,” if not that Putin must be removed from power? What other inference could possibly follow from Malinowski’s statement? For all his accomplishments in the illustrious field of “strategic communications,” there seemed to be a major disjuncture in this particular commutative effort. So I asked Malinowski again for clarification, but he glided off into the crowd for more awkward selfies and stilted chit-chat."
This must be what foreign policy wonks call 'strategic ambiguity.'
Thank you for this article. This kind of journalism is, absurdly, very unusual - that someone will ask a powerful person about their foreign policy views in specifics, rather than platitudes.
What a damming indictment of the country, that these two individuals are the best that an affluent congressional district has to offer. These two preening non-entities playing Napoleon as the world stands on the brink of disaster. It's far too serious to be even darkly comedic.
This Congress cannot remain in power. By this I will not be ambiguous - we need to vote in serious, considered people for whom foreign policy isn't a source of easy soundbites and big donations, but instead a sober and realistic calculus of the American interest and humanitarian concerns.
Anyone know anyone like that? Is there one in your district?
The times I often feel the most visceral "indictment of the country" is when I'm in a press "gaggle" or some other scenario where a bunch of journalists are asking politicians questions. The quality of the questions asked is almost always just bottom-of-the-barrel poor. Most embarrassing, I'm sorry to say, can often be local media, who are best understood as promotional representatives for their employers -- whose main task is to help their employer sell ads, in this case by pantomiming the role of a journalist in the presence of a Congressman for publicity purposes. I guarantee you that among the meager assembly of quasi-journalists at the Malinowski event, not a single one of them had even the slightest familiarity with his recent legislative record. Or even a desire to familiarize themselves
"So it’s at least nice to know that despite his extensive array of exceedingly high-status credentials — Rhodes Scholar, Ford Foundation, White House, State Department, Congress — Tom Malinowski is about on the same intellectual level as the internet trolls." A wonderfully written closing, but it's not nice to know, unless "nice" now means terrifying.
I have no real idea what's wrong with Democrat politicians these days. I don't know if they are stupid or have had a psychological break with reality. But they think the world is a Hollywood script and as long as you're cast as the good guy (though viewers might disagree about whether or not you're actually the good guy), nothing bad can happen. So men like Malinowski can basically reduce the Ukraine war to a lapel pin, a slogan, and billions in armament making his military donors happy and he thinks nothing bad will happen because that's not the way it's written.
And people like Malinowski and Schiff (and even Adam Kinzinger) don't want a free press; they want a "free to be owned" press, meaning they want to protect the "press" from accountability from people who want more than just a propaganda machine.
Thank you for another great article.
I blame "The West Wing". They all believe that it showed how politics really work. Just the right beliefs and a passionate speech (or witty rejoinder) will convince your opponents of their wrongness and surround all right minded people with your love, wisdom, and the shining light of your glorious righteousness. No need for details or hard work.
I think you're probably on to something.
You need to just trust.
Do a Google search for "CIA Democrats" ...
Wow. I'm surprised Google allows it, or maybe that shows how brazen they've become.
omg! Google is THE worst. they bin comments even one degree away from their "center". THE worst.
I suspect it has something to do with the long march through the institutions and the resurrection of the Gang of Four.
Wow, love your pieces Michael, you had us rolling on the floor at "...solidifying his claim to have collected a prize-winning assortment of bullshit job titles in DC." You're a man for the times, like HST. Please keep it up, and godspeed.
“Choice is on the Ballot”
Gotta laugh at the hypocrisy of Democrats who want to campaign on my body my choice and democracy after years of mandated medical experiments, working class crushing lockdowns and censorship of critics for funding Nazis in Ukraine.. makes you wonder if they actually believe their own BS because they won't listen to anything but their true blue echo chamber.
It is tragic how stupid and short sighted our leaders are. Thank you for trying to interact with these morons. I loved the “bullshit” job titles line. I suppose we will continue this crazed foreign policy until we get our ass handed to us. Sad.
GG tweets – extracted ~Nov 2 period https://twitter.com/ggreenwald
Note the intensity of Glenn’s activity despite a serious health emergency in his family
• (re-tweet) unusual_whales @unusual_whales
JUST IN: Treasury Department officials have begun looking into whether they have the legal authority to start an investigation into the Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase because of Musk’s ties to foreign governments and investors, per the Washington Post.
