I used to believe Matt Taibbi

Now I wonder how smart he is.  Never go up against Mehdi Hasan.  He'll eat you alive.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04/08/2023:

Taibbi actually thought he could hold his own against Mehdi Hasan.  March 25:

Pathetic, Matt.

WTF happened to Matt Taibbi?

Jesus, Matt.   Blink twice if  you're being held hostage.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Self-owning Republican committee

Despite their own past behavior, Republicans are using their newfound control of the House to probe Democrats’ and federal law enforcement agencies’ interaction with Twitter.

[...]

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter.

  Rolling Stone

Ooops.

The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.

[...]

But during both the Trump and Biden presidencies, these types of moderation requests or demands were routinely sent to Twitter by the staff of influential GOP lawmakers — ones with names like Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik.

[...]

The obvious irony here is, the sources note, that Republican leaders and elected officials have long been committing precisely the kind of “government interference” that they are now investigating, fundraising off of, and accusing Democrats and the so-called anti-Trump “Deep State” of perpetrating. Some of the loudest conservative and MAGA voices on Capitol Hill — who’ve been endlessly demanding taxpayer-funded, high-profile investigations into Big Tech “bias” and “collusion” — were themselves engaged in the behavior they now claim is colluding.

I wonder if Matt Taibbi and Jonathan Turley - or indeed, Elon Musk himself - will have anything to say.

Other posts on this insane flop of a committee can be found here and here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09:24 am:

UPDATE 03:18 pm:  Well, we've heard from Turley now...

Maybe Taibbi will have something to say about that.

Katie, bar the door...

Too bad the yelling and screaming clips are what they're after - the fundraising value is priceless.

And wrapping it up...

The Age of Angry Torpor has descended on us all.

[...]

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability had its first chance to air out its chuckleheaded conspiracy tales about Twitter's "suppression" of the news about Hunter Biden's laptop. It took up most of the legislative day on Wednesday.

[...]

When Rep. Lauren Boebert threatened a witnesses with arrest and prosecution for...something...and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Comer if he didn't think this violated committee protocols on witness intimidation, Comer fumbled and foozled around until an aide at his shoulder prompted him to reply, “We don't agree there was witness threatening.” (He couldn't come up with that on his own?)

[...]

Comer put a blow-up of the NYP front page in question behind his chair. That story speculated that the laptop contained evidence that Joe Biden had gotten a Ukrainian prosecutor fired because the man was closing in on one of Hunter's business partners. This, you may recall, was the primary red herring Republicans tossed out as an alternate theory of the crime during Impeachment No. 1. One person who remembered that quite clearly was rookie Rep. Dan Goldman, whose previous gig was lead counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in that very matter. He took Comer out for a walk.

  Charlie Pierce

Continue reading.

The story behind Musk's Twitter crusade

The Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Warning: This is a Jonathan Turley article.

As many of us have long suspected, there were back channels between Twitter and the Biden 2020 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to ban critics or remove negative stories.

[...]

Obviously, bias in the media is nothing new to Washington; newspapers and networks have long run interference for favored politicians or parties. However, this was not a case of a media company spiking its own story to protect a pal. It was a social media company that supplies a platform for people to communicate with each other on political, social and personal views. Social media is now more popular as a form of communications than the telephone.

Censoring communications on Twitter is more akin to the telephone company agreeing to cut the connection of any caller using disfavored terms. And at the apparent request of the 2020 Biden campaign and the DNC, Twitter seems to have routinely stopped others from discussing or hearing opposing views.

[...]

Musk’s dumped Twitter documents not only confirm the worst expectations of some of us but feature many of the usual suspects for Twitter critics. The documents do not show a clear role or knowledge by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Instead, the censor in chief appears to be Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer who has been criticized as a leading anti-free speech figure in social media.

[...]

[T]he New York Post was suspended from Twitter for reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Twitter even blocked users from sharing the Post’s story by using a tool designed for child pornography. Even Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was suspended for linking to the scandal.

