Powerful media figures now invoke sexist and racist tropes to cast themselves as so fragile and marginalized that critiques of their work constitute bullying and assault.
As a woman who has lived through many decades of changes this "fragile flower" BS from these women is repulsive. It undermines the vast gains that have been made for women. The USA article is disgusting to begin with (so thank you Glenn for being a strong voice for those without a voice) and then for the author (or her cohorts) to mount a defense based on hurt feelings compounds my disdain. Whether the Capitol rioters are guilty or not does not change their essential rights to effective legal counsel.
"Whether the Capitol rioters are guilty or not does not change their essential rights to effective legal counsel."
Exactly right.
That only the innocent who we like deserve a fair trial, along with claims of "hiding behind the 1st amendment" and "only criminals take the 5th" are some of the most dangerous and pervasive myth in America, perpetuated largely by those who have the most to lose if those basic rights are seen that way.
Do I think those who rioted in the Capital deserve a legal defense? Do I think sexual predators and everyone else deserve a legal defense?
Well, the alternative is a country where people are held convicted based entirely on what the State claims they did without an opportunity to challenge that claim.
This was one of the reasons Robert Barnes and a few others found it outrageous that Ghislaine Maxwell’s bail request was denied. And I sort of agree with Barnes on that.
Not sure because for a while she was hiding and dodging the FBI even though she knew she was being sought. Ms Maxwell also had many international connections and the money to lead authorities on a very expensive snipe hunt. Her alleged crimes are pretty horrific. Give her the speedy trial she is entitled to.
Just my opinion, but I think we need to separate out moral indignation over the crime with the actual chances the person will commit them again. As bad as her alleged crime was, there is both a presumption of innocence and the reality that without all the expensive infrastructure provided by Epstein and all it would be a very difficult crime to repeat.
That and there are many form of release between incarceration and just letting her go. An ankle bracelet with home arrest is one option.
Like all of us, Maxwell deserves a fair trial and it is next to impossible to prepare a defense while you are incarcerated, which is another reason prosecutors often prefer pre-trial incarceration for those who claim they are innocent. It's just another way prosecutors can stack the deck in their favor. With a 95% plea rate and a 90% conviction rate for those who go to trial, there is little chance the guilty will ever go free and a very good chance the innocent won't.
I've been around the Justice "system" for over 35 years and you have pretty well nailed it. The gamesmanship that goes on between lawyers has little to do with the innocence or guilt of those accused. Prosecutors and their "batting average" is what they obsess about. State Courts are more fair than the horrid federal system. The entire Federal system is predicated on coerced pleas and utilizing the process as a punishment in and of itself. Never considered the utilization of bail as one of the tools used by prosecutors to "punish" those charged. Guess I never looked that closely. After considering the Flynn case and many of the other "process" crimes thrown at the Trump team as well as the armed and televised raid on old Roger Stone it is obvious that "justice" is not the primary goal of most "career" Federal prosecutors. With the unlimited resources available to the prosecutors even the "speedy" trial provisions can work against the accused. I stand corrected by your well thought out response. The number of pleas where the accused is financially and emotionally worn out and says "lets just get this over with" is probably more that most people realize.
Great insights on the Federal injustice system. My experience has only been with the State so I know very little about the Feds. I have heard nothing good about them. One practice I'm familiar with is their ability to charge someone with multiple crimes and if they are convicted of any of those charges they can sentenced based on anything they are charged with.
For example, they can charge you with tax fraud, first degree murder and rape and if they get a conviction on the fraud they can sentence you based on the murder and rape. They often use this to coerce people into guilty pleas even for relatively minor crimes and it's disgusting.
I did not follow the Flynn case, but I do know 5 years ago I was screaming into the wind about how corrupt the system is. From about 4 years ago half the country that thought I was being unfairly negative started to agree with me.
Most people have no idea just how corrupt the criminal system is. TV, Hollywood and the media constantly push a good guy image of cops and prosecutors as valorious truth tellers saving us from what would be Mogadishu without their protection. When they are portrayed as corrupt in movies of the media, it's always to go after some child predator, rapist or really bad guy. What they don't show is that most police and prosecutors have contempt or the law because there are no consequences when the break it. They are just as likely to lie, steal, cheat and ignore the law to go after some nobody as to go after the rare dangerous criminal they encounter.
They are simply another criminal gang that operates with no oversight who can ignore the laws we must follow. The Feds get medals and awards for doing the things that would send you and I to prison.
I find the idea of cash bail outrageous. There may be extremely rare cases where the risk is so great that a person should not be released pending trial, but given that over a third of those held in county jails are awaiting trial they have obviously gone well beyond those who pose a physical unacceptable risk. That in too many cases that comes down to how much money you have is even more grotesque. It's clear the bail system long ago moved away from protecting the public and became simply another way to force plea deals, make political statements and profit off people when they are at the most vulnerable time of their life and are usually the people least able to afford it. There is a whole industry of mothers, wives and girlfriends trading in their wedding rings, retirements and life savings to get their typically harmless men out of jail until their trial.
Ms. Maxwell is a perfect example. Even if she committed the crime she was accused of, what actual risk does she represent to the public? With her passport pulled there is a 0% chance of flight risk. How was the decision to deny her release until jail anything other than a political statement and/or a way to force a plea deal out of her?
I think you need some balance. (I agree that bail is overused and overset, in general.)
1) Bail is also determined by flight risk in-country, not just to foreign lands.
2) Bail is set by judges, not prosecuters. While not unheard of, political statements and pressure to plea are at least made much more rare. You seem to say the powers that be just have to snap their fingers.
3) Likewise, judges take ability to pay bail into account for level.
4) Bail is NOT a fee, as you seem to indicate. It is a refundable deposit. Wives and girlfriends may be putting up collateral (typically 10%?) to obtain bail, but when the accused makes appearance, the rings are "out of hock," returned to rightful owners, NOT traded away.
5) High-profile cases, like Epstein/Maxwell, are obviously special, and should not be used to make your argument. Pressure on the wealthy Maxwell to "sing," is obviously in the public interest here: WHO THE HELL EXECUTED HIM OR ALLOWED SUICIDE/WHAT POWERFUL PEOPLE ARE BEING PROTECTED?
Thank you for providing a different perspective on this. Just some thoughts:
1. My understanding is that the reason for bail is actually set by the State. For instance, in New York it is legally based on just flight risk whereas in California it is set by flight risk and potential harm.
The peer reviewed studies I have seen until now seem to indicate that there is little connection between the likelihood of a court appearance and cash bail. Four of several studies along with a helpful description of the harms of pre-trial incarceration:
2. Technically you are correct. Like sentencing, on paper bail is set by judges. In practice, prosecutors usually propose a bail amount and judges generally accept that. Often the incarcerated doesn't even see a judge before they are told to "sign here" in jail to get out, only finding out later that it was negotiable.
Plea rates run nationally around 95% and there is a pattern of those accused taking plea deals even when they believe they are innocent simply to get out of jail and go home when they cannot afford their bail.
3. Please see two above on the role of judges. If there has been one consistent feature of criminal law over the past 50 years along with the increase in sentencing it's that more and more powers have moved out of the judges office and into the prosecutor's office. From mandatory minimums, to 3 strike laws, to pre-trial detention and the plea deal process, an increasing amount of power has been taken out of the hands of judges and placed in the hands of prosecutors. That and since most judges are ex-prosecutors themselves who worked in the same prosecutors office they now work with as judges there is often very little daylight between prosecutors and judges.
4. 10% of the fee of bail is non-refunadable, which for the poor and indignant who are often those charged with crimes is more money than they have without family assistance. Bail companies know this and have contacting Mom, wife and girlfriend literally written into their collection process.
By the way, even if the prosecutor drops your case you do not get that 10% back. That is a one time fee guaranteed to the Bail Company regardless of the outcome. Guess who gives some of the biggest political donations to judges and prosecutors?
Well, yes, there is a temporary cost of borrowing. A bail bondsman IS a private sector business, after all. But that is why it's ok in general, imo, to solicit, even crowdsource, bail.
In other words, don't borrow when begging pays more. (No aspersions intended.)
“With her passport pulled there is a 0% chance of flight risk.”
Perhaps that would hold true for you or I, but for the filthy rich such as herself, and with the powerful contacts, many of whom she has dirt on, does anybody really believe that not having her official passport will keep her from leaving the country?
Once out she is either a dead woman walking or simply gonesville.
The main thing Robert Barnes raised (he raised 3 reasons) on why Ghislaine should have been given bail was that it actually doesn’t make sense for her to leave the country because she will be dead. One has to look at what happened to her father. She would have the same fate as her father if she tried to leave her house or flee the country. So it makes sense that she should have been given bail.
Generally I would agree with you, but we are currently going though something of a moral panic on anything related to sex and her particular accusation is an egregious one, meaning this will make some prosecutors career when he/she gets a conviction and make no mistake, for a case like this a conviction is guaranteed and evidence or due process will have nothing to do with it.
Even leaving her house would be tough with an ankle bracelet and a city cop on permanent guard both at her expense.
I agree the rich get more juice than the rest of us, but even within the oligarchs there are those willing to profit off sacrificing someone beneath them. Think Harvey Weinstien and Epstein who went from either never being charged or barely charged at all by Manhattan DA Cy Vance to Harvey Wienstein never seeing the light of day and Epstein guaranteed life without parol if he had survived. Besides, of Maxwell still had any influence she surely could have use it to get bail.
I also have some doubt about Epstein's murder. It seems odd to the average citizen when someone dies in prison, but American prisons are modern day gulags where people are murdered and commit suicide on a routine basis. I suppose theirs a chance, but the Occam's Razor thing.
There was a great article by attorney Ken White in the Atlantic that nicely captures the horror that is American incarceration:
"Thirty-Two Short Stories About Death in Prison
These stories don’t mention Jeffrey Epstein, but they are about him."
I’m not certain many of them committed an actual crime. One report says the police were “letting them in”. If they were never told to leave were they trespassing? The trial will tell.
"Their essential rights to effective legal counsel..."
One of the examples that defines the ideal for me is that John Adams, revolutionary and traitor, was asked to provide a defense for the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. He took the job despite the danger to himself and his family raised by any perceived show of sympathy for the British. He did his duty and he did it well. We ought do no less.
Jeff Bezos did not purchase the failing Washington Post because he was interested in journalism, of course. Controlling the narrative is central to maintaining power. In this age of so many independent sources of information available (for now) online, I am baffled that too many Americans continue to lap up the obvious lies and misinformation spewed forth by elite media. It seems that those with greater levels of education (schooling, I should say; indoctrination, not education, is what is taking place on American campuses) are those most inclined to swallow the propaganda from our corporate media. The "Woke" truly need to be awakened from their intellectual slumber.
