For years and years, Matt Taibbi's name was not mentioned here. I never typed it. I sometimes alluded to him and noted that someone who knows us both asked me -- back in the '00s -- never to write about him. Begged me. BM is how we'll refer to the person.
He has many problems. Including he doesn't wipe his ass either correctly or enough. Not sure which but when BM was insistent that I not write about Matt, I jokingly shot back, "What's the worry? He doesn't know how to wipe his ass?" The face told it all. "For real?" I asked. Yeah. People have complained walking behind him. Wipe your ass, Matt, wipe your ass.
So I didn't write about him. I didn't type his name here. I didn't follow him. I didn't read him.
He's become more devolved than usual of late and he keeps getting himself into one mess after another. At some point, in the last few years, I notified BM that the promise was over. BM understood and said that was fine and thanked me for keeping it for almost two decades.
What changed?
The main thing was that he started intruding into my world. We had overlap. And now I had to encounter him.
I've tried to be kind here towards him. I've wanted to say, long before he stopped hiding behind the baseball cap and having his friends use photos of him with hair, that he needed to grow the hell up and either get plugs or stop trying to pretend he wasn't bald. It's not that difficult, make a decision and own it.
When he was attacked in a Congressional hearing, I defended him. I wrote a lengthy piece defending him -- we even re-posted it at THIRD. I called out the members of Congress (all Democrats) who attacked him.
I noted it was the worst behavior I'd ever seen at any Congressional hearing.
Let's note another thing, I was appalled by the attacks because it was on Matt.
Sorry to break the news, but Matt has developmental issues and has his entire life. It would have been obvious even without any information. He struggles to speak and this is not a new thing. He can do fine -- or semi-fine -- if he knows the topic and/or gets to pick it. And it was harsh to watch Congress beating up on someone when it was so obvious that not only were they out of bounds but the witness before them truly was trying to answer their questions but was struggling due to developmental issues.
Whether they picked up on that or not, they were being bullies. What they did was wrong.
I'm writing this today because Matt's the bully. I started to type "now." No, it's not as of now. It's just that I only now found time to go through everything.
If I'm not supposed to talk about you, I'm not going to follow you or read you.
So I knew what BM told me. And otherwise avoided the topic of him.
Matt wants protection and hugs. Why should we give it to him? He's the bully.
When it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, he is the bully.
He is a transphobe. Now he's got developmental issues so he may not grasp that. But he's the bully.
And it didn't start today or yesterday or last week or last year.
In 2020, science journalist Helen Santoro warned everyone against him.
Please nobody speak to @matttaibbi at @RollingStone. I just got off the phone with him - He is transphobic and is currently writing a piece about how science backs transphobia. Please share this widely. #TransRightsAreHumanRights #scicom #TransIsBeautiful
— Helen Santoro (@helenwsantoro) August 25, 2020
This has been going on for some time. He's been attacking the trans community for some time. He's been mocking them -- often with his friend Michael Tracey -- and he just seems to think it's funny.
Again, he's a little slow. But that doesn't excuse his behavior.
He's whining these days about the IRS and how he's been targeted. I don't know that he was targeted. I think everyone who faces an IRS audit feels targeted. (I file the simplest return and always have. I don't take most of the exemptions I could and do so because I know too many stories of people losing everything over back taxes.)
But he says he's being targeted. Okay. Let's say he is.
Why should I waste my time defending him?
"Because this could happen to anyone!"
I don't think it could happen to me (I don't even claim medical -- not even all my eyes surgeries in the last few years -- not even my hospitalization in 2020).
If it happens to other people, I might worry. But, no, it's not my job nor my duty to worry what the f**k happens to you?
There are a hundred more pressing issues in this world. And, no, Roger Waters isn't one of them.
Why should I fret over you when you're a bully.
Are there hundreds of bills across the country trying to deny your very existence?
F**k you, you Uncle Fester looking piece of crap.
You are married and you can walk down any street in the country holding your spouse's hand with no one bothered -- unless, they're walking behind you and you again failed to wipe that dirty ass.
