In other words ... pic.twitter.com/61Bzx9aaw7
— Adam Bonin (@adambonin) March 27, 2021
I don't know who "the Bruenigs" are, and I haven't paid too much attention to the metamorphosis of Yglesias, but I have been following the transformation of Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan, and these tweets strike a chord.
I've got to hypothesize that this has something to do with the financial incentives at Substack, where Yglesias, Greenwald, and Sullivan have relocated. Again, I have no idea about "the Bruenigs."
It's possible that when Yglesias/Greenwald/Sullivan says something that jibes with conservative ideology, it gets massive linkage that translates to cold hard cash. Imagine trying to think with such static.
Or do you have more of the Samuel Johnson view of it? "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Maybe it's hard to imagine writing without feeling that your fingers tapping on the keyboard are printing money? It's the definition of professional.
I have no idea, really, what Yglesias/Greenwald/Sullivan are doing — what they consciously believe they are doing, what they want deep down, how they really lean politically, and whether they're authentic in their writing. I can only decide what sort of thing I want to read — what to invite into my head.
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189 comments:
That tweetering guy is a "DailyKos featured writer", so it doesn't matter what he writes or claims to think.
Greenwald is intellectually honest, as is Taibbi. Sully is a fraud.
Anything at a subscription site is invisible.
Greenwald has been pretty consistent. This list leaves out Matt Taibbi, probably because he so obviously breaks the mold. Sullivan always struck me as a weathervane more than an authentic voice. I don’t read Yglesias because he always seemed to just echo the party line, but his appearing in this list makes me believe he may have swallowed at least half a red pill.
The upshot to me is we shouldn’t take seriously slander that treats all these writers as a unit.
A remarkable similarity to Uday "Hunter" Biden is suggested by the Wikipedia article about Matt Zoller Seitz:
... He was married to Jennifer Dawson from 1994 until her death on April 27, 2006. They had two children, Hannah and James Seitz. Seitz married his second wife, Nancy Dawson, who was his first wife's sister and the ex-wife of his brother Rich, in February 2017.
Greenwald et al have become rightly appalled at the hyper-Progressive "mean girl" cult that has taken over the traditional media and have found a way out. They are to be commended.
I've wondered about the same thing with Greenwald and Sullivan--and of all the things could put my money toward, I've been compelled to financially support Andrew Sullivan. I don't even pay for an HBO subscription or Hulu on TV--but I was personally driven to support *him.*
Why? Because I had the sense that he wanted to convince me of something by being reasonable, (truly) considering both sides of an argument, and he understands that the way forward (or at least the best way forward) is to draw people in--over time--by agreement.
Look--I don't necessarily WANT to give up my ideological principles--but I've always been willing to listen and argue about them--and I appreciate the willingness to concede some things in The Daily Dish and it's apparent genuine sense of respect for different ideological principles in each other that I find there.
(It's not too far off from what I find here!)
I think that the reason some of these writers produce via substack is they felt increasingly constrained by the woke editors and publishers of more traditional periodicals.
Maybe, just maybe its that conservative views align more readily with individual freedom and when the Left/Regressives are coming for everyone, that means EVERYONE. When Greenwald, and I guess Yglesias and Sullivan (and Taibbi) find that the truth is being censored or changed, fiction is being presented as truth- and there is no attempt to even hide it any longer, it's just shoved right there in front of your face, they sought a place that allows for some morsel of truth to come out. Or at least a differing opinion- without being removed from society. They want freedom to think, react, comment.
Of course, on the Left, that goes against the Authority Opinion, so they must be cast out and denigrated. To claim that Greenwald (or Taibbi) are some sort country club snots is so shallow and anti-reality it's not even worth replying to. But it is the standard by which corporate Journalism! operates these days. Truth is nothing. The Narrative is everything.
I am able to read articles on Substack without paying. Am I the only one?
The pay wall seems to be only for those who want to comment.
It is incredibly courageous that Greenwald and Taibbi are attempting to report on the monstrous nature of our current "journalism", and having to move to a safe site to publish.
I cannot imagine the crucible of punishment they are receiving by their compromised peers. This one is kinda fun at least.
G*dspeed, America
Yglesias was so much a part of the problem for so many years, I don't think I can take him seriously, though I should probably see if he's evolving at all. But the others, I'm already reading regularly and in the case of Greenwald and Taibbi, I have been for a few years. I saw them as among the very few 'brave' voices on the Left. And by brave I only mean that they did not follow the narrative. For many on the right, that's just a typical day in the neighborhood.
Taibbi and greenwald are the thompson maybe if stone, how do they become the swells
Once again the lack of self-awareness on the left is stunning. They are the country club snots.
"jibes". well done.
They dont have an argument, so this emperors new cloths is what they are left with.
Or, it could be explained by the fact that we live in an age, much like the period of the Enlish Civil Wars, in which labels are moving faster than the beliefs held by honest, thinking people. There were some liberals who meant what they said (words have meaning, people should be free to do what they want, etc.) and those concepts are now solidly conservative orthodoxy.
Sullivan is gay and I think Greenwald is too? So probably a homophobic tweet. A "sweater tied around your neck" is like saying they are clutching their pearls.
People are being very obtuse, they wamt ti hide the truth as much of possible, make it undecipherable.
It does matter to me if the writer is authentic. It's why I don't often read Andrew Sullivan now although I used to be a regular reader of his old Daily Dish. I'm not sure he isn't just playing to the crowd, which I've suspected ever since his Sarah Palin's baby obsession back in the 2008 campaign. Same with Bill Kristol, who is now scouting for the other side.
That doesn't mean a writer can't change his mind about something but I think there has to be some basic thread of consistency for it to be believable and not just cravenly opportunistic, a la David Brock for example.
There are plenty of things that traditional left and right have always found as common ground, mostly having to do with government's role in our lives. I remember watching the hearings for the Patriot Act right after 9/11 and Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, about as in far right as you can get, and MA Congressman Barney Frank, extreme liberal, in agreement as to their concern over allowing the government to have greatly increased spying powers with minimal oversight.
I think Yglesias is straight? So maybe not a homophobic tweet. Nonetheless, he's saying they are effeminate.
Tying a sweater around your neck is definitely a sissy look for a man.
Liberal way of calling them "pussy" without saying it.
Whatever is driving it, it’s an unqualified good thing! Intellectual honesty, pursuit of what is actually true no matter whose undies get twisted, and tolerance for dissenting opinions is sorely lacking today.
This looks like the future unfolding before our eyes. More, please.
Perhaps Althouse is pondering a move to Substack ...
The more a platform becomes associated with freedom, the harder it will be to target by the woke mob.
"The Bruenigs" would be Matt and Elizbeth. I don't read them but people I follow on Twitter seem to retweet them fairly often.
It seemed like every guy in France wore a sweater around his neck when I was there in 1986.
Was that a thing here, too?
I think this is Bruenig
One old Cold War quote was about how much harm was done by the fear of being unfashionable. So many people believed progressive rhetoric because they didn't want to be be seen as reactionary old stick-in-the-muds. But if you begin to wonder whether what you only believe what you claim to believe for fear of being thought provincial or stupid or dowdy or like your parents, you can always bolster your convictions by claiming to be against the rich, comfortable, and smug. But today the rich, comfortable, and smug are on both sides, and some of the richest, most comfortable, and most smug people are among the wokest.
Oh, and didn't he leave out Matt Taibbi?
I've been enjoying their writing since the Big Switch to substack.
But I never expected much good when they were hired by the establishment rags in the first place.
