Friday, April 21, 2023. Matt Taibbi is being attacked by a pretend Congress member and it needs to be called out -- and she's actually harming election chances for the Democrats with her unhinged and rabid behavior.
These snapshots are dictated. I'm usually working out -- if I'm away from home, they're dictated while I'm running, otherwise I'm on a treadmill or stepper. Things are pulled all the time before something gets published. I dictate these primarily to three friends. And one would tell you that if I'm bothered by ______, he tells me "stop, you know it's not going to make it into the published snapshot." And he's actually right, it usually doesn't but _____ is so frustrating that it helps me get whatever out of my system. Sometimes something's dropped because it overwhelms something else that I want to emphasize. Sometimes it's dropped because I think I could do it better covering it the next day. Sometimes it's dropped for space, I think the snapshot's going way too long. Or maybe it's a humorous note in the wrong place.
Example:
Yesterday, Glenneth Greenwald raged at Mark Hamill (fine with me, Mark's not my
friend) and then Glenneth typed "From experience, no sub culture is
dumber than Hollywood." Oh, Glenneth, should you really talk about Jane
Hamsher that way?
Another dropped this week, longer, was on Matt Taibbi. We're copying and pasting that in. After I'll explain why.
I'm not a Medhi Hasan fan. That predates this decade and
goes back to Iraq and statements -- especially on THE DIANE REHM SHOW
-- that were flat out lies. Mehdi and Matt Taibbi got into it on
Mehdi's show not long ago. Ava and I covered it in "
TV: The media's lack of accountability."
Matt Taibbi is back from Disney Land and his trip to meet family in Hawaii. And he's back on Twitter.
Lee Fang is using Twitter to question Medhi's reporting.
Lee's charge -- use previous link -- is that Mehdi is guilty of
plagiarism -- a serious charge. There is no defense of, "I was only
writing about ___ and that's not hard news." You're a journalist and
you chose to write about it, you were required to be accurate and, no,
I'm not going into this in any greater length, it's not the 90s and
NEWSWEEK hasn't just lied that Chandler was the one handcuffing a
woman. (An error NEWSWEEK refused to correct and claimed, it was only
an entertainment story -- only. Rachel's boss handcuffs Chandler, for
those who didn't see the episode.) It was revealing about the author --
that he was a liar and that clearly he had his own kink at play if he
needed to see it a way other than how it actually happened. The same is
true of Medhi -- the spanking focus tells a great deal about him.
Matt seems to think this is where he (Matt) goes for the throat. It's not.
Don't know what to do here but speak slowly. Ava and my piece resulted in hysterics insisting we had crucified Matt.
The
topic of our piece was accountability. Confronted with errors, two or
three, Matt took accountability. When others lied after the interview
aired -- there appears to be a gulf between honesty and YOUTUBERS --
Matt took accountability and noted he did not come off well. We noted
he was one of the few adults in the room, we noted too many others that
week were not taking accountability.
That's not slamming him and it's definitely not crucifying him.
There
was an error in a Tweet. Not the end of the world. But when your
'report' is not a written report but a series of Tweets, yes, all Tweets
have equal value. He needs to write a report.
While
he went on vacation, a series of people have mocked him -- as he knew
they would. Not a slam for him going on vacation before someone e-mails
a "How dare you!"
My opinion, he should be working on a report. Not Tweets.
Here, Matt notes:
| | Lee Fang vs. Mehdi Hasan, Round 2Matt Taibbi I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend last week wondering how to undo any damage to the #TwitterFiles caused by ... |
|
|
Post-segment,
Hasan took the incredibly serious step of accusing me of lying to
congress. Talk about “press as police”: that’s a felony charge, and
Hasan has been insisting to everyone who’ll listen that I’m guilty of
it. Hasan's claim is
based on the idea that I was “suggesting a nonprofit was an intel
agency to try & prove government collusion/censorship.”
This
was a reference to my conflating the Center for Internet Security (CIS)
and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in a
#TwitterFiles tweet. One letter in an acronym may not sound like much,
but it would have been a serious mistake indeed, if I’d implied an
“intel agency” like CISA was partnered with Twitter and Stanford’s
Election Integrity Project, if it was not.