Everybody knows exactly why this is happening.
• One day after a major story from @lhfang and @kenklippenstein proving the US Govt and Security State are directing Big Tech on what to censor, the #2 Senate Dem tries to radically restrict what "free speech" means in a way that contradicts all 1A caselaw:
Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin –“Free speech does not include spreading misinformation to downplay political violence.”
• By the way, one day after this massive story about the US Govt directing Big Tech censorship was published by a Dem-friendly site, with a popular left-wing figure as one of the reporters, neither CNN nor MSNBC invited them on, and no Dem politician has mentioned it.
Why is this?
• 2015, BBC: "Meet Twitter's second biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal"
If DC Dems want an excuse to investigate Musk's purchase of Twitter on "national security grounds" because he won't censor for them, they'll need a better excuse.
• Also, few things are more darkly hilarious than Dems pretending to be so deeply concerned about Musk's involvement with Saudis when it's the US Government that is single-handedly responsible for propping up the Saudi regime with arms and surveillance tech
• Americans are being conditioned -- by "journalists" of all people -- to believe it's immoral or mentally ill not to immediately and uncritically accept whatever institutions of authorities claim.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald weighs in on the Paul Pelosi attack: "Skepticism itself can never be wrong ... Even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary."
• To this very day, you can read articles in liberal corporate outlets branding as "conspiracy theorists" anyone asking about Nuland's comments - same for those who questioned claims about COVID vaccine efficacy and mask mandates, or *any* claim that the US Security State issues.
• The US corporate press is trying to train Americans to believe the first and most solemn duty of citizenship is instantly accept whatever institutions of authority tell you to believe. No wanting to see evidence, no noting contradictions: just happily recite what you're told.
• Rather than obey France's censorship order, Rumble turned its services off for France and will sue. But France should have no right to impose its censorship laws on the world.
• This is why I'm so proud to be working more with Rumble and why I believe in their free speech commitment. The easy thing to do would be to obey French politicians and remove anyone foreign governments demand. Rumble would rather lose France then submit to them.
Fantastic comment! Greenwald is a national hero.
Thank you !!
There is a DIRECT connection between Russia-gate hoax concocted by St. Obama, Biden and Hillary and provoking capitalist Russia’s “Putin's war” by relentless NATO expansion.
The SAME lying team representing the US bipartisan War party.
Democracy and freedoms have left US – censorship is now nearly TOTAL; far worse than in Soviet Union 50 years ago.
"censorship is now nearly TOTAL"
The Deep State tyrants haven't yet started censoring web sites, just the social media companies they are literally monetarily partners in, think PRISM. Substack seems to be uncensored. If we start seeing alternative web sites dropping out of DNS we can be sure the coup is nearing completion and the roundups of 'extreme MAGA' imminent.
I'm frankly shocked at how many supposedly educated people are just lapping up the story they're being told that middle class white people are fascists because they voted for Trump.
Thank you.
MT tweets – extracted ~Nov 3 period https://twitter.com/mtaibbi
(Another precious and timely tweets on our life in US democracy – Matt Taibbi just in less than two days)
• After every tragedy opportunists start proposing we outlaw video games or Marilyn Manson albums or, now, right-wing tweets.
We’re the world’s biggest weapons producer a dozen times over and I don’t ever hear proposals to stop that — nope, it must be tweets inspiring violence.
• The writer Isaac Babel once said the Soviets had taken away "but one right—the right to write badly." It's not free speech unless you protect the right to say things the majority finds reprehensible, toxic, incorrect.
• There's a long list of unprotected speech forms, from libel to incitement to threats to perjury, fraud, and so on. Most are narrowly defined and handled via litigation. We've never had a centralized MinTruth judging something amorphous and broad like "misinformation."
• The 2020 Iowa Caucus was the key disaster here. Tiny state, no result after 16 days, and even the New York Times was asking “WTF?” Instead of realizing quick results are essential to voter confidence and fixing the issue, we’re being asked to accept longer counts.
• I thought Biden was doing a decent job of selling “saving the guardrails of democracy,” but as you say, there was a major record scratch late in the speech.