Funny how that worked out.
Both Sullivan and Greenwald went to Substack after being censored by their publications. I am surprised this doesn’t inform your view. They got thrown out of the country club
Alter-woke.
When you realize you crawled into bed with a pack of creepy corrupt power-whores.
AA is missing the boat on this one. These are journalists / opinion writers who are appalled by the censorship (as well as group-think) that they have experienced at the hands of those who are currently aligned with the prevailing party & powers that be. Bruenigs, it is easy enough to learn, are siblings (one a NYT writer; the other a founder of Peoples Policy Project).
But I like to hang around the country club with a sweater tied around my neck.
Don't judge me!
Elizabeth Bruenig writes for ... wapo? Something like that. She's a liberal Catholic writer who's moved up in the world. As I didn't agree with her when she was a small fish, I don't attend to her now that she is (was?) a big fish.
It would seem MZS wants to hang Republican country club stereotypes around the necks of these writers (like the sweaters he describes in 1980s movies), in retribution for exercising any new found freedom to give legitimate voice to populist conservative views through Substack.
The Party-line enforcers at Vox, MSNBC, NY Magazine, NYT, etc. are just jealous. The Substack refugees, having been dumped unceremoniously by the aforesaid publications, are apparently covering the rent with their subscriptions, while the enforcers are living in fear of the next round of layoffs. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the turnaround in fortunes.
The whole "country club republican" thing is a joke. Trump and his voters reversed the Dangerfield - Judge Smalls dynamic in Caddyshack.
Don't forget about Aaron Mate, Michael Tracey, Tim Pool, and for that matter, comedian political commentator Jimmy Dore.
People celebrate "mavericks" and "gadflies" but only if they are "mavericks" and "gadflies" who believe everything that they believe. At one point (don't ask me when) some in the media believed that they were supposed to question everyone in government and not obviously take sides. That meant that when they continued to be skeptical and critical of those in power, they would appear to have changed sides when administrations changed. Today, there is a massive tug of war in the country, and if you aren't pulling for your side you are effectively pulling for the other.
Then there is the "Edmund Burke" argument, also used by many in the mid-twentieth century. As the opponent and the front changes, one has to reorient oneself. One doesn't change one's convictions, but one has to oppose the new threat which may come from a very different direction than the original one. It's easy for critics to denounce this as rationalizing a sell-out, but what else are you going to do if you see faults in the new order as bad as those in the old one?
Yes, now mr consonant wants them all cancelled,
The whole "country club republican" thing is a joke.
Roll over Bill Kristol and give Mitt Romney the news.
The Substack refugees, having been dumped unceremoniously by the aforesaid publications, are apparently covering the rent with their subscriptions, while the enforcers are living in fear of the next round of layoffs.
I have read that Yglesias is pulling down around $ 850,000 a year from this. That's a lot of $5 a month subscribers. I subscribed to Greenwald.
When I was in college in the 1950s, a sweater around the neck meant you had had an 8 o'clock class. In LA it's cold enough for a sweater at 8 AM. No country club connection.
Hey, remember that time when the Huffington Post had all the lefty writers doing free writing, posting their lefty propaganda and ideological screeds on the hot new medium of an aggregate blog from 2005 to 2011, and when it was sold to AOL, the shareholders kept every damn cent of the $315,000,000 sale price themselves, like the good greedy capitalists they were, giving nothing to the unpaid authors of the free content?
Yeah, I feel the same way about these dummies as I did about those other idiots at HuffPo.
Pretty much everyone alters their behavior while doing something for money, or thinking they’d like to get noticed. I don’t begrudge writers this. But as with politicians, you should take such facts into account.
As I see things, Greenwald is consistently Left, but towards the Old, New Left. Taibbi and de Boer and Brendan O’Neill as well. Closer to Marx & Chomsky, and they can see the Brothers Weinstein (currently pro science and speech). All such folks want to radically reform society according to their lights, but they’ve broken with or been broken by the New New Left, neo-Marxist identity fusion politics, and the Woke. As with anyone who disagrees with the Woke they are now heretics, and called Right and conservative and subject to censure. ‘Cool’ is deployed as well. Many are likely ahead of some curves, (financial, technological, intellectual)..
Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein have the most financial interest in somehow keeping Old New Left and New Woke Left together, while Yglesias broke towards Old New Left and Klein towards New New Left. Their aim seems to be showing up on ‘Newshour’ or fellating a politician who will pass Health Care while living in Georgetown.
Sullivan (aka the True Catholic) still claims his Oakeshottian roots, is a kind of conservative but with a weird obsession and attachment to politicians and politics in general which I’ve come to remain skeptical of. If a politician has supported gay marriage, he was a rabid supporter. He’s an ‘unreliable narrator.’ He also makes a lot of noise and pamphleteers and makes most things about himself. I’m fairly close to him in terms of ideas and politics. At the moment, he’s anti Woke and pro speech, and by God, these positions need all the help they can get.
If I were being tortured by the secret police for my political opinions in the coming paradise, and folks caught wind of this fact, witnessing me in my cell, who might act how?
1. The Brothers Weinstein-They might actually refuse and be tortured alongside me.
2. Matt Taibbi-Would have a real hard time with it, might object then and there but also wait, think and write about it to possibly conscientiously object in public.
3. Glenn Greenland-Might take a seat with me, might run with his hair on fire down the hall shrieking. Tough to say. Would probably think long and hard about it and probably write publicly.
4. Andrew Sullivan-Did I support/oppose gay marriage? Can I break a lead for him? It’s tough to say. It’d probably keep him up at night. Once his incentives lined up I imagine he’d write about it publicly. Might wait a few years.
5. Matt Yglesias- Meh, I probably did something pretty, pretty bad. Like plotting against the establishment or Health Care. But he has a change of heart and writes daringly that the prisons might be ‘over full.’
6. Ezra Klein-Write a 1000 word ‘thinkpiece’ on the efficiency of the prison system and how hard those guards are working for unfair wages.
We’re all probably on this scale somewhere. Depends on how much we’ve got to lose.
4.
wild chicken said...
It seemed like every guy in France wore a sweater around his neck when I was there in 1986.
Was that a thing here, too?
Yes. That was called "the preppy look". Same thing with the Polo shirt collar turned up.
I have no idea, really ... whether they're authentic in their writing
So you question their honesty and veracity. And by not taking them at their word, you essentially call them liars and sellouts.
I have been following the transformation of Glenn Greenwald
Be more specific. I’ve been following Greenwald since his Salon.com days well before his work for the Guardian and his Pulitzer for the Edward Snowden revelations, and his politics have been remarkably consistent. What’s changed dramatically during that time is the Left — the politics it pursues and the way it pursues them.
Ann,I don't know why this juvenile tweet caught your eye, but I think you're misreading it. The tweeter is trying to suggest that Greenwald, etc. have become the Man. This is ridiculous on its face -- they've joined the Establishment by leaving mainstream publications for Substack?
“What is the IDW?”
Whatever one's "authenticity," arguments stand or fall on their own merits.
The subjective feelings of the writer have nothing to do with it. Depending which "team" you are one matters even less.
I know a guy from shipbuilding money whose mother remarried into even more money. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was always a happy childhood.
Nice cars and fine women in Beverly Hills with his sweater tied around his neck in the 80’s and 90’s. Unironically. Read widely and deeply. Deep into the Peloponnesian Wars. Spent some time in the pit on Wall Street. An L.A. intellectual.
