Matt Taibbi

Digging his new serialized book. Would make a great TV show...

This is fucking maddening: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/

jesus

in the summer of 2016, things began to explode around him with suspicious frequency

Thanks, YouKnowWho

This is exponentially worse than being secretly put on the no-fly list, but it equally runs roughshod over the whole "due process of law" thing. No publically issued warrant, no representation by counsel, no summons to court, no public hearings, no trial, no appeal, no nuthin' but "heavens! we kill you now."

something darkly comic about the fact that the US has missed five times already

I mean we already knew the vast majority killed in drone strikes are not the "intended"

xp It's like something out of Brazil

Did anybody finish the article? I did.

Anyway here’s the guy’s twitter so we can follow along as he hopefully survives to get his day in court

https://twitter.com/bilalkareem

Taibbi doing some good reporting here: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/secret-government-spending-779959/

This new rule is not confined to a few spy agencies. It appears to allow a stunningly long list of federal agencies to make use of new authority to “modify” public financial statements.

that is truly sickening

it is sickening - a lot of the details are in this, from the Nation in November:
https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget

For those anxious to keep the dream alive, the Times published its usual graphic of Trump-Russia “contacts,” inviting readers to keep making connections. But in a separate piece by Peter Baker, the paper noted the Mueller news had dire consequences for the press:

It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole…

This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: “Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?”

The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like itself made galactic errors by betting heavily on a new, politicized approach, trying to be true to “history’s judgment” on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse, in a brutal irony everyone should have seen coming, the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020.

Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.”

https://taibbi.substack.com/

You buried the lede:

“WMD was a pimple compared to Russiagate. “

I look forward to Maddow being brought before The Hague.

JFC

He’s saying only in terms of media credulity, not in terms of consequences

It pains me but i think i agree with taibbi

Setting aside that this screed pivots off a 3 1/2 page partisan brief, I’m still going to hard disagree.

And “consequences aside” is an absurd position.

screed came out prior to Barr's letter. Taibbi just added a line about it.

i feel like at the very least, the moscow tower stuff plus trump's obvious obstruction was *something*

the espionage stuff was a stretch, always

Dear god, it seems as if he blames the media for losing the faith of the FOX NEWS audience, and blames NYT instead of FOX.

Taibbi is so pathetic: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/31/18286902/trump-mueller-report-russia-matt-taibbi

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Taibbi's been warning about over-playing the Russia stuff for a while, now. Not sure how this gets twisted up into "pathetic" in your mind.

In which @mtaibbi, they guy telling everyone who'll listen that journalists fucked up in reporting the Russian story, admits he still doesn't know whether Russia did the hack. https://t.co/W7RSZGzYDv pic.twitter.com/ixENHr8isK

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) April 1, 2019

Those two concepts are not contradictory at all. Journalists fucked up by reporting shit which they didn't know to be true. Is Marcy trying to say that if it turns out the collusion allegations WERE true that the journalists would have all been vindicated? This is where Taibbi has been continuously consistent, imo.

The areas where Mueller said the allegations were true, Taibbi still isn't acknowledging it at all. Meaning it basically doesn't matter what Mueller says.

It is bad when people blatantly disregard fact in favour of their own stubborn views.

But also, this is just nonsense:
During the Iraq War period, what we really saw was virtually the entire press jump on board together to get behind this war effort. What we saw this time around, however, was a total cleaving of the media landscape, where half the media completely denied the Russia story, and the other half completely jumped into it with both feet. And on that half, in the blue state, northeast corridor, no dissent was allowed.

So now, because so much of this story turned out to be false, after thousands and thousands of stories both on TV and in the print media, it’s convinced everybody that the press is basically political. And look, that was already true of Fox News and The Daily Caller, and all those right-wing outlets, but now it’s happened 100 percent on the left. And we’ve completely lost the trust of a huge chunk of the nation.

Is the cost of that higher than the Iraq War? Certainly not in terms of the loss of life — that’s obvious. But in purely journalistic terms, this is an epic disaster.