You are no more important than anyone else. And your 'plight' is minimized by your repeated attacks on people who are already under attack. You are a bully. You were the goony boy in school that everyone mocked and made fun and you're still trying to fit in with the ones you thought were cool -- and doing the same damn way -- by picking on people who are already picked upon.
I have no idea why that enrages me but I've never been able to stand watching someone pick on someone in a weaker position. It enrages me.
So, no, Matt, I don't honestly give a damn about you and whatever problem you've brought upon yourself.
We've noted Dan Froomkin many times over the years. Unlike Matt, he's actually covered Iraq. He and Matt had words and you can read about it here in this 2022 article but we'll note this part -- Dan's messaging Matt:
Sigh. Your main goal these days seems to be to attack the left. I probably agree with you about most of your individual (anecdotal) concerns and I agree that fighting censorship is crucial work. I think the modern Democratic Party is a corrupt and inept mess. But by focusing so much on those problems, rather than the so much greater (systemic) threats from the GOP, you’ve undermined your credibility. You’ve effectively thrown in with the smug and the right, who consider “cancel culture” (whatever it is, as the NYT so artfully put it) more important than book-banning, barring discussions of inequality in schools, criminalizing transgender, limiting the vote and only honoring the results if they win. I remain a steadfast progressive, fighting the good fight, happy to be unoriginal in its pursuit. I worry that you have become addicted to trolling, rather than to brilliantly afflicting the powerful, which I always felt was your superpower. (Keep sticking it to the neocons!) As for whether I would publish a “wide range of perspectives,” yes I would, and that includes Republicans, fascists, racists, you name it – as long as there’s a good reason to do so. You’d know that if you’d clicked that link! https://presswatchers.org/2020/06/theres-a-better-way-to-present-opinions-online-with-radical-transparency-and-the-new-york-times-should-lead-the-way/ Anyway, I’m hopeful we’ll both be and feel like we’re on the same side again someday. D
I don't have a problem with people holding Democrats accountable or members of the left accountable. I do have a problem with them doing that while glorifying hate merchants like Tucker Carlson and MTG and John Stauber and so many others. It's one thing to practice fairness, it's another thing to whore.
Matt gets paid to whore. I guess there really are people into scat.
At any rate, he pretends he hasn't changed. But he has. (Glenn really hasn't changed. In his article, Dan says Glenn has changed. Glenneth Greenwald was never a leftist. That's why he cheerleaded Bully Boy Bush and why he cheered on the Iraq War. He got himself a hag on the left -- ugly woman, very untalented, she was run out of the film community and tried several other options but never found success. As a failure, she made the perfect hag for Glenneth. Hag, not beard.)
Even BM who begged me all those years ago to not say a word here ever against Matt admits today that he has changed.
In 2022, he wrote some garbage that included this:
Over the years I’ve probably interviewed twenty people in this field, usually over speech issues. These ranged from a trans activist who screamed at me before the first question (as part of a “censorship” story I ultimately decided not to do, because the complaining trans-skeptic wasn’t really being censored), to others like Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who for 35 years headed Canada’s Gender Identity Clinic. I’m obviously no expert in the field, but I do know about media, and the Zucker case was a clear example of press malpractice. It also showed how a dynamic one colleague tabbed the “either TERF or saint” formula has become a mandatory coverage template.
I'm not interested in what Canada's doing. I don't mean that in a mean way. I mean that in I have serious things to address and am not the world police. Unlike the US government, I don't confuse my role with being the cops of the world. I have things to follow here, I have things to follow that have nothing to do with this such as charity work and I've got health issues. I'm accepting the fact that I most likely will be unable to see in the near future. Including this here because it won't get answered otherwise. The HBO documentary on Mary Tyler Moore. I haven't seen it. For those of you e-mailing about how Ava and I were right about Mary not being able to see when she did HOT IN CLEVELAND, we wrote about that in real time not because anyone on the set told us, we wrote about it because it was obvious from the lighting, the blocking, etc. She could not see.
I speak to groups -- via ZOOM and in person now that we're not worrying about COVID anymore (didn't say we shouldn't be worrying, just said society is not worrying anymore) -- I write for the community newsletters, I churn out stuff here and at THIRD and I don't have time to wonder what's going on in Canada and how they're handling their issues.