If there is a portal to mainstream thought, and if there is such a thing as mainstream thought (definitely seems to be if its coming for you or excluding you), perhaps mainstream thought doesn’t require entrance through The NY Times nor the Wapo nor even a bunch of loud idiots on Twitter. Many such portals lead to the gangway just after the Funtime Fiesta Cruise has Left the dock.
All aboard.
.
These writers didn't decamp for Substack, they were forced out of their traditional media gigs.
What infuriates corporate media types is that Sullivan, Greenwald, DeBoer, Taibbi, Matry, even Katie Herzog showed themselves incredibly Anti-Fragile. They are now stronger than ever.
Yglesias' modest "conversion" seems completely fake to me- he seems to be trying to ride the coattails of the others mentioned in this post. Greenwald and Taibbi seem more genuine in what they write today since they didn't really change their stripes- they were calling out BS on the Russian Collusion hoax, for example, right from the start 4 years ago, and so the writing criticizing woke culture isn't a stretch to believe. Sullivan is a more edge case because of his previous Sarah Palin hysteria- I tend to think he believes what he is writing because it seem to start up when some of his colleauges on the left started getting fired and cancelled by the woke mob- it might have opened his eyes in a genuine fashion, and he did get an essay denied at TNR that also was a motivation for self-examination.
I wouldn't pay, however, to read any of these people. I am an information free-loader.
Greenwald has been pretty consistent on civil rights issues. He got his knickers in a twist over the Patriot Act. I thought he was an alarmist. Now I think he was on to something.
32,000 illegal entrants deposited in Del Rio Texas?
that's just for starters...
Tom T said “This is ridiculous on its face -- they've joined the Establishment by leaving mainstream publications for Substack?”
Mainstream media is dying and the movement of honest opinion leaders away from it is a good thing for all who value freedom.
Look towards the future — the MSM is not in it. Their audience is all 45+ years old, and that demographic death march is in full procession. They clearly hate everyone who is not on the Progressive Left. The direction this is headed could not be clearer.
Abandon them, they’re dying, plus they suck and they hate you.
"these tweets strike a chord."
You mean, like, you recognize prog bitching for what it is?
"I've got to hypothesize that this has something to do with the financial incentives at Substack"
Exposing the fact that there is an audience for anti-prog writing threatens the prog cause. Must be suppressed.
"I have no idea, really . . . what they consciously believe they are doing"
Forget consciousness. What Sullivan and Greenwald are doing objectively and in effect is joining the resistance. Partially, hesitantly, inconsistently, but bravely. Since they are apostates, they must be burned at the virtual stake.
Actually, to me, all those dudes are more readable now. The only reason there’s such a market for them is because so much of the MSM is so craven and corrupt in service of one political party and its grifting CRT appendages. Honest leftists are in short supply but there’s demand for honest commentary and debate. Enter Greenwald, Michael Tracey, Andrew Sullivan and others.
It’s good and healthy to have prominent non-Trumpers calling out the current bullshit spewing from the Left.
Democrat border mayor slams Biden for immigrant crisis: 'Whose side are you on?"
Biden admin letting in thousands and thousands of illegal entrants "awaiting court dates" - as they vanish inside the nation.
After Biden and the democrats invited illegal entrants to swarm the border.
They blame Trump.
Ernest Prole said: “What’s changed dramatically during that time is the Left — the politics it pursues and the way it pursues them.”
This x1000. It’s impossible to examine this issue without looking very hard at the swift, violent lurch to the left by the MSM, and the Left itself.
A far bigger deal, really.
Shorter Althouse: I don’t know the facts but the appeal to stereotypes moves me.
Paging rhhardin!
Change: Intellectual Dark Web = IDW.
And to drill down on the signifiers that resonate with Althouse, the tweeters are calling these authors Imposter Fags — homophobia is just peachy when deployed by the Left against apostates.
Matt zoller stiez is a film critic. So, his political opinions are super-important and well informed. 'Cause movies.
“ Both Sullivan and Greenwald went to Substack after being censored by their publications. I am surprised this doesn’t inform your view. They got thrown out of the country club”
Indeed. That’s why these attacks.
These three haven't moved "Right". the media borg has moved hard Left, and Sullivan and the other two haven't moved Left as fast. Plus, "writing conservative" means not pushing the narrative like 95% of the media. Which means saying something INTERESTING and UNUSUAL.
Implication of mort zerit or whatever the fuck his name is, is that everyone should be spouting the party line, and if you're not there's something wrong with you. The Commies from the 1940s and 1930s would have agreed.
They cant outright cancel like the left book club did with orwell so consequently
I too am curious about how Greenwald “transformed”. He seems pretty consistent to me. He has been slashing bogus narratives for ages.
Here is an interesting text from Mr. Greenwald:
The way the media highlights some horrific crimes and downplays others -- all based on whatever political gain can or can't be be extracted from the suffering and corpses and their effect on cherished narratives -- is one of its most repulsive practices, which is saying a lot.
Mr. Greenwald linked to an article by CNN about the killing of Mohammed Anwar. Anwar, an Asian uber driver. Anwar was car jacked by two teenage girls. These young women pistol whipped, tasered and then ran this man over. All of this mayhem was referred to as "an accident" by CNN. This double standard is about race. If these young women, who are murderers, were White men, there would be dozens of articles about the scourge of White supremacy and White privilege.
Well there's no argument that in their former, button-down journalism roles that all of these new-found mavericks were subject to editorial control, writing on themes that were either by direction or approval. Now that they are freed from that, are we to believe that they are somehow more conformist, subjugating themselves to something else? I don't agree.
In any case, I don't read interesting journalism to believe everything I'm seeing. I read it to stimulate my own thinking, to help shape my own thoughts by putting them into differing perspectives. The better the quality of ideas, the better the results. I believe that's what Mr. Snotty is really objecting to: People authoring challenging journalism to help others reading it to do their own thinking. How abhorrent.
But people who write for WaPo or the NYT don't tailor their writing for the prevailing politics of those outlets?
I confess that I am more than a little befuddled by this SubStack controversy.
Why wouldn't any writer think that additional outlets or platforms are a good thing? Especially if one can make money publishing on them?
Why wouldn't any writer think that a platform which doesn't dictate what they write about or how they write about it is a good thing?
Don't these writers, in the pay of NYT, WaPo and other outlets know how little control over their own work they have? They write it and NYT etc owns it. If they decide they want to reuse it later and NYT says "no", that's an end to it.
I can't understand why writers would not actually aspire to being on Substack. Why are they satisfied getting paid a dime a word to write filler articles, listicles, "you won't believe what happened to..."
These aren't writers, they are typists.
John Henry
They dont have anything interesting to say at all
https://gab.com/SharylAttkisson/posts/105968142149895310
It is at least possible that they stopped drinking the koolaid when they saw the disaster that is coming out way with the senile/kneepads administration. Not likely mind you, but possible.
Lurker21, 9:28:
"People celebrate "mavericks" and "gadflies" but only if they are "mavericks" and "gadflies" who believe everything that they believe."
I think this is generally true, though I'd stop short of "everything".
Honestly, I developed some Strange New Respect (TM) for Greenwald, Taibbi et al. because they called BS on the left in ways I thought important.
But here's what some of the lefties here, who would say these guys are no longer on the left if they ever were, should keep in mind: Realizing I should pay attention to these guys isn't limited to the times when they go after their own side. It has caused me to pay attention when they criticize my positions, my ideas. Retroactively I agree with quite a few of Greenwald's criticisms of our national security apparatus, which temperamentally I am inclined to support.