It's also a fine example of what that lawyergun guy always talks about, that it can always only be liberals who are at fault. The problem is the press was divided, but Taibbi isn't yelling at guys like Hannity who said Seth Rich was behind it?

Everyone knows Hannity is scum.

Those two concepts are not contradictory at all. Journalists fucked up by reporting shit which they didn't know to be true. Is Marcy trying to say that if it turns out the collusion allegations WERE true that the journalists would have all been vindicated? This is where Taibbi has been continuously consistent, imo.

― DJI, Monday, April 1, 2019 3:12 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what marcy is saying is that taibbi doesn't have as complete a command of the facts regarding the various russia investigations that he thinks he does. there are several examples in that thread of generalizations and assertions that taibbi makes that are either misleading or flat-out wrong.

another two concepts that are not contradictory: 1) taibbi is right that cable news/etc. were wrong to focus so much attention on trump/russia conspiracies, 2) it was nowhere near as total and consequential a failure as taibbi makes it out to be, as there was plenty worth reporting on in the russia investigations

that interview was pretty embarrassing to read, particularly taibbi's "well, speaking as someone WHO LIVED IN RUSSIA" routine.

also enjoyed "if you’re putting a gun to my head and asking me two years later to offer an opinion on something I’ve gone out of my way to not talk about."

It's also a fine example of what that lawyergun guy always talks about, that it can always only be liberals who are at fault. The problem is the press was divided, but Taibbi isn't yelling at guys like Hannity who said Seth Rich was behind it?

What Simon said, but said another way (which I think is what Taibbi is trying to say) is just shouldn't we hold ourselves to a higher standard?

I mean, maybe not? I don't know that holding ourselves to a higher standard gets (or has gotten) us anything other than a higher level of self-regard, but I don't really want the entire press turning into a series of reddit threads where the only commonality between the different teams is that they are both sloppy and partisan.

I see you guys fed the Danish Troll after all

what marcy is saying is that taibbi doesn't have as complete a command of the facts regarding the various russia investigations that he thinks he does.

i get the strong sense taibbi is just kind of indifferent to the facts. dunking on those he deems to be "russiagate obsessives" is his priority, and actually understanding the facts of the situation is simply not.

it's an incredible dereliction of his duty to his readers tbh (i can hear certain posters scoffing as i write that, but oh well).

i've spoken to people like this IRL, who are in a ultra-left-wing milieu and parrot the whole "nothingburger" line, but when pressed i realize they have no sense of the scope or import of the "russia stuff" and how it points to a whole network of kleptomaniac, authoritarian forces that seek to do violence of democracy. i forgive your average union organizer this sort of laziness, b/c they've got other stuff to do, but taibbi is a political journalist -- that's his trade.

you got the Mueller Report, GG?

Taibbi’s position is not substantially different from that of Leonid Ragozin, Masha Gessen, Alex Kovalev, Oleg Kashin, etc, etc - and idk if anyone is in a position to accuse them of being indifferent to kleptocracy, authoritarianism or propaganda. His line is that bad reporting emboldens authoritarians.

gummy and nerdy p
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1b54868e647890074122d58ebb82fbcd

you got the Mueller Report, GG?

i will be polite and ask why you are asking this question of me.

(that is, since you know the answer, i wonder what you are driving at in asking the question)

kleptomaniac, authoritarian forces that seek to do violence of democracy.

Yes, they're called the Republican Party.

they're called capitalism

They’re called your mom

sorry everyone for the violence my mom has inflicted on democracy

as I know who you are now, GG, we shan't be interacting again

damn what did gleen greenwald do now

Went on Maddow.

sorry everyone for the violence my mom has inflicted on democracy

― mr greta t. gremlin (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, April 2, 2019 10:35 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

long overdue.

sorry everyone for the violence my mom has inflicted on democracy

― mr greta t. gremlin (bizarro gazzara)

you're not responsible for the sins of your parents, it's ok