Telling people in advance the results will take a long time, when the polls look dire, will massively increase paranoia
• Re-tweet -- Walter Kirn @walterkirn: That speech tonight was not a campaign speech. It did not have any real persuasive value or political intent. It was a speech specifically meant to manage and mold expectations about the vote-counting process.
• Even if I knew exactly what happened at Pelosi’s place I wouldn’t be blaming it on a lack of censorship. By that standard we should be wiping out the White Album to stop future Mansons or Blink 182 to prevent Columbines, and so on. Don’t you ever get tired of these arguments?
• If you don’t understand that free speech has to include things you personally consider odious, you don’t really believe in it.
• Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or you really don’t get it, but current law doesn’t come close to allowing prohibition of any post-factum speech downplaying the Pelosi attack. The standard is, you can ban someone saying, “Go in the house and hit him with a hammer.”
• Durbin is wrong here, and he surely knows the real standard for prohibiting speech (incitement to imminent lawless action), so the real question is why a Democratic Senator is going out of his way to incorrectly redefine what free speech means.
• I’m looking forward to a new episode of "TK Live" with to talk about "Truth Cops” With Ken Klippenstein" tomorrow at 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT. Join us!
https://www.callin.com/room/truth-cops-with-ken-klippenstein-gfEnxRMbgZ
• Very strange — for the second time, I discovered Twitter believed I’d muted
@thomaschattwill, though I never did. Related to that weird de-verification episode somehow maybe? Anyone else have that happen, with anyone?
• I read the article. The premise is ludicrous: because Glenn disagrees with U.S./neocon policy, he loves Putin. Just like the New Yorker “Bane of their Resistance” piece, it assumes something must be wrong, an evil pathology at work, when actually — he just disagrees with you.
I don't participate directly in Twitter, though I do have a lot of exposure to it. I don't trust it, or any social media, frankly. Instead, I'm forced to go through a round-robin of sources regularly so that I can discern a reasonable view of reality from the 'competing' narratives. It takes a lot of work, frankly.
NPR
PBS News Hour
CBS Nightly News
Local News
Real Clear Politics
Steve Sailer
Michael Tracey
Michael Singer
Michael Whitney
Glenn Greenwald
Matt Taibi
Bari Weiss
Glenn Loury
Paul Craig Roberts
Ted Rall
Kunsler
Tucker Carlson
John McWhorter
Caitlin Johnstone
Eugyppius
Scott Alexander
Michell Malkin (although she has retired)
Michael Hudson
Pepe Escobar
Z Man
The Vinyard of the Saker
Moon of Alabama
Lew Rockwell
Alex Barenson
Andy Ngo
... others
Granted, that list slants rightward but one has to read widely to have a decent understanding of what the world is like these days. All this research takes hours per day for me to complete. I'm fortunate I have the time. Most people don't have the time, and as a result are forced to trust whatever NPR is playing on the radio on Morning Edition, or whatever shows up in their social media feeds. Turns out that with modern technology it is pretty easy to gaslight most of the people all of the time.
Probably we should outlaw social media entirely. It serves few good purposes. Certainly, the Internet should be illegal for under-18 in almost all circumstances.
We'll get a Republican wave on November 8. The governor flips to red will be consequential. Then, the entire DNC apparatus including legacy media will become election deniers, and we know this because Biden has laid the groundwork for it just last night. Inflation will continue. Mitch McConnel will stay in charge and McCarthy will be left unable to get anything done, even with a massive advantage in the House.
One interesting developoment, 'The Squad' seems to want to go anti-war and their recanted letter is a shot across the bow of the mainstream Democrats. Is there potential here for a hard left/maga right coalition to put an end to the Ukraine shenanigans? Some hope, yes, but a false flag in Ukraine is a real risk and then we're in real peril.
One thing is certain, middle white America will continue to be marginalized and othered until they are eventually separated from their heritage and birthright.
Looks like a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Let's hope that new congressmen such as Joe Kent can inject some reason and reality into the new Congress.
I am not sure that money has corrupted politics. The "reforms" Congress made to the laws governing campaign contributions took away transparency. Most money now comes from PACs and it is very difficult to follow the money there.
it only takes some $306 mn to rent 51 senators, wholesale, for a presidential term. You do that, and you have a "LOCK" on a $23Trillion economy: you decide if prez is impeached, no matter what he or she does. You sit on all federal judge appointments. you decide spending. war appropriation. ambassadorships. Sheldon adelson spent in this ballpark for YEARS. (No doubt DNC partakes the same money with a different acting-job/limited-hangout outwardly)
ALARM BELLS SHOULD BE RINGING.
