November 29, 2022

"After buying Twitter, Elon Musk enthusiastically welcomed both Trump and Ye back to the platform, and has been tiptoing up to the edge of antisemitism himself."

"On Sunday, he tweeted that Alexander Vindman, the Jewish retired Army officer who testified about Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine’s president, is both 'puppet & puppeteer,' echoing an old antisemitic trope about Jews pulling the strings behind world events. On Monday, Musk tweeted an image of the alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog. For most of my adult life, antisemites — with exceptions like Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson — have lacked status in America. The most virulent antisemites tended to hate Jews from below, blaming them for their own failures and disappointments. Now, however, anti-Jewish bigotry, or at least tacit approval of anti-Jewish bigotry, is coming from people with serious power: the leader of a major political party, a famous pop star, and the world’s richest man."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Antisemitism’s March Into the Mainstream" (NYT).

Why did Musk tweet this image of Pepe the Frog? 

I found this quote at Deadline, from ADL Vice President, Center on Extremism Oren Segal:

“There are so many different variations of the Pepe the Frog meme…and while this one is not overtly hateful on its own — and context is always key — the fact that he posted it at this time of increasing hate on his platform is an indication that he’s not really serious about addressing this issue... Musk strikes me as someone who is very much familiar with meme culture online... I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to assume he would know...."

But what was he supposed to know? Segal — who's the expert consulted on the image — said "this one is not overtly hateful on its own." 

I agree that it's unsettling. To me — and maybe to a lot of people — Musk tweeting that image seems to say, I'm ahead of you. I know things you don't know yet. The words "psyop" and "Honestly" rub it in. And it's hard to google for meaning because the results are swamped with repetitions of the fact that Musk tweeted it — mostly efforts to sell T-shirts with the image.

115 comments:

rcocean said...

Michelle Goldberg is a liar. She's shown that many a times. her attitude is that when she dislikes someone, there's no need to tell the truth, or treat them fairly. smears, insults, lies are all A-OK.

In case you don't know, the Liberal/left establishment has decided that since they can't control Musk/Twitter they will destroy it. So, Goldberg's smear is just part of the campaign.

rcocean said...

Musk of course know exactly what is going on. And his Pysch ops narrative is hilarious.

Michael K said...

I had never heard of "Pepe the frog." I still don't know the story. Only the left is hyperaware of these matters.

Sebastian said...

"For most of my adult life, antisemites — with exceptions like Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson — have lacked status in America."

Oh? From Al Sharpton to Ilhan Omar, the left has been fine with granting status to anti-semites, as long they are their anti-semites.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Not every insult is antisemitism, and who knew the creampuff colonel was Jewish anyway? It is crystal clear from Musk's tweets IN CONTEXT (remember that asshole media?) that he is referring to the identical bots retweeting Vindman, and it truly is not clear if his account is a leader or follower bot, just that he is tweeting the exact same words about Musk that 100 other non-human accounts are.

There is such a lack of antisemitism outside leftists that dishonest writers like goldberg have to create incidents out of unlikely events. She will never call out Farrakan or Sharpton or the Squad but she will go after a cartoon frog. Pro tip: cartoon frogs are not semitic or anti-semitic they are cartoon frogs.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Ye destroyed his own fortunes with his words.

oi.

As for Musk and that silly frog? I had no idea what the frog meant. I thought it was more to do with Q-annon.

Joe Smith said...

Musk is African-American and they are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Therefore, Musk cannot be anti-semitic.

Logic, motherfuckers...

Andrew said...

For the most part, when I see Pepe the Frog online, he is being used ironically, or to troll people. He is a humerous symbol of rebellion, a lighter version of "take the red pill," i.e. don't give in to conformity.

rhhardin said...

Jews have a high verbal IQ and like to whine. Bloch, Suite Hebriaque Nice piece, but think of it as accompanying any essay.

Rabel said...

Pointing and screaming "anti-semite" in order to score political points on an unrelated issue is not a way to win friends. But it does influence people, so Goldberg goes there, doing the American Jewish population no favors.

Enigma said...

Now, story author, go back and research the institutional anti-Semitism that was routine before WW2 and the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps. High status persons. Enforced laws.

"No Hebrews Allowed. No Negroes allowed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States

YoungHegelian said...

Now, however, anti-Jewish bigotry, or at least tacit approval of anti-Jewish bigotry, is coming from people with serious power

It was always there, Ms Goldberg. It was just that your side choose not to highlight it.

rhhardin said...