I don't mean that in a mean way. I just don't have the time. And you'd be surprised exactly how much time I am currently putting in on laser and injections in my eyes and constant doctors appointments (the retinal bleeding has gotten much, much worse). I don't whine about it. I don't complain about it and I'm trying to be as whatever about it as I can. Again, I'm prepared for the fact that I will most likely lose my sight.
So reading that passage, my first thought it: What the hell's he talking about and who's that doctor?
The doctor was fired -- and later got a settlement. But he was fired and I'd say fired for cause, He wasn't doing science or medicine. He was misusing his role and trying to do the equivalent of conversion therapy. In other words, it was like you needed an abortion and ended up with one of those quacks who pretends they can help you but once your in the office they're going to try to guilt you into not having an abortion.
So that's who he's defending. Not anyone transgender, not anyone under attack. A doctor was a quack and no longer has a practice and that's who Matt cries tears for. He's an extreme capitalist, isn't he?
Again, that's what happened in Canada. I live in the United States. Generally speaking, when the right can't find an example to make whatever ludicrous attack they want to make with examples from our country, they go searching for other countries. This had nothing to do with US.
We have our own set of laws. I thought the right fretted over the idea of one government, of a world government. Why are they always so eager to look at other countries to insist something dreadful is happening in the US?
Matt feels there's been a conspiracy (Matt Walsh does as well) in the way Walsh 'documentary' (attack on transgender people) has been ignored.
It's no conspiracy. It's just the way the world works. I wouldn't expect a bubble-enclosed idiot like Matt Taibbi to grasp that.
What's the title of the 'documentary'? WHAT IS A WOMAN?
I'm sorry what year is it? 2023. And what country are we in? The United States of America.
As a feminist, I'm not at all surprised that a media geared towards reaching males would have zero interest in any film -- documentary, drama, comedy -- entitled WHAT IS A WOMAN?
If Matt looked around his tiny little world, he might notice things.
But he's deluded and delusional.
Here's Nathan Robinson (CURRENT AFFAIRS) on the hateful piece of trash Matt Walsh made:
Walsh’s documentary, a feature-length attack on transgender people that accuses them of being delusional about reality and posing a threat to women and children, has been praised by those who sympathize with his viewpoint. Nina Power of Compact magazine (whose previous work includes “Why We Need The Patriarchy”) calls it a “searing and unforgettable indictment of today’s gender ideology that should rouse action across the political spectrum.” City Journal compared Walsh with Ralph Nader for his formidable trenchancy as a social critic and said that “once in a while, a book or movie comes along that jolts American society and sparks a demand for social reform. … Will [What Is a Woman?] one day be remembered as the moment when the tide began to turn on transgenderism?”
I have long believed that it’s unwise for those of us on the left to ignore right-wing arguments, or attempt to censor them. Doing so lends credence to the other side’s claim that we have no effective response and are trying to suppress the truth because we are snowflakes who cannot handle the Facts. The tendency of liberal and left-leaning publications to avoid reviewing right-wing books and films is quite real, and in my own view ill-advised. While there are understandable hesitations to “platform” or “give oxygen to” bigoted arguments, or to enter into an academic debate with those who dehumanize trans people or people of color, in my own view there should be clear and persuasive refutations of the right’s propaganda readily available.1 This will at the very least discredit the claim that the inability to respond is behind the decision of most critics to ignore a given piece of work.
I realize that I am somewhat “taking the bait” by debunking the film in response to Walsh’s taunt about nobody being willing to debunk the film. Recognizing this, however, let me lay out for those (like Matt Taibbi) who think the film is something other than bigoted, ignorant trash precisely why it is bigoted, ignorant trash.
The core conceit of What is a Woman? is that Walsh goes around speaking to a bunch of lefties, transgender people, and pointy-headed experts (a gender studies professor, a psychiatrist, a pediatrician, a doctor who performs transition surgeries), and “stumps” them with the simple question “What is a woman?” Taibbi says that Walsh “tries and fails to get trans activists, academics, and medical professionals to offer a definition of womanhood” and in doing so “pranks the pants off America’s silliest intellectuals.” The “experts” are “unable to give a straight answer,” says Spiked. At the end of the film, after failing to get the desired simple answer to the question of what a woman is from any of the lefty kooks destroying America, Walsh asks his wife the question. She gives the simple answer that a woman is “an adult human female,” then asks him to help her open a jar of pickles. (Because as a woman she is weak and needs a strong man’s strong hands to help her open jars, you see.)