But
CISA absolutely was a partner to the EIP, as was the CIS. Hasan
appeared not to have been aware of this, which may be why (apart from my
bumbling demeanor) he seemed to think this was such a gotcha moment on air.
CISA, CIS, and EIP openly partnered through the 2020 election process, as TwitterFiles emails documents as well as publicly available information repeatedly demonstrate. I even tweeted months ago, in TwitterFiles #6,
that the two agencies were easily confused, as both were partners to
Stanford’s election initiative. Neither CISA, the CIS, Twitter, nor the
EIP has ever claimed CISA wasn’t a partner to the EIP project. It would
be an impossible thing to assert: there are too many public
announcements describing the CISA-EIP partnership. From the EIP’s own
website:
Hasan
said claiming CISA involvement with the EIP was “key to my thesis,” and
since this “thesis” wasn’t true, House Judiciary chief and
Weaponization of Government Subcommittee chair Jim Jordan needed to
correct the record. (He doesn’t). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose MO
these days seems to involve loudly planting a flag in every online wedge
controversy with any chance of trending, chimed in to claim the “entire
Oversight hearing and investigation” was “based on these errors,” and
therefore the GOP had wasted “tons of public time and dollars” on the
Files material.
To
say that all of this has been infuriating is a massive understatement. I
have three little kids and these people are accusing me of a serious
crime for which I could go to jail, yet they themselves are the ones
making the mistake. The sheer viciousness of the ploy is mind-blowing.
I
don't live in a world where no one makes mistakes -- I make mistakes
all the time. But I do expect to live in a world where people own their
mistakes.
If you're seeing me crucifying Matt or anything similar, that's your mistake.
We've
noted various reactions -- by reposting videos -- and people can have
whatever reaction they want. But speaking for me, the end of the world
would have been Matt saying, "No, no, I don't make mistakes." Instead,
he owned the one that was explored and I think he said he'd have to
check on the other but if he was wrong, he was wrong. He also owned
that it was a bad interview.
A
friend once had what she thought was a career-ender interview. It
didn't help that her (cheating) husband was against her doing the
interview to begin with and slammed her for it to everyone they knew.
She didn't get any sleep in the 24 hour period ahead of the interview.
You could see it in her eyes which were glassy and watering.
"Repetitive but effective" is how a major periodical termed her part of
the interview. She's a major communicator who had much more experience
with hostile interviewers. And she felt she choked. She could have
been better (and maybe with support from the hideous husband she would
have been). But it happens to everyone. I never forgave Barbara
Walters for that interview and I was so happy that it ended her marriage
-- she didn't just go after my friend, she harmed her husband's
business interest with that interview.
Most people don't remember the interview today -- not even the ones who watched it -- and it won the time slot.
Matt handled himself like a grown up.
I
didn't appreciate the people who lied and said, "Matt showed him! Matt
destroyed him!" I don't appreciate lies. By the same token, those
insisting that Matt's work on The Twitter Files got destroyed are also
lying. Again, he'd be doing himself a favor to write a report but his
work did not get destroyed.
Nor
did he lie to Congress. We reported on that hearing. I don't think
most of the people saying Matt lied before Congress know what they're
talking about. They don't appear to have even read his opening
statement, let alone know what he actually said at the hearing.
Lee
Fang has reasons to continue his probing of Mehdi's work. It would
probably do Matt better to leave that alone. Barbara Walters sold her
soul (many times over) and when she did (every time) the bill was
collected. Medhi, like Barbara, will have to live in a hell of his own
making. Matt should take comfort in that and not bother giving Mehdi
another thought.
People
were high-fiving Barbara Walters for her stunts. By not going after
her publicly but instead focusing on their own work, those Barbara
attacked came off looking better. There's nothing Mehdi benefits from
more than a back-and-forth on this issue. It fuels publicity for his
show and it fuels the people who do hate Matt. So the best thing Matt
can do is leave it alone, Lee Fang has it under control.
That was pulled for space and also because the piece Ava and I wrote was also slammed by some for 'rescuing' Matt so I wanted to read over it before I included it (which I haven't -- even now, I just said to paste the above in -- there's never enough time).