Car beams light up the front of a building. (In which street? There are so many behind and before him that he cannot remember.) He reads: MORT AUX JUIFS JEWS GO HOME scrawled in white chalk, in caps. In which street? In several streets. On several walls. He tried to decipher all the graffiti. He read and reread MORT AUX JUIFS at each halt, at each corner, at the same corner, at each halt. All he saw any more were those three words on the walls. (Perhaps they did not even exist--I mean, for the other passers-by). All he saw any more were those twelve letters, transparent, on the glass pane of his memory. There have been sirens tracing an arch of anguish into the slithery air. There have been shells exploding around a man and in his flesh. There has been many an exodus on land and on sea, with solitary return to pillaged rooms or to the heart of a soul long put to other uses. There have been graveyards, with grass over them, vast fields. The flowers are in cahoots. They have fed on bones and on bone thoughts. Their perfume is perjured. "My God," he murmurs. "The hands of the years show always the same hour."

- Jabes, The Book of Questions

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

So weird that this dude with an alleged purple heart and chest full of medals squeals like a stuck pig at any pushback to his nonsense. By nonsense I mean his whole "don't you know how great I am" act that is always followed by him running and hiding while the Michelle Goldmans and Adam Schiffs of the world fight his battles for him. Does the fat ass colonel not realize how despised he is among the bureaucracy? He epitomizes the rats in the system. He unsuccessfully tried to take Trump down for a stupid phone call that wasn't what Vindman sold it as. He should shut up and be glad he was allowed to retire.

Clyde said...

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

daskol said...

Michelle Goldberg is a hateful lying propagandist. The ADL contributes more towards resentment of Jews than Ye or some pissant little operative like Nick Fuentes could ever accomplish. It’s good that the masks are off and our media and "civil rights" NGOs and other self-appointed guardians of the discourse and oppressed are revealing themselves as explicitly countering freedom of expression. We don’t have numbers, but every one of us rubes who see how they operate won’t unsee it.

stunned said...

"... enthusiastically welcomed..." - that's a fruity speculation. Simply restored their accounts.

They canceled Ye, when are they going to cancel phornociaga? WHEN?

Puppet&puppeteer is a synonym of Ukraine along with troll farms.

daskol said...

The context for calling out Vindman was a tweet he originated concern trolling Elon and his erratic behavior and influence over the discourse , which was in turn repeated verbatim and w/slight variation by 100s of accounts.

Jupiter said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States

Oh, that's right. They also control wikipedia.

Gusty Winds said...

Segal — who's the expert consulted on the image — said "this one is not overtly hateful on its own.

Hilarious. There's a Pepe the Frog "expert". Is there a Kermit the Frog expert too?

chickelit said...

Althouse projected to Musk I'm ahead of you. I know things you don't know yet.

And yet he really does. He's privy to the details about Twitter's suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop and Twitter's collusion with Dems in the last Presidential election. And when those details come out as Musk has promised, Dem operatives like Goldberg are going to hate him even more. I'm loving the drama! Musk is approaching Trump-level mastery of the media.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Then there was the time Vinman got into a Twitter fight with Dana Loesch and had his wife continue the fight after the first account was temporarily blocked for harassing behavior. Nothing says "I earned this purple heart" like sending your wife into (try to win) the argument after you blow up and fail miserably. Hey fatass, did you ever get that job running Ukraine's Defense Department like you said you were?

Iman said...

Bearclaw Vindman’s soft pudginess is what passes for a “military man” in Democrat sewing circles…

Bob Boyd said...

Smearing people as racist works, so that's why they do it.
Show me the man and I'll find you his racism.

Gusty Winds said...

To me — and maybe to a lot of people — Musk tweeting that image seems to say, I'm ahead of you. I know things you don't know yet. The words "psyop" and "Honestly" rub it in.

Musk does know things we don't know. And he is going to release them to the public. This is just forewarning. Soon we will know.

The censorship, lies, and propaganda that were promoted were psyops that worked on a large portion of the American public. The 2020 Election, Hunter's laptop, the "vaccine" is safe and effective. Shitloads.

NONE of what Musk is doing is anti-Semitic. That's just a new psyop. Probably the one he's not concerned with.

This is quite a game of Chicken Musk is playing.

pacwest said...

Is antisemitism in or out now? When someone figures it out let me know.

Gusty Winds said...

Strange the lefts new obsession with anti-Semitism after they labeled MAGA supporters "rats"...and "deplorables"...racists...fascists...and blah blah blah.

Look at what they tried to do to the 'unvaccinated'. It was a full blown effort to separate them from society. The left wanted to create a heretic class of outlaws.

It's no different than what the Catholic Church did to people, including Jewish people in the middle ages, or what Germany did to them in the 20th century.

And the left wants everyone to boycott Israel. If somebody started a boycott Utah movement, I would guess they hated Mormons, no??

Gusty Winds said...

Musk last night: This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.

Musk is right. That's the scary part. Pepe the Frog is the least of our worries.

MikeR said...