Nathan actually misses a point with regards to the hate film, as does Matt. Most feminists don't miss it. We don't need a man who doesn't work with women asking a question that we've asked for decades, for centuries. Go to Sojourner Truth most famously (her "Ain't I a Woman" speech). We've long navigated that and long known it is not one simple answer.
Tell me who you long for
In your secret dreams
Go on and tell me who you wish I was
Instead of me
I'm not necessarily
The girl you think you see
Whoever you want is exactly who
I'm more than willing to be
I'll be carefree
A Peace Corps trainee
Your Gypsy Rose Lee
To please you
Who cares what I might be for real
Underneath my games
I'll let you chose from a thousand faces
And a thousand names
I'm not necessarily
The girl you think you see
Whoever you want is exactly who
I'm more than willing to be
I'll be insane
A mathematical brain
You Tarzan, me Jane
To please you
Carly wrote with that Jacob Brackman -- it appears on Carly's ANTICIPATION album -- and here's another reality for women from Carly and Jacob.
"I worship your opinions and I imitate your ways/ Try to make you grace me with a word of praise/ How ever much I tell myself that I'm strong and free and brave/ I'm just another woman raised to be slave." Carly Simon, Peggy Lee, Patti LaBelle, Millie Jackson, Laura Nyro, Holy Near, Cris Williamson, Joan Armatrading . . . There are women who have a huge body of work that goes to answering what a woman is and it's not one thing. I know that's so hard for the either/or set. But it's not one answer. Let alone, one simple answer.
Most males like Matt Taibbi haven't bothered to do the work and have no idea what we're even talking about. And why is that not surprising? But now that these men want to trash trans women, they're suddenly pretending to be interested in what being a woman entails.
Matt is a straight man. He's not short. He's not a child. I say that to explain that his height, his age, his gender, his skin color all effect the way he sees the world.
Repeating, he can hold hands with his spouse in any city in the US as they walk down a street. He can even do that with a mistress if he wants.
But a same-sex couple? There are streets in this country that they can't walk down holding hands without being in fear. Things had been getting better but then came the hate merchants. Now imagine being a trans woman and walking down the street.
Again, it won't occur to Matt Taibbi because he's not a person of color, he's not a woman, he's not LGBTQ+. There's never been any reason for him to fear anyone would attack him physically for what he is.
He will never grasp that because he honestly doesn't give a damn.
But thanks to the hate merchants, LGBTQ+ people have to worry. They're American citizens but they now have to worry about their safety in a way no reasonable person could have expected to happen.
But that's where we are now.
Even Pride events are being targeted.
And instead of calling this out, Matt Taibbi joins in. He celebrates Matt Walsh. He tries to normalize Matt Walsh.
This is unacceptable. He is a transphobe. He isn't left.
We are not highlighting him anymore. He thinks his safety and peace of mind is important. But he's okay with attacks on trans people and with mocking trans people. That's not left.
And those -- I mean Katie Halper, Aaron Mate, etc -- associated with him? We're not highlighting them until we see them cover some issue to do with the attacks on LGBTQ+. Guilt by association? Call it what you want. I'm not using my platform to promote homophobia or transphobia.
People are dealing with death threats. The whole point of the hate merchants and their attack on Pride is to remove LGBTQ+ people from public life, to erase them. I'm not on board with that and never will be.
So, yeah, you do have to put up.
Matt doesn't talk to people of color or (left) women or trans people or . . .
And we see that all over at YOUTUBE. So, yeah, put up or shut up.
Forget: What is a woman?
The question is: Where are the women?
They're not on YOUTUBE. Not on the programs associated with Matt. THE KATIE HALPER SHOW has more male guests than female guests. There are more women in the US than men. So how it is that her show has more male guests than females?
And it's not just her or only her. Nor should she, because she's a woman, bear a burden that men don't. But look around and notice that whether it's BREAKING POINTS or GREYZONE or DUE DISSIDENCE or what have you, it's male, male, male . . .
