I'm a writer and I can tell you that the most distressing thing about the last four years has been what has happened to journalism in this country. Mainstream always leaned left but they have abandoned any semblance of the truth and joined the socialist party. It's breath-taking what they are doing. I think this corruption of the media is linked to the corruption of the Democrat party (and particularly people like Biden). I don't see how you separate the two anymore. If people don't like Trump's personality, he'll be gone soon, but if we let the left socialist + media take over this country, it will be unrecognizable in a week.
After reading Mary Anastacia O'Grady's recent column in the Wall Street Journal pointing out that censorship in left-wing nations is almost always cheered on by the legacy press until they realize, too late (a la Robespierre or Trotsky), that it's a fire that consumes all in its path with no sense of loyalty, I'm no longer sure that there will be historians in the future to hold today's "journalists" to account for their failures.
What I am fairly sure of is that people in Beijing are having a good laugh at the our witch trials over "Russian" influence.
Take away its nukes, and Russia is Asia's Italy: A former imperial power living off its former glory and generating hard cash by pimping its history to foreign tourists.
Russia has a shrinking population, an economy that's downsizing even faster, and a government bureaucracy more ossified and corrupt than the Soviet regime it replaced. The only thing keeping China from simply marching north through Manchuria and taking the oil and gas fields in Sibera is the aforementioned nukes - and the knowledge that anti-Russian paranoia is a useful distraction in the West.
Russia is no strategic threat, and the Moscow bogeyman is a sad reflection on the intellect and courage of one of our two major political parties and its allies in the national media.
China is the threat - and we have the media studiously avoiding any mention of the China ties in the Hunter Biden scandal.
Notice that India is pivoting from its alliance with Russia to the U.S. India is under direct threat from Beijing - and is realizing that Moscow is basically useless in applying pressure to China. If anything, Russia is now China's puppet state - China's gas and oil purchases represent the single largest foreign cash infusion into Russia's coffers.
China is staking territorial claims throughout the South Pacific, claiming lands that belong to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Guinea and more. It's military is now far greater than Russia's, and they're pouring billions into it every year and make no secret of their willingness to do whatever they want.
Russia is yesterday's threat; China is tomorrow's.
Be nice to have a media that actually cares to look into that - but the NYT, WaPo, etc., are more interested in growing their brand in China than in accurately or honestly reporting on it.
"In other words, this is a story about media commentators citing intelligence sources who in turn are citing media commentators citing intelligence sources." Wait! That was exactly the same technique used to get the Steele Dossier circulated. There seems to be a pattern emerging and it seems to be by many of the same actors.
You're an intelligent man, Matt. Do you really want the leftie crew to have total control over the federal government, including federal law enforcement and the intelligence agencies, in addition to their current domination of media, Big Tech, the universities, the entertainment industry, and other institutions that shape and filter information?
Every journalist knows that the underlying documents published from the Hunter Biden laptop are real. They may be released without proper context, they almost certainly are omitting the more exculpatory materials, but ever journalist knows that the ecomms being released are authentic. And they are newsworthy. Based on the timing of the Pozharskyi emails regarding deliverables and the Boies Schiller emails regarding current status of UK and Ukraine investigations of Burisma, it is clear that the Bidens' claims that Shokin was not investigating Burisma and that Hunter's hiring had nothing to do with Ukrainian investigations of Burisma are just flatly false. It seems increasingly probable - not certain, but probable - that in fact Biden caused Shokin to be fired precisely because of his son's work for Burisma.
Missing from this essay, unless I'm thick and didn't see it, is discussion of the underlying incentives for journalistic malpractice. Unless you assume the journalistic and editorial professions are hopelessly, innately corrupt, then it's worth it to ask WHY this is happening.
We are living in an age where every faction has a kit for building "these machines" and once you've bought a tool, you tend to find reasons to use it. It's a shame that the Responsible National Media are one of the factions, because they really shouldn't be, or they should be a neutral and demilitarized faction whose purpose is to expose the others. But we're also living in an age where financial pressures embedded in the global economy has every industry under stress (except maybe search engine companies). The media need clicks or impressions or whatever, or they run a distinct risk of ceasing to exist altogether, or in a weakened and useless form.