Wait, what - Vindman? "'puppet & puppeteer,' echoing an old antisemitic trope about Jews..." No. You can't do that. Certain kinds of claims are not allowed if the person happens to be Jewish (which some of us had no idea and still don't)?
I don't agree with the posters who say that Michelle Goldberg is a liar. I remember her from Bloggingheads w Prof. Althouse. She was honestly and thoroughly clueless, absolutely able to see reality except through her filters. A liar would have done a better job of trying to sound like she made sense.

MikeR said...

I continue to maintain that Musk is making a big mistake fighting all these battles at once. That wasn't how he built SpaceX. First you get your ship to fly, then you get it to fly better, then you try landing a booster...
Here he must feel that if he doesn't win all these battles at once, he can't win any of them. That's a pretty desperate long-shot.

Leland said...

I'm with Elon. I honestly don't care that there is some psyops associated with "Pepe the Frog". This cartoon frog is like a Rorschach test.

Beasts of England said...

I had no idea Vindman was Jewish. It’s also irrelevant.

iowan2 said...

"puppet" is proof of antisemitism? OK....got,,it?

Vindman is a piece of crap. Not sure why he wasn't court martialed. Remember, in his testimony he said Trumps crime was veering from the foreign policy put in place by the "working group" at State. Because the President of the United States answers to the State Dept.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

Saw Goldberg in a debate on the telly.

Not all that bright. Might even go with slightly dumb.

chuck said...

My impression is that modern antisemitism came into the house riding the communist left, cold war middle eastern diplomacy and all that. And with the Civil Rights movement being taken over by the left, there emerged a natural synergy with the traditional Black antisemitism. The wonderful thing about third wave antisemitism is how many Jews it has attracted over the years :)

Iman said...

Question: Would Kermit and Pepe enjoy each other’s company if they ever met?

Yes, brotherhood is real in the world of amphibians.

No… oh, Hell no!

Jupiter said...

"from ADL Vice President, Center on Extremism Oren Segal:"

Couldn't they find any quotes from people in the mafia? I mean the Italian mafia. La Cosa Nostra.

mccullough said...

Maybe Musk can break The Fever.

Sometimes a cartoon frog with a cigar is just a cartoon frog with a cigar.

But when the OK sign is White Nationalism then widespread stupidity remains.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Will we get the hard news Musk post today? The stats and actual policy changes freeing Americans to discuss COVID openly on Twitter now? Will this policy extend to healthcare topics in general? All that is way more consequential to the big picture America than Goldberg’s known habit of crying “antisemite” whenever it’s convenient for democrats or feminists to use it.

deepelemblues said...

Finding that silly frog unsettling is very, very telling

Bob Boyd said...

Hilarious. There's a Pepe the Frog "expert".

It is funny.
I remember Rush Limbaugh years ago talking about a professor from Ohio or somewhere who was a coconut injury expert. The guy was miffed because more people worldwide are injured every year by falling coconuts than by shark attacks, but sharks get all the media.

Temujin said...

It's interesting reading the commenters takes on anti-Semitism. From where I sit, I think it's laughable to compare Elon Musk with other 'high profile' anti-Semites, which as the commenters pointed out, seem to never include the very obvious Lefty anti-Semites. Including the one- Louis Farrakhan- who most influenced Ye.

Anyway, Elon Musk being anti-Semitic has never crossed the minds of anyone not on the Left. The Left is All In on bringing both he and Twitter down. They are dragging out all their same old techniques: ad boycotts, interviews with released ex-employees, mass harrumphing from the mass media to include accusations that cannot be disproven, only ignored. They're accusing him of being a White Supremacist, being an anti-Semitic sort of Proud Boy wannabe.

Musk is just being himself. I take him at his word on the post in question. It says he doesn't care about this particular psyop. Honestly. Frankly- neither do I and neither do millions of other people. But do you know who does and who can be easily and massively riled up about it? The Left. Anyone on the Left.

That said, yeah, we've reached a point where discussing live and in-your-face anti-Semitism is becoming a regular feature here in the Althouse comment section. That in and of itself tells me that there is a rise in the nonchalant openness of The Sickness. It's back. But not from Elon Musk.

JaimeRoberto said...

"this time of increasing hate"

Without evidence. This is something they keep asserting, but I see zero evidence of it.

Big Mike said...

Alexander Vindman is Jewish? Here I had been under the impression that the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators eliminated all them from Ukraine some eighty years ago.

farmgirl said...

Pepe is a joke, an inside joke.
Left’s trying to wake him up.
Muck says: who the f/k cares? Not him.
Free speech- take it or leave it.

That’s my take.
As an aside, growing up on the Border, of Quebec bloodlines, I personally appreciate the Frog.

gahrie said...

Because I deplore anti-semetism, I think anti-semites should have the right to express themselves. This not only exposes who they are, it gives us an opportunity to counter their anti-semetism when they express it.

Yancey Ward said...