So the reason we're on Matt today, and we have to be, is a new attack on him which Glenn notes in this Tweet:
He also calls her a "fake" which she is. Go back to the
March 10, 2023 snapshot for when Stacey pops up on this site's radar (also to "
TV: The Tired and The Disappointing"). We didn't cover her in the '00s or the '10s when she was a Republican. Not because she was a Republican but because she was a failure -- she was an abject failure.
Stacey's a Karen -- yes, there can be Karens of color. They're women of color who steal roles that are not their roles to take, roles that belong to women of color. So if, for example, Raza Unida was looking for a spokesperson in 1971 and a woman of color seized that role? She may have been a woman of color but was she Chicano because that's was a Chicano political party? Nope. But she couldn't get a prominent role any other way so she stole the role from a deserving woman of color. That's how she ended up a Karen.
Stacey was a failure. She was born in the Brooklyn and she grew up there. She was a Republican and, until her 'strange' (you term as you'd like) 'relationship' with Bully Boy Bush, she was going nowhere. Strange? Kind of like MTG and Kevin McCarthy who touch and peer at each other on the House floor as though they're lovers and not colleagues. That sort of relationship led Bush insiders to joke that Bully Boy was grooming Stacey as his "Condi-spare."
For whatever reason, bowing and scraping didn't get her too far.
So she ends up moving to the Virgin Islands where she remakes herself -- I don't just mean the cheap weave, I mean she switches to the Democratic Party and begins running for office. Running for office requires her to switch to the Democratic Party because there is very little support for Republicans in the Virgin Islands. If you win the Democratic Party primary, you pretty much win the general election. (See her 2014 race, for an example).
So she got her fake weave, her fake political positions and she faked her way into office.
The Virgin Islands does not have real representation in Congress.
They have no voting rights. So she is a fake member of Congress.
She's also a fake member of Congress in that the office she holds is nothing but representational and, as such, should go to someone who grew up in the Virgin Islands.
But Stacey couldn't win on the mainland of the US. So she goes somewhere else to steal a seat. She's a fake ass Karen.
The Democratic Party needs to curb her and keep her on a short leash because she's not acting like a Democrat. That's why she seems like some strange object right now. She's bringing the worst of the Republican Party with her and it's not a good look for Democrats.
Let's go into the worst for a second so that we're all clear.
The
Republican-led House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday struck
comments from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and ended her time to
speak after she called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a
liar.
[. . .]
But as Greene continued with her comments, she criticized Mayorkas for the spread of fentanyl in the United States
“I
want to know from you, how many more people do we have to watch die
every single day in America? How many more young people do we have to
see die? How many more teenagers?” the Georgia Republican asked.
Mayorkas
tried to respond to the lawmaker, saying, “let me assure you that we're
not letting it go on,” before Greene said she was reclaiming her time
in the committee and called Mayorkas “a liar.”
Rep.
Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sought to have Greene’s words taken down,
saying “We have a history of being a bipartisan committee that works on
solutions. Now we can disagree, but we’ve gotten to the point of the
language that we're using is not the kind of language that historically
we as members of this committee have used.”
Committee
Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., approved the move, saying “identifying or
calling someone a liar is unacceptable in this committee.” The chair
then noted that Greene was no longer recognized.
No
longer recognized? She needs to be removed from the Committee. Her
applause for the leaker is disturbing. Her applause for mishandling
classified documents is appalling.
She should not be allowed to sit on the Homeland Security Committee.
WDBJ notes that
a closed door briefing on the leak was supposed to take place earlier
this week but did not and they quote Senator Tim Kaine stating, "There's
no way he should have been able to do this with the brazenness and
without his chain of command being aware of it. And so, there is a real
dereliction of duty by the chain of command that allowed this to go on
and I want to understand what consequences that are going to be there."
One
consequence should be expelling MTG from the Committee for applauding a
leaker -- not a whistle blower -- who took the documents online in
order to impress his 'buddies.'
MTG?
I just can't stand the press coverage of her that tries to treat her
as sane and rational. Glenn Greenwald and Tara Reade love her so I
guess they're admitting to loving racism.
