Last month I had the extraordinary privilege of seeing “Good Night and Good Luck” on Broadway, starring George Clooney, thanks to the invitation of a friend with an extra ticket.
For me the important part of this story is what I eventually realized after the debate. Biden was in cognitive decline, they knew it, and would have been happy to have him serve another four years as a puppet if only they could limp him through the debate without having what happened happen. How can you vote for a party that would do that?! Turns out, most people didn't.
The strangest thing is, they STILL haven't figured out why they lost.
I just read today that Democrats have spent $20 million on this "plan, code-named SAM, or 'Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,' . . . to use the funds to 'study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces. . . '"
It's like some brilliant MAGA comedy writer is directing their every move.
It's amazing that—apart from how you apparently only realised that *after* the debate once the obvious was being stated by even the Mockingbird Media—what you and so many others got from learning the President is a puppet without any real power is that you should go vote for another President.
"Representative democracy" and voting have to be among the best scams ever come up with. Don't participate politically or try to effect change in any way yourself, just put your recommendation into the slave suggestion box every (s)election cycle and enjoy the next Demorepublican puppet show. After all, every one is the most important one.
The real question is, how can you and "most people" let yourselves be so propagandised as to continue to vote even after that peek behind the curtain ought've let you in on the con?
I’m not sure who coined the term “virtue signaling” but it’s a perfect description of the false, pretentious underpinnings of Clooney and Tapper’s lives. Posing as fearless warriors for truth, justice and virtue, they’ve become to believe it themselves and all evidence to the contrary is dismissed. I’m glad you got the opportunity to interview Biden and saw what his family and doctors, and most importantly, politicians who directly benefited by maneuvering and lying to the country, were desperate to hide. Excellent article.
The "Progressives' will palm off their deception with the usual, 'the end justifies the means'.
Their followers will agree that the dirty deed was necessary to prevent the great evil, Trump, from being reelected. The Original Sin of deceiving their public could not be overcome even with all their virtuous efforts.
This is exactly what many of the MAGA woke right are now doing in justifying censorship and thought policing of college campuses, as well as deportation of a foreign country's critics, after years of pretending to favour free speech; arguing that because "progressives" spent forever opposing their own speech, now they better oppose it too if they want to "win."
Whereas the "progressives" have become largely irrelevant and self-segregate into loony Clooney theatres and social media platforms named after empty space and extinct animals, the unprincipled and amoral "ends-justifies-the-means" woke right is everywhere and lacks the self-awareness to do anything but preach to the choir (case in point: your comment punching downward at the irrelevant), while playing the well-rehearsed role of pretend patriot (per Washington's use of that term in his farewell address) and victim worship.
Your comment is a virtue signalling castigation of other virtue signallers, more or less by definition of what virtue signalling is. It's incredible though amusing that like many others on Substack and elsewhere, you don't notice or realise when you do it.
“the hard lessons they’ve learned”🤔🤔 - I suspect the lessons Tapper, his legacy media pals and the Dems have learned are fairly limited. They lied for years about Trump with no downside, they lied for years about Biden’s mental and, more recently, physical incapacities seemingly with no downside. Now they’re trying to lie again, claiming that they were so dumb that a few White House staff fooled them. I suspect the only way the media will truly learn a lesson will be when their employers go out of business and these clowns 🤡 are out of a job.
On the Dem side, the lessons are being learned now, as they find out that normal people find Dem policies repulsive 🤮 (DEI, open borders, boys playing girls’ sports, etc). Those lessons will continue to be learned as normal people leave the Democratic Party and the party dies. ⚰️
Excellent post, Michael. Clowney should run for office, if he is so interested in politics. The irony here is that McCarthy was right. The US was infested at the time with Communist sympathizers and actual Soviet agents. Fast forward 60+ years to Russiagate, there is zero evidence that Trump of any of his associates are in bed with Russia. The funny thing is that now and that the same tribe was heavily involved but in reverse roles.
Yeah these people are absolutely foul. The Tapper thing is just more obfuscation.
Everybody knew, and (as many said at the time) it's disgusting the way they forced an old man, clearly past his sell-by date, through all that torture, just so they had a rubber stamp for their insane, traitorous policies.