Vindman is a dumb fat fuck. Does that make me anti-semitic?

Kate said...

Pepe the Frog is this generation's Alfred E. Neuman.

Yancey Ward said...

Musk had better have a great legal team and security detail- the Left will begin harassing him with baseless criminal prosecutions, and they will send the nutjobs after him to assassinate him.

hombre said...

Old adage (probably from Reagan days): If you want to know what mischief Democrats are up to, look to see what they and their consorts are accusing others of doing.

As for Michelle Goldberg, in addition to being a manifestation of the adage, she is an utterly predictable gaslighter in support of the leftist template.

Pepe the Frog? Another symbol of evil invented by the alt-left to defame the normals on the right.

Saint Croix said...

Musk should wear an Israeli T-shirt in his next photograph tweet. And be sure to drag Goldberg's ugly anti-Semitic past into any Twitter brawl.

Trump likes Israel, Goldberg! Do you?!

Saint Croix said...

I agree that it's unsettling.

Maybe his point is that assuming the worst of other people leads to unhappy strife and miscommunication.

Pepe the Frog was an innocent creation. (Think Kermit).

Now imagine a bunch of neo-Nazis "adopt" Kermit and start using Kermit in their online memes.

Apparently, that means that anybody who uses a Kermit meme is a neo-Nazi.

Do you see the problem there?

It's guilt by association and fear-based power politics.

And it's really idiotic.

Innocent Girl: "I'm a vegetarian."

Antifa Thug: "You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!"

Musk tweets a photo of himself eating a carrot.

Althouse: "That's unsettling! Let's take a look at that carrot."

PM said...

Whatever works against the man who took away their private pulpit.
Soon we'll hear from the women he molested.
From the black people he laughingly threw into unemployment.
From former Twitter employees he constantly misgendered.
From Tesla workers who were overworked and underpaid.
On and on until corporate America removes ad dollars or face national scorn.

n.n said...

Another back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP, perhaps [rabid] Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry)? It's just a caricature of a frog. Ribit. #HateLovesAbortion

Amadeus 48 said...

On her best day Michelle Goldberg is a hysteric.

Big Mike said...

To me — and maybe to a lot of people — Musk tweeting that image seems to say, I'm ahead of you. I know things you don't know yet.

Which, to be fair, he probably is and certainly does. So what? I don’t get the efforts to turn him into Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984 (except that people were only supposed to direct two minutes of hate towards Emmanuel Goldstein, whereas in the USA in 2022 the “good” people are supposed to devote every waking moment to hating Elon Musk). “Good” is in scare quotes to make certain that everyone knows it is meant ironically.

Eleanor said...

You either get Musk's sense of humor or you don't.

TheDopeFromHope said...

"For most of my adult life, antisemites — with exceptions like Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson — have lacked status in America."

Well, for starters, Obama, Sharpton, Omar, the Squad, numerous Democrats in Congress and the statehouses, and 75% of the professors at our colleges and universities. Pretty impressive list.

Mike Yancey said...

I have to think back to the way things were pre-2016.

The Democrats + Media + Gov't Institutions + Universities have all had about 6 years to turn anything "Republican" into 'anti-semitism' and 'fascist'. Remember that the 'Antifa' anti-fascists want to riot, destroy downtowns, beat people and eliminate freedom of speech and freedom to gather.
Not the Republicans. They're the fascists.

We're in a serious speech vacuum (i.e. The Left controls Truth). They (Apple, Democrats, and the above '+' entities) cannot have free speech. This allows all this (since 2016) to start unravelling.

Andrew Breitbart was correct: Politics is downstream from Culture.

Bob Boyd said...

IIRC, back in 2016, Pepe the Frog was an obscure 4Chan meme meant entirely as a kind of inside joke that had nothing to do with racism until Hillary's campaign team decided to claim to the media that Pepe was the secret symbol of all the racists and white supremacists that were at the heart of the tremendous support for Donald Trump that was manifesting at the time. Naturally the media was happy to take the cue and run with that story.
The Clinton's have a long history of scare mongering about what all us toofless, racist hillbillies out here in the hinterlands are getting up to.

Lurker21 said...

Would it be wrong to see a certain similarity between Musk and Vindman? Both busybodies inserting themselves into every possible controversy?

Elon may be part-Jewish himself. I wasn't able to find out if that is true, but he does come from a very strange family. His grandfather was part of the "Technocracy" movement in Canada in the 1930s (and now what is Elon himself but a technocrat in real life?). A prominent chiropractor who fell in love with flying, the grandfather became an amateur archaeologist, searching for a lost city in the Kalahari Desert. Elon's estranged father may or may not own an emerald mine in Zambia. The Musk family was anti-apartheid, at least according to the internet, and I guess one had to be non-conformist to take a stand on that.