Women aren't invited to the table.
That doesn't surprise me. Ava and I were noting in 2005 how COUNTERSPIN dared to slam PBS' NEWSHOUR for having more male guests than female guests. Why slam them? Because COUNTERSPIN had even greater imbalance in terms of their own guests. By all means, call out PBS, but how about some self-awareness when you do. And, of course, Ava and I did the year long study on THE NATION magazine and found out just how many more men than women THE NATION published. And we ignored their offer of 'sweeteners' and 'favors' if we'd only drop the study. We didn't. We did it for a full year and updated throughout. The easiest thing for THE NATION to do, since they knew we were tracking every issue, was to improve the rate of women published. Don't try to bribe us, don't offer us publication -- we're already publishing at THIRD -- to shut us up. Just fix your ratio of male bylines to female bylines and we'd have nothing to write about.
By the same token, I'm damn tired of having to repeatedly point out the Whiteness of it all. And I'm tired of seeing African-Americans, for example, only brought on the show when you want to do a segment on racial issues. I'm 100% behind Karen Hunter on that. It is insulting. People of color are effected by the economy, they're effected by school practices, by healthcare, by everything in the world. This notion that you White podcasters only to need bring on a person of color when it's a 'race' issue is ridiculous.
And you're the same ones, please note, that accuse others of 'identity politics.' You're the ones hissing and booing something that is nothing other than basic fairness. But when you're Jimmy Dore or whomever (and it is not just Jimmy Dore, this is not pick on Jimmy Dore) and you only bring on an African-American because you've decided to slam Kamala Harris and you need a Black face to hide behind?
You're the one practicing the very behavior you claim is "identity politics."
Matt refuses to speak with transpeople. He'll speak to the people who hate them. He'll joke and fun with those people. But, from all everyone's saying, he only wants to speak to trans people and experts on trans issues if he can attack them. It is bigotry. It is an uneven playing field. It is prejudice.
It's like prejudice
For the color of your skin
Prejudice for a woman
Prejudice for an animal
Like the elephant of the plain
Of the plain
For greed not need
Societies sleep
Lead the killing hand on
Young ones full of spark
A wave of birds across the park
Kids climbing
Sliding, riding free
Elephant child hiding
Behind a tree
Prejudice
For an animal
Like the elephant of the plain
-- Laura Nyro, "Lite A Flame (The Animal Rights Song)" -- best version appears on LAURA: LIVE AT THE BOTTOM LINE.
All trans people are trying to do is live their lives. For that basic thing, they are being attacked and persecuted. And Matt Taibbi and the others think it's funny. It's not funny. And it gets more dangerous every day for LGTQ+ people. If you're not standing up for them, you're not helping. And if you're justifying hate merchants, you're actually harming.
I don't have time for it. And those who have not addressed real issues don't deserve to be up here. Yeah, I know Mayim thinks she's made up for her mistake. She hasn't. She knows that and she knows I have no interest in noting her. So if I'm doing that with people I actually know, you YOUTUBERS who think you should be noted -- better think again. If you can't do the basics to stop the spread of hate, you really shouldn't claim to be left or have any platform because your doing nothing of value and certainly nothing to help.
It's only going to get worse the longer idiots like Max Blumethal's wife think they can mock transgender people.
So basically, in terms of what and who we can and will note right now: it's BLACK POWER MEDIA, Karen Hunter, A-Z, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, DEMOCRACY NOW!, SHERRI!, Jennifer Hudson, QUEER NEWS TONIGHT, Nina Turner, etc.
I wouldn't have thought Matt Taibbi would be a transphobe and that he would ridicule trans people while they were under attack. I was wrong. So, sorry, everyone's going to have to prove where they stand from this point forward. I can't -- we can't -- make the mistake of assuming 'So and so's left so we know they won't be a hate merchant.' Nope. Some are on the grift train and know they can make more money with hate. That's nothing new. It's always been that way. The overlords of conservatism have always been well funded, most discover that in college when they note how the small GOP clubs have better funding than the larger Democratic clubs. It's always been that way. And many have always been happy to sell their souls instead of stand up for the rights of all.