I think most of your recent columns, documenting the madness and groupthink of current events, can be sourced to underlying stressors...a slow-rolling economic crisis (or crises) decades in the making, that's expressing itself in these culture wars. Matt, you did an outstanding job back in the aughts figuring out and explaining what was going on in the Great Recession. I'd love it if you'd return to that beat for a while, since I think it might explain and expose many reasons for the madness you're describing.
I don’t understand all the confusion surrounding the argument he’s making here. Put aside for a moment where the laptop came from, if Biden’s campaign truly wanted this story to go away, they should either 1) Back up their current stance of dismissiveness and hostility by laying out precisely why the contents in some of the documents are false or 2) Concede that some of the material might be accurate, then answer questions about it.
The overwhelming response in the media to focus solely on the origins of the documents, instead of their accuracy, only helped this story linger.
It is most likely that I would not agree with Mr. Taibbi on many domestic policies however I have been following his writings since the '"Rolling Stones "disgraceful and deceitful reporting on the UVA non-rape story. His non-emotional and rational insights into the failures of the "Stones" reporting was noteworthy. I trust his reporting.
I don't know anyone who believes any of the progressive corporate media bullshit anymore. They are rendering themselves irrelevant except as a carnival side show.
The most fun part of all of this is watching so many people claim without evidence that this is Russian disinformation, only a short time after they have accused Trump of making nearly every claim he makes "without evidence". (They also claim he's making several claims he doesn't actually make, also "without evidence").
What a difference a year makes. Contrast the media's "kid glove" treatment of Biden now with this exhaustive article published in Politico on August 2 of 2019: Biden Inc.
Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.
I'm a writer and I can tell you that the most distressing thing about the last four years has been what has happened to journalism in this country. Mainstream always leaned left but they have abandoned any semblance of the truth and joined the socialist party. It's breath-taking what they are doing. I think this corruption of the media is linked to the corruption of the Democrat party (and particularly people like Biden). I don't see how you separate the two anymore. If people don't like Trump's personality, he'll be gone soon, but if we let the left socialist + media take over this country, it will be unrecognizable in a week.
After reading Mary Anastacia O'Grady's recent column in the Wall Street Journal pointing out that censorship in left-wing nations is almost always cheered on by the legacy press until they realize, too late (a la Robespierre or Trotsky), that it's a fire that consumes all in its path with no sense of loyalty, I'm no longer sure that there will be historians in the future to hold today's "journalists" to account for their failures.
What I am fairly sure of is that people in Beijing are having a good laugh at the our witch trials over "Russian" influence.
Take away its nukes, and Russia is Asia's Italy: A former imperial power living off its former glory and generating hard cash by pimping its history to foreign tourists.
Russia has a shrinking population, an economy that's downsizing even faster, and a government bureaucracy more ossified and corrupt than the Soviet regime it replaced. The only thing keeping China from simply marching north through Manchuria and taking the oil and gas fields in Sibera is the aforementioned nukes - and the knowledge that anti-Russian paranoia is a useful distraction in the West.
Russia is no strategic threat, and the Moscow bogeyman is a sad reflection on the intellect and courage of one of our two major political parties and its allies in the national media.
China is the threat - and we have the media studiously avoiding any mention of the China ties in the Hunter Biden scandal.
Notice that India is pivoting from its alliance with Russia to the U.S. India is under direct threat from Beijing - and is realizing that Moscow is basically useless in applying pressure to China. If anything, Russia is now China's puppet state - China's gas and oil purchases represent the single largest foreign cash infusion into Russia's coffers.
China is staking territorial claims throughout the South Pacific, claiming lands that belong to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Guinea and more. It's military is now far greater than Russia's, and they're pouring billions into it every year and make no secret of their willingness to do whatever they want.
Russia is yesterday's threat; China is tomorrow's.
Be nice to have a media that actually cares to look into that - but the NYT, WaPo, etc., are more interested in growing their brand in China than in accurately or honestly reporting on it.