Elon's baby momma, the singer Grimes, is also quite strange, and she and Elon shared some strange beliefs. The idea of "right-winger" Elon Musk also shows some non-conformity on his part. You can still find a website execrating him as part of some oligarchic Gates-Soros-Bezos-Schwab conspiracy. Now that he seems to have broken with the New World Order or the Great Reset, it's the left that has him in its sights. If you have a mammoth fortune somebody is likely to assume that you are throwing your weight around unfairly.

ccscientist said...

American universities have been supporting the anti-Israel lobby for a decade now. There is virulent anti-semitism on campus. American Jews still vote for dems for some reason.

Iman said...

one is beloved
“it’s not easy being green”
pepe enslaved their brains

wendybar said...

Al Sharpton was in Obama's White House over 80 times and Obama marched with Farrakhan. I don't care who Trump, while not president, eats lunch with. WHY do Democrats have to kiss Sharptons ring to get nominated?? Al Sharpton is on MSNBC. He has a platform for his Anti Semitism. The left loves him.

Rollo said...

ADL Vice President

At this point, don't we just take it for granted that everyone with an official position says what they have to say to keep their organization in business and hold on to their job?

Achilles said...

I agree that it's unsettling. To me — and maybe to a lot of people — Musk tweeting that image seems to say, I'm ahead of you. I know things you don't know yet. The words "psyop" and "Honestly" rub it in. And it's hard to google for meaning because the results are swamped with repetitions of the fact that Musk tweeted it — mostly efforts to sell T-shirts with the image.

Oh my god.

Your worship of the New York Times is grotesque. It is a disgusting organization staffed by disgusting people like Goldberg.

You should feel shame for taking anything in he NYT's seriously.

You can't even go look for a reasonable description of the pepe meme.

"Here it comes"

A grinning frog with tears in his eyes because he knows that the punchline is coming.

The pepe cigar meme is letting you know that Musk has already won and the shoe is about to drop.

The Pepe meme started on 4chan and they have been trolling the media with OK signs being Nazi symbols and other constant jokes like this. Every few weeks the media runs with one of their hoax meme stories and looks stupid when it gets outed.

Now people that read the NYT's and think it is a source of information think Pepe the from is a long time Nazi symbol.

Tim said...

Despising people who happen to be Jewish is not antiSemitism. Despising people for being Jewish is antiSemitism . Everyone I know despises the Vinckman (sp?) brother as being despicable, and it has nothing to do with them being Jewish. Hell, I despised them long before I learned they were Jewish. And Pepe as far as I have ever seen is not antiSemitic. And the alt Right embraces a lot of different people, and damned few I have ever seen were antiSemitic. As for the Leftists, they are in the position of the boy who cried wolf. I do not believe anything they say any more.

Achilles said...

The end game is coming.

There is a silent revolution in China. There is a less silent revolution in Brazil. Many other countries are seeing their corrupt regimes failing.

And there is going to be a battle in the United States.

Apple is undeniably an amoral fascist Corporation. Google, the NYT's, WAPO, Coca Cola, Pfizer and many other corporations have been working with the DC Regime against the American voter for decades.

We are about to see what Twitter and the Biden Regime were doing together.

Now the lines are being drawn.

Achilles said...

Saint Croix said...

Innocent Girl: "I'm a vegetarian."

Antifa Thug: "You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!"

Musk tweets a photo of himself eating a carrot.

Althouse: "That's unsettling! Let's take a look at that carrot."


+1

Just interpose NYT's with Antifa Thug.

Really though there is no difference between the NYT and the Antifa Thugs.

Maynard said...

I agree that it's unsettling. To me — and maybe to a lot of people.

(Makes OK sign).

I am usually unsettled by more important things.

Hopefully the OK sign did not unsettle any of our more delicate readers.

n.n said...

Antifa Thug: "You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler!"

... animal lover, environmentalist, redistributive change economist, single/central/monopolistic solution provider, and baby... fetal-baby lover... well, not that baby, nor that baby, too. Close the abortion chambers! Hitler was a model leftist with diversity enhancements.

"That's unsettling! Let's take a look at that carrot."

A proud example of a swaztika... phallic object paraded in plain sight to normalize masculinist oppression of women... women-women. Ribit! I mean, What's up, doc?

veni vidi vici said...

Someone will always be able to point to a period of time and call it "a time of increasing hate". Especially if they're being paid to do so. Actuals don't matter; the organization's name itself is the declarative value of the statement.

Also, the article's author is a fucking moron. "puppet and puppeteer" may be a "trope" (whatever tf that idiotic word is supposed to mean) but antisemitism is hardly first-to-mind when one discusses puppets and puppeteers. What a load of crap.