[...]

Some Twitter executives expressed unease with censoring the story, including former global communications VP Brandon Borrman, who asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” [FBI general counsel James] Baker jumped in to support censorship and said, “It’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.”

[...]

These documents show a back channel existed with President Biden’s campaign officials, but those same back channels appear to have continued to be used by Biden administration officials. If so, that would be when Twitter may have gone from a campaign ally to a surrogate for state censorship.

[...]

The incoming Republican House majority has pledged to investigate.

  The Hill

And this is why Trump wants to suspend the Constitution.

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the Twitter alternative that he founded.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he added. “Our great ‘Founder’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections.”

  MSN

Which this clearly was not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

thread

UPDATE:

Because it puts fuel on the base fire.

UPDATE:

And none of this is news.

Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that [its ban on the laptop story] was a mistake over a year ago.

  Bulwark

UPDATE:  When you're MAGA and you've lost Sebastian Gorka...

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Matt Taibbi's followers are crackerjack

They always come through on movie title references to the latest BS.













































Join in if you've got one.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

TARFU

"In 1944 the US Army put out a series of cartoons about three brothers. There was Private SNAFU - Situation Normal, All Fucked Up; Private FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition; and then there was Private TARFU - Totally and Royally Fucked Up. SNAFU and FUBAR quickly became part of the national lexicon, but poor old TARFU was forgotten. For eighty-seven years he labored in obscurity until America finally became just fucked up enough for him to be reintroduced. Today America is beyond SNAFU and FUBAR. Today, America is TARFU."

Podcasts are becoming the alternative to talk radio.

"An intellectual Möbius strip."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Insane Clown President

If anyone can fill any of the space left by Molly Ivins, it is Matt Taibbi. In fact, his latest book, Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus, begins with a quote from Molly: "I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth."

I hope that Matt will now take up the work of chronicling the T-Rump years the way Molly did with Bushwhacked.

What follows after the break are some of my favorite Insane Clown President quips and passages.  Do buy a copy though.  Support Matt's work and have a permanent reference for what could well turn out to be the most mind-blowing period in American history.  And you were there.

Insane Clown Country

That's a small clip from Matt Taibbi's latest book: Insane Clown President, Dispatches from the 2016 Circus.

Here's a nice interview he did with Chris Hedges:

Taibbi's opening page of Insane Clown President is a quote from Molly Ivins:

"I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil.   And that no one knows the truth."

Amen.

Matt Taibbi Talks About Journalism in Today's Climate

Tumped

Matt Taibbi is always a good read. In this one, he has finally and completely left Rolling Stone's old Gonzo reporting from Hunter S. Thompson in the dust.

For most of the past year, it's been difficult to get a read on what "the Trump campaign" was thinking at any given moment, because "the Trump campaign" per se didn't exist. The campaign was basically a few overheated ganglia somewhere behind Trump's eyes.

  Matt Taibbi @ Rolling Stone

Read it all here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

First Look Snags Matt Taibbi

First Look Media, the news organization created by Pierre Omidyar, today announced that acclaimed journalist and New York Times best-selling author Matt Taibbi will launch First Look’s second digital magazine. Taibbi will help assemble a top-notch team of journalists and bring his trademark combination of reporting, analysis, humor and outrage to the ongoing financial crisis – and to the political machinery that makes it possible. The magazine will launch later this year. Taibbi comes to First Look from Rolling Stone.

  Business Wire

First Look is the organization that just launched The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and others.  This second publication, headed up by Matt Taibbi, will focus on financial and political corruption.  Should have plenty of material.

Whether busting Goldman Sachs for market manipulation or revealing the hidden roots of the student loan crisis, Taibbi has exposed and explained the most complicated financial scandals of the day.

[...]

The name and launch date of his digital magazine will be announced in the coming months.

Taibbi's farewell to Rolling Stone.