The kindest "take" on the journalists who draw paychecks by passing off lies for truth, and disparaging truth-sayers as liars, is that they are ignoramuses. The only other possibility is that these folks are evil, serving the interests of an even greater evil. Actively seeking the destruction of globalization's victims leads me to think the second possibility is most likely.
Data hosting and propaganda services. Amazon really is a "one-stop shop" for all your deep-state needs.
Also, receiving direct payment from the CIA surely creates no conflict in terms of not letting the CIA "accidentally" find some backdoor access into Amazon's data on "suspicious" Americans.
It was about to be one-stop shop and then unexpectedly, the $10 billion JEDI project went to Microsoft. Amazon cried about it like a slaughtered pig, such injustice!!!
I'm pretty sure the CIA has ALWAYS controlled WaPo and the NYT. This was just a convenient transfer of ownership to an even more conflicted party with an actual financial stake in the "success" of the CIA's various propaganda missions.
I think you and I are on the same side here, not wanting government to preapprove publications. However, your linked reference tries to imply that NYT sends what it wants to publish to the CIA for preapproval on a routine basis. The implication is false.
However NYT came upon the information in the op-ed, it isn't subject to prior restraint, nor even to post-publication problems, unless it received the information from a former government employee who signed an agreement to get CIA pre-approval to run what he knows is solely from CIA sources, and NYT is knowledgeable of the actual original source. That's how it works in the real world.
The CIA has always made it a practice to control other governments by placing operatives within those governments. Controlling the American media is pretty easy. Just have one of your stooges like Bezos buy the paper and put the CIA/ US government's spin on necessary narratives. NYT was compromised decades ago when actual Communists worked there and always covered Russia as a giant threat. This allowed the government to gorge the military/industrial complex with 100's of billions in tax dollars. The scare tactics continue. Trump was a small bump in the road that was neutralized by the media and internal operatives leaking telephone calls and the ongoing Russian hoax, impeachment scam and the judicial harassment of Trump advocates. Finally the "fixed" 2020 election that had a potted plant installed into the Oval. Now just watch the rivers of money that will be flowing to the "friends of Joe" and the billion dollar corporate interests.
I agree with you about the CIA. That's essentially its mission, and it's been anywhere from completely ineffective (leading to financial and manufactured goods sanctions/blockades and military invasions) to pretty good at what they do.
I wasn't aware that communists worked for the NYT although I have seen it stated in rightwing circles that the NYT was and is an apologist for Stalin's Soviet Union and communism in general. Usually that's a stretch, such as articles giving the true history of the "space race" and stuff like that. Do you have any good reading suggestions for the commies working there?
Of course you're correct about how they use this fear mongering to keep inflating the "defense" budget and transfer wealth from the rest of the country to a few very well connected (actually integrated) "defense" contracting firms mostly in and around Washington D.C. The banks love it too, of course.
I'm not sure if I agree that Trump was a bump in the road given his own assassination of Gen. Soleimani in Iraq while he was there acting as a diplomat to ease tensions in the region with the Saudis, or his unilateral action of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - a move sure to anger the Muslim world and increase the chances for future "excuses" to invade or bomb their countries, thus keeping the cycle of enrichment going. On ground level, the media certainly hated Trump, but in the upper echelons they knew it was great for ratings and $$.
I view the Russian hoax as 1) A pathetic attempt by the establishment, neoliberal Democrats and Hillary Clinton to make an excuse for her electoral loss that was really based on the fact she was WIDELY disliked on both the left and the right and 2) A distraction tactic from the corporate media and establishment Democrats, with establishment Republicans playing their own role as "resistance" to fake news all the way through the Ukraine impeachment that was conducted precisely because Mueller's report turned up zero evidence of collusion and 3) A way for our ruling elites to further clamp down on the limitations of acceptable thought and a means to cement their powers of secrecy and the ability to punish anyone, anywhere (Julian Assange) that embarrasses them by publishing their own recorded communications and documents. If the election was "hacked" (it wasn't) and (most of) the emails weren't leaked (they likely were), then what better justification for increased powers of surveillance and control, not to mention the same cycle of scare tactics you mentioned that inflate the "defense" and banking sectors ever more. They NEED scary enemies, and they want about successfully turning Russia and then China into exactly that in the course of 4 years.
Joe Biden is from Delaware. Anyone who knows what's up in that state should disabuse themselves of the illusion that he's going to be anything other than exactly what you said - a corporate stooge. https://www.delawareinc.com/corporation/
Nah dude, Soleimani wasn’t in Iraq to ease tensions lol. One thing you have to understand is that Middle East is very complex and lumping it whole as “anger the Muslim world” is very naive and wrong. The countries in Middle East have been fighting each other for decades - despite being Muslim. Because there are different types of Muslims. A very simple non Middle East example is Pakistan being super friendly with China despite China keeping Uyghur Muslims in camps. Pakistan doesn’t care because it’s not their favoured type of Muslims. Similarly Iran vs Saudi Arabia for example. They both hate each other. Similarly Iraq vs Iran - most Iraqis hate iran and its proxy influence in their country. Soulemani doesn’t go there to ease tensions with Saudis. That’s a talking point created to make his killing look bad because orange man bad. Remember how media mourned the killing of the other terrorist trump killed as “austere religious scholar”? Soulemani killed over 600 American troops and was also the man behind Benghazi. There was no reason not to kill him from America POV.
I have many middle eastern Muslim friends and family who are a fan of trump because he didn’t start a new war and mostly pulled troops out and got 5 peace deals done. The peace deal between UAE and Israel is a massive deal for my friends and family. Also my friends who escaped from Iran were super glad when soulemani was taken out. Their main criticism of trump was him selling arms to Saudi Arabia (which Saudi uses against another Muslim country) but they also realize he views things as business and realizes that if US doesn’t sell them arms, then they will go to Russia which is US’s enemy so they see it as a compromise.
As for the nytimes thing, it’s not just a right wing criticism, it’s been a fact for 90 years now. you should look up the NYTimes “Pulitzer winner” Walter Duranty and what he did with propaganda reporting on soviet when Stalin’s intentional famine killed millions.
I (somewhat) jokingly changed my WaPo screen name to "CIA owns the WaPo". I was banned about 2 weeks later. When I asked why, one of the examples of my "offensive posts" was a response to a slobbering article about Justin Trudeau: "but he's just so dreamy".
I think the Gary Webb story (and to a lesser extent the Alfred McCoy) story really highlights not only that the CIA, NSA and FBI control the media, but also how long they have been doing it:
ITs been pretty obvious since the 1930s that the government makes every company let them listen in. There is immeasurable evidence of this and both Obama and Bush Jr. gave the telcos retroactive immunity for this.
One of my friends puts it like this: The left takes over formerly noble institutions and wears them like a suit, demanding respect because what the institution used to be.
What the left has done in the last 10 years is make the identity the truth. You cannot "attack" someone or their positions, with certain identities.
Example - Greta Thunberg, if you say she is a fucking moron shitty little kid, you are instantly a terrible person for disagreeing with a young little girl.
This is why Candace Owens is someone they hate so much.
That seems kind of harsh. She's an autistic kid who got famous for skipping school, and was enabled by clearly deficient parenting. It was the adults who turned her into this ridiculous figure of "authority".
Remember Cindy Sheehan and how she was idolized by every pinhead lefty journalist when the rest of us could clearly see the signs of psychoses? Correction: She was idolized until she took on Nancy Pelosi....
That loon has served her purpose. Now she has lost the luster from the climate change mob and is relegated back to being a moronic shitty little kid. Never was much more that an actual useful idiot. Emphasis on idiot.
I don’t know anything about her beyond her climate campaign. And for that I respect the hell out of her. Wether you believe there’s a problem or not, she does and was doing something about it. Then the news got a hold of her and Idk what’s happened since. And this isn’t in deffense of a little girl...it’s in deffense of a little kid, scared that their future and that of their children will not be as easily inhabitable, protesting for change. It was moving and important imho. Even if only momentarily, it did get people’s attention to what a lot of people believe is a serious issue. I cringe wondering what it is you know about her that I don’t that would make you say that about her; that she is a shitty little kid. I think she was a brave little kid, what’s happened that I missed?
You know she was a Soros puppet right? Look up her pictures and then look for the girl who’s always with her In every picture and also is co-author of what Greta “published”. Look up who that girl actually is, who she works for, what brand she’s ambassador of.
And no, this isn’t some crazy conspiracy or anti-Semitic comment bs (can’t be anti Semitic considering soros himself helped the Nazis in rounding up the jews, admits to not regretting it at all and also says he’s neither religious, nor believes in god).
Yes it is a bit of a harsh assessment. Probably aimed at the wrong person since she was a creation of the media to advance a complex, tax scam that will do nothing to relieve much about the climate. Media finds someone "everyone" must listen to and never criticize then pushes her/his pre-packaged agenda because it matches their own. This kid knows nothing but what she has been fed by those who need sympathetic spokes person. Being yelled at by a 15 year old hysteric is NOT a policy position. The fawning over her was sickening -- "person of the year" by Time Mag was so typical of leftists utilizing anything to advance their agenda.
She's been brainwashed (child abuse) and used politically. She's more of a tragic figure than a person-of-blame. She may mature, and see the error of her (abusers') opinions.
That’s a mighty fine way of explaining co-opting. Which is what I feel Democrat leadership always does to all People’s movements. And why voters are constantly so lost.
They co-opted a whole race successfully into being reliable, on call pawns for their game, but it is grotesquely cynical. Notice that it's a "racist" to insist on voter id to vote because so many AAs don't have government issued ids (REALLY??), but no one, in their fake concern, has mentioned that you can't get a vaccine without presenting an id at some point in the process. If they cared they would setting aside a couple of billion in the "covid" bill to get everyone gov ids, but they won't,
Now the left has enlisted "climate change" into its lexicon of racist, homophobic anti-trans and woman hating things that you must adhere to or be called every hate laced name in their vile book. Social warriors are now babbling about their new social science of climate change justice. Whether climate change is a crises or a transitional cycle is not important. What is is that it has been declared a "crises" and we ALL know wasting ANY crises is against the dogma of the leftist religion. Just what is their solution to tis crises besides the usual tax confiscation, social engineering and useless treaties where polluters get to spend your tax dollars. No actual workable plans are ever proposed that will actually work given the world's lack of action. Meanwhile "science" keeps getting gov't grants of billions to keep pushing the "consensus" that does not really exist. Total moron city.
this is 4th warming spike in the last 3000 years and so far the least hot. Minoan, Roman and Medieval were all hotter than today. When you google historic temps you get a lot starting in 1850, the end of the "little Ice Age "(1300-1850) and one of the coldest periods in the last 10,000 years, so it is the worst look you can squeeze out of the facts. Until Climate fanatics explain the previous warming spikes and why the started and stopped, they have no business asking us to believe them. No fossil fuels back then. A modern myth. The end of the last cold spell comes very close to the start of the industrialization of economies so it's basically a coincidence of two trends that are only fractionally related. Yeah we add a bit of C02 but that's not the cause of the warming trend.