Another load of crap: the idea that people think of that Vindman shitass as a Jew first, and not a Ukrainian guy working in the US government who turned against the administration he worked for because he's a partisan Democrat hack, and who was later offered the job of running the Ukraine military by Zelenskyyyyy.
So, as to Vindman, he's in this order:
1. A US military official who's outspoken on partisan matters, and thus is a tribune of "all that's wrong with the military" to half the country;
2. A fat cocksucker who doesn't inspire confidence as a leader, and who's twittering reveals a deeply flawed personality of limited intellect;
3. An American soldier;
4. An American political player;
5. A fat fucking asshole;
6. A pastey white guy;
and finally, maybe:
7. A Jew.

Are we supposed to go along with the idea that any criticism of that fat choad of a putz is de facto antisemitic? I'm a Jew and I don't think so at all - rather, if the shoe of being a fat pastey piece of shit fits, he's wearing it well.

SGT Ted said...

Elon is being targeted because he won't censor the incorrect ideas that frighten the left.

Odd how it's only "fascists" and "Nazis" that want actual free speech, isn't it?

realestateacct said...

I certainly had no idea the Vindmans were Jews. I would have expected it to come up if Trump supporters were heavy anti-semites. I find the concerted effort to associate Republicans with antisemitism a disgusting psyop.

Meanwhile Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are out and proud and much respected in the their party - not fringe figures like Fuentes.

tim maguire said...

Is Vindmann Jewish? News to me if he is. What I see here is the Times doing it’s tired old thing of dragging out tired old tropes to smear whoever they don’t like today. As for Pepe, likely few know it’s…whatever it is. Problematic in some way. The particular meme seems more funny than critical, used ironically.

rcocean said...

I like the Pepe the frog decal, but Musk should use one where the frog lights the cigar with a 20 dollar bill.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I don't think Trump knew who Fuentes was. It completely comports with the Trump we love and hate.

Known Unknown said...

Althouse continuously proving her older liberal white lady bonafides.

Saint Croix said...

Fired Twitter employee has a job interview.

Saint Croix said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gunner said...

Why haven't the Trump hating toadies around Biden told him to promote Vindy to 4 star general status by now?

hpudding said...

So it’s official.

The morally lazy right-wingers of this commentariat have gone from Alfred E. Neumann territory to straight on to Hogan’s Heroes Sergeant Schultz. “What, me worry” to “I see NUSSING!!!”

When the main question after WWII was “How could it happen here?” they were talking about the mindblinded partisan hacks whose party isn’t even sure if their standard-bearer’s warm embrace of someone as odious as Nick Fuentes is beyond the pale, let alone Kanye West. Everything is ok in their book because, no standards like Partei Uber Alles standards. And besides, isn’t black liberation (which our country fought a war to win in 1861) as dangerous as Nazism? Yes, let’s excuse away David Duke and his ilk as somehow being no worse than Al Sharpton.

Oh well. The Town Square’s Billionaire Czar has decreed that this is the form of “expression” not only protected from government intrusion but that his new, privately-owned public playground somehow needs much more of. And the typical right-wing Nazi simps assembled here lap it all up.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Palin was targeted, Trump was/is targeted, Trump's associates/families all targeted, Musk/family now targeted. All for what they spoke. Plenty fucking Chinese out here, all due to democrats. They held teach ins about Hate and Bullying not that long ago. They got it down pat now.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Liberals elect leftists. Go figure.

loudogblog said...

Nice piece of classic "projection anti-Semitism" from the New Your Times.

loudogblog said...

Oops, hit "publish" before proper proofreading. It should be, "The New York Times."

hpudding said...

Reading things like “fat ass” used as an insult against Vindman, by fanboys of Trump, is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a decade.

holdfast said...

The ADL has tilted left since forever, but only recently have the explicitly become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party. And long-term, that’s not going to be good for the Jews.

Colonel Pastry needs to consider picking up a rifle and heading for the Kherson front.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

When everything's anti-Semitic, nothing is; seems like the Holocaust would be one of those things you'd want to take care in invoking lest you minimize it's gravity through banal repitition/reference. The ADL jumped the shark a while ago, but I guess they're useful here.

Fuentes has said many anti-Semitic things, Kanye said some questionable things, and Musk...failed to adequately denounce those two guys and Trump? He Tweeted a symbol that is similar to a symbol that has been used by people who hold anti-Semitic things and the symbol itself has words that are somewhat similar to anti-Semitic tropes even though they aren't themselves...and that's it?
Pretty fucking weak, honestly. It's pretty clear the NYTimes expects us to dislike Musk and is willing to use unsupported accusations of racial bigotry to persuade lightly-informed readers that he's bad. Smart people shouldn't feel obligated to go along with that effort, though.

traditionalguy said...

