Matt Taibbi

The highway center line, where all the roadkill ends up

Pithy, but it doesn't work as a simile because the roadkill I've observed is more often nearer the shoulder of the highway than the middle. Maybe the highways that abound in NYC are different.

People who don’t believe in the established military-industrial hegemony just aren’t very interesting to you anymore.

lol aimless i spent a day on whether to type "do you even DRIVE bro?" but decided morbs has enough fans

cheezit it's the metaphor police!

if i drove i'd be dead

uhhh

This NYT story about the opening of a criminal probe into the origins of Russiagate sounds like it was written by the defense lawyers of the investigation’s targets. https://t.co/Gp43Xxg9TJ

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) October 25, 2019

guy fuckin sucks imo but whatever

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/temporary-coronavirus-censorship

Instead of asking calmly if hydroxychloroquine works, or if the less restrictive Swedish crisis response has merit, or questioning why certain statistical assumptions about the seriousness of the crisis might have been off, we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous. Or we’re politicizing the framing of stories in a way that signals to readers what their take should be before they even digest the material. “Conservative Americans see coronavirus hope in Progressive Sweden,” reads a Politico headline, as if only conservatives should feel optimism in the possibility that a non-lockdown approach might have merit! Are we rooting for such an approach to not work?

Amen! It's been goddamn impossible to sort through any information and COVID-19 because of this shit.

and=about

this guy is a rapist

fuck him & all associates

not true.

But good job illustrating his point perfectly.

Well, I imagine the actual story behind the Sweden headline would be “conservatives hoping that non-disastrous data from a measured non-lockdown approach in a vastly different and more progressive society could justify forcing poor people to go back to work with minimal assistance or testing.”

we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous.

I love it when "we" means "all of us, but not me". This kind of low-key duplicity is a reliable sign of lazy or disingenuous writing.

are there actual sources for Taibbi and/or Ames indulging in horrible behavior and not just writing about it as questionable satire of their time in Russia

I mean, I read this shit after the fact in the book that I should probably sell to someone looking for printed proof of their crimes, but it always seemed like things I’d flip last but begrudgingly deal with because one of them had witnessed parliament being blown up in their adopted home

a few years ago a reporter went and interviewed a lot of ppl who had worked at the exile with taibbi and ames and they all said that none of it was true, all of it was just satire in shitty taste

wokeness at its most boring

yeah but Tara Reade blah blah Russia blah blah Katie Halper blah blah Matt Taibii blah blah rapist blah blah Russia

verbatim talking points iirc

@Aimless: I guess so, but it could also be a way to say "I'm sure I'm guilty of this too."

I really don't get the hate for this guy.

I fucking hate rapists & their satire excuse is bullshit they only came out with when they were called out. I wish they were dead. fuck you all

also it's fucking creepy how any negative tweet about these fucks gets bombarded by new accounts proclaiming their innocence, like they have some kind of namesearching-response team

disgusting fucks

all of you

let's say it was "just satire" which it wasn't- they should already have been cancelled for that, who the fuck thinks that shit is funny or clever

yeah but Tara Reade blah blah Russia blah blah Katie Halper blah blah Matt Taibii blah blah rapist blah blah Russia

if i wrote something like this i would kill myself

You seem cool.

fuck you too

Taibbi didn't rape anyone. Is it more important to cancel people than to be right? Is cancelling an innocent person better for the movement than admitting you are wrong?

lol

glad ilx user Left is here to help

Left, please consult the Comprehensive ILX User's Manual for suggestions about how to tell others to fuck themselves without flecking everyone's screen with spittle.

Cancel season is over

yeah sorry I know this site thought r kelly was cool until like a year ago so what was I thinking

people still like led zeppelin ffs

Has anyone actually accused Taibbi of sexual misconduct?

No

oh well that settles it then

this site thought r kelly was cool

the ilx Server had opinions about r Kelly?

cunts

Has anyone actually accused Taibbi of sexual misconduct?

― JoeStork, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

No

― flappy bird, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh well that settles it then

― fuck it (Left), Friday, May 1, 2020 5:49 PM (fifty-seven seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

It...doesn't?

cunts

You seem cool.

I post stuff on this thread because I think Taibbi has interesting opinions and takes. At best people have a one-liner response, and at worst we get people like this guy flipping out.

Is ILX twitter now?

basically

Instead of asking calmly if hydroxychloroquine works, or if the less restrictive Swedish crisis response has merit, or questioning why certain statistical assumptions about the seriousness of the crisis might have been off, we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous.

All three of these things are widely discussed in every mainstream media outlet and on the Internet, what the fuck is he talking about? There was literally a widely-shared article in the New York Times YESTERDAY about Sweden's COVID response, there have been clinical trials around the world of hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir whose results are broadly publicized, there is constant discussion of what the true fatality rate per infection is (and general consensus that in most places it's probably less than the 0.9% in the first iteration of the Imperial College model.)

I have no knowledge of whether Taibbi is a rotten person but this is just an incorrect thing for him to be saying.

xp - Back to the job at hand.

@Aimless: I guess so, but it could also be a way to say "I'm sure I'm guilty of this too."

So, here is a thought. If he really had been denouncing those questions, but reversed course and decided that he'd been entirely wrong to do so, wouldn't the appropriate way to correct that be to state: "Like many people, I reflexively dismissed and denounced these questions on inadequate grounds. But now I want to re-examine them, and I suggest you do, too, because if they have merit it is important to discover that."

By writing "Instead of asking calmly... we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous", he casts himself as the sole one who understands the merit in asking calmly, and is correcting the faults of the rest of the world. Like I said, if he truly was accusing himself of acting wrongly, this is a disingenuous way to say it.

why do people register here just to shit on everyone

it is their imperative reason for being?

@eephus

I think that's fair. I have seen what he's talking about too, though. There is this constant need by the media to frame everything in how it relates to Trump. And of course these types of stories fuel the outrage networks and drive traffic.

@Aimless
ok. I'm not sure why you're dismissing him based on this rhetorical problem, but fair enough, I guess.

I am not dismissing him. But if you are a writer for a living, your choice of words matters, and if your subject matter is telling others how to interpret and evaluate world events, then doing so disingenuously is not just a rhetorical problem. If his purpose was to admit guilt, then admit it directly, don't implicate the rest of the world and then exonerate yourself.