Her
defense of the leaker? She applauded him for his race, among other
things. I've noted here before being at hearings where that woman can't
shut up about "White." She'll supposedly be expressing concern for
children, for example, but it will come out of her big mouth as "White
children." This happens over and over. She's a racist and this needs
to be noted. In 2023, Georgia's 14th Congressional district has elected
to be represented by a racist.
If
Georgia won't take their trash to the curb, Congress needs to. She
applauded the mishandling of classified information that makes her unfit
to serve on a Homeland Security Committee. For those who are too dumb
or sheepish to join that call, Marjorie could be a poster girl for
2024. "Today's Republican Party? It's not your parents party.
Marjorie Taylor Green, dangerous to national security. She Tweeted to
praise a man who mishandled classified documents noting that he was 'white, male, christian and antiwar.'
Ron DeSantis, dangerous to business and to taxpayers. He has left
Floridians in debt as he has launched one lawsuit after another at
DISNEY. Lauren Boebert, dangerous to the rule of law. If your son has a
wreck and has drugs on him, he'd be in jail, not so for Boe-Boe. . . ."
Just
go down the list. Just show how out of touch they are. That's your
campaign commercial. Especially in a bad economy. "They treat a
legislative session like encounter group therapy and that's why nothing
gets done."
Or "While
Ron was flirting with his 2024 run for president and attacking DISNEY,
Floridians were left having to beg the governor to do his job. As NEWSWEEK reported:"
Ron DeSantis is being put under further pressure to resolve Florida's gas shortage issue as Twitter users rage at the governor.
Southern Florida has been affected by gas shortages after
last week's extreme weather, most notably high levels of flooding,
disrupted the regular distribution and delivery of fuel.
Heavy
rain in eastern Broward County last week caused floods in Port
Everglades roads, preventing truck drivers from making fuel deliveries.
Social
media users have complained and shared clips of gas stations without
any fuel and the long lines they would have to queue in to get any gas.
The
ads write themselves but for them to be effective, those of you who
consider yourself foot soldiers of the Democratic Party should be
laying the groundwork now. I don't consider myself a foot soldier. People who are friends can pick up the phone and call and they'll offer an issue or something and ask me to game it out. And I will and I'm good at it. But writing like that here? That's not the role here. And I'm looking around wondering where are the Spencer Ackermans? They obsess over elections long before the cycles start. So why aren't they calling out Marjorie for her praise of someone who mishandled classified information? You don't save that for two weeks before the election. You build it and you talk about it and you chip away at her daily.
Back to Stacey. She really needs to be put in a corner and told to think about her actions. She's not just lying about Matt, she's harming the face of the Democratic Party.
Supposedly, Joe Biden's about to declare he's running for relection.
If that's the case and he gets the nomination (Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are both declared in the race for that nomination), the party's not going to be able to handle fake ass Stacey and her anger issues. Nor should we have to handle her, she's a bit player desperate for attention.
But if we get stuck with Joe as the nominee? The only card the party has to play is "We're responsible, look at those crazies."
When you got crazy Stacey, it makes it harder to play, "Look at the other side."
She is a non-voting member of Congress -- a woman who stole the seat from a person born in the Virgin Islands. It does matter.
Crazy Stacey needs to learn to shut up. She's nothing and she's never going to be something. Her tantrums in public get her press attention but it's not the sort of attention the Democratic Party needs going into a 2024 election -- especially if they end up saddled with Joe Biden as the nominee.
So that deals with Matt.
Let's deal quickly with Glenneth on another issue. Four people are accused of something by the government.
We've noted videos when others have defended them. I'm not defending them.
That's not saying they're guilty, that's not saying they're not.
Why would I defend people I don't know? I don't know the particulars other than they supposedly collaborated with a foreign government (Russia) -- on the face of it, the charge seems ludicrous and part of the re-starting of the Cold War. As we hear what evidence is available, I'll be better able to make a determination of where I stand.
But, as it stands, there are charges that have not been argued in court about four people I don't know. I would assume they are innocent -- and that's the legal assumption in this country. But that's about all I can say of the four of them.
Where to start? "They're coming for you next!"