But just further on my own thoughts there, given that we had virtually a whole term where the president didn't matter and the business of government was handled almost entirely by his cabinet and their deep state cronies, it makes you wonder how much Trump actually matters either.
Already some of the stuff he promised is being walked back (e.g. mass deportations), just like a lot of the stuff in the first term, and the only things that seem to be actually happening are mainly the things against pro-Palestinian sentiment on campuses and anything that supports Israel. The rest is either half-arsed, haphazard or has been already nullified by incoming legislation (e.g. the DOGE investigations).
I still hold out hope that Trump isn't entirely a con artist, but hope is fading fast that this term will be any different from the first: mainly republican business as usual with actually effective stuff done for Israel and a few sops thrown to "legacy Americans" (i.e. Whites) but nothing actually substantial done.
At least he secured the southern border, & managed to lower gas prices a bit.
All I ever really hoped for was a bit of a pause on our roll toward globalist war/pandemics/censorship.
Some of Trump's actions have horrified me, some have bewildered me, and many do still make me laugh. He is, as you pointed out, beholden to Israel -- but aren't they all?
Indeed. I think the very fact that our lords and masters felt they had to play with populist fire to the extent of letting Trump in shows how things are getting tricky for them. Good. The fire is getting hotter.
There's no way the world is cool with any president single handedly having the ability to launch nukes.
It's such a nonsense story.
Currently Trump supporters talk like he's being held back by the deep state to do simple things like have Kennedy stop the covid emergency....
But somehow the president has the power to launch nukes?
What a fairy tale that promotes this team sport politics.
Both parties are tools of the predator class and whoever still thinks that one is better than the other is delusional or as in Clooney's case a part of the propaganda machine.
Re the McCarthyist references at the start.. Ron Unz has a couple of excellent articles up recently on the extent the commonly received narrative around McCarthy is highly revisionist and unsupported by the record. Recommended.
Better yet, HUAC witch burnings are still available to watch, along with numerous outstanding films secretly written by enormously talented and blacklisted writers. See Roy Cohn and Ronald Reagan in action! You don’t need interpretations to draw your own conclusions.
100% I lack the time (and don't much enjoy) watching lots of video material, so I prefer well-written summaries (like MT here). But absolutely.. the source material is often revelatory compared with the popular understanding of it.
I've interacted with Clooney a few times in Los Angeles and New York ( a liberal sister is actually friends with him). You will never find a more pretentious and pompous - masquerading as "everyman" - person - if you live 200 years and spend every day interacting with "artists and intellectuals". He is completely delusional - but he grounds it with humor. I believe he has sincere beliefs and motives - but he couldn't recognize reality, democracy, or what the Constitution actually is - if it slapped him in the face. And, he's so insulated due to success - that it never WILL slap him in the face. He is fully a brainwashed product of the 60's and 70's - and his view of what the press used to be (even though Mockingbird/CIA media has been prevalent since the 60's) doesn't come close to the actual press we have now ( though I have hope that Indie journalists will metaphorically MURDER what's left of the MSM).
As a person and as a mindset - he is an American Tragedy. But he's delusional enough to think he's an American hero and a "leading man" politically.
Quite the scary disconnect - and we have to disavow the American public about him - and all his peers- at every opportunity - because he has a loud megaphone platform with establishment psychopaths propping him ( and CIA Jake) up.
He always makes me remember that South Park episode, in which there was a "cloud of smug" hanging over Whole Foods, with Clooney's voice droning on from some goofball speech he gave at the Oscars or something.
For me the important part of this story is what I eventually realized after the debate. Biden was in cognitive decline, they knew it, and would have been happy to have him serve another four years as a puppet if only they could limp him through the debate without having what happened happen. How can you vote for a party that would do that?! Turns out, most people didn't.
The strangest thing is, they STILL haven't figured out why they lost.
I just read today that Democrats have spent $20 million on this "plan, code-named SAM, or 'Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,' . . . to use the funds to 'study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces. . . '"
It's like some brilliant MAGA comedy writer is directing their every move.