The enemy is the Deep Web guys who are the original deep conspiracy experts that fear no censorship of themselves. They call themselves Anonymous because you cannot catch them for their offense of speaking likely truths denying narratives promulgated in the Propaganda Media. Remember Q ANON’s threat. But that was not a threat to anyone but the Propaganda Industrial Complex. Those are the guys that can’t accept Scott Adams, much less Musk or Trump the Terrible’s free speech

Elon is playing with them. And he has a touch of Asperger’s syndrome along with a magnificent mind that he uses to thinks for himself.

Remember Free Speech is so valuable because we need it to know who is and is not crazy. The speech narratives we are fed by the Langley psyops experts seems right until another speaker reveals the rest of the story. And that truth hurts no one except the dictators.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Kanye's career implosion does remind me of the old Norm Macdonald joke, though:

"Earlier this week, actor Marlon Brando met with Jewish leaders to apologize for comments he made on Larry King Live. Among them that 'Hollywood is run by Jews'.
The Jewish leaders accepted the actor's apology and announced that now Brando is free to work again."

I mean the reaction to Kanye saying "these people" run things, have outsized influence, exploit artists, and enforce their will by threatening the commercial success of anyone who crosses them has been to, well, you know. It's funny!

Blair said...

Antisemitism should refer to people who actively slur or discriminate against Jews. It should not refer to people who are insufficiently pro-Jewish. It's the difference between tolerance and support. I believe Jews should be left alone to live as they wish. I don't believe Jews are owed a Jewish state, or support for it.

Mark said...

"Reading things like “fat ass” used as an insult against Vindman, by fanboys of Trump, is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a decade."

Thread winner.

In the last week I was castigated for using a 'schoolyard taunt' by calling Elmo by the name Melon Husk ... but fat ass doesn't get the same call out.

Par for the course here.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@ Bob Boyd

IIRC, back in 2016, Pepe the Frog was an obscure 4Chan meme meant entirely as a kind of inside joke that had nothing to do with racism until Hillary's campaign team decided to claim to the media that Pepe was the secret symbol of all the racists and white supremacists that were at the heart of the tremendous support for Donald Trump that was manifesting at the time. Naturally the media was happy to take the cue and run with that story.
The Clinton's have a long history of scare mongering about what all us toofless, racist hillbillies out here in the hinterlands are getting up to.


Thanks for that reminder. Rings a bell. I never really knew.
A silly inside joke for anti-Hillary folks.

Considering Hillary is out with the knives for Musk - it's all becoming clearer.

Jason said...

Vindman deployed to Iraq as an infantry Captain and didn't leave with a Bronze Star Medal.

That pretty much tells you his commander thought he was mediocre at best.

Not that that's surprising.

Jason said...

Can you imagine if Vindman took that job as the Ukrainian defense minister?

Ukraine dodge a bullet. They would have been completely screwed.

Danno said...

Pudding and Mark think that the commenters here fail to see Vindman as compared to Trump. WRONG, no cigar for you dolts. We see Vindman as compared to most career Army types who stay fit and trim.

hpudding said...

“The ADL has tilted left since forever,”

Big deal. So has the New Testament and the only parts of the Old Testament that anyone bothers taking seriously any more. What’s your point?

“…but only recently have the explicitly become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party.”

The logical choice for any organization looking to avoid that wholly owned subsidiary of Nick Fuentes, David Duke, pedo-groomer Milo Yiannapoulis, Robert Bowers, etc. known as the Republican Partei.

JAORE said...

Now imagine a bunch of neo-Nazis "adopt" Kermit and start using Kermit in their online memes.

Apparently, that means that anybody who uses a Kermit meme is a neo-Nazi.

Substitute the Nike Swoosh or the Apple logo for Kermit and watch the fun begin.

walter said...

Vindman is Jewish?
I just though he was a fat pompous embarrasment to the military.

walter said...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/three-of-the-trump-impeachment-witness-lawyers-were-jewish-and-it-matters/

To be fair, Karlan (who caslled out Barron) is a skinny bitch who could probably take out Vindman.

William said...

I didn't know Vindman was Jewish. I didn't know puppets and puppeteers was an anti-Semitic trope. Is there some subtext to Pinocchio that we should be aware of?....Here's an interesting, little known fact: The overwhelming majority of those convicted during Stalin's first round of show trials were Jewish. I have yet to hear anyone compare Zinoviev or Kamenev to Dreyfus. They were convicted of fabricated crimes of which they were completely innocent. (They were, of course, guilty of lots of far more monstrous crimes, but those don't count because they were in the cause of the revolution.) The fact that so many of the show trial defendants were Jewish indicates something suspect was going on in Stalin's Russia, but nobody made a big deal about it. There's a stereotype of anti-Semites and Stalin, at that time, didn't fit it.

Marcus Bressler said...

The Hostess is "unsettled": she's grabbing at her pearls again, ready to descend onto the Leftist Fainting couch.