It's like black writers who break with woke orthodoxy. Crack and others would say, Well of course you like him and echo him, he's saying what you want to hear. He's letting you off the hook. But when, say, John McWhorter affirms a point the left makes on race, I take it a hell of a lot more seriously because I know he doesn't do so automatically.
Writing for publications, as opposed to writing for something like Substack, Medium or even just Blogger has one huge advantage: Editors.
I've published (depending on how one defines "published") 200-300 articles in the past 25 years.
A lot of that has been in venues where an editor tells me what to write about ("John, can you write 500 words on how the pandemic affects packaging machinery?", my current project, due Tuesday)
Some is more general. I write a 1500 page whitepaper monthly for a client. It has to be about packaging machinery. Other than that I am on my own. After 6 years of once a month, sometimes it takes me longer to come up with a topic than it does to write it.
Packaging Digest edits my articles correcting spelling, syntax and other errors, making sure it makes sense and so on.
The whitepaper doesn't.
An editor sure makes writing easier.
If I were Taibbi or Sullivan writing for Substack, I might even pay for an editor out of my own pocket. I do that on the books I publish via Amazon and it is worth every cent.
John Henry
I don't know who "the Bruenigs" are, and I haven't paid too much attention to the metamorphosis of Yglesias, but I have been following the transformation of Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan, and these tweets strike a chord.
And what, exactly, is their "transformation"?
Have they become liars? Have they become cheats? Have they become wretched moral scolds?
Or have they simply decided to bring their pre-existing beliefs and understanding, to cover the issues the Left wants buried?
I am amused that you believe that simple valuing the truth means "say[ing] something that jibes with conservative ideology"
What does it matter:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1375501304764760064
I'll always remember Greenwald as the chap whose antics made me familiar with the term "sock puppet".
tcrosse said...
"The whole "country club republican" thing is a joke."
Roll over Bill Kristol and give Mitt Romney the news.
Seriously?
Bill Kristol stopped being a Republican when Trump was elected President.
Romney is a "Susan Collins Republican", from a strongly conservative State.
I suppose if you really tried you could have come up with worse examples, but I can't think of how
Darkisland said...
I confess that I am more than a little befuddled by this SubStack controversy.
Why wouldn't any writer think that additional outlets or platforms are a good thing? Especially if one can make money publishing on them?
Because most "journalists" aren't writers. They're propaganda agents for the Left and the Democrats.
See: anyone who supports cancel culture
Whenever I want to learn about something, I find the best way is to do it.
So, wondering about Substack, I just published an article there:
https://changeoversmed.substack.com/p/some-thoughts-on-smed
No paywall for Althouse commenters using this link. (Or for anyone else, actually)
I believe the process is:
1) Sign up
2) Publish
3) ?
4) Profits!
John Henry
Apostates are the worst, to Cultists. Always have been and always will be.
As was said by or about Walter Bagehot (IIRC), "He changed his front, but he never changed his ground." That's the best thing about GG and Taibbi. Sullivan was fresh when he took over at TNR so long ago, but he hasn't been interesting to me since the Palin obsession.
I can only think of one man I know who wears his sweaters like that, but he's from NZ and lived in Japan and China for years. A few other guys on campus over the decades, maybe.
Narr
I look good in my pelisse, though
This is one of those few Althouse posts that seem so off to me that they make me question the rest of her posts. As has been pointed out, these writers were basically shown the door from prestige gigs, Greenwald was even booted from the magazine he co-founded, for slight deviations from the woke party line. It’s completely dishonest to ignore that fact. I don’t believe that it’s possible to write as authentically as they seem to write out of pure cynicism, but I could be wrong. “All you need is authenticity, once you can fake that, you’ve got it made” I think Althouse once wrote, and then again, “There’s people out there turning keystrokes into gold...🎶”
Still, I don’t think they could get it so right if they didn’t believe it, not that I agree with everything they say, but it is internally self consistent, mostly. Sully has to throw Trump bashing into almost anything, apropos of nothing, just to keep the dogs off, I guess. Still one day they may come for this blog, and you will find yourself over at substack most likely.
I can only speak from reading Greenwald over the years.
He is a liberal who is honest. He is an actual investigative reporter who seems to believe in freedom of the press.
Rare these days, so his colleagues hate him for it.
He did not drink the Kool Aid. He did not wear the ribbon...
For those wondering, no, I did not actually write that article for Substack. I am a fast writer but not that fast.
It is a copy/paste from a newsletter article I wrote 10-20 years ago. Still a pretty good article if you are interested in that sort of thing.
John Henry
Taibbi pointed out that khuzaimi thd hack from deutsche bank was a corrupt official, greenwald pointed out how dilanian is practically an in house scribe for the company.
Blogger Narr said...
I look good in my pelisse, though
Unless one wears it only over the left shoulder AND open carries a cutlass of appropriate size, I think they look a bit silly.
So, Narr, do you open carry a cutlass?
John Henry
“For the money” is the only pure motive in writing.
Khuzaimi went on to prosecute manafort and michael cohen, dilanian dutifully echoed the fusion playback all the way to the hinter laptop.
Wash your mouth out, John Henry!
Saber.
Narr
Cutlasses are for pyrates
Remember when tim robbins said there was a 'chill wind' you could never shut him up, its practically jotunheim, (the ice giants planet (it'll be fine) according to zeitz
Blogger Tyrone Slothrop said...
I'll always remember Greenwald as the chap whose antics made me familiar with the term "sock puppet".
I have forgotten that about Greenwald.
The sock puppet example for me is Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times. Cathy Seipp caught him at it.
Pretty much what Narr says above. They're all apostates. This tweet is nothing but pure nastiness being directed at them because they broke ranks with the woke. Taibbi was spared because he still gives lip service to woke pieties.
Tim,
My first published article, in Power Magzine (Proper use of check valves in jockey pumps) was written for no money at all.
It was written purely for the goal of wanting to see my name in print. It didn't even do me much good professionally since I still had a job at the time.
I've written a LOT of stuff for free but that was written with the intent of publicizing my name and demonstrating professional competence.
A lot of people think that if I wrote about, say, machine vision systems and it was published in a paper magazine, I must know what I am talking about.
I knew relatively little when I started the article and not a lot more when I finished. But now, when I opine on machine vision people listen.
I've also published several peer reviewed (The gold standard!) articles for which I got paid nothing. But they look good on the resume.
I guess one could say that I wrote them for the money in that sense.
And there is the first of a monthly column in a Mexican magazine. I was SUPPOSED to get paid for that but they claimed they could not figure out how to send money to Puerto Rico.
When I first started writing, I wrote a LOT for free. Now I have gotten to where I won't even open Word for less than a healthy fee.
OTOH, I've written perhaps a hundred thousand words here and Ann has never given me a nickle.
Not expecting or asking, Ann. I write here for entertainment.
I do strongly suspect that there are some who do get paid for commenting here, though not by Ann.
I don't think you are one, Tim.
John Henry
Aaaaaand....
I just got my first substack like.
That was fast.
John Henry
What's a "pyrate", Narr?
Is that someone who takes other people's stuff and sets it on fire?
John Henry
Could be old english, filibustero or provayeer might fit.
Privateer, silly autocucumber.
There’s no one more loved by conservatives than a liberal who bashes another liberal or liberal thought. Same thing goes for liberals.
“Apostates” huh? So what are Never Trumpers? How much are they loved in this place of Trumplicans?
I don't think a privateer is a pirate.