"Hello, fellow men. . . "
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/democrats-spend-millions-studying-working-class-men-b2757957.html
Libs now sponsoring anti-bias trainings for themselves to correct their bias against men
Of course it was none other than George Clooney himself that went public about the fact that Biden had to go.
It's amazing that—apart from how you apparently only realised that *after* the debate once the obvious was being stated by even the Mockingbird Media—what you and so many others got from learning the President is a puppet without any real power is that you should go vote for another President.
"Representative democracy" and voting have to be among the best scams ever come up with. Don't participate politically or try to effect change in any way yourself, just put your recommendation into the slave suggestion box every (s)election cycle and enjoy the next Demorepublican puppet show. After all, every one is the most important one.
The real question is, how can you and "most people" let yourselves be so propagandised as to continue to vote even after that peek behind the curtain ought've let you in on the con?
Just about what we should expect from a gang whose knowledge of history might as well come from TV Guide.
I’m not sure who coined the term “virtue signaling” but it’s a perfect description of the false, pretentious underpinnings of Clooney and Tapper’s lives. Posing as fearless warriors for truth, justice and virtue, they’ve become to believe it themselves and all evidence to the contrary is dismissed. I’m glad you got the opportunity to interview Biden and saw what his family and doctors, and most importantly, politicians who directly benefited by maneuvering and lying to the country, were desperate to hide. Excellent article.
The "Progressives' will palm off their deception with the usual, 'the end justifies the means'.
Their followers will agree that the dirty deed was necessary to prevent the great evil, Trump, from being reelected. The Original Sin of deceiving their public could not be overcome even with all their virtuous efforts.
This is exactly what many of the MAGA woke right are now doing in justifying censorship and thought policing of college campuses, as well as deportation of a foreign country's critics, after years of pretending to favour free speech; arguing that because "progressives" spent forever opposing their own speech, now they better oppose it too if they want to "win."
Whereas the "progressives" have become largely irrelevant and self-segregate into loony Clooney theatres and social media platforms named after empty space and extinct animals, the unprincipled and amoral "ends-justifies-the-means" woke right is everywhere and lacks the self-awareness to do anything but preach to the choir (case in point: your comment punching downward at the irrelevant), while playing the well-rehearsed role of pretend patriot (per Washington's use of that term in his farewell address) and victim worship.
Your comment is a virtue signalling castigation of other virtue signallers, more or less by definition of what virtue signalling is. It's incredible though amusing that like many others on Substack and elsewhere, you don't notice or realise when you do it.
Humorous and insightful review of Good Night and Good Luck and the hypocritical—and lack of self-aware— moralizing behind it
They missed the entire point of McCarthyism’s connection to Russiagate, and can’t see past their noses. What an insult to Murrow’s example of courage.
“the hard lessons they’ve learned”🤔🤔 - I suspect the lessons Tapper, his legacy media pals and the Dems have learned are fairly limited. They lied for years about Trump with no downside, they lied for years about Biden’s mental and, more recently, physical incapacities seemingly with no downside. Now they’re trying to lie again, claiming that they were so dumb that a few White House staff fooled them. I suspect the only way the media will truly learn a lesson will be when their employers go out of business and these clowns 🤡 are out of a job.
On the Dem side, the lessons are being learned now, as they find out that normal people find Dem policies repulsive 🤮 (DEI, open borders, boys playing girls’ sports, etc). Those lessons will continue to be learned as normal people leave the Democratic Party and the party dies. ⚰️
Amazing how none of these people connect the dots with the fact that GWB and Dick Cheney are anti-Trump democrats now.
Excellent post, Michael. Clowney should run for office, if he is so interested in politics. The irony here is that McCarthy was right. The US was infested at the time with Communist sympathizers and actual Soviet agents. Fast forward 60+ years to Russiagate, there is zero evidence that Trump of any of his associates are in bed with Russia. The funny thing is that now and that the same tribe was heavily involved but in reverse roles.
Phenomenally scathing.
Yeah these people are absolutely foul. The Tapper thing is just more obfuscation.
Everybody knew, and (as many said at the time) it's disgusting the way they forced an old man, clearly past his sell-by date, through all that torture, just so they had a rubber stamp for their insane, traitorous policies.
He was a creepy, corrupt half wit at his best.