60% of the money in all senate races is "non-local", from outside the jurisdiction.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-midterm-election-campaign-finance/
ALARM BELLS SHOULD BE RINGING.
this is exactly the problem, the private sector money is now too big, and key politicians too cheap, relatively speaking. Just think...what is the Maga "movement"? it's wholesale leasing/rental of an entire party apparatus (GOP) to the extent that ONE ORANGE MAN can then be the powerbroker stand-in for the entire GOP. Ostensibly this is the outward story ( i have no reason to doubt it ) . Nonetheless, it represents an even lower low. Previously money purchased pols, but retail, one at a time, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Now they have pols in a wholesale block purchase. With this....all FURTHER lobbying funds go...NOT to the GOP, but the ONE ORANGE MAN! A new, further low in Murican corruption!
Thank you. Stylish.
Wow.
What will this phase, and these specific instances of propaganda and intimidation, seem like to a society 50 years from now? I have to believe we're going to grow past this, perhaps necessarily after a near-armegheddon scare.
Also, why do some of us expend so much cognitive energy, trying to 'figure out' why we haven't been contacted by intelligent aliens if they exist? It should be obvious.
It should be pretty clear to those paying attention that the US is at War with Russia. It is a planned War. Long-planned (ref: Victoria Nuland). The US intentional War against Russia in Ukraine is almost completely supported at every level of the Federal Government. Congress overwhelmingly approved funding it, and in so doing Declared War formally -if you fund it, you approve it. All hands are on-deck and the propaganda is flowing freely. Same as the War on Covid, which was the dress rehearsal.
It all would be executed roughly the same had Trump won in 2020.
If a dirty bomb explodes in Ukraine, it's likely to happen before November 8.
I don't know; I think Trump could have held this off for another few years even if inadvertently. Clearly, the war we are seeing was planned going back to 2014 and I'd argue it really goes back to 2010, when the managerial class and AWFL's were being bombarded with a media campaign that stressed how homophobic Russia was during the Sochi Olympics. Previously, these people were anti-war coming out of the Bush years and famously laughed off Mitt Romney's statement in 2012 that Russia was our biggest geopolitical foe (hur-dur, the '80s called).
I hope the complete paradigm change among this class of people is looked back at decades from now as one of the most insidious (and effective) propaganda campaigns in human history.
"I think Trump could have held this off for another few years even if inadvertently."
I think I can grant you that. He did approve sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, and once the funding got approved in Congress I don't see how he could have prevented it. When the State Department wants a war, they get a war. What is very disturbing to me is my realization that the deep state just keeps on doing whatever it wants to do regardless of who is elected. In this way, our Democracy really is in danger.
I also thought Mitt Romney was crazy about his Russia warning. I should have paid more attention.
"I hope the complete paradigm change among this class of people is looked back at decades from now as one of the most insidious (and effective) propaganda campaigns in human history." - Me too, but right now I'm much more worried about us surviving long enough to be the victors who write the history. If the deep state wins, they'll just erase it all from history and create a cover story that they teach our great grandchildren.
Are you at all concerned that there may be problems with the election on Nov 8? The legacy media narrative seems to have shifted into overdrive with the 'Democracy in Peril' storyline. It feels like they are setting the stage for something nefarious.
"Are you at all concerned that there may be problems with the election on Nov 8?"
I'm more concerned that there will be worse problems in 2024 based on the likely result of the upcoming November 8th (GOP takes house). The so-called fortification of the 2020 election was a reaction to the result of 2016.
What you'll see kick into overdrive after this round is the effort to abolish or entirely reform the Electoral College. They either want to abolish the Electoral College and hope for the best with the popular vote, or they want to make the Electoral College a star chamber like committee to mimic the DNC that straight up selects the preferred outcome.
"The so-called fortification of the 2020 election was a reaction to the result of 2016. "
You are referring to the Time Article where they laid out their crime for all to see: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
NYT may have broken that story first: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/democrats-trump-election-plan.html
I doubt that the DNC vampire squid shuttered their secret 'cabal.' The question is, does it have plans for post-2022 election? I think so.