I believe it all goes back to modern political methods and tactics. EVERY crises is to be utilized whether real or created by people and institutions who advance a narrative that allows them to herd or stampede populations into doing what they desire. These types of "end of times" tales and myths have been around since the dawn of time. Most were utilized by religions to consolidate power and control. Now with the modern religion of politics the utilization of the new "authorities" in the science community have been enlisted to validate the new "end of times" scare tactics. Any consensus supposedly reached by science has at its' root the gov't grants and funding of the never-ending "research" and the desired conclusions that keep the money flowing. These herding methods should be studied as ways small groups control and manipulate large segments of society.
Media narratives, "experts", ongoing drumbeats of misinformation and a govt. education system are the basis for much of the hysteria now scaring children and many adults. Funny how beachfront property seems to rise in value every year while doomsday predictions just get worse and worse.
This version of the left does. I don't think you can claim this was always the case. It's not like some of these institutions that actually did some noble things were of the right before (I'm speaking of ones like the ACLU). This left / right dynamic, while it can explain some stuff, is often a mistake and reinforces division rather than agreement. There are plenty on the left that hate this culture and at this point it would be far more effective to push back against this without these tired left vs right arguments muddying our ability to do so.
ACLU used to be very libertarian minded. They even took up cases to defend the rights of neo Nazis few decades ago. Now a days ACLU is nothing more than a democrat lapdog.
The amount of power the Left hands to the State will always ultimately result in the kind of "culture" and abuse of State power by authoritarian apparatchiks that the Left always claims it is against. The problem IS State power, which is ALWAYS ultimately abused by authoritarians.
When are the good, otherwise-intelligent, and obviously weel-meaning people of the Left going to wake up and stop turning to the State for your solutions to the problems of humankind and their societies?
I think the vast majority of people still obtain their news and what they perceive as the truth from mainstream media. I's on Facebook, and that's what I see, and their comments reflect those sources, and the perspective they have on the world and events.
"Four of the eight sources named by at least 2% of U.S. adults are much more likely to be named by Democrats and independents who lean Democratic than by Republicans and GOP leaners: MSNBC, The New York Times, NPR and CNN. Fox News is the one outlet among these eight that is far more likely to be named by Republicans than by Democrats.
Those who name Fox News and MSNBC display roughly the same high levels of partisanship. About nine-in-ten of those whose main source is Fox News (93%) identify as Republican, very close to the 95% of those who name MSNBC and identify as Democrats. Similarly, about nine-in-ten of those who name The New York Times (91%) and NPR (87%) as their main political news source identify as Democrats, with CNN at about eight-in-ten (79%)."
I began to watch FOX news during the Trump years, because of the ugly degree of bias displayed by other news sites, especially CNN and MSNBC, although those sites pretty much turned me off years ago. I was a registered democrat and the ugliness of that political party really got to me, so I changed my affiliation and became an independent. I use to frequent left wing sites on line all the time, but in the era of Trump they proved to be as untrustworthy as their mainstream counterparts. Journalism hit a knew low during the Trump era. In essence what you are relating is that people will seek out the media source that substantiates there own particular bias, and the news media know it, and that's how they make their money now by giving people the news they want to hear.
Just a warning from more right leaning person - don't trust FOX either. Because once they get your trust, they will backstab you when time comes. Similar to how FOX did by declaring Arizona for Biden before the votes were even started to be counted. Don't trust any of the establishment media. Do you own research by digging for the source documents, without the sensationalized headlines from media and debate whether X and Y are okay or not if your political side did it.
And good to see you are already supporting independent journalists like Glenn Greenwald. Also check out people like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Viva Frei & Robert Barnes etc. Opposing view points from non-establishment types can be good to sharpen your own viewpoints.
I saw them call Arizona for Biden and it was confusing since it was so early in the game. I do listen, or read articles by Matte, Taibbi, and listen to Dore. At one point, years ago, I was affiliated with a group that would travel into Manhattan and we would hear lectures from people like Chomsky, or Hitchens. It was really an older group who was wide open to the truth, no matter what, and also came from a different era. All gone. Many of those on the left went over to the democrats and lost a any sense of perspective, and a lot like Paul Jay disappeared. I'm glad for Greenwald because he remains objective and way too many during Trump's years in office lost all sense of objectivity. There is a sense of sanity with Glenn.
She went on JRE and calling Tulsi an Assad Toady and when Joe called her out, she couldn't even define the meaning of the word "toady". Aka she's great at spouting talking point words without knowing what they mean. Then she resigned from NYTimes because she got a taste of her own medicine from her co-workers.
Every Sunday I look forward to Viv Frei and Robert Barnes live stream on YouTube. I have learned so much about law from them. Plus they have a good Wednesday interview program.
FOX 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗱 their viewers by declaring AZ for Biden??? That is backstabbing?? Holy sh**, dude. Don't take it so personally. FOX is known for their top-notch/professional election night coverage.
I watched the entire thing unfold live. They called az for Biden before a single vote was counted. But they refused to call Texas, Ohio, Florida etc for trump for hours. Something was afoot that day at fox. Their own host tucker Carlson called out the person who made the Arizona call.
Well it's a lot better then MSNBC, or CNN, or NBC. I didn't have to listen to Trump hate for an hour or more, or continue how bad he was. I know pretty much what's going on and they certainly push things I'm not buying, but on some issues I am in agreement with what they have to say. The border issue is one of those issues. Interesting how Biden was so pro-wall, and now he's put out the welcome mat. I guess he's informing his flock of believers he's no xenophobic Trump. He's already proven he's no sexist, no racist, in choosing Kamala Harris as his vice present. Now he has to prove he's supportive of gays, who knows maybe he'll leave his wife and hook up with a gay guy.
I would simply say that FN represents a different faction* fighting for supremacy within the Establishment.
Were that faction to win, they would behave no better than the current hegemonic faction.
*Technically, both factions are in fact coalitions of various factions that don't necessarily have a lot in common other than the same enemies, nor do they even like each other all that much.
"that's how they make their money now by giving people the news they want to hear."
Corporate media is run like corporate PR. The PR department can lose money and nobody cares because their job is to disseminate corporate bullshit. Thats how it works now.
There's a term for what they're doing, it's called "Woke Supremacy". One set of rules for the woke, another for the rest of us.
The best example of this I can think of is the WH Press Corp's treatment of Trump, vs. their treatment of Biden. In the one case, Acosta jumping up without being called on and screaming out at Trump "why are you torturing innocent children and putting them in cages?". In the other, all questions agreed upon beforehand, and Biden coming to the dais with pictures of the reporters to call on, their names, the questions, and the prepared answers for Biden to read back.
Absolutely astonishing. Truly feels like being trapped in the "emperor is naked" fairy-tale. After the "press-conference" there were all these pretend serious op-eds in the media discussing this or that aspect of "Biden's policy" - when it was obvious that the whole event was tenuously staged, and that his brains loses coherence as each minute goes by (one hour is probably the max that can be stage managed at this point), and that Joe Biden has precious little to do in terms of setting any of those policies. I made a comment to that effect to Johnathan Freedland's article in the Guardian (a sickening, sycophantic piece) and it simply vanished.
Remember when Trump made a speech at the UN putting North Korea on notice. Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, Biden doing something like that? There’s not enough Aderrall in the world to pull that off.
"...precious little to do in setting any of those policies..."
Neither did Henry VI. They just hoped he would get through an hour of court without urinating on himself. Meanwhile Margaret of Anjou did the real work behind the scenes. The more things change...
The CCP and Putin gang were glued to their devices watching Biden’s performance. They walked away very satisfied with what what they saw. The plan for world domination and the sidelining of America can go forward undisturbed.
He's the powerful; he's the one that secretly fed them state secrets (which is the reason he was fired, or at least for lying about it). He's the epitome of "insider" and well-connected. Far from criticizing him, they actively promoted this. Journalism died long ago.
At which point some enterprising “journalist” might hunt *you* down and “expose” you.
Thank you so much for the work that you do, Glenn. Watching journalists go after powerless people as if they’re fighting power has been disgusting, for years now. Trump finally gave well educated “liberals” (liberal being what I always considered myself, have even been that professionally) cover to attack the poors, and really let them know what they are.
I have to tip my hat to USA Today. Not only does giving your entire journalistic staff the title of 'Intern' render them immune to criticism, it helps keep salaries low.
Darn you, M. publius_x. I always forget about those woke gods, the Dear Leaders Clinton. You are right, of course, and now I have to forget those forgettables again.
The important thing is USA Today is the second largest paper in the country I've never seen? Just lucky, I guess.
All Mr. Greenwald has to do, has ever had to do, is repent , beg forgiveness, renounce Satan and Trump and all their evil works .. . and burn his MAGA hat on utube (they swear he's got one .. . hidden in the closet.), that's all.
*right now, as I speak, I've got a pod of frothing coastal elites demanding Mr. Greenwald resign from his paid subscribers at once.. . on the other line.
The guy she beat (anyone remember his name?) was being groomed as Ms. Pelosi's replacement. This provides Ms. AOC a "mystique" that she would be remiss not to take advantage of.
I am sure you mean "redistricting." When is that scheduled to happen, and will it be controled by Pelosi people or AOC people? When is Schumer up for re-election?
Wow, I hadn't heard that her seat (basically the Bronx, right?) might get eliminated. Isn't she popular enough that it would hurt the Democrats overall?
Thanks for the info, M. MDM 2.0. My questions are musings, so don't feel you have to keep responding!
"Doctors Should Refuse to Treat Republicans." Is this where it's going? Trying to prevent citizens from obtaining legal representation through harassment and threats seems just as repellent.