Doesn't a privateer hold a "letter of Marque and reprisal" under the authority of a government or a king?
Usually with some conditions who they can attack.
We should use them more. They are specifically authorized by the constitution.
John Henry
There is a hole, a gap, in opinion journalism, and you got to be a... blockhead not to take advantage of it. Or, you are a "true believer", willing to sacrifice for the cause and all that good stuff.
It should be comparatively easy to write about the slow motion train wreck attracting eyeballs today, as opposed to come up with innovative ways to weave American evil. Shops interested in the latter ultimately close down.
See here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-pirates-were-pyrates/amp
I believe all these writers and Taibbi who wasn’t mentioned, wrote sincere opinions originally, with their articles that veered from traditional liberal thought and when they saw how much traffic and money they could get, being a contrarian became ever so much more attractive. There may be some element of revenge at play also. After getting canceled or semi cancelled by liberal publications, they now can regain some fame, and make some money too. Living well is the best revenge...
I am hearing a lot of jealousy against people who write well enough and have interesting enough ideas that they can support themselves with subscribers while most journalists need to bow to the woke crazies in their news room to keep their precarious jobs or their freelance assignments. Yglesias, Sullivan and Greenwald have for years followed their own unpopular thoughts including Sullivan's bizarre detour in Palin Derangement, Yglesias continuing infatuation with the welfare state and Greenwald's association with people undermining US agents in the field. I can't think of three people writing today who show less evidence of not following their true thoughts in their writing unless it's Kevin D. Williamson. Doesn't mean they are right, but it does make them interesting to read.
when they saw how much traffic and money they could get, being a contrarian became ever so much more attractive.
OMG! Selling your writing ! What an unusual concept !
Taibbis been going after the oligarchs and putin for 25 years thereabouts, when did he become the oddman out.
Love this reply
“OMG! Selling your writing ! What an unusual concept !”
I said nothing of the sort. They sold their writing all along, even when they didn’t veer out of the liberal lane.
Thats the perspective he sees american politics from, he thought the tea party was inorganic like the yabloko (liberal faction)
Theres contrarian, and then there is an alternate fact pattern, the light outside thw cave burns you.
There’s no one more loved by conservatives than a liberal who bashes another liberal or liberal thought.
Many if not most of us here were open minded liberals who voted for Democrats until we saw the light. For example, I voted for McGovern in 1972 and Carter in 1976. The first Republican I ever voted for was Reagan in 1984.
I was in grad school at that time and the Reagan hate from the lefty Psychology community was intense. I had to keep my mouth shut or the "tolerant" ones would have cancelled my career over 35 years ago.
90% of the political hate I have seen or experienced in my life comes from the Left.
I'm bristling at the suggestion that Greenwald, Sullivan, and Yglesias are sellouts.
Note that the Twitter poster doesn't say or imply that -- it's coming straight from Althouse.
All three are true-blue liberals who are turning away from the Woke Movement. See also Weinstein and Heying, Glenn Loury, etc., etc. No need to sneer that their opinions are somehow bought and paid for! And given they have those opinions -- and can write about them thoughtfully -- why not monetize that?
Stay in the lane, or you will be discarded.
-The Soviet left.
“Stay in the lane, or you will be discarded.”
The Trumplicans to Never Trumpers.
Inga - you're the one who is obsessed with Trump. He lives rent free in your head.
what does Trump have to do with the left's stomping and censorship of speech?
Why would a so-called liberal be OK with the stomping of free speech?
oh right- loyalist soviets like yourself are A-OK with Warren's desire to stomp on free speech, and you are fine and dandy with full on censorship of anything and anyone who attempt to offer an opinion critical of the left.
90% of the political hate I have seen or experienced in my life comes from the Left.
So true. Even my parents were upset to learn I voted for Nixon in 1960. Not hate, but upset. How could I not vote for the sainted Kennedy cousin? I had taken an Economics class. Probably not true today.
What are you implying? Because I'm inferring that you don't like what Sully and GG are writing about these days. But, even then, I'm not sure how you felt about them in the past. Both are gay, dog-loving, no-bullshit writers. I would guess, if prodded, that you admire them both. But that's just my guess.
The Tweeter's tweet is risible nonsense.
I think Althouse is rejecting going to Substack herself.
@Leora, I concur. Good mention of KDW, too.
“Inga - you're the one who is obsessed with Trump. He lives rent free in your head.”
OkyDoky then “Seth Rich!” April. Whatever you say.
In the meantime in the real world, how have Trumplicans accepted Never Trumpers? Cancel culture happens on the left as well as the right. Those who can’t see that, start sounding like “Seth Rich!” April.
There is always an Old Left and a New Left. The New Left is brasher, more radical and more power-hungry. The Old Left is battle-scarred and a little mellower. Today's New Left eventually becomes tomorrow's Old Left (except for those oldies who want to fit into the new order).
Some of the smartest people in politics are unorthodox renegades from the left. Orwell. Partisan Review. The first generation neocons in the US. Spiked-Online in Britain. Telos in the US. I certainly get more from a maverick liberal like Mickey Kaus than from a party-liner like EJ Dionne. The heretics aren't always right but they see through many of the delusions leftists (and rightists) have. They aren't always to be trusted -- Mussolini and LaRouche were renegade leftists, too -- but they are often more insightful than those who are trying to implement the new order and enforce thought control.
I don't think we have to worry about Greenwald or Taibbi or Sullivan going Benito or Lyndon on us. Not sure about Zeitz, though.
This statement seems to me obviously false: "There's no one more loved by conservatives than a liberal who bashes another liberal or liberal thought." Of all the conservatives here who praise Greenwald, Taibbi, and Sullivan for their principled objections to much of what their fellow-lefties are up to, at least 99% like Trump even more: Trump, bashes so-called "liberal thought" root and branch while supporting policies far more in line with classical liberalism.
Sullivan and Greenwald would get more money toeing the party line. Greenwald isn't exactly rolling in dough at Substack right now.
Sullivan still backs Biden. Greenwald is still on the left. Bill Kristol and the Lincoln Project grifters did backwards somersaults and ended up pretty closely attached to the Democrats.
Michael K said... Even my parents were upset to learn I voted for Nixon in 1960. Not hate, but upset. How could I not vote for the sainted Kennedy cousin? I had taken an Economics class.
What do you think of the pundits who say that it was hard to distinguish the liberal from the conservative in the Nixon-Kennedy race?
Russia Russia Inag voted for a Russian Asset. I'm shocked your fellow soviets haven't canceled you.
The last two Glenn Greenwald pieces I read were 'How Do Big Media Outlets So Often "Independently Confirm" Each Other's Falsehoods?' and 'Journalists, Illustrating How They Operate, Yesterday Spread a Significant Lie All Over Twitter'. If Greenwald's grift is accurately pointing out malfeasance in mainstream media outlets, then that's the type of grift I can live with.
OT:
The FBI is a useless partisan sham. Totally useless.
" So now it turns out that the FBI knew all about the accused Boulder shooter, but paid no attention to the obvious warning signs until police say the rabidly anti-American immigrant from Syria murdered 10 U.S. citizens in the supermarket.
“The suspect’s identity,” the New York Times reported, “was known to the FBI because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
The Famous But Incompetent FBI likewise knew all about accused shooter Ahmad al-Aliwi Alissa’s fellow Muslim immigrants who committed mass murder, like the Tsarnaev brothers — but did nothing until those welfare-collecting “asylees” blew up the Boston Marathon.