Some people are saying that Trump will be elected speaker of the house when Republicans take over. Whether it is McCarthy or Trump (or someone else), it would be a huge mistake for a Republican controlled House to pass Electoral College reform. What would be really nice is for them to restore the Senate so that Senators are appointed by the States, as it was originally. As it is now, the States don't have any representation in Congress.
Magnificent -- I am glad to be a subscriber. I hope those corrupt “representative” criminals will be voted out.
Thank you Mike, Article was very informative.
MT tweets – extracted ~Nov 3 period https://twitter.com/mtaibbi
(Another precious and timely tweets on our life in US democracy – Matt Taibbi just in less than two days)
• After every tragedy opportunists start proposing we outlaw video games or Marilyn Manson albums or, now, right-wing tweets.
We’re the world’s biggest weapons producer a dozen times over and I don’t ever hear proposals to stop that — nope, it must be tweets inspiring violence.
• The writer Isaac Babel once said the Soviets had taken away "but one right—the right to write badly." It's not free speech unless you protect the right to say things the majority finds reprehensible, toxic, incorrect.
• There's a long list of unprotected speech forms, from libel to incitement to threats to perjury, fraud, and so on. Most are narrowly defined and handled via litigation. We've never had a centralized MinTruth judging something amorphous and broad like "misinformation."
• The 2020 Iowa Caucus was the key disaster here. Tiny state, no result after 16 days, and even the New York Times was asking “WTF?” Instead of realizing quick results are essential to voter confidence and fixing the issue, we’re being asked to accept longer counts.
• I thought Biden was doing a decent job of selling “saving the guardrails of democracy,” but as you say, there was a major record scratch late in the speech.
Telling people in advance the results will take a long time, when the polls look dire, will massively increase paranoia
• Re-tweet -- Walter Kirn @walterkirn: That speech tonight was not a campaign speech. It did not have any real persuasive value or political intent. It was a speech specifically meant to manage and mold expectations about the vote-counting process.
• Even if I knew exactly what happened at Pelosi’s place I wouldn’t be blaming it on a lack of censorship. By that standard we should be wiping out the White Album to stop future Mansons or Blink 182 to prevent Columbines, and so on. Don’t you ever get tired of these arguments?
• If you don’t understand that free speech has to include things you personally consider odious, you don’t really believe in it.
• Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or you really don’t get it, but current law doesn’t come close to allowing prohibition of any post-factum speech downplaying the Pelosi attack. The standard is, you can ban someone saying, “Go in the house and hit him with a hammer.”
• Durbin is wrong here, and he surely knows the real standard for prohibiting speech (incitement to imminent lawless action), so the real question is why a Democratic Senator is going out of his way to incorrectly redefine what free speech means.
• I’m looking forward to a new episode of "TK Live" with to talk about "Truth Cops” With Ken Klippenstein" tomorrow at 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT. Join us!
https://www.callin.com/room/truth-cops-with-ken-klippenstein-gfEnxRMbgZ
• Very strange — for the second time, I discovered Twitter believed I’d muted
@thomaschattwill, though I never did. Related to that weird de-verification episode somehow maybe? Anyone else have that happen, with anyone?
• I read the article. The premise is ludicrous: because Glenn disagrees with U.S./neocon policy, he loves Putin. Just like the New Yorker “Bane of their Resistance” piece, it assumes something must be wrong, an evil pathology at work, when actually — he just disagrees with you.
The entire political system is rubbish! Have you heard Biden's "messaging"? Preaching "don't be violent, folks!" "Condemn what leads to the violence" etc etc. WHO EXACTLY IS THAT MESSAGING FOR? His base and his voters are NOT the ones to be directing that messaging to! And the GOP, LOL, ivy-league news flash: they're not interested in Biden! Of course, the swamps ivy league political strategists KNOW THIS. So what gives?
The entire Murican political system is ...how shall we call it....corrupt. Both parties take money from the same sources. Only the acting jobs on the outside remain. There are no progressives, no left, no liberals. Just sleep walking people.
I'd consider Putin over the current dems; the dems version of autocratic rule is detestable in comparison. Heck, without all the western interference in their economy, Russia might become a wonderful place.
I would venture that 'inescapable practical implications' means, in part, padding the coffers of the war machine donors to the swamp pols in DC.