Someone accused of a crime, be they Jeffery Dahmer or Harvey Weinstein, is entitled to legal representation under the law. This is for everyone's benefit, not just the accused- don't these people see that? A fair trial means the person convicted of the crime probably actually did the crime. A railroaded suspect convicted without proper representation means nothing.
Remember after elections, AOC and others were tweeting to make list of trump supporters to get them fired from jobs? Some even created a website which lists everyone associated with trump administration to prevent them from getting future jobs.
Some are indeed having trouble getting jobs. Guy who falsified documents to justify spying on the opposition's presidential campaign- wasn't even disbarred.
I remember one of my first stories at a major newspaper as an intern, I was cautioned about running a perspective in an op-ed and told by a seasoned crime reporter, "when you write here you subject to the same standards as myself and any other writer," i.e.: we are not going to defend you on the grounds you are an intern. I wore that caution as a badge of honor, with an understanding that it informed integrity and principles that superseded my right to comfort. This is bizarre and unsettling, both the perspective of the story and the manipulative defensive. It goes against the entire philosophy of the SPJ code of ethics "minimize harm" section for starters. Utterly despicable.
Government, tech companies, and the mainstream press, will not be persuaded to stop the dangerous behaviors of cancelling those with whom they disagree politically.
I truly believe the most effective option, will be to create an alternative universe of private companies, either right leaning, and/or committed to not cancelling anyone.
Just as the mainstream press has been made less and less relevant by competion from alternative sources, the same must be done to create alternatives to GoFundMe, PayPal, AWS, Stripe / Square - maybe even Visa / MC - any vulnerable piece of the infrastructure needed for effect free speech, and effective monetary support for persons with disfavored political views.
This is far from over. I suspect it will get much worse. Playing defense by begging private companies to play fair, or for our corrupt oligarch controlled government to force companies to do the right thing, is foolish, IMO.
This is coming. I know this is going to sound a bit odd, but you have to pay attention to the crypto space to see the remedy. Decentralization and projects like IPFS will take back some of this power. IPFS is already here and will prevent companies like Amazon from shutting down a platform like Parler.
In addition to cancelling Amazon Prime, we now refuse to use Amazon at all. Somewhat of a pain, but do-able. The first few things I ordered, I had to look for, and pay shipping, but by buying directly from manufacturer I got it for a cheaper base price; so actually cheaper overall. It takes a bit of effort, but we can de-monetize the authoritarians, to a great extent.
Thank you, I was not aware of this (though it does not surprise me: our half-free market still half-delivers supply to demands of all kinds, even political ones).
The comments in Substack cover a wide range of opinion, some of which I agree and identify with, and some I do not. That diversity of opinion and ideas is something that has been missing from nearly all news platforms for the past couple decades, and it is a welcome breath of fresh air. As the saying goes, if you have two people who agree with each other on every subject, one of them isn't thinking. It would appear that there now exists an immense demographic of non-thinkers.
I pessimistically wonder how long it will be before their leaders find a way to stifle these last bastions of free speech. I agree that things will get worse in the long quest to find and keep alternative infrastructure afloat.
"create an alternative universe of private companies"
This is otherwise known as "if you don't like it you can build your own platform." On its face it seemed feasible a few years ago, but then many tried, such as Parler, and got run out of Dodge by Congress, big tech and media in unison like the censoring sychophants they are.
We need to fight for free speech every way we can.
The holes in this strategy need to be plugged as they occur, but also preemptively.
There is a growing acceptance of Authoritarianism and censorship by many on the establishment left, supported by a growing alliance of like minded businesses and wealthy patrons.
The former guardians of free speech, such as the old guard at the ACLU, are retiring or changing their philosophy. The ACLU now advocates for particular parochial interests, and apparently sees free speech as a problem, not a principle to be upheld.
Patronizing businesses who use the profits from my purchases to fund my political adversaries, and censor speech of *their* adversaries, is unacceptable. If this keeps up, I can see the ante being raised higher and higher - possibly to the point where we have parallel systems of - not just political media sources - but if regular businesses, with customers choosing based on politics.
This is far from ideal. But why should private interests from one political wing be allowed to collude to financially destroy anyone with whom they politically disagree, without any consequence? They absolutely need some consequences. Hit them in their wallet.
The SALT deduction limit primarily affects the top 10% of households, indeed mostly the top 1%. It is part of the 2017 tax reform. The Democrats' effort now is to REPEAL that limit to help their wealthy supporters.
Define "run." All owners of public companies benefit from financial success, not just the "0.05%" (quotes to call out your hyperbole, as well as to indicate my scepticism) who run the companies and run the capital markets.
Generically bashing the corporation, or "corporatism," is barking up the wrong tree, imo. (I agree whole-heartedly with the sarcasm of your ultimate sentence. Yellen was chosen for her gender, again imo.)
Glenn these journalists are not separate from the “power centers”. They are a de facto voice of the state. That pretty much explains all of their behavior.
"The Smear", by Sharyl Atkisson, aptly documents and explains the formal structures and practices that tie big tech/oligarchs, government, and the press together. It is truly disgusting.
That the USA Today reporters convinced Stripe and PayPal to shutdown the fundraising accounts for two defendants in the Jan. 6 riot was a most egregious interference by a time honored piece of shit newspaper.
USA Today was traditionally a joke of a paper -- but for the entirely different reason that it was incredibly superficial and lame. Now it's all those things and also woke.
The entire woke movement is a facade. The portion of the population who are true believers are the most naive of all, they are just being used as foot soldiers in the state’s radical move to an authoritarian, post constitutional state in which no opposition is permitted.
They are like the audience members who hysterically scream for one guy at a TV fake wrestling match, because they actually think the fight is real.
Exactly. The woke demographic are given politically correct symptoms to distract from real issues.
The problem of cops with anger issues routinely committing murder with impunity, and too many of them, is explained away as racism. Undoubtedly most of them are racists, but that isn't the root cause.
Similarly, how long has it been since anyone has heard voices advocating for zero population growth? A massive reduction in the number of humans worldwide would reverse our global pollution and climate change problems (it's simple mathematics), but the "woke" mentality is to distract by focusing on the symptoms of climate change instead of an actual solution. Those funding the "woke" demographic want a renewable supply of cannon fodder and debt slaves, so they substitute the politically correct distraction topic of environmental issues for too many humans on the planet.
Toppling statues is easier than rooting out exploitation.
And toppling statues is more immediate, more "exciting" (scare quotes because it shouldn't be), more "I'm finally taking action, look at me, I'm a....REVOLUTIONARY!!!"
When will the college hijinks of antifa get old.
(btw, population growth is slowing dramatically globally. Shhh, this might be officially frowned upon info!)
As a woman who has lived through many decades of changes this "fragile flower" BS from these women is repulsive. It undermines the vast gains that have been made for women. The USA article is disgusting to begin with (so thank you Glenn for being a strong voice for those without a voice) and then for the author (or her cohorts) to mount a defense based on hurt feelings compounds my disdain. Whether the Capitol rioters are guilty or not does not change their essential rights to effective legal counsel.
"Whether the Capitol rioters are guilty or not does not change their essential rights to effective legal counsel."
Exactly right.
That only the innocent who we like deserve a fair trial, along with claims of "hiding behind the 1st amendment" and "only criminals take the 5th" are some of the most dangerous and pervasive myth in America, perpetuated largely by those who have the most to lose if those basic rights are seen that way.
Do I think those who rioted in the Capital deserve a legal defense? Do I think sexual predators and everyone else deserve a legal defense?
Well, the alternative is a country where people are held convicted based entirely on what the State claims they did without an opportunity to challenge that claim.
What could possibly go wrong?
This was one of the reasons Robert Barnes and a few others found it outrageous that Ghislaine Maxwell’s bail request was denied. And I sort of agree with Barnes on that.
Not sure because for a while she was hiding and dodging the FBI even though she knew she was being sought. Ms Maxwell also had many international connections and the money to lead authorities on a very expensive snipe hunt. Her alleged crimes are pretty horrific. Give her the speedy trial she is entitled to.
Just my opinion, but I think we need to separate out moral indignation over the crime with the actual chances the person will commit them again. As bad as her alleged crime was, there is both a presumption of innocence and the reality that without all the expensive infrastructure provided by Epstein and all it would be a very difficult crime to repeat.
That and there are many form of release between incarceration and just letting her go. An ankle bracelet with home arrest is one option.
Like all of us, Maxwell deserves a fair trial and it is next to impossible to prepare a defense while you are incarcerated, which is another reason prosecutors often prefer pre-trial incarceration for those who claim they are innocent. It's just another way prosecutors can stack the deck in their favor. With a 95% plea rate and a 90% conviction rate for those who go to trial, there is little chance the guilty will ever go free and a very good chance the innocent won't.
I've been around the Justice "system" for over 35 years and you have pretty well nailed it. The gamesmanship that goes on between lawyers has little to do with the innocence or guilt of those accused. Prosecutors and their "batting average" is what they obsess about. State Courts are more fair than the horrid federal system. The entire Federal system is predicated on coerced pleas and utilizing the process as a punishment in and of itself. Never considered the utilization of bail as one of the tools used by prosecutors to "punish" those charged. Guess I never looked that closely. After considering the Flynn case and many of the other "process" crimes thrown at the Trump team as well as the armed and televised raid on old Roger Stone it is obvious that "justice" is not the primary goal of most "career" Federal prosecutors. With the unlimited resources available to the prosecutors even the "speedy" trial provisions can work against the accused. I stand corrected by your well thought out response. The number of pleas where the accused is financially and emotionally worn out and says "lets just get this over with" is probably more that most people realize.
Great insights on the Federal injustice system. My experience has only been with the State so I know very little about the Feds. I have heard nothing good about them. One practice I'm familiar with is their ability to charge someone with multiple crimes and if they are convicted of any of those charges they can sentenced based on anything they are charged with.
For example, they can charge you with tax fraud, first degree murder and rape and if they get a conviction on the fraud they can sentence you based on the murder and rape. They often use this to coerce people into guilty pleas even for relatively minor crimes and it's disgusting.
I did not follow the Flynn case, but I do know 5 years ago I was screaming into the wind about how corrupt the system is. From about 4 years ago half the country that thought I was being unfairly negative started to agree with me.
Most people have no idea just how corrupt the criminal system is. TV, Hollywood and the media constantly push a good guy image of cops and prosecutors as valorious truth tellers saving us from what would be Mogadishu without their protection. When they are portrayed as corrupt in movies of the media, it's always to go after some child predator, rapist or really bad guy. What they don't show is that most police and prosecutors have contempt or the law because there are no consequences when the break it. They are just as likely to lie, steal, cheat and ignore the law to go after some nobody as to go after the rare dangerous criminal they encounter.
They are simply another criminal gang that operates with no oversight who can ignore the laws we must follow. The Feds get medals and awards for doing the things that would send you and I to prison.
I find the idea of cash bail outrageous. There may be extremely rare cases where the risk is so great that a person should not be released pending trial, but given that over a third of those held in county jails are awaiting trial they have obviously gone well beyond those who pose a physical unacceptable risk. That in too many cases that comes down to how much money you have is even more grotesque. It's clear the bail system long ago moved away from protecting the public and became simply another way to force plea deals, make political statements and profit off people when they are at the most vulnerable time of their life and are usually the people least able to afford it. There is a whole industry of mothers, wives and girlfriends trading in their wedding rings, retirements and life savings to get their typically harmless men out of jail until their trial.
Ms. Maxwell is a perfect example. Even if she committed the crime she was accused of, what actual risk does she represent to the public? With her passport pulled there is a 0% chance of flight risk. How was the decision to deny her release until jail anything other than a political statement and/or a way to force a plea deal out of her?
I think you need some balance. (I agree that bail is overused and overset, in general.)
1) Bail is also determined by flight risk in-country, not just to foreign lands.
2) Bail is set by judges, not prosecuters. While not unheard of, political statements and pressure to plea are at least made much more rare. You seem to say the powers that be just have to snap their fingers.
3) Likewise, judges take ability to pay bail into account for level.
4) Bail is NOT a fee, as you seem to indicate. It is a refundable deposit. Wives and girlfriends may be putting up collateral (typically 10%?) to obtain bail, but when the accused makes appearance, the rings are "out of hock," returned to rightful owners, NOT traded away.
5) High-profile cases, like Epstein/Maxwell, are obviously special, and should not be used to make your argument. Pressure on the wealthy Maxwell to "sing," is obviously in the public interest here: WHO THE HELL EXECUTED HIM OR ALLOWED SUICIDE/WHAT POWERFUL PEOPLE ARE BEING PROTECTED?
Thank you for providing a different perspective on this. Just some thoughts:
1. My understanding is that the reason for bail is actually set by the State. For instance, in New York it is legally based on just flight risk whereas in California it is set by flight risk and potential harm.
The peer reviewed studies I have seen until now seem to indicate that there is little connection between the likelihood of a court appearance and cash bail. Four of several studies along with a helpful description of the harms of pre-trial incarceration:
https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/Justice-Denied-Evidence-Brief.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/business/cash-bail-system-reform.html
https://theappeal.org/the-failure-to-appear-fallacy/
https://theappeal.org/as-reform-stalls-in-new-york-defendants-plead-out-because-they-cant-afford-cash-bail-238bd753c250/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2020/03/16/481543/ending-cash-bail/
2. Technically you are correct. Like sentencing, on paper bail is set by judges. In practice, prosecutors usually propose a bail amount and judges generally accept that. Often the incarcerated doesn't even see a judge before they are told to "sign here" in jail to get out, only finding out later that it was negotiable.
Plea rates run nationally around 95% and there is a pattern of those accused taking plea deals even when they believe they are innocent simply to get out of jail and go home when they cannot afford their bail.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-raphling-bail-20170517-story.html
3. Please see two above on the role of judges. If there has been one consistent feature of criminal law over the past 50 years along with the increase in sentencing it's that more and more powers have moved out of the judges office and into the prosecutor's office. From mandatory minimums, to 3 strike laws, to pre-trial detention and the plea deal process, an increasing amount of power has been taken out of the hands of judges and placed in the hands of prosecutors. That and since most judges are ex-prosecutors themselves who worked in the same prosecutors office they now work with as judges there is often very little daylight between prosecutors and judges.
4. 10% of the fee of bail is non-refunadable, which for the poor and indignant who are often those charged with crimes is more money than they have without family assistance. Bail companies know this and have contacting Mom, wife and girlfriend literally written into their collection process.
By the way, even if the prosecutor drops your case you do not get that 10% back. That is a one time fee guaranteed to the Bail Company regardless of the outcome. Guess who gives some of the biggest political donations to judges and prosecutors?
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2018/08/15/pretrial/
5. For good or bad, high profile cases often lead to bad case law and policy and Maxwell is no exception.
Bail, when a bondsman has to be used, is NOT entirely refundable.
Well, yes, there is a temporary cost of borrowing. A bail bondsman IS a private sector business, after all. But that is why it's ok in general, imo, to solicit, even crowdsource, bail.
In other words, don't borrow when begging pays more. (No aspersions intended.)
“With her passport pulled there is a 0% chance of flight risk.”
Perhaps that would hold true for you or I, but for the filthy rich such as herself, and with the powerful contacts, many of whom she has dirt on, does anybody really believe that not having her official passport will keep her from leaving the country?
Once out she is either a dead woman walking or simply gonesville.
The main thing Robert Barnes raised (he raised 3 reasons) on why Ghislaine should have been given bail was that it actually doesn’t make sense for her to leave the country because she will be dead. One has to look at what happened to her father. She would have the same fate as her father if she tried to leave her house or flee the country. So it makes sense that she should have been given bail.
Generally I would agree with you, but we are currently going though something of a moral panic on anything related to sex and her particular accusation is an egregious one, meaning this will make some prosecutors career when he/she gets a conviction and make no mistake, for a case like this a conviction is guaranteed and evidence or due process will have nothing to do with it.
Even leaving her house would be tough with an ankle bracelet and a city cop on permanent guard both at her expense.
I agree the rich get more juice than the rest of us, but even within the oligarchs there are those willing to profit off sacrificing someone beneath them. Think Harvey Weinstien and Epstein who went from either never being charged or barely charged at all by Manhattan DA Cy Vance to Harvey Wienstein never seeing the light of day and Epstein guaranteed life without parol if he had survived. Besides, of Maxwell still had any influence she surely could have use it to get bail.
I also have some doubt about Epstein's murder. It seems odd to the average citizen when someone dies in prison, but American prisons are modern day gulags where people are murdered and commit suicide on a routine basis. I suppose theirs a chance, but the Occam's Razor thing.
There was a great article by attorney Ken White in the Atlantic that nicely captures the horror that is American incarceration:
"Thirty-Two Short Stories About Death in Prison
These stories don’t mention Jeffrey Epstein, but they are about him."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/thirty-two-stories-jeffrey-epstein-prison-death/596029/
I’m not certain many of them committed an actual crime. One report says the police were “letting them in”. If they were never told to leave were they trespassing? The trial will tell.
"Their essential rights to effective legal counsel..."
One of the examples that defines the ideal for me is that John Adams, revolutionary and traitor, was asked to provide a defense for the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. He took the job despite the danger to himself and his family raised by any perceived show of sympathy for the British. He did his duty and he did it well. We ought do no less.
I couldn't agree more. She can't have it both ways. She needs to pull up her big girl pants or get out. It's called resilience.
Bingo. W
Jeff Bezos did not purchase the failing Washington Post because he was interested in journalism, of course. Controlling the narrative is central to maintaining power. In this age of so many independent sources of information available (for now) online, I am baffled that too many Americans continue to lap up the obvious lies and misinformation spewed forth by elite media. It seems that those with greater levels of education (schooling, I should say; indoctrination, not education, is what is taking place on American campuses) are those most inclined to swallow the propaganda from our corporate media. The "Woke" truly need to be awakened from their intellectual slumber.
The kindest "take" on the journalists who draw paychecks by passing off lies for truth, and disparaging truth-sayers as liars, is that they are ignoramuses. The only other possibility is that these folks are evil, serving the interests of an even greater evil. Actively seeking the destruction of globalization's victims leads me to think the second possibility is most likely.
Daily reminder: Bezos purchase WaPo for $300M the day after he made a $600M deal to provide cloud services for the CIA.
Data hosting and propaganda services. Amazon really is a "one-stop shop" for all your deep-state needs.
Also, receiving direct payment from the CIA surely creates no conflict in terms of not letting the CIA "accidentally" find some backdoor access into Amazon's data on "suspicious" Americans.
It was about to be one-stop shop and then unexpectedly, the $10 billion JEDI project went to Microsoft. Amazon cried about it like a slaughtered pig, such injustice!!!
Meh. JEDI includes boring stuff like tracking inventory.
The real fun is in the IC Cloud, where the red meat is!
Well a bit better inventory tracking would definitely help tax-payers, in case anybody even cares about them at all: https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/11/15/heres-what-the-pentagons-first-ever-audit-found/
In other words, we know who they are
THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!
What makes you think the CIA didnt make him buy it?
I'm pretty sure the CIA has ALWAYS controlled WaPo and the NYT. This was just a convenient transfer of ownership to an even more conflicted party with an actual financial stake in the "success" of the CIA's various propaganda missions.
Traditionally, the NYT has been the FBI's paper and the WaPo was the CIA's paper.
The only thing I am 100% certain about the NYT is they are 100% a media disinformation organization, and have been since the 1870s.
Walter Duranty
You're right. But the NYT has recently been exposed running their articles by the CIA for approval prior to publication. https://newspunch.com/new-york-times-cia-approve/
Related: BBC/Reuters Paid To Do Government Propaganda
https://youtu.be/eJ8mycEVgGQ
I think you and I are on the same side here, not wanting government to preapprove publications. However, your linked reference tries to imply that NYT sends what it wants to publish to the CIA for preapproval on a routine basis. The implication is false.
However NYT came upon the information in the op-ed, it isn't subject to prior restraint, nor even to post-publication problems, unless it received the information from a former government employee who signed an agreement to get CIA pre-approval to run what he knows is solely from CIA sources, and NYT is knowledgeable of the actual original source. That's how it works in the real world.
The CIA has always made it a practice to control other governments by placing operatives within those governments. Controlling the American media is pretty easy. Just have one of your stooges like Bezos buy the paper and put the CIA/ US government's spin on necessary narratives. NYT was compromised decades ago when actual Communists worked there and always covered Russia as a giant threat. This allowed the government to gorge the military/industrial complex with 100's of billions in tax dollars. The scare tactics continue. Trump was a small bump in the road that was neutralized by the media and internal operatives leaking telephone calls and the ongoing Russian hoax, impeachment scam and the judicial harassment of Trump advocates. Finally the "fixed" 2020 election that had a potted plant installed into the Oval. Now just watch the rivers of money that will be flowing to the "friends of Joe" and the billion dollar corporate interests.
I agree with you about the CIA. That's essentially its mission, and it's been anywhere from completely ineffective (leading to financial and manufactured goods sanctions/blockades and military invasions) to pretty good at what they do.
I wasn't aware that communists worked for the NYT although I have seen it stated in rightwing circles that the NYT was and is an apologist for Stalin's Soviet Union and communism in general. Usually that's a stretch, such as articles giving the true history of the "space race" and stuff like that. Do you have any good reading suggestions for the commies working there?
Of course you're correct about how they use this fear mongering to keep inflating the "defense" budget and transfer wealth from the rest of the country to a few very well connected (actually integrated) "defense" contracting firms mostly in and around Washington D.C. The banks love it too, of course.
I'm not sure if I agree that Trump was a bump in the road given his own assassination of Gen. Soleimani in Iraq while he was there acting as a diplomat to ease tensions in the region with the Saudis, or his unilateral action of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - a move sure to anger the Muslim world and increase the chances for future "excuses" to invade or bomb their countries, thus keeping the cycle of enrichment going. On ground level, the media certainly hated Trump, but in the upper echelons they knew it was great for ratings and $$.
I view the Russian hoax as 1) A pathetic attempt by the establishment, neoliberal Democrats and Hillary Clinton to make an excuse for her electoral loss that was really based on the fact she was WIDELY disliked on both the left and the right and 2) A distraction tactic from the corporate media and establishment Democrats, with establishment Republicans playing their own role as "resistance" to fake news all the way through the Ukraine impeachment that was conducted precisely because Mueller's report turned up zero evidence of collusion and 3) A way for our ruling elites to further clamp down on the limitations of acceptable thought and a means to cement their powers of secrecy and the ability to punish anyone, anywhere (Julian Assange) that embarrasses them by publishing their own recorded communications and documents. If the election was "hacked" (it wasn't) and (most of) the emails weren't leaked (they likely were), then what better justification for increased powers of surveillance and control, not to mention the same cycle of scare tactics you mentioned that inflate the "defense" and banking sectors ever more. They NEED scary enemies, and they want about successfully turning Russia and then China into exactly that in the course of 4 years.
Joe Biden is from Delaware. Anyone who knows what's up in that state should disabuse themselves of the illusion that he's going to be anything other than exactly what you said - a corporate stooge. https://www.delawareinc.com/corporation/
Nah dude, Soleimani wasn’t in Iraq to ease tensions lol. One thing you have to understand is that Middle East is very complex and lumping it whole as “anger the Muslim world” is very naive and wrong. The countries in Middle East have been fighting each other for decades - despite being Muslim. Because there are different types of Muslims. A very simple non Middle East example is Pakistan being super friendly with China despite China keeping Uyghur Muslims in camps. Pakistan doesn’t care because it’s not their favoured type of Muslims. Similarly Iran vs Saudi Arabia for example. They both hate each other. Similarly Iraq vs Iran - most Iraqis hate iran and its proxy influence in their country. Soulemani doesn’t go there to ease tensions with Saudis. That’s a talking point created to make his killing look bad because orange man bad. Remember how media mourned the killing of the other terrorist trump killed as “austere religious scholar”? Soulemani killed over 600 American troops and was also the man behind Benghazi. There was no reason not to kill him from America POV.
https://nypost.com/2014/06/20/how-irans-spy-chief-paid-for-the-benghazi-attack/
I have many middle eastern Muslim friends and family who are a fan of trump because he didn’t start a new war and mostly pulled troops out and got 5 peace deals done. The peace deal between UAE and Israel is a massive deal for my friends and family. Also my friends who escaped from Iran were super glad when soulemani was taken out. Their main criticism of trump was him selling arms to Saudi Arabia (which Saudi uses against another Muslim country) but they also realize he views things as business and realizes that if US doesn’t sell them arms, then they will go to Russia which is US’s enemy so they see it as a compromise.
As for the nytimes thing, it’s not just a right wing criticism, it’s been a fact for 90 years now. you should look up the NYTimes “Pulitzer winner” Walter Duranty and what he did with propaganda reporting on soviet when Stalin’s intentional famine killed millions.
That’s the kind of comment I can really use. Thanks!
I (somewhat) jokingly changed my WaPo screen name to "CIA owns the WaPo". I was banned about 2 weeks later. When I asked why, one of the examples of my "offensive posts" was a response to a slobbering article about Justin Trudeau: "but he's just so dreamy".
Outsourcing is the order of the day. Plus plausible deniability.
Fascinating Conversation.
I think the Gary Webb story (and to a lesser extent the Alfred McCoy) story really highlights not only that the CIA, NSA and FBI control the media, but also how long they have been doing it:
https://theintercept.com/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/
Maybe it's a joint venture.
It definitely is. All part of the same program.
Wealthy folks control the CIA, not the other way around.
There you go with the fake news again: as of last year, it's several cloud providers who are now in the CIA's knickers in addition to AWS, and it's several billion dollars, not million: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cia-awards-multibillion-c2e-cloud-contract-aws-microsoft-google-oracle-and-ibm/
ITs been pretty obvious since the 1930s that the government makes every company let them listen in. There is immeasurable evidence of this and both Obama and Bush Jr. gave the telcos retroactive immunity for this.
One of my friends puts it like this: The left takes over formerly noble institutions and wears them like a suit, demanding respect because what the institution used to be.
What the left has done in the last 10 years is make the identity the truth. You cannot "attack" someone or their positions, with certain identities.
Example - Greta Thunberg, if you say she is a fucking moron shitty little kid, you are instantly a terrible person for disagreeing with a young little girl.
This is why Candace Owens is someone they hate so much.
Greta Thunberg is a fucking moron shitty little kid.
That seems kind of harsh. She's an autistic kid who got famous for skipping school, and was enabled by clearly deficient parenting. It was the adults who turned her into this ridiculous figure of "authority".
Remember Cindy Sheehan and how she was idolized by every pinhead lefty journalist when the rest of us could clearly see the signs of psychoses? Correction: She was idolized until she took on Nancy Pelosi....
That loon has served her purpose. Now she has lost the luster from the climate change mob and is relegated back to being a moronic shitty little kid. Never was much more that an actual useful idiot. Emphasis on idiot.
I don’t know anything about her beyond her climate campaign. And for that I respect the hell out of her. Wether you believe there’s a problem or not, she does and was doing something about it. Then the news got a hold of her and Idk what’s happened since. And this isn’t in deffense of a little girl...it’s in deffense of a little kid, scared that their future and that of their children will not be as easily inhabitable, protesting for change. It was moving and important imho. Even if only momentarily, it did get people’s attention to what a lot of people believe is a serious issue. I cringe wondering what it is you know about her that I don’t that would make you say that about her; that she is a shitty little kid. I think she was a brave little kid, what’s happened that I missed?
You know she was a Soros puppet right? Look up her pictures and then look for the girl who’s always with her In every picture and also is co-author of what Greta “published”. Look up who that girl actually is, who she works for, what brand she’s ambassador of.
And no, this isn’t some crazy conspiracy or anti-Semitic comment bs (can’t be anti Semitic considering soros himself helped the Nazis in rounding up the jews, admits to not regretting it at all and also says he’s neither religious, nor believes in god).
Yes it is a bit of a harsh assessment. Probably aimed at the wrong person since she was a creation of the media to advance a complex, tax scam that will do nothing to relieve much about the climate. Media finds someone "everyone" must listen to and never criticize then pushes her/his pre-packaged agenda because it matches their own. This kid knows nothing but what she has been fed by those who need sympathetic spokes person. Being yelled at by a 15 year old hysteric is NOT a policy position. The fawning over her was sickening -- "person of the year" by Time Mag was so typical of leftists utilizing anything to advance their agenda.
She's been brainwashed (child abuse) and used politically. She's more of a tragic figure than a person-of-blame. She may mature, and see the error of her (abusers') opinions.
Lie down and be a victim Candace!
That she won't is why she is hated.
Your friend put it well. That's a good metaphor for Gramsci's "long march through the institutions."
SPLC, ACLU, ADL etc
That’s a mighty fine way of explaining co-opting. Which is what I feel Democrat leadership always does to all People’s movements. And why voters are constantly so lost.
They co-opted a whole race successfully into being reliable, on call pawns for their game, but it is grotesquely cynical. Notice that it's a "racist" to insist on voter id to vote because so many AAs don't have government issued ids (REALLY??), but no one, in their fake concern, has mentioned that you can't get a vaccine without presenting an id at some point in the process. If they cared they would setting aside a couple of billion in the "covid" bill to get everyone gov ids, but they won't,
Now the left has enlisted "climate change" into its lexicon of racist, homophobic anti-trans and woman hating things that you must adhere to or be called every hate laced name in their vile book. Social warriors are now babbling about their new social science of climate change justice. Whether climate change is a crises or a transitional cycle is not important. What is is that it has been declared a "crises" and we ALL know wasting ANY crises is against the dogma of the leftist religion. Just what is their solution to tis crises besides the usual tax confiscation, social engineering and useless treaties where polluters get to spend your tax dollars. No actual workable plans are ever proposed that will actually work given the world's lack of action. Meanwhile "science" keeps getting gov't grants of billions to keep pushing the "consensus" that does not really exist. Total moron city.
this is 4th warming spike in the last 3000 years and so far the least hot. Minoan, Roman and Medieval were all hotter than today. When you google historic temps you get a lot starting in 1850, the end of the "little Ice Age "(1300-1850) and one of the coldest periods in the last 10,000 years, so it is the worst look you can squeeze out of the facts. Until Climate fanatics explain the previous warming spikes and why the started and stopped, they have no business asking us to believe them. No fossil fuels back then. A modern myth. The end of the last cold spell comes very close to the start of the industrialization of economies so it's basically a coincidence of two trends that are only fractionally related. Yeah we add a bit of C02 but that's not the cause of the warming trend.
I’ll be honest, when I think of climate issues I’m less concerned about temperature and more concerned about water, food and land wars.
I believe it all goes back to modern political methods and tactics. EVERY crises is to be utilized whether real or created by people and institutions who advance a narrative that allows them to herd or stampede populations into doing what they desire. These types of "end of times" tales and myths have been around since the dawn of time. Most were utilized by religions to consolidate power and control. Now with the modern religion of politics the utilization of the new "authorities" in the science community have been enlisted to validate the new "end of times" scare tactics. Any consensus supposedly reached by science has at its' root the gov't grants and funding of the never-ending "research" and the desired conclusions that keep the money flowing. These herding methods should be studied as ways small groups control and manipulate large segments of society.
Media narratives, "experts", ongoing drumbeats of misinformation and a govt. education system are the basis for much of the hysteria now scaring children and many adults. Funny how beachfront property seems to rise in value every year while doomsday predictions just get worse and worse.
This version of the left does. I don't think you can claim this was always the case. It's not like some of these institutions that actually did some noble things were of the right before (I'm speaking of ones like the ACLU). This left / right dynamic, while it can explain some stuff, is often a mistake and reinforces division rather than agreement. There are plenty on the left that hate this culture and at this point it would be far more effective to push back against this without these tired left vs right arguments muddying our ability to do so.
ACLU used to be very libertarian minded. They even took up cases to defend the rights of neo Nazis few decades ago. Now a days ACLU is nothing more than a democrat lapdog.
Agreed! But what they did in the past is EXACTLY why they demand respect.
Trust me, I have no love for the authoritarians on the right who want to whittle away our freedoms as well.
The amount of power the Left hands to the State will always ultimately result in the kind of "culture" and abuse of State power by authoritarian apparatchiks that the Left always claims it is against. The problem IS State power, which is ALWAYS ultimately abused by authoritarians.
When are the good, otherwise-intelligent, and obviously weel-meaning people of the Left going to wake up and stop turning to the State for your solutions to the problems of humankind and their societies?
All the while undermining the trust necessary for the successful operation, let alone the "nobility," of ANY public sector institution.
I think the vast majority of people still obtain their news and what they perceive as the truth from mainstream media. I's on Facebook, and that's what I see, and their comments reflect those sources, and the perspective they have on the world and events.
Relevant:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-main-sources-for-political-news-vary-by-party-and-age/
Specifically this graph:
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ft_2020.04.01_newssources_02.png
"Four of the eight sources named by at least 2% of U.S. adults are much more likely to be named by Democrats and independents who lean Democratic than by Republicans and GOP leaners: MSNBC, The New York Times, NPR and CNN. Fox News is the one outlet among these eight that is far more likely to be named by Republicans than by Democrats.
Those who name Fox News and MSNBC display roughly the same high levels of partisanship. About nine-in-ten of those whose main source is Fox News (93%) identify as Republican, very close to the 95% of those who name MSNBC and identify as Democrats. Similarly, about nine-in-ten of those who name The New York Times (91%) and NPR (87%) as their main political news source identify as Democrats, with CNN at about eight-in-ten (79%)."
I began to watch FOX news during the Trump years, because of the ugly degree of bias displayed by other news sites, especially CNN and MSNBC, although those sites pretty much turned me off years ago. I was a registered democrat and the ugliness of that political party really got to me, so I changed my affiliation and became an independent. I use to frequent left wing sites on line all the time, but in the era of Trump they proved to be as untrustworthy as their mainstream counterparts. Journalism hit a knew low during the Trump era. In essence what you are relating is that people will seek out the media source that substantiates there own particular bias, and the news media know it, and that's how they make their money now by giving people the news they want to hear.
Just a warning from more right leaning person - don't trust FOX either. Because once they get your trust, they will backstab you when time comes. Similar to how FOX did by declaring Arizona for Biden before the votes were even started to be counted. Don't trust any of the establishment media. Do you own research by digging for the source documents, without the sensationalized headlines from media and debate whether X and Y are okay or not if your political side did it.
And good to see you are already supporting independent journalists like Glenn Greenwald. Also check out people like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Viva Frei & Robert Barnes etc. Opposing view points from non-establishment types can be good to sharpen your own viewpoints.
I saw them call Arizona for Biden and it was confusing since it was so early in the game. I do listen, or read articles by Matte, Taibbi, and listen to Dore. At one point, years ago, I was affiliated with a group that would travel into Manhattan and we would hear lectures from people like Chomsky, or Hitchens. It was really an older group who was wide open to the truth, no matter what, and also came from a different era. All gone. Many of those on the left went over to the democrats and lost a any sense of perspective, and a lot like Paul Jay disappeared. I'm glad for Greenwald because he remains objective and way too many during Trump's years in office lost all sense of objectivity. There is a sense of sanity with Glenn.
Sharyl Atkisson, Consortium news as well.
And Bari Weiss, she is excellent.
She went on JRE and calling Tulsi an Assad Toady and when Joe called her out, she couldn't even define the meaning of the word "toady". Aka she's great at spouting talking point words without knowing what they mean. Then she resigned from NYTimes because she got a taste of her own medicine from her co-workers.
Every Sunday I look forward to Viv Frei and Robert Barnes live stream on YouTube. I have learned so much about law from them. Plus they have a good Wednesday interview program.
FOX 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗱 their viewers by declaring AZ for Biden??? That is backstabbing?? Holy sh**, dude. Don't take it so personally. FOX is known for their top-notch/professional election night coverage.
I watched the entire thing unfold live. They called az for Biden before a single vote was counted. But they refused to call Texas, Ohio, Florida etc for trump for hours. Something was afoot that day at fox. Their own host tucker Carlson called out the person who made the Arizona call.
I could not agree more. I will check the ones Idk and thx
Caity Johnstone.
FoxNews is just the current tallest midget among MSM sites. They are all bad, and FN is no exception, they just seem to be the least bad currently.
Well it's a lot better then MSNBC, or CNN, or NBC. I didn't have to listen to Trump hate for an hour or more, or continue how bad he was. I know pretty much what's going on and they certainly push things I'm not buying, but on some issues I am in agreement with what they have to say. The border issue is one of those issues. Interesting how Biden was so pro-wall, and now he's put out the welcome mat. I guess he's informing his flock of believers he's no xenophobic Trump. He's already proven he's no sexist, no racist, in choosing Kamala Harris as his vice present. Now he has to prove he's supportive of gays, who knows maybe he'll leave his wife and hook up with a gay guy.
He chose Harris? She was assigned by his masters. The masters have plans...
I would simply say that FN represents a different faction* fighting for supremacy within the Establishment.
Were that faction to win, they would behave no better than the current hegemonic faction.
*Technically, both factions are in fact coalitions of various factions that don't necessarily have a lot in common other than the same enemies, nor do they even like each other all that much.
Tucker on Fox is the only one worth watching and even him I don’t watch because I don’t want to support establishment media at all.
"that's how they make their money now by giving people the news they want to hear."
Corporate media is run like corporate PR. The PR department can lose money and nobody cares because their job is to disseminate corporate bullshit. Thats how it works now.
It’s sooooo obvious lol
Spot on. Which is why Uncle Jeff makes sure anyone who works for the government can read the Washington Post for free. What a magnanimous guy.
There's a term for what they're doing, it's called "Woke Supremacy". One set of rules for the woke, another for the rest of us.
The best example of this I can think of is the WH Press Corp's treatment of Trump, vs. their treatment of Biden. In the one case, Acosta jumping up without being called on and screaming out at Trump "why are you torturing innocent children and putting them in cages?". In the other, all questions agreed upon beforehand, and Biden coming to the dais with pictures of the reporters to call on, their names, the questions, and the prepared answers for Biden to read back.
.......and Biden STILL can't manage it.
Nothing from the American media. Everybody else is laughing their asses off at us, though.
Absolutely astonishing. Truly feels like being trapped in the "emperor is naked" fairy-tale. After the "press-conference" there were all these pretend serious op-eds in the media discussing this or that aspect of "Biden's policy" - when it was obvious that the whole event was tenuously staged, and that his brains loses coherence as each minute goes by (one hour is probably the max that can be stage managed at this point), and that Joe Biden has precious little to do in terms of setting any of those policies. I made a comment to that effect to Johnathan Freedland's article in the Guardian (a sickening, sycophantic piece) and it simply vanished.
The press conference truly confirms Biden cognitive decline.
Remember when Trump made a speech at the UN putting North Korea on notice. Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, Biden doing something like that? There’s not enough Aderrall in the world to pull that off.
"...precious little to do in setting any of those policies..."
Neither did Henry VI. They just hoped he would get through an hour of court without urinating on himself. Meanwhile Margaret of Anjou did the real work behind the scenes. The more things change...
Except Henry VI was, by all accounts, a decent and well-meaning guy.
The same cannot be said for Biden.
Syrian kids are just as bright and combustible as white kids.
Syrian kids ARE white kids.
I have come to enjoy your historical references, M. TheRadishSaltant. Thank you for this and all of them.
The CCP and Putin gang were glued to their devices watching Biden’s performance. They walked away very satisfied with what what they saw. The plan for world domination and the sidelining of America can go forward undisturbed.
Yes, pawn installed. Plan A still on track.
Americans only think in terms of domination. Zero sum game.
Well, in our defense, one could state it thusly:
"Americans only think in terms of avoiding being dominated, especially by freedom-destroying Authoritarian Socialists."
Look at Yahoo WH correspondent Hunter Walker's attempts to link the DC carjacking to "right-wing extremists"
These are the same journalists who said not a peep when fired Assistant FBI Director Andy McCabe raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal defense fees on GoFundMe. https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-mccabe-gofundme-page-legal-defense-fund-how-much-money-2018-3?r=US&IR=T
He's the powerful; he's the one that secretly fed them state secrets (which is the reason he was fired, or at least for lying about it). He's the epitome of "insider" and well-connected. Far from criticizing him, they actively promoted this. Journalism died long ago.
GoFundMe seems like a pretty convenient way to launder political contributions and pay offs. Just sayin'.
A lot easier and faster than buying prepaid credit cards if you are Chinese needing a way to make political donations.
"....if you are Chinese needing a way to launder political donations." fify?
He also got a nice gig at CNN. And Brennan, Clapper etc too at msnpc. Lisa page got one at Facebook.
Outstanding points on a solid foundation of truth. Finally, someone is telling it like it is. Thanks Glenn, for calling them out on their bullying.
Wow. Just wow. You are tough as nails Glenn. We flock to you because you tell the truth with clarity.
Frankly, it makes one want to contribute to the accused's defense funds. Just to spite these self-righteous fascist dolts.
At which point some enterprising “journalist” might hunt *you* down and “expose” you.
Thank you so much for the work that you do, Glenn. Watching journalists go after powerless people as if they’re fighting power has been disgusting, for years now. Trump finally gave well educated “liberals” (liberal being what I always considered myself, have even been that professionally) cover to attack the poors, and really let them know what they are.
Let them. It'd be a public service to perform a reverse Cloward–Piven strategy, and send them down as many rabbit holes as we can.
I have to tip my hat to USA Today. Not only does giving your entire journalistic staff the title of 'Intern' render them immune to criticism, it helps keep salaries low.