The FBI also had early warnings about the Muslim terrorists who shot up the gay nightclub in Orlando, the Christmas party in San Bernardino, Fort Hood, the cartoon-drawing contest in Texas … and yet the G-men sat on their soft hands until scores of Americans were murdered in cold blood.
But it’s not only foreign Muslim terrorists the FBI can’t be bothered lugging. It’s domestic killers as well.
For instance, in 2018 the FBI’s national tip line got a 13-minute-long earful from the aunt of the Parkland High shooter Nikolas Cruz — but did nothing until 17 people were gunned down."
-Howie Carr
The theme is - the FBI is utterly useless when it comes to stopping mass shooting.
But they are good at arresting strange yet harmless old men with CNN in tow.
Elizabeth Bruenig, formerly of the WashingtonPost, now writes for the NYTimes op Ed page. I do not know why she was included in the tweet. Perhaps this is in reference to being co-host of the Bruenigs, a new podcast @ebruenig:patreon.com—subscription required.
Elizabeth Bruenig is a 30 year old mother of 2 young girls who tweets frequently about her adorable kids, cooking magnificent meals and extraordinary cookies, as well as commenting on current events—-all while seemingly effortlessly holding down a full time job at the NYTimes. Her husband Matt is on the autism spectrum —their relationship is fodder for Twitter commenters (she is adorable and tiny and he is tall and laconic).
Elizabeth Bruenig notably deletes her tweets every day automatically using the app TWEET DELETER.
How did the Boulder shooter get past a background check?
I thought the left solved this problem? Democrats run Colorado.
Steve Sailor debunks an Atlantic feel good piece about crime.
The left really is clueless.
Thompson: Some people say that the simplest way to reduce crime will be to re-surge police presence in violent areas. I’ve called for “unbundling” police services and paying a broader group of local government and state employees to work with the homeless or handle domestic disputes. How do you think we should begin to reverse the rise in crime?
Sharkey: These surges in violence came from an old model of policing. In this old model, police respond to violence with brute force.
It’s like when Mr. Al-Issa murders ten people in a supermarket and the police come and shoot him in the leg after one cop is murdered. That’s the old model of brute force.
In the new model, a social worker with an M.A. in sociology from the U. of Colorado in Boulder shows up and … something good happens. Don’t bother me about the details right now, the point is that my idea is new and Good, while your’s is time-tested and therefore Bad.
He is always good.
What do you think of the pundits who say that it was hard to distinguish the liberal from the conservative in the Nixon-Kennedy race?
I figured that out later. Oh well. Nixon hired Moynihan and Kennedy took on LBJ. Both big mistakes.
Inga said...
“Stay in the lane, or you will be discarded.”
The Trumplicans to Never Trumpers.
Republicans want a Republican President, House, and Senate
Anyone who cheered for Biden, Democrats running for the House, and Demcrats running for the Senate, is a Democrat.
They went from "NeverTrump" to "NeverRepublican"
Which is their right
But it means they aren't Republicans, and they shouldn't expect any respect / support / whatever from Republicans.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
They dropped long held conservative political positions in order to attack Trump. Which means their support of those positions was a lie.
So now they're gone.
So tell us, what are teh long held political positions that Greenwald has dropped now that he's on Substack?
thompson has branched out into epidemiology, ask berenson about that, it's like the python sketch about the new british army,
OkyDoky then “Seth Rich!” April. Whatever you say.
I think we have to give credit to Inga for sticking with the Democrat line. They seem opposed to solving any crime except trespassing in the Capital January 6.
“They dropped long held conservative political positions in order to attack Trump.”
Really? I bet they would say that it was Trumplicans who dropped long held conservative positions in order to support Trump.
I don't know if he was alluding to it, but Tim's comment reminded me of this song.
“SethRich!” Michael K, don’t forget to mention Pizzagate and eating children.
yes david french's nonobjection to transgenderism, his willingness to throw any liberal target under the bus, buying the fusion happy meal packet, hook line and sinker,
Unless you have evidence otherwise, why not presume they’re writing genuinely about the way they see things? You know, the ol’ charity principle, presume their good faith.
Google is creepy. So, I went and looked up the John Stewart youtube video of "Gold" so I could link to it just a few minutes ago. I let the song play and then just let it go autoplay after it finished, and the very next song it chose for me was "Fox on the Run" by Sweet. I have never searched for or played that song on Youtube. I am very familiar with the song because I owned Sweet's "The Golden Greats" as a teenager. In fact, I hadn't ever wrote about the band until just a few days ago when someone tied the song in a comment to one of Althouse's pictures of the fox. I wrote a comment reply to that comment mentioning that I liked the band as a teenager, and that I thought the band was highly underrated.
Inga said...
“They dropped long held conservative political positions in order to attack Trump.”
Really? I bet they would say that it was Trumplicans who dropped long held conservative positions in order to support Trump.
Yes, they tell all sorts of lies.
I'm not going to waste my time digging up the issues, because you're a lefty troll, but there were multiple cases where NT losers directly attacked Trump for doing things they'd supported a few years before.
When you do that, you lose all credit.
Especially when you don't say "I used to support X, but I changed my mind because of these reasons", but simply attack Trump for doing it
“Yes, they tell all sorts of lies.”
Maybe they would say that Trumplicans believed Trump’s lies and they didn’t and because they had the audacity to not jump aboard the Trump train, they were cancelled and demonized by Trumplicans.
I have been reading Glenn Greenwald articles for well over 15 years. I have never agreed with his politics and still don't- Socialism kills a society. There were only two things in the past Greenwald and I agreed on- that Bush's War on Terror was an abomination, and I also agreed with him about the Patriot Act and all of it's extensions. Greenwald has been consistent even after Trump was elected- he didn't suddenly find "reasons" to like the FBI conducting a witch hunt on a cooked up story from the Clinton Campaign, and he didn't turn his fucking brain off when examining the blockbuster "investigative stories" the mainstream media published on the issue- he literally dissected them to show what shit they were time after time. After Robert Mueller's team was forced to publish their report, everything Greenwald wrote about the hoax was completely vindicated- just only every bit of it. The same applies to Taibbi.
I stopped reading Sullivan when he went off the deep end over Sarah Palin. It is only recently that he suddenly became interesting again, but it took him getting partially cancelled to open his eyes even a little bit. I don't know what he was writing about the Russian Collusion hoax that the idiots were believing in, but I suspect I would find that he bought the story hook, line, and sinker, too. I welcome him to the fight against censorship, but I don't completely trust him. Yglesias I don't trust at all- I see in him not a deep thinker, but an opportunist who is trying to find a way to make hard core leftism seem less dangerous.
Blogger Inga said...
“SethRich!” Michael K, don’t forget to mention Pizzagate and eating children.
I vaguely heard of the pizza thing but know nothing more. That was a left wing obsession so I am sure you are all up on it.
Agree with TiV. This really undermines my view of Althouse. These writers were expelled from corporate media, they work for a start up that lets them send email, and yet somehow they are the smug entitled vacuities?
And what was their sin? Rejecting woke dogma.
You guys are being too hard on Althouse- she is telling you she doesn't know their motives, and she is right. I don't know their motives either, and neither do any of you. She isn't doing a deep, long term analysis of their oeuvre. She might not be a long time reader of all of them, though I think she is on Sullivan. It probably is just an oversight that she might not know that they were being cancelled by their previous employers (though this doesn't apply to Yglesias as far as I know).
Only Inag knows what a PizzaGate is. I suppose that's why she sounds like she was attacked by her cat. Seek antibiotics.