***Towering Matterhorn of bullshit***
"In other words, this is a story about media commentators citing intelligence sources who in turn are citing media commentators citing intelligence sources." Wait! That was exactly the same technique used to get the Steele Dossier circulated. There seems to be a pattern emerging and it seems to be by many of the same actors.
I bet Putin thinks we're all insane. "I don't have to do a damned thing, and I get both credit and blame for all of it! Americans are crazy!"
You're an intelligent man, Matt. Do you really want the leftie crew to have total control over the federal government, including federal law enforcement and the intelligence agencies, in addition to their current domination of media, Big Tech, the universities, the entertainment industry, and other institutions that shape and filter information?
What could go wrong?
" Bo Erickson of CBS, got raked over the coals by the most aggressive Heathers in the giant high school that is America"
I'm not sure how to put this but I find it ironic that the the US media has become what the Soviet media was in the USSR.
Every journalist knows that the underlying documents published from the Hunter Biden laptop are real. They may be released without proper context, they almost certainly are omitting the more exculpatory materials, but ever journalist knows that the ecomms being released are authentic. And they are newsworthy. Based on the timing of the Pozharskyi emails regarding deliverables and the Boies Schiller emails regarding current status of UK and Ukraine investigations of Burisma, it is clear that the Bidens' claims that Shokin was not investigating Burisma and that Hunter's hiring had nothing to do with Ukrainian investigations of Burisma are just flatly false. It seems increasingly probable - not certain, but probable - that in fact Biden caused Shokin to be fired precisely because of his son's work for Burisma.
Missing from this essay, unless I'm thick and didn't see it, is discussion of the underlying incentives for journalistic malpractice. Unless you assume the journalistic and editorial professions are hopelessly, innately corrupt, then it's worth it to ask WHY this is happening.
We are living in an age where every faction has a kit for building "these machines" and once you've bought a tool, you tend to find reasons to use it. It's a shame that the Responsible National Media are one of the factions, because they really shouldn't be, or they should be a neutral and demilitarized faction whose purpose is to expose the others. But we're also living in an age where financial pressures embedded in the global economy has every industry under stress (except maybe search engine companies). The media need clicks or impressions or whatever, or they run a distinct risk of ceasing to exist altogether, or in a weakened and useless form.
I think most of your recent columns, documenting the madness and groupthink of current events, can be sourced to underlying stressors...a slow-rolling economic crisis (or crises) decades in the making, that's expressing itself in these culture wars. Matt, you did an outstanding job back in the aughts figuring out and explaining what was going on in the Great Recession. I'd love it if you'd return to that beat for a while, since I think it might explain and expose many reasons for the madness you're describing.
I don’t understand all the confusion surrounding the argument he’s making here. Put aside for a moment where the laptop came from, if Biden’s campaign truly wanted this story to go away, they should either 1) Back up their current stance of dismissiveness and hostility by laying out precisely why the contents in some of the documents are false or 2) Concede that some of the material might be accurate, then answer questions about it.
The overwhelming response in the media to focus solely on the origins of the documents, instead of their accuracy, only helped this story linger.
"Therefore, by the transitive property of whatever"
Matt, this is just outstanding!
It is most likely that I would not agree with Mr. Taibbi on many domestic policies however I have been following his writings since the '"Rolling Stones "disgraceful and deceitful reporting on the UVA non-rape story. His non-emotional and rational insights into the failures of the "Stones" reporting was noteworthy. I trust his reporting.
I don't know anyone who believes any of the progressive corporate media bullshit anymore. They are rendering themselves irrelevant except as a carnival side show.
The most fun part of all of this is watching so many people claim without evidence that this is Russian disinformation, only a short time after they have accused Trump of making nearly every claim he makes "without evidence". (They also claim he's making several claims he doesn't actually make, also "without evidence").
What a difference a year makes. Contrast the media's "kid glove" treatment of Biden now with this exhaustive article published in Politico on August 2 of 2019: Biden Inc.
Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.
By BEN SCHRECKINGER August 02, 2019
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-investigation-hunter-brother-hedge-fund-money-2020-campaign-227407