But just further on my own thoughts there, given that we had virtually a whole term where the president didn't matter and the business of government was handled almost entirely by his cabinet and their deep state cronies, it makes you wonder how much Trump actually matters either.
Already some of the stuff he promised is being walked back (e.g. mass deportations), just like a lot of the stuff in the first term, and the only things that seem to be actually happening are mainly the things against pro-Palestinian sentiment on campuses and anything that supports Israel. The rest is either half-arsed, haphazard or has been already nullified by incoming legislation (e.g. the DOGE investigations).
I still hold out hope that Trump isn't entirely a con artist, but hope is fading fast that this term will be any different from the first: mainly republican business as usual with actually effective stuff done for Israel and a few sops thrown to "legacy Americans" (i.e. Whites) but nothing actually substantial done.
Oh welll, fool me once, etc. ...
I voted for him, but I didn't have high hopes.
At least he secured the southern border, & managed to lower gas prices a bit.
All I ever really hoped for was a bit of a pause on our roll toward globalist war/pandemics/censorship.
Some of Trump's actions have horrified me, some have bewildered me, and many do still make me laugh. He is, as you pointed out, beholden to Israel -- but aren't they all?
Indeed. I think the very fact that our lords and masters felt they had to play with populist fire to the extent of letting Trump in shows how things are getting tricky for them. Good. The fire is getting hotter.
There's no way the world is cool with any president single handedly having the ability to launch nukes.
It's such a nonsense story.
Currently Trump supporters talk like he's being held back by the deep state to do simple things like have Kennedy stop the covid emergency....
But somehow the president has the power to launch nukes?
What a fairy tale that promotes this team sport politics.
Both parties are tools of the predator class and whoever still thinks that one is better than the other is delusional or as in Clooney's case a part of the propaganda machine.
Great read! Thank you!
Oh, and check ticket prices. At the rates being charged, such a claim as "highest grossing" is meaningless, I'd say.
Re the McCarthyist references at the start.. Ron Unz has a couple of excellent articles up recently on the extent the commonly received narrative around McCarthy is highly revisionist and unsupported by the record. Recommended.
BTW the State department WAS riddled with communists or fellow travelers. Harry Hopkins prioritized USSR/Stalin OVER American requests/interests.
Better yet, HUAC witch burnings are still available to watch, along with numerous outstanding films secretly written by enormously talented and blacklisted writers. See Roy Cohn and Ronald Reagan in action! You don’t need interpretations to draw your own conclusions.
100% I lack the time (and don't much enjoy) watching lots of video material, so I prefer well-written summaries (like MT here). But absolutely.. the source material is often revelatory compared with the popular understanding of it.
I've interacted with Clooney a few times in Los Angeles and New York ( a liberal sister is actually friends with him). You will never find a more pretentious and pompous - masquerading as "everyman" - person - if you live 200 years and spend every day interacting with "artists and intellectuals". He is completely delusional - but he grounds it with humor. I believe he has sincere beliefs and motives - but he couldn't recognize reality, democracy, or what the Constitution actually is - if it slapped him in the face. And, he's so insulated due to success - that it never WILL slap him in the face. He is fully a brainwashed product of the 60's and 70's - and his view of what the press used to be (even though Mockingbird/CIA media has been prevalent since the 60's) doesn't come close to the actual press we have now ( though I have hope that Indie journalists will metaphorically MURDER what's left of the MSM).
As a person and as a mindset - he is an American Tragedy. But he's delusional enough to think he's an American hero and a "leading man" politically.
Quite the scary disconnect - and we have to disavow the American public about him - and all his peers- at every opportunity - because he has a loud megaphone platform with establishment psychopaths propping him ( and CIA Jake) up.
He always makes me remember that South Park episode, in which there was a "cloud of smug" hanging over Whole Foods, with Clooney's voice droning on from some goofball speech he gave at the Oscars or something.
The American public is George Clooney. Their party jingoism is merely cope. Red or blue. The merit of the other side is plausible deniability
Well ... my guess is now there are more non-affiliated with the two major parties than there are supporters of either of them.
Yep.
Proud Independent here.
Clever, insightful, and funny. Well written, thank you.
💯!!!