I posted some nonsensical meme on FB that included Pepe. My younger brother texted me and chided, "Don't you know that that's a HATE symbol??"
I told him to grow the fuck up. He's 59.

Marcus B. THEOLDMAN

Saint Croix said...

I don't believe Jews are owed a Jewish state, or support for it.

Are you hostile to the many Muslim states in the Middle East as well?

I would suggest that Israel is far more secular a society than most of the states that surround it. Is that a ridiculous thing to say?

So why is it that you're hating on the secular state with the Jews and totally cool with all the religious-run societies, as long as their religion isn't Judaism?

If you're some atheist or secular person, why does the secular state of Israel upset you, and that's the only one?

Why does this flag piss you off but this flag does not?

That's Pakistan. You know how many crescent flags there are? A ton. And you can find a lot of flags that include the Christian cross, including some that are quite familiar.

How strange that the Christian flags and the Muslim flags don't bother you, but that Jewish flag burns your ass!

Hassayamper said...

Reading things like “fat ass” used as an insult against Vindman, by fanboys of Trump, is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a decade.

It’s different because he’s in the military and expected to put effort into staying physically fit. He’s also expected not to partake directly in partisan politics, place the interests of a corrupt foreign country above those of the nation whose uniform he wears, or engage in an obvious seditious mutiny against his C-in-C. Calling attention to his lumpy dough-faced body habitus is calling attention to the decay in our military’s readiness and the concomitant rise in its politicization that began under Obama. The Democrats are building a military full of perfumed political commissars like this Vindman piece of shit, because they intend to use it to make war on Americans.

Achilles said...

Jason said...

Vindman deployed to Iraq as an infantry Captain and didn't leave with a Bronze Star Medal.

That really is an almost impossible feat.

People need to understand how much of a piece of shit you have to be for this to happen. There could be justification for not giving him the award in the paperwork.

That would be an interesting read.

Rusty said...

Mark said...
""Reading things like “fat ass” used as an insult against Vindman, by fanboys of Trump, is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a decade."

Thread winner.

In the last week I was castigated for using a 'schoolyard taunt' by calling Elmo by the name Melon Husk ... but fat ass doesn't get the same call out.

Par for the course here."

Someday,(we live in hope), You'll bring your intellectual game to the table and this dingy salon will be invigorated. Until then I must admit you're still a very bright sixteen year old.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Vindman is there - on all your phone calls. Listening.

Kirk Parker said...

WTF Saint Croix, how in the world did you get that from Blair's comment? The sentence right before the one you quoted says "I believe Jews should be left alone to live as they wish"; that is at least a statement of tolerance -- perhaps grudging, it's not really possible to tell.

How in the world you get an anti-Christian, pro-Muslim sentiment from that is beyond understanding.

Drago said...

"Reading things like “fat ass” used as an insult against Vindman, by fanboys of Trump, is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a decade."

Dumb Lefty Mark: "Thread winner."

LOL

Yeah, a "thread winner"....if it was posted on Democratic Underground maybe. Maybe...

As for Light Colonel Pudgeboy, I'm left to wondering which PFT coordinator he had to seriously befriend to get a passing score on the annual physical fitness tests!

Drago said...

Jason: "Vindman deployed to Iraq as an infantry Captain and didn't leave with a Bronze Star Medal."

Achilles: "That really is an almost impossible feat.

People need to understand how much of a piece of shit you have to be for this to happen. There could be justification for not giving him the award in the paperwork."

This is absolutely true. Every unit commander, including smaller unit commanders, are almost automatically given a Bronze Star if serving for an extended period of time in a combat zone and having received some sort of wound/purple heart? He'd almost have to try not to get one to not get one.

Second possibility: His bronze star paperwork dropped into a stack of donuts and he wasn't paying attention as he gobbled them all down and, afterwards, with sticky hands that he wiped on his uniform, he forgot about the paperwork when he went to rinse off before chow hall visit #4 for the day.

Drago said...

Jason: "Can you imagine if Vindman took that job as the Ukrainian defense minister?"

I'll bet the Ukrainians are still laughing about the cocktail party joke someone told that Vindman took seriously and then shared it with the world!

Vindman probably thought he was Kirk Douglas in "Cast a Giant Shadow"....with Angie Dickinson as his wife!

David53 said...

KEK. Pepe used to be an NPC in the online World of Warcraft game. Pretty sure they removed him after 2016. Early Pepe memes were hilarious.

As Pepe once said, “He who controls the meme controls the universe.” Musk gets it.

hpudding said...

“He’s also expected not to partake directly in partisan politics -“

It’s not partisan to report and testify about wrongdoing by a superior officer. It’s called having integrity. Outranking someone or occupying a political post is not an excuse for committing high crimes or misdemeanors.

The Republican Party would know this if it weren’t nothing more than a personality cult. Trump’s followers don’t even pretend to have any standards or interest in accountability.