On Greenwald's sock puppet episode. I think someone at some point made the discovery that the sock-puppetry was probably Greenwald's life partner doing what he thought was to Greenwald's benefit. As far as I know, Greenwald himself has never claimed this. If the explanation is true, then I admire Greenwald even more for sticking by his partner. In any case, it never really influences how I read his stuff.
“Only Inag knows what a PizzaGate is. I suppose that's why she sounds like she was attacked by her cat. Seek antibiotics.”
“SethRich!”April really believes he was murdered by Hillary Clinton’s pet cat.
I rest my case.
@ Yancey
I have been reading Glenn Greenwald articles for well over 15 years. I have never agreed with his politics and still don't- Socialism kills a society. There were only two things in the past Greenwald and I agreed on- that Bush's War on Terror was an abomination, and I also agreed with him about the Patriot Act and all of it's extensions. Greenwald has been consistent even after Trump was elected- he didn't suddenly find "reasons" to like the FBI conducting a witch hunt on a cooked up story from the Clinton Campaign, and he didn't turn his fucking brain off when examining the blockbuster "investigative stories" the mainstream media published on the issue- he literally dissected them to show what shit they were time after time. After Robert Mueller's team was forced to publish their report, everything Greenwald wrote about the hoax was completely vindicated- just only every bit of it. The same applies to Taibbi.
Agreed.
Worth a hearty bolded repeat.
It’s puzzling that Althouse would issue such an apparently obtuse post.
The far left’s default response to critical comment is to question the commenter’s motive—and to invariably ascribe a base motive—rather than address the merits of the criticism. Why would Althouse appear to endorse that reductionist view, however equivocally?
I’ve followed Greenwald, Sullivan, (and Taibbi) both before and after they were forced to leave their previous jobs. As far as I can see, there was no “heel turn.” Successful writers who were critical of the woke-ridden orthodoxy of the news outlets that employed them, departed and became even more successful. What “strikes a chord” as evidence of hypocrisy or bad faith to warrant the implicit sneer from Althouse? Is intellectual honesty validated only by failure?
I hope Althouse will offer some further explication of her rationale for this post, as it seems oddly out of character.
I think they are all brilliant writers.
Sullivan became hard to stomach during the Obama years. But - I want all of these people - these clever writers - to have a platform to speak.
The asses bray and the caravan passes.
Greenwald and Yglesias have wimpy voices.
Sullivan doesn’t do that.
I would need more info before I could further assess them. What cars do they drive?
Blogger Inga said... There’s no one more loved by conservatives than a liberal who bashes another liberal or liberal thought.
Meh. I’ll praise the liberal that puts the lights out of another liberal.
Inga, please don't drag me into Trumpism, Never-Trumpism, and the other topics that exercise you. That they and conservatives and libertarians have and hate their heretics and apostates is neither here nor there.
This is very reminiscent of an early comment I made here, and the response (I won't swear it was you, but that's what I recall)-- I criticized La Merkel and got a resounding Oh Yeah Whaddabout Trump?
"Pyrates" is archaic. As archaic as hussars!
Narr
And the title of a book by the great late G M Fraser
Really? I bet they would say that it was Trumplicans who dropped long held conservative positions in order to support Trump.
Well then they would be lying. Trump supported controlling illegal immigration, fewer regulations, lower taxes, etc.
Actually, it would be a lot easier if you could point out a long held conservative position that Trump didn't support.
I realized one day that I write here as a form of journaling. I often write long comments that I really like, and then delete because writing them was enough.
As for Seth Rich, what actually happened to him? Was he shot by robbers who then took nothing from him? it sure looks like he, as a Bernie supporter, had a motive to leak that DNC stuff, just read Donna Brazille’s book. The DNC wouldn’t let anybody not on their payroll look at the servers, and there is evidence it was copied to a flash drive, and if that were the case, the DNC would surely know exactly who did it and exactly when. But Inag likes to pretend that she knows exactly what happened in unsolved cases. Unsolved cases where important evidence under control of the Democrats never saw the light of day.
It’s like the secret Charlottesville trial where none of the evidence was ever made public, and none of it ever leaked (Imagine if it made Trump look bad and they sat on it, highly unlikely) Mueller leaked everything they had and then a lot more they just made up for good measure, yet Inag imagines that she knows what happened there.
We can’t know what really happened, but neither can you, Inag, and since we don’t have an answer, we are certainly free to speculate.
Big Brave Covid realist Tim said...
“We can’t know what really happened, but neither can you, Inag, and since we don’t have an answer, we are certainly free to speculate”
That’s what your detractors say about your Covid stance.
Othering as argument. Never works.
And if I may, Yancey Ward speaks for me.
When you adopt or resign yourself to a system that utilizes relentless ostracism and financial cancelation at the drop of the slightest disagreement, then who ends up in charge in the long run, and what happens then. This is isn't the first rodeo of this type for mankind. It's just the most significant for the world, and I suppose will be the most violent, since the stakes are so high, or maybe that will prevent the most extreme resolution. Hey let's just see what happens, right?
We made this mess, Boomers, and we are still in charge for a little longer. We can't lay this on our parents, or old fashioned ideas, or people over 30. Wait. Yea, now it is on people over 30, and over 50.
"Actually, it would be a lot easier if you could point out a long held conservative position that Trump didn't support."
I got one:
Rolling over and letting the Left walk all over you like a cheap rug. He was against that, and not just with words.
The only thing I respect about the Left is their tenacity. I also respect that about hyenas. I just don't trust them either, nor want to live like one.
Is there something in your troll manual about trying to drive a wedge between commenters Inag? I think that people here care a lot less about what each of us thinks about the other than you guys in your conformist little fever swampls like DailyKos, where becoming unpopular gets you banned. That’s not how it works here. But keep on keeping on, it’s entertaining.
"The DNC wouldn’t let anybody not on their payroll look at the servers..."
This is the biggest tell that the servers weren't hacked by anyone.
The DNC wouldn't let law enforcement examine them, even though they bleated that it was the crime of the century.
There’s no one more loved by conservatives than a liberal who bashes another liberal or liberal thought.
Liberals don't bash liberals or liberal thought, they bash left wingers and left wing thought. Criticizing that which isn't liberal is what makes them liberal. It is interesting how many people call themselves liberal but prove they aren't pretty much every time they say anything.
It looks like Inga is desperately seeking the internet gang bang again.
Oops! I am so sorry. Based on your earlier threats, you have a great deal of anxiety about sssssssexual issues.
Never mind!
“Oops! I am so sorry. Based on your earlier threats, you have a great deal of anxiety about sssssssexual issues.”
Nope...you’re just a pig.
Russia Collusion Dead Ender Truther Inga: "Maybe they would say that Trumplicans believed Trump’s lies and they didn’t and because they had the audacity to not jump aboard the Trump train, they were cancelled and demonized by Trumplicans."
Notice the lack of specificity by our resident hoax dossier/Michael Avenatti fangirl dolt.
The NeverTrumpers loudly and proudly recanted on every conservative principle they had previously pretended to believe in, even more explicitly endorsed all democraticals and democratical party policy positions.
Case in point, David French and Steve Hays and Jonah Goldberg at The Facebook/Google Dispatch, supposedly conservative (wink wink) and supposedly pro-life (wink wink) were the precise "fact checking" source for Facebook which shut down a long standing pro-life group's Facebook page...and it was only weeks and weeks later that everyone figured out what had happened and The Facebook/Google Dispatch was exposed that the Fakecons at the Dispatch rushed out to say that gee whiz,it had all been (ANOTHER!) big "mistake"...just like every other "mistake" that always goes in only 1 direction.