I don't play with scare tactics. Yesterday, there was a woman who'd been hurt outside a building and after she had assistance and was fine, one of my friends said they always marvel over how calm I remain. Enemies would say, "How cold you are." I don't like drama. The woman needed help, first aid and greater medical assistance. When everyone was standing around her -- I didn't know these people, I was exiting the building -- building drama and nonsense, my loathing of drama kicked in and I began issuing orders because that's how you get a hysterical group to calm down and I began speaking with the woman that everyone wanted to help but no one was listening to.
That's because I don't respond to scare tactics. That's why I called out THE NATION with their "torture election" nonsense. They didn't know how the election was going to go but knew it could go one of two ways. To scare up voters, they started pimping the lie that the election in question would determine the fate of the US and where it stood on torture. No, for the American voters it was just another election.
So, if you're trying to get me to support the four, you're not going to win me over with, "They're coming for you next!"
No,
crazy, they're not coming for me. The US government didn't come for me
with the MEK. It's not coming for me with regards to Russia. Because
I'm not a devotee like Tara Reade. I don't worship Russia. I don't
worship the MEK. I've tried never to make this statement that I'm about
to make but to make it really clear, I'm going to have to.
The
MEK are, I'm sure, no different than you or me. However, their leadership is
creepy as can be. I defended them with regards to the US' legal
obligations to them. They are Iranian dissidents who were in Iraq.
Under Saddam Hussein, they had his support. When the US overthrew
Saddam, they had no protection. Some Iraqis felt the MEK was
threatening and carried out or would carry out violence against Iraqis.
That did not happen. The MEK felt they would be attacked by Iraqi
militias and troops and that did happen.
Prior to the attacks, the US government asked the MEK to disarm. They would ensure the MEK was safe if they disarmed.
They did what was asked of them.
And then the US wanted to walk away.
No. Under international law, they were required to provide protection.
I
got attacked constantly for defending the MEK. At one point, when I
was visiting a friend at the Justice Dept (I regularly lobbied for a
compassionate release for Lynne Stewart who was dying in prison), the
friend said, "We need to talk." He closed his office door and brought
up the MEK. To which I replied, "I'm not even offering, 'Look, you know
me.' Because that shouldn't matter. I am offering that you know
everything I've written online. I rarely mention them in campus
speeches but I'm sure you have notes on that. And I know you have the
only exchange that ever took place between the MEK and myself. The
leadership had e-mailed the public account to say that I should be
emphasizing this and not that." I replied back: Do not write me again.
I am not having contact with you. I cover the issue from my
perspective and I'm not coordinating any message with you. They replied
back in an angry manner."
They
creeped me out. I never said that then. I would prefer not to say it
now. I got a lot of flack for defending them. But every point I made
was sound and backed up by the law.
The fact that they (leadership) creeped me out has nothing to do with legal obligations.
Two
politicians with national profiles were investigated -- that is
public. I know both. One I know and I like, the other I can't stand. I
didn't bring their names up when speaking with DOJ. Because I didn't
know what they were doing and wasn't part of their effort.
What I did was done here. Anything stated on campus was reflected in statements made here.
I
never made the case that the MEK were saintly. I made the case that
the US government had a legal obligation. And made that case to the US
State Dept especially when a friend with the State Dept complained that
they were doing all they could and the MEK was responding that, no, they
wouldn't go there. At which point, I said legally this is not a travel
agency. They need to arrange for a host country. It can't be Iran
because they're Iranian dissidents. And it can't be a country cozy with
Iran. But other than that, if Sweden, for example, agrees to take 50
and this offer is made but the MEK says no, then the legal obligations
are over. Good faith efforts were made, a host country was found and
the MEK just didn't like it. Too bad. They're now on their own.
No
one's ever accused me of writing fan fiction for governments in other
countries. I would not end up in the boat that is sinking for four
Americans.
And I know that
and, with regards to the MEK, the US Justice Dept understood that as
well which is why I was not under investigation -- they had all I'd said
and the one communication I'd had with the MEK -- so don't give me the
nonsense of "This is how it starts!"
Tara's
crazy and Caitlin Johnstone is worse. The one thing I've yet to call
Tara is "coward." Tara's not a coward. Caitlin is. I'm tired of you
pathetic losers in other countries who won't call out your own country
but continue to fixate on the United States. Caitlin, you live in
Australia. Police your own government. It's far from perfect. John
Howard took your country to war -- the Iraq War -- and you had nothing
to say about that. You did make time to Tweet about Bully Boy Bush on
the 20th anniversary.