Female interns are the only ones immune to criticism.
Tell that to Monica Lewinsky...
If the Lewinsky episode happened today, she wouldn't have had to go into hiding. I believe it is today's zeit geist to which M. VanishingTribe refers.
Probably would have landed a gig as a commentator on CNN.
Nah, the wokesters still have it out for her for taking down dear beloved Mr. Rodham-Clinton.
Darn you, M. publius_x. I always forget about those woke gods, the Dear Leaders Clinton. You are right, of course, and now I have to forget those forgettables again.
The important thing is USA Today is the second largest paper in the country I've never seen? Just lucky, I guess.
All Mr. Greenwald has to do, has ever had to do, is repent , beg forgiveness, renounce Satan and Trump and all their evil works .. . and burn his MAGA hat on utube (they swear he's got one .. . hidden in the closet.), that's all.
*right now, as I speak, I've got a pod of frothing coastal elites demanding Mr. Greenwald resign from his paid subscribers at once.. . on the other line.
It's the second largest paper only because every hotel room occupant gets a free copy every day.
And bc it has stories 3 sentences long. It's adapted for those who won't read. Which means they can't learn.
"I've got a pod of frothing coastal elites....on the other line."
Party line, eh? They must be frothing to each other while they wait. I suggest turning up the "on hold" musak to unbearable levels.
Damn, Glenn, I love your reporting. But every time I read one of your articles . . . I get upset.
You say that like it's a bad thing...
Well, it is a common sarcastic refrain around here. (I want to italicise, not capitalize "sarcastic," but I don't know how.)
My mom always told me “Truth hurts” but you better know it.
AOC did the same thing--calling Jimmy Dore's legit criticisms of her as "violence."
Nothing says snowflake like equating criticism with violence.
“ AOC is the future Nancy Pelosi...”
Absolutely. And she can sense the power she is only a few years away from.
The guy she beat (anyone remember his name?) was being groomed as Ms. Pelosi's replacement. This provides Ms. AOC a "mystique" that she would be remiss not to take advantage of.
Not really, if her district gets whacked in redistributing, think she’ll make a run for Chuck’s job
I am sure you mean "redistricting." When is that scheduled to happen, and will it be controled by Pelosi people or AOC people? When is Schumer up for re-election?
Potato / potato...might have autocorrected by my PC iPad.
Schumer is up next year, redistricting should be in process, but think I read Cuomo is holding up the funding to a non-partisan commission
NYS is set to lose 1-2 seats in the House, AOC’s seat is one discussed for elimination
Wow, I hadn't heard that her seat (basically the Bronx, right?) might get eliminated. Isn't she popular enough that it would hurt the Democrats overall?
Thanks for the info, M. MDM 2.0. My questions are musings, so don't feel you have to keep responding!
"Doctors Should Refuse to Treat Republicans." Is this where it's going? Trying to prevent citizens from obtaining legal representation through harassment and threats seems just as repellent.
Someone accused of a crime, be they Jeffery Dahmer or Harvey Weinstein, is entitled to legal representation under the law. This is for everyone's benefit, not just the accused- don't these people see that? A fair trial means the person convicted of the crime probably actually did the crime. A railroaded suspect convicted without proper representation means nothing.
Remember after elections, AOC and others were tweeting to make list of trump supporters to get them fired from jobs? Some even created a website which lists everyone associated with trump administration to prevent them from getting future jobs.
Some are indeed having trouble getting jobs. Guy who falsified documents to justify spying on the opposition's presidential campaign- wasn't even disbarred.
I remember one of my first stories at a major newspaper as an intern, I was cautioned about running a perspective in an op-ed and told by a seasoned crime reporter, "when you write here you subject to the same standards as myself and any other writer," i.e.: we are not going to defend you on the grounds you are an intern. I wore that caution as a badge of honor, with an understanding that it informed integrity and principles that superseded my right to comfort. This is bizarre and unsettling, both the perspective of the story and the manipulative defensive. It goes against the entire philosophy of the SPJ code of ethics "minimize harm" section for starters. Utterly despicable.
Glenn deserves our maximum support.
Thank you, once again, Glenn for your invaluable work !!
Government, tech companies, and the mainstream press, will not be persuaded to stop the dangerous behaviors of cancelling those with whom they disagree politically.
I truly believe the most effective option, will be to create an alternative universe of private companies, either right leaning, and/or committed to not cancelling anyone.
Just as the mainstream press has been made less and less relevant by competion from alternative sources, the same must be done to create alternatives to GoFundMe, PayPal, AWS, Stripe / Square - maybe even Visa / MC - any vulnerable piece of the infrastructure needed for effect free speech, and effective monetary support for persons with disfavored political views.
This is far from over. I suspect it will get much worse. Playing defense by begging private companies to play fair, or for our corrupt oligarch controlled government to force companies to do the right thing, is foolish, IMO.
This is coming. I know this is going to sound a bit odd, but you have to pay attention to the crypto space to see the remedy. Decentralization and projects like IPFS will take back some of this power. IPFS is already here and will prevent companies like Amazon from shutting down a platform like Parler.
In addition to cancelling Amazon Prime, we now refuse to use Amazon at all. Somewhat of a pain, but do-able. The first few things I ordered, I had to look for, and pay shipping, but by buying directly from manufacturer I got it for a cheaper base price; so actually cheaper overall. It takes a bit of effort, but we can de-monetize the authoritarians, to a great extent.
You took the comment right out of my mouth. The key will be decentralization.
Decentralization = Capitalism.
Added beauty - decentralizing the internet will likely make it harder for the NSA to invade our privacy.
Thank you, I was not aware of this (though it does not surprise me: our half-free market still half-delivers supply to demands of all kinds, even political ones).
The comments in Substack cover a wide range of opinion, some of which I agree and identify with, and some I do not. That diversity of opinion and ideas is something that has been missing from nearly all news platforms for the past couple decades, and it is a welcome breath of fresh air. As the saying goes, if you have two people who agree with each other on every subject, one of them isn't thinking. It would appear that there now exists an immense demographic of non-thinkers.
I pessimistically wonder how long it will be before their leaders find a way to stifle these last bastions of free speech. I agree that things will get worse in the long quest to find and keep alternative infrastructure afloat.
"create an alternative universe of private companies"
This is otherwise known as "if you don't like it you can build your own platform." On its face it seemed feasible a few years ago, but then many tried, such as Parler, and got run out of Dodge by Congress, big tech and media in unison like the censoring sychophants they are.
So, just give up?
No way!
This is too important.
We need to fight for free speech every way we can.
The holes in this strategy need to be plugged as they occur, but also preemptively.
There is a growing acceptance of Authoritarianism and censorship by many on the establishment left, supported by a growing alliance of like minded businesses and wealthy patrons.
The former guardians of free speech, such as the old guard at the ACLU, are retiring or changing their philosophy. The ACLU now advocates for particular parochial interests, and apparently sees free speech as a problem, not a principle to be upheld.
Patronizing businesses who use the profits from my purchases to fund my political adversaries, and censor speech of *their* adversaries, is unacceptable. If this keeps up, I can see the ante being raised higher and higher - possibly to the point where we have parallel systems of - not just political media sources - but if regular businesses, with customers choosing based on politics.
This is far from ideal. But why should private interests from one political wing be allowed to collude to financially destroy anyone with whom they politically disagree, without any consequence? They absolutely need some consequences. Hit them in their wallet.
Parler is alive and well-ish, I assume: https://parler.com/auth/access
Check out Larry Sanger’s blog, he was one of the cofounders of Wikipedia and his next project is decentralization of basic services:
https://larrysanger.org/community/
The SALT deduction limit primarily affects the top 10% of households, indeed mostly the top 1%. It is part of the 2017 tax reform. The Democrats' effort now is to REPEAL that limit to help their wealthy supporters.
It's also a super insidious way of driving up your local taxes without really paying for them, because you get the federal credit.
Amazing that it was felt mostly in high state income tax states.
In Texas it had zero impact
That's a feature, not a bug.
half or more the criticism of Yellen is from women. How can that be misogynistic?
Define "run." All owners of public companies benefit from financial success, not just the "0.05%" (quotes to call out your hyperbole, as well as to indicate my scepticism) who run the companies and run the capital markets.
Generically bashing the corporation, or "corporatism," is barking up the wrong tree, imo. (I agree whole-heartedly with the sarcasm of your ultimate sentence. Yellen was chosen for her gender, again imo.)
Glenn these journalists are not separate from the “power centers”. They are a de facto voice of the state. That pretty much explains all of their behavior.
"The Smear", by Sharyl Atkisson, aptly documents and explains the formal structures and practices that tie big tech/oligarchs, government, and the press together. It is truly disgusting.
Another depressing book I have to read? Sigh.
That the USA Today reporters convinced Stripe and PayPal to shutdown the fundraising accounts for two defendants in the Jan. 6 riot was a most egregious interference by a time honored piece of shit newspaper.
USA Today was traditionally a joke of a paper -- but for the entirely different reason that it was incredibly superficial and lame. Now it's all those things and also woke.
The entire woke movement is a facade. The portion of the population who are true believers are the most naive of all, they are just being used as foot soldiers in the state’s radical move to an authoritarian, post constitutional state in which no opposition is permitted.
They are like the audience members who hysterically scream for one guy at a TV fake wrestling match, because they actually think the fight is real.
Agreed. It is a (highly effective) tool for the elite control group to distract and divide the masses while they rob the country blind.
Exactly. The woke demographic are given politically correct symptoms to distract from real issues.
The problem of cops with anger issues routinely committing murder with impunity, and too many of them, is explained away as racism. Undoubtedly most of them are racists, but that isn't the root cause.
Similarly, how long has it been since anyone has heard voices advocating for zero population growth? A massive reduction in the number of humans worldwide would reverse our global pollution and climate change problems (it's simple mathematics), but the "woke" mentality is to distract by focusing on the symptoms of climate change instead of an actual solution. Those funding the "woke" demographic want a renewable supply of cannon fodder and debt slaves, so they substitute the politically correct distraction topic of environmental issues for too many humans on the planet.
Toppling statues is easier than rooting out exploitation.
That's some good writing, right there!
And toppling statues is more immediate, more "exciting" (scare quotes because it shouldn't be), more "I'm finally taking action, look at me, I'm a....REVOLUTIONARY!!!"
When will the college hijinks of antifa get old.
(btw, population growth is slowing dramatically globally. Shhh, this might be officially frowned upon info!)
A Gannett Company. Pretty much says it all.