Not surprising that Kavanaugh Rape Hoax Accuser Inga-dolt defends these "pro-life" "conservatives" who are "adhering to conservative principles" (wink wink), they are just like Inga!
As in the time Inga said she was opposed to post-birth abortion but she defended the democraticals in VA and RI who pushing that explicit position with legislation! (Of course, that was AFTER Inga at first denied they were doing it!)
I have to give Inga some credit here as she has not (yet...) blamed boogalooers for those democratical legislative bills........yet....
“Is there something in your troll manual about trying to drive a wedge between commenters Inag?”
Big Brave CovidRealist Tim,
I’ll ask you if you really think you can regain your street cred among those who bashed you so hard for your Covid stance that you left and didn’t comment for several weeks or over a month, I didn’t count the weeks. You strike me as a bit of a coward.
Another of these "brave" and "principled" true "conservative" (wink wink) fakecons Inga adores is Max Boot, "true conservative" who publicly endorsed the green new deal, marxist critical race theory, open borders, abortion on demand, and called for the election of democraticals at all levels for the bext "2 generations" and the passage of all Biden policies!
Literally. Not fuguratively.
Thats what a "principled conservative" NeverTrumper is to Inga-dolt.
And was Max Boot "cancelled"?
Hmmmmm, he got a long term CNN contract, another book deal, and syndicated column deals across the lefty media sphere.
Ouch!
Thats too many actual checkable facts for our resident Hater Of Under Oath Testimony and 4 year Self-declared mind-reader Inga dolt!
As for Seth Rich, what actually happened to him? Was he shot by robbers who then took nothing from him? it sure looks like he, as a Bernie supporter, had a motive to leak that DNC stuff, just read Donna Brazille’s book. The DNC wouldn’t let anybody not on their payroll look at the servers, and there is evidence it was copied to a flash drive, and if that were the case, the DNC would surely know exactly who did it and exactly when. But Inag likes to pretend that she knows exactly what happened in unsolved cases. Unsolved cases where important evidence under control of the Democrats never saw the light of day.
I would still like to hear from that medical resident who was banned from ICU at GW hospital when he was admitted still alive.
Tim, Inga is a dolt and seems to be trying to stir up a little controversy.
Why stop with 1980s snotty country club types? Throw in some 18th century Sloane Ranger type fops as well...
This is how rotten things have gotten. None of these guys have done a heel turn in any meaningful way ideologically. They aren't suddenly small government conservatives bitching about welfare queens. But much like ANY (and I mean ANY) criticism of Trump by a conservative gets said conservative labeled a RINO, any progressive not all in on cancel culture is 'doing a heel turn and suddenly a Reaganite.' So so stupid.
But because they have seen first hand how shitty cancel culture is (they were all essentially pushed out of the media companies they worked at and some cases founded), how utterly fascist the modern left is with regards to the free exchange of ideas, they are said to be making a heel turn? Maybe saying something ever so slightly off the progressive zeitgeist, while still being unapologetic progressives (or whatever flavor of centrist one wants to label Sullivan), AND still getting pushed out of their jobs made them think, 'holy crap, are we the bad guys?'
None of these dudes are going to suddenly start linking favorably to the latest National Review article on Biden's tax policies or judicial nominees. They are just kind of realizing that, after the right lost its ever loving mind drinking the Trump Kool-Aid, the lefts gradual and now frantic Sovietization might be the wrong response. In fact, they probably know that it was the PC fascism (what we now call wokism) that actually got us Trump in the first place. I don't think they want more of it.
(and yes, I called modern leftist tactics both fascist and Soviet and the poli-sci majors will think that is a contradiction but its not and they have always been two sides of the same coin. And that I have to note this tells you how academia ruined poli-sci)
Words like "renegade," "maverick," "heretic," and "apostate" don't refer to exactly the same thing. I'm not going to do any research now, but an "apostate" is somebody who has definitively broken with old views and convictions. So how one responds to a true apostate is (or should be) different from how one responds to one of the other kinds of outliers or outriders.
Kristol and Boot are pretty close to being apostates. Kristol may do acrobatics to prove that he is a true conservative, but Boot doesn't even do that. Greenwald, Taibbi and Sullivan are outriders who haven't made a definitive break with their former beliefs and associates. But what one guy thinks of them doesn't count for much. I'd say that liberals and the left definitely don't like Greenwald, but still regard Sullivan as a marginal figure, not an enemy (and Taibbi they probably don't know much about or regard as a jester not to be taken seriously).
The RINO thing is getting tiresome, and so is the purge mentality. You can dislike Romney or Kinzinger, but maybe it's time to find a new label for them.
A sharp take from Alice, a person who tweets https://twitter.com/AliceFromQueens/status/1376504913702891528
Yancey speaks for me, too. Greenwood has always been very consistent on state security problems and international affairs, though I don’t agree with him a lot of the time. But he knows squat about domestic issues, crime and disorder, and economics. He is shocking gullible about the dangers of certain types of government/political over-reach. Nice to see him noticing the distortion of crime stories that flog identity politics over justice. He used to firmly on the other side of that issue when it elevated gay men like him over other crime victims. So, welcome to the equality before the law club, Glenn. Also nice to see him lose the baggage of taking wads of cash from the Iranians and Russians through The Intercept. And prior to that, escape from the dildo-waving cat scratch fever nuts of Salon Island.
Sullivan is just your typical sexist — I might even say misogynistic — homosexual given how he treated Palin, which was grotesque. You know the type: middle-aged gay men getting away with calling women breeders. He’s incapable of escaping his resentment of female bodies. And so while he’s smart and entertaining, I don’t find his moral arguments very compelling because he can’t help arguing constantly that he gets to impose on other people’s private lives while doing so to him is the ultimate evil. He’s also too smart to be that incapable of getting how his sense of victimization warps some of his views. Regurgitating Oakshott doesn’t mitigate his contradictions. If you support barebacking, then why should our taxes pay for your medical care, especially if you, say, read Oakshott?
Taibbi is a bright guy who did some very bad things, by his own account, to women in Russia. That said, he understands the leftist-libertarian fusion better than anyone and is an insightful writer on political movements. And he has regretted his earlier behavior.
Of the three, Taibbi seems the most self-aware. They’re all great writers. Substack is letting them be great capitalist writers. I doubt Greenwood sees it that way.
John Henry, if you write 1500 pages a month, you must be the ghost of Lyndon LaRouche.
Packaging is my favorite hobby subject. I used to wait all year for the Southpack show to come to town. It was my favorite week at work, even more than the librarians’ convention, because I learned quickly they were infected with the same radical leftist rot as other educators. I’ve probably read some of your articles.
All three on substack ($5/month for premium; maybe 1/3 or so for free - Freemium business model).
All are critical of excessive PC - all were critical of Trump, far far more than supportive of Biden.
The commentary buying public wants outrage, they will be selling outrage against Biden.
The BEST outrage, is TRUE outrage. It will be getting ever more anti-Democrat, as more Reps pay to read it.
They are all 3 good writers, with good logic. Greenwald the longest anti-PC (with his gay Brazilian husband); Sullivan the gay Catholic; Ygelisias the not fully PC nerd Libertarian cognizant and admiring but not quite a friend to.
They all want to be seen looking for the Truth - and most woke-PC crap is not honest, not Truth oriented.
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