How
brave!!!!! I'm not impressed. I call out Joe Biden here. I called out
Donald Trump. I called out Barack Obama. I called out Bully Boy
Bush. I'm not a scared bunny who can't call out her own government.
Robert Pether has been held in an Iraqi prison for two years now. He's an Australian citizen. When exactly does Caitlin intend to call that imprisonment out? When does she intend to hold her own government accountable? After Robert's dead.
No, she'll probably still be a coward then.
Catilin Tweets, "Look at the bizarre verbal gymnastics they're performing to justify outlawing political dissent."
Do they not speak English in Australia.
She's
referring to these words in a WASHINGTON POST article: "conspiring to
have US citizens act as illegal, unregistered agents of the Russian
Government."
Again, is it English that's the problem. She didn't highlight the full sentence. Maybe grammar is her problem?
At any rate, I've looked at what's known publicly.
Not a lot is known publicly.
So you won't see my staking my reputation on four people I don't know when they are surrounded by unknowns.
I think a lot of people are stupid.
When
I defended Tara, I didn't vouch for her character. Within a few weeks
of her going public, her character did not impress. But even when it
wasn't a known issue, I didn't vouch for her character. I said she was
credible (I still believe that and that she had more supportive
documentation backing her up then in any other he-said/she-said).
But I don't know her from Adam.
I'm not going to be an idiot.
Caitlin
and Tara are idiots. They're telling you that nothing happened. They
don't know that and they don't know the people involved. I'm not an
emotional person. I'll cry for children and I'll cry for Iraq. But I'm
not someone who gets conned over and over.
Crazy people are the ones screaming, "They're innocent!"
You
don't know that. I support them getting a strong defense, I support
the press looking seriously into the charges. I don't believe anything
is true just because someone in the government or a government agency
insists it is.
I'm not getting tripped up in this because I'm not pathetic.
And
I really do think a lot of people are pathetic because they have to
butt in to topics they know nothing about and insist that this is true
or that is true or I peered into his soul and saw . . .
I don't have time for the nutty talk, sorry. "This is how it starts! They're innocent!" I don't indulge in nutty talk.
If
I know you, I'll defend you or say I think you're guilty. When I
don't know you, I'm not playing a fool and stepping forward just because
others are.
I went to the matt for Lynne Stewart because I knew Lynne. I lobbied everyone who would listen in the Justice Dept, I begged the White House, and I'd do it again.
But the reason that I can make a case like that, the reason people will sometimes listen, is because I'm not the drama queen. I'm not running barking after every ambulance.
The people -- I don't believe Glenn did this -- who were lying that Matt won in the exchange on MSNBC? They just made it harder to defend Matt next time because he didn't win. Your own eyes told you that. And all you revealed was that you'll say anything so why should anyone believe you?
While we're talking about Congress, and as we wind down, something needs to be clarified because there's a lot of confusion out there.
Dianne Feinstein does not own a Senate seat. She occupies a Senate seat.
That
seat is reserved for someone who represents California. Dianne has
overstayed her welcome by many years. She no longer is present in DC.
That's her job. I don't care that she's a she, I don't care that she's a
Democrat. I do care that she can't do her job.
As
a California voter, I'm not paying for her to sit on her ass at home
and derail the work of the Senate -- especially not the Senate Judiciary
Committee. If a Democrat does not win the White House in November
2024, it's very likely that we will see more court packing like we did
from January 2017 to January 2021. Judges need to be appointed now
because there is a backlog of cases. The Republicans are happy to let
Dianne run out the clock on Joe's judicial nominees. I'm not.
This is bigger than her sorry ass. She needs to do what's good for the collective and step aside.
In
two months, she'll be 90 years old. She needs to step down. She is
owed nothing. This is an elected position that has certain job
requirements. She is not fulfilling those job requirements, she needs
to go. I don't fire people very often but when I do it's because they
are not meeting the job requirements. Call me cold blooded but I never
feel bad for firing someone who is not doing the job they were hired
to do. That's now the case with Dianne.
The following sites updated:
