I couldn't find 6-7 out of 10 people that feel the war in Israel or Ukraine, or tensions between China/Taiwan "somewhat/very" important to their everyday life if you stuck a pistol in my ear.
How bout we ask some questions like:
Do you support sending another 70 billion dollars to Zelensky?
Do you support the current 2000 mile daily Boston Marathon at the southern border or Texas, Arizona & California?
Do you support the crazy grocery prices and rent sweeping the nation while being told this is the best economy we've seen in decades?
Do you support doctors cutting children's genitals off and injecting them with life changing chemicals?
Do you support open air drug markets, people shitting in the streets and living in tents in the park and on the sidewalk?
Do you support the runaway theft/violent crime/murder taking over most of our nations cities?
Jesus Christ Oliver.....how bout getting your head out of your ass and start reporting on things Americans truly care about.
Spot on. We pay for Bari Weiss but are getting large doses of Wiseman and Savodnik - both of whom are useless clowns. Why? Soft leftist pseudo intellectuals who cheerlead for the DNC are not why we subscribed and allowed Bari to build Common Sense in the first place.
As I've commented more times than I can count......less Wiseman and more Kirn. But Walter has a good thing going with Matt Taibbi so he's probably not terribly interested in making TFP contributions.
No, Ukraine is not a European ‘democracy’. It’s actually a pretty corrupt place. Right now it’s under martial law and suspended its presidential elections (elections Zelensky states, will resume 6 months after end of war). That election suspension is understandable given the war. But what’s not understandable is Zelensky government criminally charging his primary political opponent, Oleksiy Arestovych (a former Zelensky advisor) who was running on platform of negotiating a peace settlement. In this way, Zelensky is acting just like Putin vis-vis Navalny. BTW, most of us on the ‘Right’ have no love for Putin, whatsoever.
You know another reality in Oliver’s “European democracy” called Ukraine?
Currently all opposition parties to Zelensky have been removed from the Ukraine parliament, and all non-state media has been banned from the airwaves. I doubt very much these particular authoritative measures are okay’d under martial law.
Ukraine at this time quite obviously does not trust the will of its own people. Zelensky by barring opposition from parliament, criminally charging/sidelining his political opponent and banning outside Free Press - also ensures no contrarian voices (read those that would sue for peace) are heard inside that country.
Has anyone noticed that neither Biden nor anyone else in his administration has gone on TV and given us a clear understanding of what US objectives are in the Ukraine? Neither Ukraine nor Russia can "win" exactly.
Also, I would like to see where all the billions of dollars go exactly? I expect much of it goes to the corrupt Biden machine and everyone connected with them - as well as neo-con Republicans.
This Tucker Carlson interview of Benz was way more interesting than what Savodnik and Wiseman serve up:
"Everything You Need to Know about the Government’s Mass Censorship Campaign"
Agree that the Mike Benz (former State Department official) interview brought together a lot of disparate strings. One of Tucker's best interviews yet.
For Free Presser's interested, here's Mike Benz's website touted as a 'free speech watchdog' that tracks and traces various Censorship Industrial Complex cases that are happening online, domestically in our country:
"Through educational reports, legal assistance, and public policy analysis concerning developing threats to digital liberties, we seek to provide nonpartisan insights and assistance to all peoples taking a stand for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the free exchange of ideas online"
When was the last time that the US supported a war, especially with military intervention, with clear cut goals? Our leaders are bone spur whiners now exempt warriors in their late 70's or flipping idiots who compare the lost of life of young men in Afghanistan to the death of their middle age son. Have a child that serves in the military and you will know the special pain of a child who loves their country and is betrayed at all levels by the government.
Bless Blinken who wants pronouns right but leaves military equipment and allies to be overtaken in Afghanistan. (I think often of the Afghanistan translator who went to University of Iowa and was left behind to a terrible fate.) Wishing that I was also a loving mother rather than a bitterly disappointed one.
I do hear you, JoAnne. My husband encouraged me to have a positive handle. I truly am a Loving Mother. And, that is why I would like to see Crimes Against Humanity trials and executions of key perpetrators of the Trans Cult, like Admiral Dr. Mengele Levine, Dr. Jason Rafferty, Satanic Panic UCSF Dr. Diane Erhenhart (see 4thwavenow.com), and whoever is pulling the lever to foist this death cult religion on our children at school - riding on top of "Social Emotional Learning" (It is so much more important to destroy families and children than to teach them anything real - which schools fail to do for the most part).
From the people who think they are rebelling against religion we have:
‘Gender Theology: A regressive cult popularized in the 2010s and 2020s, which posited the body as an incidental meathousing for sacred inner ‘gender souls’. It practiced child sacrifice in the form of sterilization of gay and autistic children, where substantial body modification was performed to bring the child’s physicality into congruence with the ‘gender soul’. This became a powerful and influential religion - adherence was institutionally mandated and signaled by the ritualistic performance of believers stating ‘pronouns’ upon introduction. Non-believers were shunned and often ejected from main-stream society.‘
Where is the separation of Church and State? Wait, "gender is science" and we "believe" in science. What kind of morons or grifters are these?
"Have a child that serves in the military and you will know the special pain of a child who loves their country and is betrayed at all levels by the government." Definitely.
"Bless Blinken who wants pronouns right but leaves military equipment and allies to be overtaken in Afghanistan." Right? The equipment will not be used against us? But, everyone must share in the perversion of a few like Sam Brinton and Richard Levine - because of the "original" pedophile pervert Dr. John Money and the Kinsey "science". See the Transgender Leviathan by Pedro Gonzales https://americanprinciplesproject.org/media/new-app-report-exposes-origins-influence-transgender-leviathan/
"I think often of the Afghanistan translator who went to University of Iowa and was left behind to a terrible fate." Yes. And, remember the people falling off of the airplanes as they took off?
LovingMother, I think it very important Mike Benz is heard. To that end, here is a 3min video snippet from the overall hour-long interview as a teaser for those with limited time:
"But even DHS couldn’t do this directly, so it outsourced online censorship operations to third parties like the Election Integrity Partnership, or EIP, which consisted of four separate organizations: the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and a firm called Graphika. These private-sector “partners” did the nitty-gritty work of mapping out entire online networks of people who helped spread certain disfavored opinions, or what the censors called “false narratives.” Essentially they were deputized to censor Americans on behalf of the government."
👍👍 I agree, Mike Benz lays out the MO of the swamp in an easier to understand format. It proves, once again, that Alex Jones is right more times than not. A must read for anyone that doubts the nefarious intents of the "deep state" and its NWO agenda.
Sue for peace? You’re mouthing Putin’s talking points. What do you think “peace” means under these circumstances? I really struggle to understand all of you who say you don’t like Putin but who say in the same breath that you would not help Ukraine to win this. “Peace” as negotiated by Putin (or Trump) means he keeps all of Ukrainian land he has already grabbed. And if Ukraine is forced to accept this because the GOP surrenders to Trump and its extremist wing, Putin will come back for more once he’s licked his wounds. As Churchill memorably said, “Negotiating with a dictator is like bargaining with a crocodile that he’ll eat you last.”
Will, not sure if you are a young person, or perhaps just not familiar w/ the geography of Ukraine and demographics of the two foes. The land is completely flat, no natural barriers (like a mountain range) to keep out invaders. Russia population is 144M to Ukraine’s 37.5M. The war is simply not winnable for Ukraine in the long run. These countries are closely linked in history, and without West pushing Ukraine to join NATO, there would not be this conflict. The USA government should be ashamed of themselves for deluding Ukraine they could join the West, and now the generational trauma inflicted upon the Ukraine people. Putin is a piece of shit, but he also warned and warned this would occur if NATO kept playing stupid games. Russia considers NATO including Ukraine as a member, an existential threat. Now, Ukraine has squelched off all talk inside its country of a negotiated peace. Shouldn’t the people of Ukraine decide what is best for them? Or is it you and other neocons that insist it must be war, war, war? This war should have never happened. And now that is has, you want to shift the blame to USA not continuing to fund it?
Many of us have heard the ‘domino theory’ you are suggesting our whole lives (Korea, Vietnam, now Ukraine). Not a buyer. You know why? Because all other countries in West bordering Russia are protected under Article 5. Do you know what that is?
Riddle me this, why didn’t the USA allow Russia into NATO when they asked for consideration of entry in 1998?
Or for that matter, USSR asked the same in 1953, when Stalin died, reply then was also ‘no, go pound sand’
You made some excellent observations and explained the facts well. Regarding your question why the US didn't allow Russia to join NATO, I think it's just the common everyday power game answer. US didn't want any other party in NATO being anywhere near as powerful as we are and possibly being able to influence key decisions and actions in a way contrary to our agenda. With Russia right next door and providing so much energy to Europe, they would have a lot more influence on NATO than US would like.
Unlike TFP, Taibbi and Kirn don’t seem to be looking over their shoulders, afraid the cool kids might not like them any more. TFP take note- competition should prompt you to do better.
That is SO spot-on. It's a junior high school cafeteria. Unfortunately it infects some of the commenters. One guy sneeringly alerted me that his comment had gotten more Likes than mine. I had to choose carefully between potential responses:
1. You probably have more Friends on MySpace and Friendster than me as well.
2. Are you 12, or still 11?
3. Does your mom know you're using her laptop?
The difficulty I think Bari may be having is that she wants ALL, not just some of the cool kids to like her. She wants the anti-Trump, anti-Biden, pro-Israel, anti-Russia, anti-woke, and even normal liberals and conservatives to all like her. Even Obama couldn't pull that off.
If you can only do one, definitely do Racket News, Taibbi's substack. He has been doing alternative journalism forever (even when he was with Rolling Stone for a while). He holds Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity in exactly equal contempt. Our kind of guy. He still cares about censorship, which Bari seemed to lose interest in after 5 minutes. And the podcast every Friday with Walter Kirn is great. It can't even be compared to the drivel and musings that come from Nellie each Friday. There used to be a sportswriter in Dallas named Blackie Sherrod. A legend with the Dallas Morning News. Near the end of his career, he had a column which usually started "Scattershooting while wondering...." He would just do a subdued version of Stephen A. Smith every week in his column, never really saying anything of consequence. That's what TFP's TGIF has become like.
The speciousness is actually off the charts this week. Let's see if Nellie can stop the backsliding by Friday. TFP likes to sometimes dip its toes into the Truth but never enough to drag mud into its MSM house.
I watched John Stewart's first episode of the Daily Show (back after 9 years last week) and he played in right down the middle. The POTUS '24 antiques roadshow was funny/spectacular, IMO. I then tuned in 2 nights ago to see if that might continue. Nope. It was 20min of Tucker bashing, predicated by Stewart stating he had received a lot of heat from the Left over his critique of Biden age. So that episode was to somehow balance things out? What a frightened hack Stewart actually is.
Bari is trying to establish alternative media and education sources. That's the point. Ideally, the Free Press is to be a newspaper of sorts with different writers and reporting (don''t like the word "reportage"). More voices wouldn't hurt.
I tire of Savodnik, a liberal, reading other liberals about conservatives and then telling us what conservatives think. TFP seriously needs a conservative voice.
There are some really great commenters here. I can name a few who would be far superior to Savodnik and Wiseman and the regurgitated MSM vomit that they peddle.
Well, he once did. Not sure he writes thee antniore. But if one goes to that link up pops a cookies alert. you need to go through it and wipe out "consents' where they have it defaulted. I hate shitty websites like that.
Ilike opposing views. It makes me think and if I really don't like them, I get to hammer them, Like Pual Krugman. He is a far left ideolog who is blinded by his ideology and can't see past it. Also he is vicious and obnoxious. His getting the Nobel prize just cements my view that it is a far left congratulation party, doling out prizes to far left nut cases, like Al Gore.
This article proves my point:
THE LADY PLUMBER
You wonder what criteria are used to select people
for the Nobel peace prize.
Read the story below and we then understand how
pathetic and superficial our world has become.
Remember this lady?
WHAT A WOMAN
Irena Sender
Died: May 12,2008 (aged 98)
Warsaw , Poland
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto,
as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.
Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom
of the tool box she carried.
She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck
for larger kids.
Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark
when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do
with the dog, and the barking
covered the kids'/infants' noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to
smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazis
broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the
kids she had smuggled out
in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that
may have survived
and tried to reunite the families.
Most had been gassed.
Those kids she helped got placed into foster family
homes or adopted.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize .
She was not selected.
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Later another politician, Barack Obama, won for
SIMPLY BEING
THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT .
It is now more than 74 years since the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians
10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered.
Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth', it’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!
Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.
Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.
I don't want all of Bari's guest commentators to be preaching to the choir. Shake things up and stop being right wing Woke.
Thank you for this LP. To be fair though people like Irena do not do things for credit or glory. OTOH people who would be our leaders, from both parties, do nothing without credit and/or glory therefor.
I've done it a couple times. Too many superficial articles by condescending leftists who didn't do their homework on their subject matter. I have come back because the commenters are better than many of the authors, and the site is somewhat less of an echo chamber than other sites covering similar content.
This publication is the Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project and not much else. Bari and crew couldn't give a fuck about the normal people in the world. They are too busy squirming their way into new, elite circles...
We bought what she was selling, then. We can always unsubscribe and just build our own Substack of commenst, right? I quickly scan the daily scribble and come straight to the comments to goof around with you guys, anyway… 😆
It kind of reminds me of college, where I went to class but the best part was hanging out in the cafeteria and kibitzing with really smart and interesting kids. Not that we’re kids anymore.
Right, like could we hear about DA Fani Willis and Judge Engoron, NY Governor Hochul (who has assured businesses that the crazy Trump prosecution is just a one off to get him and not to worry...), the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooter Lyndell Mays...
I’m wondering if they haven’t killed real estate investment in all blue states. They don’t seem to understand that their public union cheerleaders cannot sustain the blue state economies.
According to Ollie's own numbers, almost no one in America supports Putin. And yet Ollie and Peter keep claiming that "conservatives" en masse support Putin.
Where are all these conservatives who support Putin hiding, do they think? With the vast throngs of White Supremacists who are a looming danger to their "democracy"?
Bari really needs to ditch the delusional people on her team.
BTW, it is not "hard to tell" where the Squad stands on Israel: they are 100% against it.
Anthony, who does Wiseman consider “normies” ?? Those who are pro funding Ukraine, without question?? Those who believe Israel needs to ceasefire, because Palestinians are being killed?? Have YET to hear anyone demand Ukraine ceasefire! Aren’t the “attackers suppose to be attacked” in War, which would be HAMAS & RUSSIA!
Seems Wiesman thinks the “normies” are those who support & recognize the Biden Regime’s “accomplishments” and want to desperately try to censor Free Speakers like Tucker, Elon, Rogan, Russell, etc., etc.!
So, I’m guessing Wiesman considers himself and the WOKE Left Democrats to be America’s “normies” … hum, interesting!
Seems Wiesman thinks the “normies” are those who support & recognize the Biden Regime’s “accomplishments”
My response to that is:
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H. L. Mencken
I think that encapsulate the ever senile Joe. Don't you?
Yeah China just criticized the USA for "genocide" in Gaza, but openly supports Putin's war in Ukraine. The lies and hypocrisy are brazen, and it's clear they're working on global justification for a war with the USA.
What the h*** am I missing? How is this publication on the left????? You can't criticize Tucker Carlson for swanning around a Soviet Potemkin supermarket waxing lyrical about how good the bread smells?
Right. Intelligent people ignore Tucker if they don't like the content. They don't fixate on hating right-wing personalities.
Tucker directly benefits from 100% of the hate attention he gets from the leftists. They're feeding him just like they do Trump and that's why he plays them with more outrage.
Bread and circus. Distraction and nonsense. I don't give a crap about Tucker.
Tucker is a perfect prism and mirror. That’s why he does such good interviews. Does he have an opinion? I’m sure he does and I’m sure it’s very intelligent. But he does get the conversation going and he is straight up in those interviews..
I don't read all of the articles. But what I do read addresses issues I care about in a very different way from the mainstream press. If we really care about getting back a press that's not captured, that's part of the deal. And I wasn't aware I was criticizing anyone, but thanks for the permission.
The Normies Oliver refers to are those who are either neocons or neolibs. Those who love war in Ukraine, those who love expanding the war in Israel, those who love bombing Syria, Iraq, Iranian forces, Yemenis. There's nothing normal about them, but then have been in charge for a long time, certainly since Bush2 (the dumb one) was elected. Through Bush, Obama, and now Biden, they can't get enough war. Trump's the only one in decades to not start a new war.
And the people who love war don't love Trump. They love Biden, they love Haley, they REALLY love Hillary.
It seems to me that merely to question the media and administration narrative regarding Putin/Zelenskyy/Russia/Ukraine is to out oneself as a Putin supporter. To me though, Putin is a complete stranger. He may (or may not) have done some very bad things. He may (or may not) be a ruthless despot. I don't know, and have no way of knowing, because the administration and most of the media have proven themselves to be shameless liars about almost everything, at least arguably insane, and not above a bit of despotism themselves as they brazenly attack the America I used to know and still love. Why should I believe anything they say, or accept their enemy - Putin - as my own?
It's beginning to be clear that "Putin-lover" is in the same category as "racist" and "Nazi"--just another fact-free way of attacking anyone who dares to disagree with them.
Fortunately, some of us paid attention to Russia and Putin before the Left's own iron curtain of information-control came down. Putin is not a nice guy at all. No one has ever been able rise to power in Russia, in its entire history, without being a nasty piece of work. Former KGB. But there was a time during the 90s when Putin was at least *appearing* to try to move Russia into a more cooperative position with the West. He was soundly rebuffed by Western leaders who refused to get past the Cold War.
Was the rebuff justified? Was he secretly plotting, even then, to restore the glories of the Soviet Union? Maybe; I don't for sure. (Would Gollum really have changed if not for Sam's harsh words?) But I do know that the rebuff sent him in the anti-Western direction he has been going since then.
I'm sure he was cutthroat to some degree, or he would not have risen to power. But he seems to have been largely promoted on the basis of his perceived loyalty.
Here's the thing about Gorbachev: he did not want the Soviet Union to break up. But he did realize that it could not go on as it had been. He hoped that his reforms, by making the USSR less repressive, would strengthen it. So there was certainly some naivete there.
Which is exactly why TC’s interview was so important! I wanted to hear what Putin had to say - whatever it was - and draw my own conclusions. More of that, please.
Q: Where are all these conservatives who support Putin hiding, do they think? With the vast throngs of White Supremacists who are a looming danger to their "democracy"?
A: In the same sekrut bunkers as the Christian Extremists.
Long ago and far away there were card-carrying communists. No one could ever produce one of those cards -- which didn't help the credibility of what was an actual threat. When my lady friend alleged the "right wing" violence exposure, I merely observed that if the 98% of the "media" who are salivating over the opportunity to report upon it can't find it, it simply doesn't exist. Crickets...
Thank you!! The idea that there is some ambiguity in the rank and open anti-semitism of “The Squad” is just an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying even a modicum of attention.
Remember Celia that Savodnik has superhuman abilities. He knows exactly what goes on in the minds of conservatives. And none of it is good. It’s a gift he was endowed with. He knows that conservatives secretly carry a picture of Putin in their wallets. If only we knew what he knows.
There was a time when believing that you could see into other people's minds was considered a sign of insanity. Now the Leftists all think they have that ability.
Maybe Ollie is conflating the fact that most of us don't want the US to continue sending billions to Ukraine (which really only serves to make additional arms-manufacturer billionaires) with support of Putin. I don't support Putin, but I also don't support stealing money from my kids and grandkids to make billionaires of those who supply arms to Ukraine.
HM, you’re right, he IS conflating GOP refusal (& all you commenters) to help Ukraine with support of Putin BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS! What is the matter with you people? Listen to the Ukrainian people; they overwhelmingly are up for resisting Putin and Russia until they recover all their lands; they overwhelmingly do not want to “negotiate” (& Zelensky knows he would be thrown out if he did). They strongly resent all of the “suggestions” by their supposed allies that they treat with the Russians, starting with France back in mid-2022 (you can rely on the French to do some appeasement - where is Clemenceau today?).
I'm not opposed to Ukraine winning this war. How much has the $113 BILLION done to accomplish that end? If the war is at a stalemate (which it is), how many more BILLIONS are needed to win the war? I don't think it's the object of the Biden administration to win the war. It's to prop up the military-industrial complex in the US who then donate the dollars from the current and future US taxpayers to the policy makers (elected and unelected, and Dems and
GOP) in order to keep the defense dollars coming in. It isn't about Ukraine at all. Ukraine is the useful catalyst at the moment, but that is all. And Ukraine is getting played in this scheme which is all about money and power. Either win the damned war, or get out. Quit playing and spending with no goal other than to make arms manufacturers and their shareholders rich and keep the current powers in power. I'm probably older than you, Will, and though I once believed that there were principled causes to support wars, I don't believe that is the course the US follows anymore. It's all about money and power, and not about the Ukrainian people at all, which is sad.
Ukraine can't win this war. When it made the decision in the 90s to give up its nukes, it lost its deterrence.
Believing Ukraine can defeat Russia in a war is as ridiculous as believing that Florida (or Texas, or New York) could win a war against the United States--even if they had the full support of both China and Russia.
Very annoying. I am STRONGLY against the continued senseless SLAUGHTER of young Ukrainians and Russians. IMMEDIATE CEASE FIRE and start negotiations. Stop the killing.
Doesn't it seem peculiar so many are calling for/insisting on a cease fire in the Hamas initiated war but seem to be ok with the ever continuing war in The Ukraine?
There was a deal to stop it all a month or two after the invasion, but we wouldn't let Zelensky agree to it. No one in power in the security state wants a cease-fire in Ukraine. Those in power don't want it in Gaza either.
Correction - there are no more young Ukrainians. Average age entering service is now 40 which means all the teens/20's/30's are rotting in the fields and forests.
And yet "Jews for Palestine" has enthusiastically done its part in blocking New York City's bridges, tunnels, train stations, and major avenues and shouting "By any means necessary!"
Don't let the word "Palestine" fool you: These Jews mean Hamas.
You took the words right out of my mouth, Celia. Lefties like Wiseman use antisemitism as a sword or a shield, depending on whatever suits their narrative at the moment. It's simultaneously dishonest and boring.
The 5% pro-Putin statistic just reaffirms that Savodink would be better on CNN. Shame on him for trying to manipulate people into thinking that the extreme right is much larger than it actually is.
A Republican Speaker of the House refuses to put forth a Senate sponsored bill to a vote on the House floor on aid to Ukraine. Ask Johnson if he supports Putin. He'll say no, of course. But in doing Trump's bidding, it's the same thing.
Refusing to continue to flush money down the toilet when nothing good has come of the $100+ billion we've already flushed does not equate to support for Putin. It equates to "let's stop wasting our fucking money."
Nothing like waking up to a lecture from a bleach blond faux intellectual to get the day started on the right foot. I will have to go read about what this Peter Savodinik has ever done in the real world. Nothing like a guy with a huge ego and little sense to inform. Great points.
I wonder if he has a bottle of moral superiority that he sprays on after his cologne every morning; what a pompous ass. ( one other note, I drop this into Grammarly before to check for spelling , and when I was checking for spelling, it actually asked me to donate money for Ukraine, these people are everywhere)
When my best friend was editing articles for a SciFi news site, she was constantly having to fight Grammarly, because that's what her boss wanted her to use. Apparently it isn't *quite* as bad as MS Word's grammar checker, but still.
You know what Savodinik is doing here? He's getting a reaction from you. He's doing his job. Just like 'faux' journalist Tucker gets a rise out of the Left. And he knows you'll read his next biased essay - just like Tucker knows he'll get creamed in the MSM for his next soft ball performance. It's all performance art, and you sir (and me as well), are the audience..
I, for one, will not read Savodnik’s next anything.
And if he reappears in TFP, I’ll become much more wary when I turn to this publication (actually, I already am).
Such a shame to voluntarily jettison hard-earned and extremely rare journalistic credibility but Bari & Susie had begun to erode it when they began to frame anything critical of Israel or anything Jewish as anti-Israel or anti-Semitism.
You have to remember when they say "normie" they mean THEIR normies... AKA big-city/big-government lefties. And wealthy. They have to be wealthy because high-society writers don't talk to or associate with public school kids
Now that we've gotten that out of the way there's always one question to ask when you start getting lectured by faux-intellectuals on the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the idea of "good guys" and "bad guys." Just ask them who has invaded more sovereign nations in their lifetime - Russia, or the US? It's pretty amazing how quickly they change the subject. And that's before you get anywhere near explaining JFK's take about who actually won WWII and which nation has given up territory since then vs which one has an occupying presence (by invitation of course...) in 80+ nations. The "well, we're defending DEMOCRACY" thing is hilarious. We now draw our moral line at Democracy? Like people under authoritarianism deserve to die or something? It's almost hilarious in its insanity.
Someone should remind this guy that once your key argument for defending war is "well, it's bringing jobs to America," you've DEFINITELY lost actual "normies."
Standing ovation good sir. As for the invitation, supplying the world's reserve currency does tend to make one the belle of the ball. Of course it should also include the common decency to not overstep one's bounds.
Well this warrants like a 4 hour conversation, but there's just so little time :). I guess my two major thoughts are that 1. Peter Zehan is wrong about almost everything, but he's tangentially right that the tradeoff for our being the global reserve currency was that it is our job to protect commerce across the globe, only we're now failing at that and it was the last thing holding together this house of cards (after we came off the gold standard, started losing wars, started taking on unfathomable debt, and turned our federal government into nothing but a giant money laundering enterprise), and 2. that means the only people who still want us in their territory are people who sacrificed even more of their freedom for the pretense of safety and leisure (western Europe) than we did. For the rest of the world, the useful idiots running the US money laundering enterprise are exactly that - useful idiots hemorrhaging their citizens own economic independence for personal wealth. The Russian Oligarchs of the 1960's would be jealous at how much better we are at this than they were (but it ends the same...)
Only pay attention to what we tell you - please don’t question why we are at war on multiple fronts and can’t even secure our own borders. Americans are sick of the wars - that is the normie perspective -
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
"New polling from Pew suggests...." Journos tend to be unthinkingly credulous about opinion surveys. Here's a survey question for you: "Q. Are you the kind of person who would respond to an opinion survey?"
New polling from Pew suggests....38 percent see foreign policy as a top priority for 2024, second only to the economy, and an increase from 18 percent this time last year"
The last poll I saw had illegal immigration at the top of the list. Funny how Americans consider their own border more important than that of the most corrupt country in the world. I suppose in Wiseman's world, that makes me an ab-normie.
Well said. I find it highly unlikely that perpetual foreign wars are the greatest concerns of most "normie" Americans given that it is getting harder and harder to afford groceries and rent while our cities are being overrun by illegals.
First thing I said when I listened to this yesterday was that I couldn’t wait to hear the comments when it’s released on The Free Press! A little out of touch? Wow!
I can add to your list. Do you support illegal migrants being appointed to our election boards, as was just done in CA ? Maybe bring that fact to light.
I would add that 30,000 military-age Chinese nationals have crossed our border, in 2023 alone. Is anyone investigating why they're here? All we get is a softball humanitarian piece on 60 Minutes, about them escaping the authoritarian rule of Xi. Is it also true that the Chinese own significant amounts of land near most of our military bases? What is going on?
Thanks, but that would be an unmitigated disaster. I’m a general contractor in North Carolina, who barely squeaked out of high school, and I can’t empathize squeaked enough. I’m much better at reading a tape measure, then using proper grammar or sentence structure.
The way you define "normie", sounds like the same people who defended staying in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Is there ever a time to say no to a war? Can someone ever think that Putin is a despicable human being and think that NATO encroaching on Russia's border is not a good idea?? Thankfully Taiwan is an island or "normies" would want to change the island into a peninsula with mainland China and believe that would be a good thing.
Your definition of normie suits your agenda. A true normie doesn’t care much about what is going on abroad. Normies are sick of politicians laundering our tax dollars towards endless foreign conflicts, while our own country deteriorates under inflation, crime, and open borders. Ukraine is such a thriving democracy that elections and opposition parties have been suspended, while Zelensky's commissars snatch the few remaining able bodied men off the streets to send them to front lines as cannon fodder. Tucker, Trump, and Elon are literally Putler for dissenting about this bloodshed. Russia was the first to send condolences after 9/11 and could have been an ally against the larger threats of China and Islamism, but our foreign policy "experts" have decided that they are the biggest enemy.
The DIE Squad represents the worst of America. They have turned their districts into crime infested squalor. Bowman should have been expelled for pulling a fire alarm before a vote. Omar openly boasts about helping Somalia, not the country she has been elected to represent. Tlaib voted present when all other reps condemned Hamas using rape as a weapon of war. AOC and Pressley’s sanctuary districts are collapsing under the weight of illegals, who will become their new voters.
If "true normies" do not care what happens outside our borders, then they are stupidly short-sighted, and a very few years from now the world will have devolved into chaos and murder worse than it is now.
The world is too interconnected to ignore.
But probably you're just projecting your own thoughts onto the rest of us.
"True normies" care about things that actually affect them. Sometimes that is what is happening outside our borders.
Notice how many Americans support Israel. Probably fewer Americans would still be *thinking* about Israel if not for the pro-Palestinian groups blocking our highways, tearing down posters of kidnapped children, and assaulting American Jews.
Initially, most "normies" were supportive of sending aid to Ukraine. But now that the Democrats are openly doing more to protect Ukraine than to protect our own borders, "normies" are beginning to ask whether our tax dollars should continue to be poured into the money pit that Ukraine has become (especially when some portion of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs).
"Normies" are concerned that Biden and the Democrats are going to allow China to seize Taiwan. They've noticed that vast amounts of Chinese money are being poured into the U.S. to gain control of land and institutions. They see young military-aged Chinese men starting to pour across our border. As a result, China looks like a much bigger threat to "normies" than Russia does.
The depressing reality is that the world IS going to devolve into more chaos and murder, largely due to how Democrats have approached foreign policy in the past 15 years. Europe has invited their doom in through the front door (and it isn't Russia). China is engaging in colonialism in Africa, and Democrats are not saying a word. Leftist prosecutors are determined to free violent criminals to roam American streets, and Leftist politicians are determined to let crime grow by repealing laws against it.
"Normies" are concerned, but we have very little power to do anything. So most "normies" concentrate on what little they CAN control. If that looks like ignoring things they can't control...what else can they do?
Celia, here I agree with you. On one point, though, I must say: We cannot ignore Ukraine because Taiwan seems more in jeopardy; we cannot ignore Russia's aggression because military-aged men have been pouring across our border.
As a born Brooklynite and old enough to remember far better days, I saw clearly from the first that media like The New York Times were trying desperately to find families with children among the thousands of lone men crossing the Rio Grande -- just as they had tried hard to post photos of Muslim families crossing on leaky boats to Samos and Lesbos in Greece. In fact, most of those migrants were marauders who stole from Greek villagers who had provided shelter and succor to the "refugees." Whole farms were stripped even of their olive trees. My comments on this topic were routinely declined -- one of the reasons I canceled my NYT subscription.
I am under no illusions as to what threatens the United States. I say all -- Russia, China, Islam, and our own border -- do. Biden is not the man to address these issues, nor is Trump.
Haley is decried as a war-monger. Maybe we need one.
At present, Russia's aggression does not directly affect us. We have much, much bigger threats to our nation than Russia poses at the moment.
Indeed, the biggest threat Russia poses to us at the moment is that if we keep threatening Russia, they have a nuclear arsenal they could use against us. Once they feel we have become a truly existential threat to them, they have no reason not to do so.
War-mongering got us into this situation. War-mongering will not get us out.
"the biggest threat Russia poses to us at the moment is that if we keep threatening Russia, they have a nuclear arsenal they could use against us"
I just read an article about the Royal Navy test firing a Trident missile. The test failed for the second time when its booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea next to the launch site. I recall reading reports of deterioration in our own nuclear missile defense system.
So let's keep poking the bear. My guess is their missiles work.
Russia's aggression will directly affect us in time, it just doesn't at the moment. If the US abandons Ukraine to its fate, a conclusion amenable to so many of the commenters here, and Putin ultimately through attrition prevails - what does that mean for NATO? Putin will understand that we won't have the will to see things through, we don't have the staying power (see Afghanistan, disastrous withdrawal..) - so why wouldn't he test our resolve in a few years time and begin probing the borders of Finland, or Estonia? Why wouldn't he provoke us?
Trump, of course, taken literally, if in power and with blinders on, would have left NATO by then. And then Europe could be in the news, when the rules based international order in place since 1948 goes up in smoke, and they will be the refugees and asylum seekers flooding the southern border.
We as a country have the will to pick our future, we had better be wise about it.
I don't think even most conservative people here would be comfortable "abandoning Ukraine to its fate." But there should have been peace talks a long while ago, and our politicians seem to be completely uninterested in that.
It won't matter WHAT Russia does in a few years' time if the U.S. falls to a combination of internal (Leftist) and external (illegal migrant) forces before then.
“At present”! In 1938 nobody even dreamed that Hitler, by wanting a piece of Czechoslovakia, endangers in any way Britain or France. In fact, the German generals were perfectly aware that Germany was not ready for war and that if France and Britain acted, Germany was toast… I don’t to need to remind you what happened to Britain and France just two years later. And it totally gets me that, when dealing with a criminal war started for nothing by a lunatic dictator, some people talk about war-mongering referring to the help that the US is giving the victim after it was attacked. Does elementary logic have any value anymore or we’re dealing in abberations, like the wokes?
Actually it’s Biden and Democrats who are the real threat, not the, “Marauders” and criminals who will after all do what they do which is maraud and commit crime. But they couldn’t do it without Biden and Democrats enabling them.
"(especially when some portion of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs)"
And, I suspect a bunch of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt US oligarchs including the Bidens. We know there has been long standing funny business with the Bidens in Ukraine. I would like to see an accounting of where all that money has gone exactly and hear what our strategy is with Ukraine/Russia.
I notice on my Nextdoor feed here in San Diego that no one even cares about the border mess until it bites them. Normies don't care about anything that does not directly affect them and don't realize where their tax dollars are really going.
Am disappointed in the Free Press this morning. Pishing this tosser Savodnik at us bright and early was a bad play. What a bought and paid for stooge. I see Savodik is “draft age” in Ukraine, when is he leaving for Kiev to volunteer? The war in Ukraine is lost. The Ukrainian army writ large as hard as they may fight (and video footage shows them fighting hard) the overwhelming military superiority of the Russian forces arrayed against them is too much. Think Maripol. No tougher lot than the Azov units there and how did that work out. Yet, we persue this relentless effort to shore up a failed and corrupt regrime and so it goes around the world with a foreign policy that at best is schizophrenic. What a load of crap this Savodik just spewed. Tucker ought to ask him to come on for an interview from his studio in Maine. Then Savodik could ride up crumbling I95 and rusting bridges and then take the crumbling State “highways” up towards Locke Mills taking in the sights of prosperity and the bright future the locals have before them. But don’t complain peasants, the 1% up at Bethel have your backs, just run over to Augusta and ask that genius governor and Secretary of State running the place. It’s all good. You may be half starving and can’t avoid gasoline for your 15 year old pick up truck which is rusting out. But the folks with their third or fourth “vacation” home are doing just fine! Foie Gras and water crackers anyone? Joe Biden feels your pain…wait that was the other grifter, Joe well let’s put is this way, doesn’t feel much unless Dr. Jill tells him to feel pain or wipes the melted ice cream off his chin before it hits the drool cup under his jaw. How dare we complain. Sorry Bari, you all have to find better than the asshat you shoved at us this morning.
Ukraine has put up a great fight. They should be proud of their resolve.
The U.S. media is doing an atrocious job of communicating the reality of what's happening there right now. The Russians are producing artillery barrels and shells at a much higher rate than we can, and they are using that artillery advantage to relentlessly pressure the Ukrainians right now. The spring offensive that western leaders hoped would result in big gains against the Russians, and that Ukrainian military leaders didn't want, stalled out immediately with minimal gains. By the accounts I read, a lot of Ukrainians died in those offensives.
While the Russians aren't capable of a big breakout, they're successfully pursuing a strategy that worked very well the limited times it was tried in WWI: bite and hold. Rather than trying grand breakout and encirclement attacks, they're simply pounding Ukrainian positions with artillery and then taking territory 50-100 meters at a time.
Ukraine is quite large, so if you look at the daily or weekly map it appears the lines are barely moving, but it's clear right now that the Ukrainians military is under intense pressure. Another $60B for artillery shells that won't be there until 2025 isn't going to change the fact that 2024 is very likely going to be a rough year for Ukraine.
We cannot stop that devolution. It is stupidly short-sighted to continue bleeding ourselves dry in the attempt. None of this is about democracy. Not here. Not there. It is about money. Money here. Money there. It is time to take the training wheels off and let those nations beholden to us ride on their own. Had we not been so completely overbearing in our modern foreign policy decisions I think the likelihood of success would be far better. But you cannot become what you abhor, in this case totalitarian/authoritarian, to defeat it.
Normies get concerned when they're asked to continually support a war, including repeated escalations by their government, when the same government refuses to make a case for what a realistic end game looks like.
Biden can talk about the goal being returning all territory to Ukraine, but that's not realistic. It's idealistic, and he gets to use it as an excuse for not talking about the reality that there will be a negotiated settlement at some point when the Ukrainians run out of men willing to throw their lives away for the oligarchs and government officials making so much money from this war.
I suspect there are a few hundred thousand Iraqis and Afghans that we wish we "normies" hadn't ignored the lies our government told us about WMDS and promoting "democracy" in their countries.
The world being interconnected was a choice made by elites against the will of the populace.
We have been so indoctrinated with certain ideas that we can’t conceive of them not being a law of nature. Globalization, outsourcing manufacturing, and just-in-time supply chains did not evolve naturally. They were chosen for us.
Elites vs. the populace. Yawn. We are all interconnected too.
Maybe survivalists are on their own, except I doubt they've made their own Jeeps, razor wire, Bunsen burners, pots, solar panels, bandaids, bullets, or shotguns. . . .
The world being interconnected was a choice made by elites against the will of the populace.
We have been so indoctrinated with certain ideas that we can’t conceive of them not being a law of nature. Globalization, outsourcing manufacturing, and just-in-time supply chains did not evolve naturally. They were chosen for us.
I am completely concerned that a bunch of saps in gaza and ukraine/russia are being slaughtered so the Regime(TM) can spend old munitions and have to buy new ones with my money.
Oh and FJB is a corrupt POS allowing all of those deaths - he could stop both actions tomorrow if he wasn't a corrupt POS
Many hippies of the anti-war movement, now baby-boomers, unfortunately sold out to cocaine and TV in the 70s. Now we have the degenerate TV culture we have today. The old, and new normal, is peace.
Culture can mean many things. In the West it used to mean upholding Judeo Christian values. Which meant much flawed thinking and diversion from the beatitudes, while at the same time affording us a path to individual freedom and rational thinking in the arts and sciences. That’s much too broad a conversation for here though.
However, one thing we can be certain of given what’s happening in the world. If you value your culture and its freedoms but you don’t uphold and maintain it, someone with stronger convictions than you will come along and give you theirs. And give it good and hard.
Aside from that, apparently most young people don’t get their information from TV any more. We have powerful computers in our hands. The TV is old hat to a large number of consumers in a certain demographic according to those in the know. Retirees still consume a fair amount of TV though.
I guess I should have been more specific - I should have said mass social media culture, and getting information in quick snippits whether it be tiktok or cnn, rather than reading a book.
Good points. It’s not so easy as Putin’s dictatorship is evil. He was wrong to go into Ukraine, but I think the question is what happens now? How does it end? What do we make of the many in eastern Ukraine and Crimea who identify more with Russia? What about men in eastern Ukraine who left Ukraine to fight for Russia instead of Ukraine? For something of a historical parallel, it may help to look at Northern Ireland and what happened there and why.
Ukraine is a European democracy? You mean the country where the corrupt leader travels the world in comfort and begs for money while shanghaiing 45 -50 year old men off the street to send them to a meat grinder, has canceled elections so he can stay in power and closed churches? That European democracy?
Give it up wiseman. You're shark jumping every day now
I believe it's the derogatory term the woke use against the sane.
"SLANG DICTIONARY
normie
[ norm-ee ]
January 13, 2021
WHAT IS A NORMIE?
Normie is a slang for a “normal person,” especially someone seen to have conventional, mainstream tastes, interests, viewpoints, etc. It is intended as an insult but often used ironically.
Normie is also sometimes used by specific in-groups to refer and distinguish themselves from specific out-groups."
Don’t forget coming to the USA congress on more than one occasion asking for more money while his countrymen are getting killed…or giving a speech last year at the Grammies. Democracy is one of those words that the left has changed the meaning of to suit their narrative.
Just remember, if you don’t support sending endless piles of cash to the corrupt strongman who suspended elections and banned the opposition party you hate democracy.
Saying “The Squad” and “Tucker” in the same breath is absurd.
Tucker has been clear he loves America, or ar least what it used to be, and calls out the failures that are driving us away from that ideal. Putting East Palastine over Ukraine? Damn right.
Calling out the depth of corruption in our government, media, academia is necessary and patriotic if we hope to have a chance of not going down tubes.
The Squad are the new nihilists who want to bring America down.
Read the Vanity Fair hit piece that tried to "expose" that Tucker was fired from Fox for a "racist" email. It is laugh out loud funny. A clear plant by Fox and Tucker's other enemies to discredit him. But they made the mistake of publishing the actual e-mail. The e-mail was a paean to humanism and a lament for the hatred that has gripped both sides, where Tucker laments his initial joy at seeing the snot beaten out of an Antifa man. Truth matters. Tucker is loved because he exposes the truth. And that is a cardinal sin to those who seek to rule us.
Not just Variety. Also the WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/tucker-carlson-is-leaving-fox-news-db31f2fa, where they spell out at length more than just the emails, but also text messages during the Dominion Voting Machine lawsuit, urging management to fire a female colleague who dared to fact check things Tucker said on air, and no doubt being one of the main reasons FOX was going to get nailed for defaming Dominion Voting Machines by repeatedly accusing them of being part of alleged election fraud (in addition to Tucker’s private views on Trump coming out during the discovery portion of the lawsuit:
“ Before the Dominion suit was settled, Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had already concluded that Fox News and Fox Business did in fact broadcast false claims about Dominion, voiced by both network hosts and Trump associates. In a statement announcing the settlement, Fox acknowledged the judge’s findings.”
“ Court documents also revealed Mr. Carlson’s feelings about Mr. Trump. In a text message exchange from January 2021, Mr. Carlson said the network was “very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” and said “I hate him passionately,” referring to the former president.”
I’m sure Tucker is doing well financially. He’s a genius at making money off the Tsunami of Stupid. Such an apt description of his followers. Too bad he lied about Dominion Voting Machines and cost FOX almost $790 million for the lies they had to admit to as part of the settlement.
I agree Maureen. Also, Tucker is a journalist with a loud megaphone trying to drown out the propaganda our leaders spew via the msm. Anyone is free to turn him off. However, these Congresswomen have sworn an oath to follow our constitution and have voting power to spend our tax dollars and alter our lives. Their public statements deserve scrutiny since they are bound to their respective oaths.
Wiseman writes “ it’s often hard to tell who Carlson wants to win the Ukraine-Russia war”.
It shouldn’t matter what Tucker thinks about that. Tuckers focus is whether the United States should be funding the war and the consequences of our involvement. He reports on things we would rather look away from and points out our naivety. I wish there were more Tuckers. It still amazes me, how his shining a light in dark corners will unhinge the left.
Why should any viewer or reader know the personal viewpoint of ANY interviewer? Shouldn’t it be the job of the interviewer to let the viewer understand the point of view of the person being interviewed? When did the interviewer have to show bias in his reporting? No one watching an interview should have any idea about the opinion of the person doing the interview / the story is not about him
Putin is a violent autocrat, i.e. one of the bad guys. We used to know that. We used to know we were the good guys. Putin is awful and Tucker is a useful idiot.
It’s hard to grapple with the idea that maybe our hands are not so clean. But grownups need to take hard looks at themselves and own up to our mistakes before we can get back to being the “good guys”.
We also *knew* - when it suited those in power - ahem Barry Soetoro cough, cough, that the 80's wanted their foreign policy back and there would be "more flexibility" towards Putin come 2012. Be careful saying what "we" know.
Oliver’s piece stank of faux-fairness: it had a token expression that both sides were bad, but then spent 95% of the time trashing only one side. It read as a hit-piece on Tucker (who I often disagree with, but nowhere near as often as I disagree with the Squad!).
When the initial outrage over Tucker’s Putin interview started, I immediately thought of Barbara Walters’ repeated softball interviews with Fidel Castro back in the day. No one seemed offended that she batted her eyelashes at him, and never raised the subject of him being a dictator. She also interviewed Putin in 2018.
As for Tucker‘s visit to the grocery store, it suffered from the classic error that people make when discussing other countries: The price of groceries in Russia only makes sense in the context of average wages (just as it does in the US). The only calculation needed to understand the cost of living is percentage of peoples’ earnings spent on food, housing, energy, transportation, etc. Once the basic needs are addressed, we can look at issues of affluence and discretionary spending.
Well what they really mean when they cry they are saving democracy is they are saving democratic control. And it is transforming America away from the constitution and a republic. Pure doublespeak.
The obvious spin relative to Tucker Carlson, and the fact that this has been a pattern for a number of days, is concerning. It LOOKS bought, to me. It looks mechanical and lazy, certainly.
Putin is not honest, and he is not a good man. But what he said about America's broken promises, as far as not extending NATO, and as far as us interfering directly in Ukrainian democracy was clearly true. Liars don't lie all the time. They lie when it suits them. They tell the truth when they can and it also suits them.
It's really strange to me, watching all the people rendered insane by the idea of listening to the perspectives of a man with whom we as a nation are seemingly expected to go to war, in a war which would not serve ANY stratetic American interests. Why not listen? Are you stupid? Can you not form your own opinions?
ALL THIS ANTI-PUTIN RHETORIC IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FOR US. The elites don't trust the people. And as Mike Benz described at length, the same measures the CIA has long used overseas to overthrow other nations, and to wage informational warfare (propaganda) have been weaponized AGAINST US. When you see the word "democracy" in the American press, what it means is that Blackrock and the Department of Defense meet over fancy lunches to discuss what to do with the rest of us. That is their version of "democracy", because all the members of the elite get votes.
That is an oligarchy, and we live in one NOW. Wake up.
She has a simple decision: is she willing to pursue principle at the cost of the entirety of her friend group, and maybe much or all of her family? These people are savages and they are unforgiving. Once the Wand of Hate has been directed at you, you are forever stained and foreign, absent abject, craven groveling that may or may not work or even be visible to the ideologues.
The Trans stuff is so patently insane that is low risk. And as a Jew, writing against anti-Jewish racism is scarcely audacious, although depressingly uncommon among those who otherwise think about nothing BUT race. But that is dark skinned folks. BIPOC. Jews are different, they say. Somehow.
It's an interesting time. We are being asked to choose sanity over insanity; and on the other side, insanity over sanity. Watching how people approach this decision--which amounts to a choice between conformity and thought--is interesting.
I'm a new subscriber and this is the first time I have considered not renewing my subscription. The content of today's email is bad. "Tucker Carlson and the Squad: Two sides of the same coin?" is the level of quality I would expect from a second-tier legacy newspaper.
I wonder if Bari would consider revisiting her commitment to send emails to her subscribers every day. I certainly understand why she would make that decision, particularly in getting TFP off the ground, but I think that implicit endorsement of the 24/7 news cycle is misguided. I know I'd VASTLY prefer fewer emails featuring higher quality, more meaningful stories.
At $8/month, it remains true that Bari has earned a few months of my money for past services rendered, but if there are too many more emails like this one, I will probably unsubscribe (although I'll email her first I guess). Reading today's message was worse than a waste of time, leaving me first annoyed and then crestfallen. Although wading into the comments managed to buoy my spirits a bit, ha.
Somewhat tangentially, today's email made me worried that Bari is going to unintentionally create a simulacrum of the NYT. Please don't be like the Californians who move to Texas and vote for the same policies that ruined California. Remember why you left!
If you want to cancel your subscription, go to the very bottom of the daily email and click on the word “unsubscribe”. That will take you to a few forms to click through to make sure you really want to cancel. You will also get a questionnaire asking why you want to cancel (this goes to The Free Press, not Substack). There are some multiple choice reasons you can click followed by “other” and a box where you can tell TFP what your reason is, if it isn’t covered by one of the choices.
Note that the way Substack works is that once you have cancelled, you don’t get a refund, but your subscription will not auto renew at the end of the term that you paid for. I have already cancelled and will be leaving this summer. However, I cancelled for the opposite reason than you. The tenor of the articles has changed since I told Bari what I did not like. They’ve gotten better. Everyone has their own opinion I guess.
As for those leaving California for Texas, my daughter lives in Dallas, and those people leaving California are leaving for monetary reasons, not political reasons. Their companies are moving their headquarters to save money, and the employees are buying bigger houses for less money than you spend in California. Their politics hasn’t changed one bit and it will eventually change Texas.
Hi Ann — that is (more or less) exactly my point about Texas, sorry if it wasn’t clear.
As for TFP, today’s email notwithstanding, I will be keeping the sub for at least another couple of months (I went month-to-month). I’m not sure if you ever watched Seinfeld, but you can think of me like George Costanza at the coffee shop, seated before an array of $1 bills, all too ready to pluck one from the ranks should his waitress fail or falter. In that context, today’s email probably only warranted a feint at one of the bills, and maybe an attempt at admonishing eye contact.
Ah, well I made the mistake of paying for a whole year and letting it auto renew last summer, so now I’m stuck here until this summer. Those people from California are making the real estate prices skyrocket in the part of a Texas where my daughter and her family live. Fortunately, they bought a house right before both the prices and the mortgage rates went up. They couldn’t afford to buy their own house now.
Agreed! And my subscription just renewed at $80 a year which was horrible timing. I can read this kind of crap in mainstream media (which I refuse to pay for). Why would I pay $80 for the same?
Yeah, today’s Oliver post was the worst yet, and if he keeps doing this, it’ll be tempting to unsubscribe, at least for a time. I can hardly keep up with their content anymore anyway.
Oh dear, NC. I think you and I have been on these comments from the start, back in Common Sense days. If TFP don’t do better than Mr Wiseman (surname a bit of a misnomer given the comments) then they’re in trouble.
My perception is they lack the ability to watch it at all. They don't resent any of the content per se, but the fact that the interview was done at all. They say "WE TOLD YOU HE IS AN ENEMY AND YOU CAN'T TALK TO HIM", and for most of them, that is that. An ideological crime has been committed, and that excuses them from interacting with what was actually said in any way whatever.
But that's no different than what the Soviets or Nazis did. It Collectivist GroupThink made all the more morally atrocious for being volitional, in a world where there are not yet immediate penalties for WrongThink.
That was the way the Left reacted to Rush as well. You can't listen to him. He is nothing more than a "shock Jock". I know this because it was me. But I did listen and I listened again because he made sense and my metamorphous began.
That's the thing: good ideas sell themselves in a free marketplace. That is why censorship--the disruption of a free marketplace--is of such vital importance in a regime consisting of crime and insanity and little else.
To be sure, a lot of things still work, but that could change virtually overnight. Nobody is protecting us any more, not at a national level, not with an open border.
No one is protecting us because we are the problem. I thought the unbridled illegal tsunami was for votes but it is more than that, we are being replaced. Another 4 years of Democrat control will bring millions more. In 2 generations the America that was will be no more.
Unsaint, your last line is spot on that there are” not yet immediate penalties for WrongThink”,when it comes to;foreign policy , but on social issues thinking and speaking out against GroupThink can cost one’s job. The whistleblowers on the gender clinics are indeed paying an immediate price.
That's what the New Left has been doing for years though. "Deplatforming", censoring, and shutting down ideological heretics. This isn't new. It's just not working anymore except against their own. They've shut down so many people, the people who were shut down and people who want to listen to the shut down have now become its own group and no longer wandering alone in the wilderness.
I still remember some of their mantras and baby tantrums from just a few years ago:
"The time for debate is over!"
"Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from accountability"
"The emotional labor of having to explain my pains to you with debates is Exhausting! Educate yourself!"
Korean girl bands stans
This one is still going around: "You make me feel unsafe."
Russell Brand recently commented that “right wingers”—which is to say people who have been labelled such and unpersoned, are now the most genuinely diverse group around.
You have The Left, which is defined by conformity, and Everyone Else. Everyone else is also much more inclusive and tolerant. We may not agree with you, but we will listen to you, treat you as human, and engage you in meaningful dialogue oriented around discovery, exploration, curiosity, and an attempted approximation of truth.
I've been saying branding all oppositions as "right wing" is literally their modus operandi. They've found an easy one-step solution to keep liberal sheeples in check. Anytime anyone challenges their orthodoxy, they just brand it as "right wing" (or variations thereof eg MAGA, Trump, conservative, etc.) If their liberal followers don't vote, it would almost be funny seeing how so many "educated" liberals would reflexively close their eyes and ears as soon as they hear or see "right wing". Sad to say I even know a lot of people like that in real life. It's magic. So much easier for the Dems and their activists to do this than to actually have to engage with WrongThink and make their case.
I gotta give it to them. They've successfully made "right wing" (and all derivatives thereof) into modern day leprosy. We're all lepers. The new Unclean of the 21st Century. They would cordon us all off onto a leper island if they could. And it baffles me how their sheeples bought it all hook line and sinker. Covid vaccine? Masks? Don't ever question. JK Rowling is a bigot? Most haven't even read what she said which is openly available on her website. Their Elite Overlords decreed it, and so she must be, Pubic Enemy #1. Intifada? Sure! From the River to the Sea? Of course! Don't look under the rug. Don't ask any question. Anything on the contrary is "right wing", and you don't want to catch the "right wing" virus. It must be more lethal than Covid-19.
Not to say there aren't people like that on the conservative side, but it's not fascist systematic practice like this on the right. The evidence can even be seen right here, on these comments to this very article on TFP. Some of the loudest critics are self-admitted conservatives. They're PAYING to read TFP despite how much they can't stand Oliver Wiseman's recent takes. This simply just doesn't happen on the New Left.
The preoccupation with Tucker is not by accident. He makes the Left very uncomfortable. He asks questions and exposes their evil. The recent interview with Mike Benz is an example. Actually quite frightening when you consider the potential.
“It's really strange to me, watching all the people rendered insane by the idea of listening to the perspectives of a man with whom we as a nation are seemingly expected to go to war, in a war which would not serve ANY stratetic American interests. Why not listen? Are you stupid? Can you not form your own opinions?”
Some people seem to want their news and how to think about it spoon fed to them so they don’t have to think for themselves. Critical thinking is done by only a few.
What was the Pink Floyd line? Something like "Don't worry about what to think. We'll tell you what to think."
In the present era, only people capable of identifying as conservatives are capable of independent thought. Everyone on the Left is infected with a terror of disobedience and of being cancelled. In such a world, you cannot explore, cannot ask question, cannot allow a moments doubt, PARTICULARLY when you are being asked to believe the absurd. It's like a bitter medicine (which in this case is a poison) you have to swallow quickly because otherwise you can't ingest it at all.
It's a bad way to live. It's strange to me to observe that so many people who should know better--who were in principle educated to know better--choose to live such shallow and ridiculous lives, or at least to reliably imbibe and share ridiculous ideas that work in aggregate to darken human life, make rationality impossible, and which always result in capricious and sadistic violence of all sorts.
Babylon Bee does make me laugh but none of this is really funny. With some exaggeration, but not nearly enough, I think I have some sense what it was like to be a Jew in Germany before the Nazis had full control.
I think most German Jews said “I know my neighbors and they know me. Weve lived peacefully here for hundreds of years.”
Only the most percipient ones could see that wasnt enough, and that their neighbors could be turned on them without much trouble.
The huge difference, of course, is that conservatives are about half the country and most of us are armed. But there is also the huge difference in access to technology and access to the organized violence of a State which knows everything it wants to about all of us.
I dont know you, but I promise you have a file and your social network has been mapped out, and I assume all of you have scores based on whatever metric interests them.
I keep reading these comments and thinking: we need an in-depth discussion on what political “corruption” actually means! I know I don’t completely understand it, but I’m pretty sure it’s more nuanced than “politics I don’t like.” Right?
I put most politicians as corrupt simply because of how committee appointments happen. At the start of each term, companies throw lavish dinners for new members. Based on how receptive the new member are determines which committees leadership will let freshmen reps/senators serve on.
The corruption continues the longer they are in office. If they get voted out, they become the corruptor. Biden has been in office for a very very long time. Mitch McConnell has been office a very very long time.
I agree. I wish more people would listen to the interview without pre-determination. I may be naive but I found Tucker was making observations about what he saw, not endorsements. Some of his comments were lamenting the decline in U.S. standards but I think he made it clear he would not chose a Soviet way of life.
Well, at least the title is right, but that's about all. Once again we see the difference between the wisdom of Everyman and the foolhardiness of the bubble-dweller that makes his living by writing.
I actually mix with the hoi polloi each and every day; I cannot name a single person who gives a rat's behind about Ukraine, except to say that our own CIA installed this puppet dictator and that we need to take care of our own first. We might start with our own homeless veterans living on the streets before we worry about ANOTHER European war. You might want to read a little George Washington on that, "Ollie."
There ARE good examples to follow, though. I see that President Milei of Argentina, after slashing all the Woke do-nothing Argentine agencies into oblivion, has just presided over the first budget surplus in twelve years. Not too bad for one month in office. Imagine that - a president who actually makes good on his campaign promises and the Nation prospers. I think I may have heard that tune before.
Wow, simply Wow. I have not watched someone more repulsive in the past than that 8-minute clip of Peter Savodnik. I really don't need to be lectured by a bleach-blond faux intellectual telling me what is right and wrong. His pomposity nearly made me vomit first thing in the morning. If the moral superior Peter, happens to take the moment from his most important day of talking into a video camera, let me give him a few things I know.
1- Yes, Russia is bad. It's been bad for over 1000 years and will stay the same. From Peter the Great, Catherine, the Czars, and Communists, it's the culture. Read a book or two about the country and the people. Is it a place where I would want to live? No, but it is what it is.
2- It has more nuclear weapons than any other country. I don't feel like dying in a nuclear exchange living in a major American city, so stability in Russia is better than a pipe dream of Democracy.
3- I see no heroism in Navalny- He took his risk and got killed. It's a shame, but I live in the world of reality, not a progressive fantasy land. The world is the way it is, not what our intellectual masters fantasize it to be,
4- Ukraine is not a democracy but a kleptocracy similar to Russia. It has two halves, with the eastern one that is heavily Russian; here are the facts, Peter: Russia is not getting displaced from the land it has in Ukraine. It is not happening. No amount of money or weapons is going to displace them. Yes, it was terrible, but unless Ukraine gets NATO to enter the war (see point 2), I don't think it's heroic to kill a generation by throwing them into a buzzsaw so the American Elite can feel good about itself.
I could write all day, and thanks to Free Press for showing me thoughts, even ones I despise. You did a great job today showing me Peter.
Excellent comment! I took a course in Russian history 50 years ago in college taught by an excellent professor. Point 1 was a takeaway all these years later. Russia never was and never will be a democracy. They had the czars, then Communists and now Putin. That is reality. We should manage it not try to change it or wail about “moral relativism”.
I took Russian history as well and the point I took away was they have always, always, been fearful of being attacked from the west, thus they set up buffers like poland, for example, which used to be part of Russia and Ukraine, which used to be part of Russia.
And why is Secretary of State lecturing anyone about pronouns ?Isnt he busy trying to force a 2 state solution to reward Gaza for the 10-7 barbaric massacre?
Surely it’s against HIPAA laws to require an employee to disclose details about their medical history, such as the stage of their reproductive life! We must come up with some other term for you…older human? Human assigned female at end of menarche? Madness without end.
Please tell us more. Does your boss really use that term in a spoken sentence, written or both? Do you correct him? When did this start in your office? Do others in the office object or is everyone afraid to discuss this?
If I had seen the byline first - Oliver Wiseman - I wouldn't have bothered. Let's be honest about Ukraine. They are not winning the war, we have poured in weapons and money to no effect save to get Ukrainian soldiers slaughtered and the war was preventable in the first place but for Biden's bumbling and the machinations of his foreign policy nitwits. A real president would have ended it.
A real president wouldn't have caused it in the first place. And no, Ollie, we're not going to cancel Tucker Carlson simply because he interviewed Putin. Would you prefer Erin Burnett's giddly love fest interview with Zelensky? Apparently so. In Ollie's world Russia is the existential threat because they messed with our elections. (In fact it was the DNC). In the real world, China is our existential threat and our president is in their pocket. In the real world, an administration opening OUR open borders are the real threat to America and democracy. Putin is a murderous thug who threatens his neighbors when they invite NATO to Russia's borders. China directly threatens America, no matter what we do. Open borders will destroy our country. Unless you have a plan to depose Putin (and the CIA's plans are all from Acme Products), better to deal with him and focus on the real threats. Starkly simple but elusive to Wiseman.
That's something most people on the Left still fail to acknowledge--that the whole Steele Dossier was a DNC plot. The only thing Russia seems to have done on its own is manipulate Facebook. And the Democrats freely and openly admitted that they themselves manipulated Facebook and other media in 2020 in order to make sure Trump was not reelected.
The Democrats also seem to have forgotten that the U.S. manipulated more than a few elections in other countries over the course of some 50 years or more. They eagerly cheered for us to bomb Libya. As usual, they believe in "rules for thee, but not for me."
I’m so, so close to canceling the Free Press as a result of the crappy content recently. There is so much other good content on Substack to choose from, and I can’t justify the time spent reading the FP when it is just the NYT lite.
A real president would never have paid a bribe to Zelensky to have his worthless son appointed a board member to a company in a business he knows nothing about.
A real president would never be caught in a position to have to now pay extortion to the same corrupt CIA puppet that worked him, lest he be exposed as the bumbling corrupt thief who was 'elected' to save democracy and the country from a bad orange man.
Worse, a real body electorate would not be so easily fooled
'That’s what Peter Savodnik argues is Carlson’s moral relativism with Alexei Navalny’s moral clarity. All of this is part of “the great tsunami of stupid that has swept the nation.'
Lets see.....Carlson got about 150 million views of his interview in 24 hours.
IMO, Peter Savodnik sounds like one of those costal elite journalists who write for Vanity Far and after any interaction with at all, you feel like you need to purchase 2 bars of Lava soap and take a 3 hour shower.
Savodnik would jizz in his britches if he got 5% of the followers Tucker got from all of us "stupid" people.
I have. His criticisms of Harvard and his story on RFK Jr were really good. But shit statements like “the great tsunami of stupid that has swept the nation" sound petty and desperately envious coming from a professional writer.
Most Americans I encounter are not in favor of supporting the “democracy” of Ukraine that ousted its democratically elected president in 2014, started a civil war, and suspended democratic elections. Give me a break - stop sending money to Ukraine, stop acting like Carlson is fringe and stop pushing the Navalny narrative. I’m really close to pressing the eject button on the free press.
Ukraine doesn’t have elections, per diktat of Commander Zelenskyy, and that seems to be a pretty reasonable indicator on a not-democracy. A recent article described the redefinition of democracy by our intelligence agencies as the perpetuation of “democratic institutions” and not the old fashioned definition as “a nation where people elect their leaders”.
Plus, it’s ironic to the point of absurdity to compare the Russians to the Nazis. If the Eastern Front was considered a separate war, then it would be the 2nd deadliest conflict in history behind WW2.
I'm not comparing the Russians to the Nazis. I'm simply saying we should be wary of knee-jerk isolationism, which can be penny wise but pound foolish. I also think there's a big difference between using treasure vs using blood in this context.
Well, if we're going to make the comparison to WW2, then eventually the Nazis have to be mentioned.
I'm not in favor of "knee-jerk isolationism". I wish we would do something to clean up the Straights of Hormuz, for instance. That's seriously impacting global trade. Instead, there's all this talk about sending billions into a war with no clear definition of victory for either side. What's a win for Ukraine or Russia? No one seems to be too concerned. We just need to "defend democracy".
Also, blood inevitably follows our treasure. We spent billions in Vietnam even by the late 1950s, and had been supporting the British before our involvement in both the First and Second World War.
And maybe, absent the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement a/k/a the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact, WWII might not have happened in Europe. We can never know, but that alliance of two murderous dictators with hegemonic pretensions to dominate the world certainly didn’t help.
I subscribed to the Free Press thinking it would be more balanced in opinions. I am beginning to be disappointed. Wiseman’s comments that he doesn’t know who Tucker supports America or Russia is just so New York Times level. He should apply for a job there. Come on Bari, you can do better than this
Bravissimo! But Putler? The slaughter in Ukraine is directly attributable to the facilitation of the military industrial complex by the US and NATO, who provoked this war, and refused to push a diplomatic solution on Zelensky. It is an unwinnable abattoir - a slaughterhouse funded by the US taxpayer.
Wait wut???
I couldn't find 6-7 out of 10 people that feel the war in Israel or Ukraine, or tensions between China/Taiwan "somewhat/very" important to their everyday life if you stuck a pistol in my ear.
How bout we ask some questions like:
Do you support sending another 70 billion dollars to Zelensky?
Do you support the current 2000 mile daily Boston Marathon at the southern border or Texas, Arizona & California?
Do you support the crazy grocery prices and rent sweeping the nation while being told this is the best economy we've seen in decades?
Do you support doctors cutting children's genitals off and injecting them with life changing chemicals?
Do you support open air drug markets, people shitting in the streets and living in tents in the park and on the sidewalk?
Do you support the runaway theft/violent crime/murder taking over most of our nations cities?
Jesus Christ Oliver.....how bout getting your head out of your ass and start reporting on things Americans truly care about.
Yours truly ~An actual normie
Spot on. We pay for Bari Weiss but are getting large doses of Wiseman and Savodnik - both of whom are useless clowns. Why? Soft leftist pseudo intellectuals who cheerlead for the DNC are not why we subscribed and allowed Bari to build Common Sense in the first place.
As I've commented more times than I can count......less Wiseman and more Kirn. But Walter has a good thing going with Matt Taibbi so he's probably not terribly interested in making TFP contributions.
Wiseman laps up the MSM dogshit, likes it, and offers us a taste. Sorry, Simple Jack, but everyone knows you never go full moron.
https://youtu.be/7kRKmJyZXJE?si=RlkRkOH_CHZLGkOi
No, Ukraine is not a European ‘democracy’. It’s actually a pretty corrupt place. Right now it’s under martial law and suspended its presidential elections (elections Zelensky states, will resume 6 months after end of war). That election suspension is understandable given the war. But what’s not understandable is Zelensky government criminally charging his primary political opponent, Oleksiy Arestovych (a former Zelensky advisor) who was running on platform of negotiating a peace settlement. In this way, Zelensky is acting just like Putin vis-vis Navalny. BTW, most of us on the ‘Right’ have no love for Putin, whatsoever.
You know another reality in Oliver’s “European democracy” called Ukraine?
Currently all opposition parties to Zelensky have been removed from the Ukraine parliament, and all non-state media has been banned from the airwaves. I doubt very much these particular authoritative measures are okay’d under martial law.
Ukraine at this time quite obviously does not trust the will of its own people. Zelensky by barring opposition from parliament, criminally charging/sidelining his political opponent and banning outside Free Press - also ensures no contrarian voices (read those that would sue for peace) are heard inside that country.
Has anyone noticed that neither Biden nor anyone else in his administration has gone on TV and given us a clear understanding of what US objectives are in the Ukraine? Neither Ukraine nor Russia can "win" exactly.
Also, I would like to see where all the billions of dollars go exactly? I expect much of it goes to the corrupt Biden machine and everyone connected with them - as well as neo-con Republicans.
This Tucker Carlson interview of Benz was way more interesting than what Savodnik and Wiseman serve up:
"Everything You Need to Know about the Government’s Mass Censorship Campaign"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYSKaS-XtQ
Agree that the Mike Benz (former State Department official) interview brought together a lot of disparate strings. One of Tucker's best interviews yet.
For Free Presser's interested, here's Mike Benz's website touted as a 'free speech watchdog' that tracks and traces various Censorship Industrial Complex cases that are happening online, domestically in our country:
https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/
Mission statement of foundationforfreedomonline:
"Through educational reports, legal assistance, and public policy analysis concerning developing threats to digital liberties, we seek to provide nonpartisan insights and assistance to all peoples taking a stand for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the free exchange of ideas online"
When was the last time that the US supported a war, especially with military intervention, with clear cut goals? Our leaders are bone spur whiners now exempt warriors in their late 70's or flipping idiots who compare the lost of life of young men in Afghanistan to the death of their middle age son. Have a child that serves in the military and you will know the special pain of a child who loves their country and is betrayed at all levels by the government.
Bless Blinken who wants pronouns right but leaves military equipment and allies to be overtaken in Afghanistan. (I think often of the Afghanistan translator who went to University of Iowa and was left behind to a terrible fate.) Wishing that I was also a loving mother rather than a bitterly disappointed one.
I do hear you, JoAnne. My husband encouraged me to have a positive handle. I truly am a Loving Mother. And, that is why I would like to see Crimes Against Humanity trials and executions of key perpetrators of the Trans Cult, like Admiral Dr. Mengele Levine, Dr. Jason Rafferty, Satanic Panic UCSF Dr. Diane Erhenhart (see 4thwavenow.com), and whoever is pulling the lever to foist this death cult religion on our children at school - riding on top of "Social Emotional Learning" (It is so much more important to destroy families and children than to teach them anything real - which schools fail to do for the most part).
From the people who think they are rebelling against religion we have:
‘Gender Theology: A regressive cult popularized in the 2010s and 2020s, which posited the body as an incidental meathousing for sacred inner ‘gender souls’. It practiced child sacrifice in the form of sterilization of gay and autistic children, where substantial body modification was performed to bring the child’s physicality into congruence with the ‘gender soul’. This became a powerful and influential religion - adherence was institutionally mandated and signaled by the ritualistic performance of believers stating ‘pronouns’ upon introduction. Non-believers were shunned and often ejected from main-stream society.‘
Where is the separation of Church and State? Wait, "gender is science" and we "believe" in science. What kind of morons or grifters are these?
"Have a child that serves in the military and you will know the special pain of a child who loves their country and is betrayed at all levels by the government." Definitely.
"Bless Blinken who wants pronouns right but leaves military equipment and allies to be overtaken in Afghanistan." Right? The equipment will not be used against us? But, everyone must share in the perversion of a few like Sam Brinton and Richard Levine - because of the "original" pedophile pervert Dr. John Money and the Kinsey "science". See the Transgender Leviathan by Pedro Gonzales https://americanprinciplesproject.org/media/new-app-report-exposes-origins-influence-transgender-leviathan/
"I think often of the Afghanistan translator who went to University of Iowa and was left behind to a terrible fate." Yes. And, remember the people falling off of the airplanes as they took off?
LovingMother, I think it very important Mike Benz is heard. To that end, here is a 3min video snippet from the overall hour-long interview as a teaser for those with limited time:
https://youtu.be/aNzN14HJ4KU?si=ZH9L8esh1WUbAo-_
For those who prefer to read about the interview of Benz:
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/20/government-backed-censors-who-rigged-the-2020-election-are-now-stealing-2024/
"But even DHS couldn’t do this directly, so it outsourced online censorship operations to third parties like the Election Integrity Partnership, or EIP, which consisted of four separate organizations: the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and a firm called Graphika. These private-sector “partners” did the nitty-gritty work of mapping out entire online networks of people who helped spread certain disfavored opinions, or what the censors called “false narratives.” Essentially they were deputized to censor Americans on behalf of the government."
👍👍 I agree, Mike Benz lays out the MO of the swamp in an easier to understand format. It proves, once again, that Alex Jones is right more times than not. A must read for anyone that doubts the nefarious intents of the "deep state" and its NWO agenda.
I agree, Matt L. Good snippet. Thanks!
Sue for peace? You’re mouthing Putin’s talking points. What do you think “peace” means under these circumstances? I really struggle to understand all of you who say you don’t like Putin but who say in the same breath that you would not help Ukraine to win this. “Peace” as negotiated by Putin (or Trump) means he keeps all of Ukrainian land he has already grabbed. And if Ukraine is forced to accept this because the GOP surrenders to Trump and its extremist wing, Putin will come back for more once he’s licked his wounds. As Churchill memorably said, “Negotiating with a dictator is like bargaining with a crocodile that he’ll eat you last.”
Will, not sure if you are a young person, or perhaps just not familiar w/ the geography of Ukraine and demographics of the two foes. The land is completely flat, no natural barriers (like a mountain range) to keep out invaders. Russia population is 144M to Ukraine’s 37.5M. The war is simply not winnable for Ukraine in the long run. These countries are closely linked in history, and without West pushing Ukraine to join NATO, there would not be this conflict. The USA government should be ashamed of themselves for deluding Ukraine they could join the West, and now the generational trauma inflicted upon the Ukraine people. Putin is a piece of shit, but he also warned and warned this would occur if NATO kept playing stupid games. Russia considers NATO including Ukraine as a member, an existential threat. Now, Ukraine has squelched off all talk inside its country of a negotiated peace. Shouldn’t the people of Ukraine decide what is best for them? Or is it you and other neocons that insist it must be war, war, war? This war should have never happened. And now that is has, you want to shift the blame to USA not continuing to fund it?
Many of us have heard the ‘domino theory’ you are suggesting our whole lives (Korea, Vietnam, now Ukraine). Not a buyer. You know why? Because all other countries in West bordering Russia are protected under Article 5. Do you know what that is?
Riddle me this, why didn’t the USA allow Russia into NATO when they asked for consideration of entry in 1998?
Or for that matter, USSR asked the same in 1953, when Stalin died, reply then was also ‘no, go pound sand’
You made some excellent observations and explained the facts well. Regarding your question why the US didn't allow Russia to join NATO, I think it's just the common everyday power game answer. US didn't want any other party in NATO being anywhere near as powerful as we are and possibly being able to influence key decisions and actions in a way contrary to our agenda. With Russia right next door and providing so much energy to Europe, they would have a lot more influence on NATO than US would like.
All true.
Love Kirn and Taibbi!
Me, too! 🥰
Unlike TFP, Taibbi and Kirn don’t seem to be looking over their shoulders, afraid the cool kids might not like them any more. TFP take note- competition should prompt you to do better.
That is SO spot-on. It's a junior high school cafeteria. Unfortunately it infects some of the commenters. One guy sneeringly alerted me that his comment had gotten more Likes than mine. I had to choose carefully between potential responses:
1. You probably have more Friends on MySpace and Friendster than me as well.
2. Are you 12, or still 11?
3. Does your mom know you're using her laptop?
The difficulty I think Bari may be having is that she wants ALL, not just some of the cool kids to like her. She wants the anti-Trump, anti-Biden, pro-Israel, anti-Russia, anti-woke, and even normal liberals and conservatives to all like her. Even Obama couldn't pull that off.
I may need to move there with my limited funds
If you can only do one, definitely do Racket News, Taibbi's substack. He has been doing alternative journalism forever (even when he was with Rolling Stone for a while). He holds Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity in exactly equal contempt. Our kind of guy. He still cares about censorship, which Bari seemed to lose interest in after 5 minutes. And the podcast every Friday with Walter Kirn is great. It can't even be compared to the drivel and musings that come from Nellie each Friday. There used to be a sportswriter in Dallas named Blackie Sherrod. A legend with the Dallas Morning News. Near the end of his career, he had a column which usually started "Scattershooting while wondering...." He would just do a subdued version of Stephen A. Smith every week in his column, never really saying anything of consequence. That's what TFP's TGIF has become like.
Walter has his own Substack but it's not about news
The Racket podcast on Fridays is great.
America This Week is pure gold.
The speciousness is actually off the charts this week. Let's see if Nellie can stop the backsliding by Friday. TFP likes to sometimes dip its toes into the Truth but never enough to drag mud into its MSM house.
I watched John Stewart's first episode of the Daily Show (back after 9 years last week) and he played in right down the middle. The POTUS '24 antiques roadshow was funny/spectacular, IMO. I then tuned in 2 nights ago to see if that might continue. Nope. It was 20min of Tucker bashing, predicated by Stewart stating he had received a lot of heat from the Left over his critique of Biden age. So that episode was to somehow balance things out? What a frightened hack Stewart actually is.
Diverse points of view are great, but why does TFP continue to shovel out partisan crap by Savodnic & Wiseman so frequently?
🎯
Since when do diverse views appear in TFP other than in the comments? I'm still waiting for even one story that isn't 150% tilted toward Israel.
And besides, Bari is on a jihad against diversity and inclusion, so diverse POVs are not a priority.
Yes I do wish Bari would write more but it seems she stopped doing that except for intros.
Bari is trying to establish alternative media and education sources. That's the point. Ideally, the Free Press is to be a newspaper of sorts with different writers and reporting (don''t like the word "reportage"). More voices wouldn't hurt.
I tire of Savodnik, a liberal, reading other liberals about conservatives and then telling us what conservatives think. TFP seriously needs a conservative voice.
It already has them. They are all of the conservative, arch-conservative, and outright extreme commenters here…
Bari's not conservative enough?
Who would you suggest?
There are some really great commenters here. I can name a few who would be far superior to Savodnik and Wiseman and the regurgitated MSM vomit that they peddle.
victor Davis hanson
More of Konstantin Kisen (British satirist) would be my preference. He’s written on TFP before but more would be great
A Blob neocon really.
Check out Unherd.
Oliver writes for Unherd too. Just saying. https://unherd.com/author/oliverwiseman/
Well, he once did. Not sure he writes thee antniore. But if one goes to that link up pops a cookies alert. you need to go through it and wipe out "consents' where they have it defaulted. I hate shitty websites like that.
Ilike opposing views. It makes me think and if I really don't like them, I get to hammer them, Like Pual Krugman. He is a far left ideolog who is blinded by his ideology and can't see past it. Also he is vicious and obnoxious. His getting the Nobel prize just cements my view that it is a far left congratulation party, doling out prizes to far left nut cases, like Al Gore.
This article proves my point:
THE LADY PLUMBER
You wonder what criteria are used to select people
for the Nobel peace prize.
Read the story below and we then understand how
pathetic and superficial our world has become.
Remember this lady?
WHAT A WOMAN
Irena Sender
Died: May 12,2008 (aged 98)
Warsaw , Poland
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto,
as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.
Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom
of the tool box she carried.
She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck
for larger kids.
Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark
when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do
with the dog, and the barking
covered the kids'/infants' noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to
smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazis
broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the
kids she had smuggled out
in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that
may have survived
and tried to reunite the families.
Most had been gassed.
Those kids she helped got placed into foster family
homes or adopted.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize .
She was not selected.
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Later another politician, Barack Obama, won for
SIMPLY BEING
THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT .
It is now more than 74 years since the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians
10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered.
Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth', it’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!
Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.
Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.
I don't want all of Bari's guest commentators to be preaching to the choir. Shake things up and stop being right wing Woke.
Thank you for this LP. To be fair though people like Irena do not do things for credit or glory. OTOH people who would be our leaders, from both parties, do nothing without credit and/or glory therefor.
You're absolutely correct.
Further proof the Noble prizes are a cirle-jerk popularity contest awarding participation trophies to leftist wonks.
What a great way to put my ongoing frustration into words.
SOOOOOOOO close to canceling TFP.
I've done it a couple times. Too many superficial articles by condescending leftists who didn't do their homework on their subject matter. I have come back because the commenters are better than many of the authors, and the site is somewhat less of an echo chamber than other sites covering similar content.
Bingo, pay the girl.
This publication is the Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project and not much else. Bari and crew couldn't give a fuck about the normal people in the world. They are too busy squirming their way into new, elite circles...
“Allowed”??? WTF?
We bought what she was selling, then. We can always unsubscribe and just build our own Substack of commenst, right? I quickly scan the daily scribble and come straight to the comments to goof around with you guys, anyway… 😆
It kind of reminds me of college, where I went to class but the best part was hanging out in the cafeteria and kibitzing with really smart and interesting kids. Not that we’re kids anymore.
Or necessarily smart
Or interesting
😂
We could pay homage to the high school / college cafeteria experience and just call the Substack, “Mystery Meat”! 😂
Wiseman gets great engagement. He’s basically a paid troll.
Bingo, pay the man.
It’s almost…almost like Russia/Ukraine are meant to distract us from the crap going on all around us. Hmm.
Right, like could we hear about DA Fani Willis and Judge Engoron, NY Governor Hochul (who has assured businesses that the crazy Trump prosecution is just a one off to get him and not to worry...), the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooter Lyndell Mays...
If you listen carefully you can hear the sucking sound of the money leaving New York.
I’m wondering if they haven’t killed real estate investment in all blue states. They don’t seem to understand that their public union cheerleaders cannot sustain the blue state economies.
Good point!
You're over the target....Brace for impact.
A conspiracy!!!
But I don't think Dems are that smart, honestly..
According to Ollie's own numbers, almost no one in America supports Putin. And yet Ollie and Peter keep claiming that "conservatives" en masse support Putin.
Where are all these conservatives who support Putin hiding, do they think? With the vast throngs of White Supremacists who are a looming danger to their "democracy"?
Bari really needs to ditch the delusional people on her team.
BTW, it is not "hard to tell" where the Squad stands on Israel: they are 100% against it.
Turns out that if you question our own government you are a Putin lover.
Or an insurrectionist.
Or “far right”.
Is center right even a thing now?
Not according to the Leftists. Either you buy all of what they are selling or you are a Nazi, racist, Putin-lover.
Was going to post the same.
Anyone else notice how the R radical fringe is "far right" but the radical racists in Congress on the D side are "ultra progressive."
Ultra! They are so much progress we just don't understand yet how amazing progress will be when the Squad anti-semites take over.
Get rid of Oliver. He is a propagandist. He's not a normie and he doesn't speak for them.
Anthony, who does Wiseman consider “normies” ?? Those who are pro funding Ukraine, without question?? Those who believe Israel needs to ceasefire, because Palestinians are being killed?? Have YET to hear anyone demand Ukraine ceasefire! Aren’t the “attackers suppose to be attacked” in War, which would be HAMAS & RUSSIA!
Seems Wiesman thinks the “normies” are those who support & recognize the Biden Regime’s “accomplishments” and want to desperately try to censor Free Speakers like Tucker, Elon, Rogan, Russell, etc., etc.!
So, I’m guessing Wiesman considers himself and the WOKE Left Democrats to be America’s “normies” … hum, interesting!
Please, Bari, stop this insanity! We need you!!!
Seems Wiesman thinks the “normies” are those who support & recognize the Biden Regime’s “accomplishments”
My response to that is:
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H. L. Mencken
I think that encapsulate the ever senile Joe. Don't you?
It does capture Biden. But there's no question that Bush 2 was the first downright moron in the WH.
Yeah China just criticized the USA for "genocide" in Gaza, but openly supports Putin's war in Ukraine. The lies and hypocrisy are brazen, and it's clear they're working on global justification for a war with the USA.
What the h*** am I missing? How is this publication on the left????? You can't criticize Tucker Carlson for swanning around a Soviet Potemkin supermarket waxing lyrical about how good the bread smells?
Right. Intelligent people ignore Tucker if they don't like the content. They don't fixate on hating right-wing personalities.
Tucker directly benefits from 100% of the hate attention he gets from the leftists. They're feeding him just like they do Trump and that's why he plays them with more outrage.
Bread and circus. Distraction and nonsense. I don't give a crap about Tucker.
Tucker is a perfect prism and mirror. That’s why he does such good interviews. Does he have an opinion? I’m sure he does and I’m sure it’s very intelligent. But he does get the conversation going and he is straight up in those interviews..
Spot on!
"You can't criticize Tucker Carlson."
Sure you can. I used to like Tucker but now I think he is just a self aggrandizing, egocentric jerk.
You can criticize whomever you wish. But if you have to ask how this publication leans left you exemplify "the people looking the other way" point.
I don't read all of the articles. But what I do read addresses issues I care about in a very different way from the mainstream press. If we really care about getting back a press that's not captured, that's part of the deal. And I wasn't aware I was criticizing anyone, but thanks for the permission.
The Normies Oliver refers to are those who are either neocons or neolibs. Those who love war in Ukraine, those who love expanding the war in Israel, those who love bombing Syria, Iraq, Iranian forces, Yemenis. There's nothing normal about them, but then have been in charge for a long time, certainly since Bush2 (the dumb one) was elected. Through Bush, Obama, and now Biden, they can't get enough war. Trump's the only one in decades to not start a new war.
And the people who love war don't love Trump. They love Biden, they love Haley, they REALLY love Hillary.
And Bari believes in this shit as much as Oliver.
The left is neither liberal nor progressive. The Brits coined a term years ago, Loony Left. We should use that to describe them.
Lonesome: typo! It’s Loony Left aka nutters
Thanks.
It seems to me that merely to question the media and administration narrative regarding Putin/Zelenskyy/Russia/Ukraine is to out oneself as a Putin supporter. To me though, Putin is a complete stranger. He may (or may not) have done some very bad things. He may (or may not) be a ruthless despot. I don't know, and have no way of knowing, because the administration and most of the media have proven themselves to be shameless liars about almost everything, at least arguably insane, and not above a bit of despotism themselves as they brazenly attack the America I used to know and still love. Why should I believe anything they say, or accept their enemy - Putin - as my own?
It's beginning to be clear that "Putin-lover" is in the same category as "racist" and "Nazi"--just another fact-free way of attacking anyone who dares to disagree with them.
Fortunately, some of us paid attention to Russia and Putin before the Left's own iron curtain of information-control came down. Putin is not a nice guy at all. No one has ever been able rise to power in Russia, in its entire history, without being a nasty piece of work. Former KGB. But there was a time during the 90s when Putin was at least *appearing* to try to move Russia into a more cooperative position with the West. He was soundly rebuffed by Western leaders who refused to get past the Cold War.
Was the rebuff justified? Was he secretly plotting, even then, to restore the glories of the Soviet Union? Maybe; I don't for sure. (Would Gollum really have changed if not for Sam's harsh words?) But I do know that the rebuff sent him in the anti-Western direction he has been going since then.
(BTW, love your screen name.)
Not questioning but asking a question: what about Gorbachev?
I mean - was he as evil as others before or since?
I'm sure he was cutthroat to some degree, or he would not have risen to power. But he seems to have been largely promoted on the basis of his perceived loyalty.
Here's the thing about Gorbachev: he did not want the Soviet Union to break up. But he did realize that it could not go on as it had been. He hoped that his reforms, by making the USSR less repressive, would strengthen it. So there was certainly some naivete there.
Which is exactly why TC’s interview was so important! I wanted to hear what Putin had to say - whatever it was - and draw my own conclusions. More of that, please.
Please put the curtain back in place and stop looking back there! Nothing to see there! (Except the emperor has no clothes)
Eewww.... and who would want to see THAT!
'Sometimes even The President of The United States has to stand naked" RZ
Then make him stay in his basement.
I appreciate the Zimmerman reference.
Lol!! So true.
Q: Where are all these conservatives who support Putin hiding, do they think? With the vast throngs of White Supremacists who are a looming danger to their "democracy"?
A: In the same sekrut bunkers as the Christian Extremists.
Right? I haven't seen any of them looting, burning, shooting cops, or leading loud anti-American protests. They must be slacking lately.
Long ago and far away there were card-carrying communists. No one could ever produce one of those cards -- which didn't help the credibility of what was an actual threat. When my lady friend alleged the "right wing" violence exposure, I merely observed that if the 98% of the "media" who are salivating over the opportunity to report upon it can't find it, it simply doesn't exist. Crickets...
🪒🛎️
Thank you!! The idea that there is some ambiguity in the rank and open anti-semitism of “The Squad” is just an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying even a modicum of attention.
Remember Celia that Savodnik has superhuman abilities. He knows exactly what goes on in the minds of conservatives. And none of it is good. It’s a gift he was endowed with. He knows that conservatives secretly carry a picture of Putin in their wallets. If only we knew what he knows.
There was a time when believing that you could see into other people's minds was considered a sign of insanity. Now the Leftists all think they have that ability.
Maybe Ollie is conflating the fact that most of us don't want the US to continue sending billions to Ukraine (which really only serves to make additional arms-manufacturer billionaires) with support of Putin. I don't support Putin, but I also don't support stealing money from my kids and grandkids to make billionaires of those who supply arms to Ukraine.
Or sacrificing thousands of Ukraine men. And now women.
HM, you’re right, he IS conflating GOP refusal (& all you commenters) to help Ukraine with support of Putin BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS! What is the matter with you people? Listen to the Ukrainian people; they overwhelmingly are up for resisting Putin and Russia until they recover all their lands; they overwhelmingly do not want to “negotiate” (& Zelensky knows he would be thrown out if he did). They strongly resent all of the “suggestions” by their supposed allies that they treat with the Russians, starting with France back in mid-2022 (you can rely on the French to do some appeasement - where is Clemenceau today?).
I'm not opposed to Ukraine winning this war. How much has the $113 BILLION done to accomplish that end? If the war is at a stalemate (which it is), how many more BILLIONS are needed to win the war? I don't think it's the object of the Biden administration to win the war. It's to prop up the military-industrial complex in the US who then donate the dollars from the current and future US taxpayers to the policy makers (elected and unelected, and Dems and
GOP) in order to keep the defense dollars coming in. It isn't about Ukraine at all. Ukraine is the useful catalyst at the moment, but that is all. And Ukraine is getting played in this scheme which is all about money and power. Either win the damned war, or get out. Quit playing and spending with no goal other than to make arms manufacturers and their shareholders rich and keep the current powers in power. I'm probably older than you, Will, and though I once believed that there were principled causes to support wars, I don't believe that is the course the US follows anymore. It's all about money and power, and not about the Ukrainian people at all, which is sad.
Ukraine can't win this war. When it made the decision in the 90s to give up its nukes, it lost its deterrence.
Believing Ukraine can defeat Russia in a war is as ridiculous as believing that Florida (or Texas, or New York) could win a war against the United States--even if they had the full support of both China and Russia.
Very annoying. I am STRONGLY against the continued senseless SLAUGHTER of young Ukrainians and Russians. IMMEDIATE CEASE FIRE and start negotiations. Stop the killing.
Doesn't it seem peculiar so many are calling for/insisting on a cease fire in the Hamas initiated war but seem to be ok with the ever continuing war in The Ukraine?
There was a deal to stop it all a month or two after the invasion, but we wouldn't let Zelensky agree to it. No one in power in the security state wants a cease-fire in Ukraine. Those in power don't want it in Gaza either.
Correction - there are no more young Ukrainians. Average age entering service is now 40 which means all the teens/20's/30's are rotting in the fields and forests.
And now women are entering service as well.
I have never met anyone who supports Putin, either. Interesting how 5% is such a nice, round number. Color me suspicious.......he made that number up.
And I've never met a Jew who supports Hamas.
What else has he made up?
And yet "Jews for Palestine" has enthusiastically done its part in blocking New York City's bridges, tunnels, train stations, and major avenues and shouting "By any means necessary!"
Don't let the word "Palestine" fool you: These Jews mean Hamas.
Unless they're not Jews. I'd like them not to be.
You took the words right out of my mouth, Celia. Lefties like Wiseman use antisemitism as a sword or a shield, depending on whatever suits their narrative at the moment. It's simultaneously dishonest and boring.
Can I get an “Amen”?
Excellent point.
The 5% pro-Putin statistic just reaffirms that Savodink would be better on CNN. Shame on him for trying to manipulate people into thinking that the extreme right is much larger than it actually is.
A Republican Speaker of the House refuses to put forth a Senate sponsored bill to a vote on the House floor on aid to Ukraine. Ask Johnson if he supports Putin. He'll say no, of course. But in doing Trump's bidding, it's the same thing.
Refusing to continue to flush money down the toilet when nothing good has come of the $100+ billion we've already flushed does not equate to support for Putin. It equates to "let's stop wasting our fucking money."
We pay now. Or we pay later.
Nothing like waking up to a lecture from a bleach blond faux intellectual to get the day started on the right foot. I will have to go read about what this Peter Savodinik has ever done in the real world. Nothing like a guy with a huge ego and little sense to inform. Great points.
Yeah.....his writing for Vanity Fair & GQ have been life changing.
I wonder if he has a bottle of moral superiority that he sprays on after his cologne every morning; what a pompous ass. ( one other note, I drop this into Grammarly before to check for spelling , and when I was checking for spelling, it actually asked me to donate money for Ukraine, these people are everywhere)
I tried grammarly for 5 mins. then cancelled. It seemed too invasive.
It's also plain wrong much of the time.
Grammarly will also give you a sensitivity lesson on preferred pronoun use and the singular "they," if you poke the bear. That, too, is everywhere.
When my best friend was editing articles for a SciFi news site, she was constantly having to fight Grammarly, because that's what her boss wanted her to use. Apparently it isn't *quite* as bad as MS Word's grammar checker, but still.
🎯Grammarly’s adverts on Quora usually demonstrated bad grammar ironically when I used to frequent that site. 🤦♂️
You know what Savodinik is doing here? He's getting a reaction from you. He's doing his job. Just like 'faux' journalist Tucker gets a rise out of the Left. And he knows you'll read his next biased essay - just like Tucker knows he'll get creamed in the MSM for his next soft ball performance. It's all performance art, and you sir (and me as well), are the audience..
I won't be reading his next essay, I've seen enough. This type of article is why I left MSM. I don't need to read substack for propaganda.
Not so.
I, for one, will not read Savodnik’s next anything.
And if he reappears in TFP, I’ll become much more wary when I turn to this publication (actually, I already am).
Such a shame to voluntarily jettison hard-earned and extremely rare journalistic credibility but Bari & Susie had begun to erode it when they began to frame anything critical of Israel or anything Jewish as anti-Israel or anti-Semitism.
criticism disallowed is bias revealed
You have to remember when they say "normie" they mean THEIR normies... AKA big-city/big-government lefties. And wealthy. They have to be wealthy because high-society writers don't talk to or associate with public school kids
Now that we've gotten that out of the way there's always one question to ask when you start getting lectured by faux-intellectuals on the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the idea of "good guys" and "bad guys." Just ask them who has invaded more sovereign nations in their lifetime - Russia, or the US? It's pretty amazing how quickly they change the subject. And that's before you get anywhere near explaining JFK's take about who actually won WWII and which nation has given up territory since then vs which one has an occupying presence (by invitation of course...) in 80+ nations. The "well, we're defending DEMOCRACY" thing is hilarious. We now draw our moral line at Democracy? Like people under authoritarianism deserve to die or something? It's almost hilarious in its insanity.
Someone should remind this guy that once your key argument for defending war is "well, it's bringing jobs to America," you've DEFINITELY lost actual "normies."
"we're defending DEMOCRACY"
Twits like Wiseman and Savodnik sure as hell ain’t defending it here.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍
Standing ovation good sir. As for the invitation, supplying the world's reserve currency does tend to make one the belle of the ball. Of course it should also include the common decency to not overstep one's bounds.
Well this warrants like a 4 hour conversation, but there's just so little time :). I guess my two major thoughts are that 1. Peter Zehan is wrong about almost everything, but he's tangentially right that the tradeoff for our being the global reserve currency was that it is our job to protect commerce across the globe, only we're now failing at that and it was the last thing holding together this house of cards (after we came off the gold standard, started losing wars, started taking on unfathomable debt, and turned our federal government into nothing but a giant money laundering enterprise), and 2. that means the only people who still want us in their territory are people who sacrificed even more of their freedom for the pretense of safety and leisure (western Europe) than we did. For the rest of the world, the useful idiots running the US money laundering enterprise are exactly that - useful idiots hemorrhaging their citizens own economic independence for personal wealth. The Russian Oligarchs of the 1960's would be jealous at how much better we are at this than they were (but it ends the same...)
Well put.
Agree! Today’s piece makes me think that this is beyond TDS. Gad Saad calls it the Parasitic Mind.
Only pay attention to what we tell you - please don’t question why we are at war on multiple fronts and can’t even secure our own borders. Americans are sick of the wars - that is the normie perspective -
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
― William Tecumseh Sherman
Except we're actually at war here in the US, too. Our open border and woke culture are destroying the country from within. :(
He would know. Not a fan. Thanks for the reminder.
Except when the US plays at it.
Gad Saad is very good. I don't suppose he could be asked to write a piece for the FP?
Now that would be good.
And when do we get a Thomas Sowell interview? He recently released a book and he’s not getting any younger.
"New polling from Pew suggests...." Journos tend to be unthinkingly credulous about opinion surveys. Here's a survey question for you: "Q. Are you the kind of person who would respond to an opinion survey?"
New polling from Pew suggests....38 percent see foreign policy as a top priority for 2024, second only to the economy, and an increase from 18 percent this time last year"
The last poll I saw had illegal immigration at the top of the list. Funny how Americans consider their own border more important than that of the most corrupt country in the world. I suppose in Wiseman's world, that makes me an ab-normie.
😜👍👍👍
🥸I turned a text survey down just the other day. True story.
Well said. I find it highly unlikely that perpetual foreign wars are the greatest concerns of most "normie" Americans given that it is getting harder and harder to afford groceries and rent while our cities are being overrun by illegals.
Ok, YM, statements like you just posted proves YOU are an “abnormie” like most of those (us!) who are posting today in response to Wiesman!
Yeah ,I felt the framing was pretty dishonest, he seemed to assume that people whom felt foreign policy was important agreed with him.
100%…everything!!
First thing I said when I listened to this yesterday was that I couldn’t wait to hear the comments when it’s released on The Free Press! A little out of touch? Wow!
You will own nothing. And you will be happy.
Sweet! I'm already halfway there!
I can add to your list. Do you support illegal migrants being appointed to our election boards, as was just done in CA ? Maybe bring that fact to light.
CA is a cesspool. Everything wrong is in CA!
and just wait until we get prez. Newsom!!
California Uber Alles!
It's the "bellwether" state!! Coming to a state near you.
Great question!!
I would add that 30,000 military-age Chinese nationals have crossed our border, in 2023 alone. Is anyone investigating why they're here? All we get is a softball humanitarian piece on 60 Minutes, about them escaping the authoritarian rule of Xi. Is it also true that the Chinese own significant amounts of land near most of our military bases? What is going on?
Very few are asking these questions!
Also:
Do you support government appointments of people based on their identity politics, such as:
Rachel Levine (the trans assistant secretary of health)
Sam Brinton: (the bizzaro luggage stealing assistant secretary of nuclear energy)
Pete Buttigieg (A man WAAAY in over his head as Secretary of Transportation) but hey, he's gay so let's give it to him......
Etc., etc....
And, Phil, don’t forget to put Biden on your list!
*Transportation
100%. Evan’s should start writing for TFP.
Thanks, but that would be an unmitigated disaster. I’m a general contractor in North Carolina, who barely squeaked out of high school, and I can’t empathize squeaked enough. I’m much better at reading a tape measure, then using proper grammar or sentence structure.
Humility, just what more journalists and politicians need!! They would not know what to do with you.
If that is true about squeaking by and high school, you have very good instincts.
Well, he did use “then” instead of “than”… 😆
The way you define "normie", sounds like the same people who defended staying in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Is there ever a time to say no to a war? Can someone ever think that Putin is a despicable human being and think that NATO encroaching on Russia's border is not a good idea?? Thankfully Taiwan is an island or "normies" would want to change the island into a peninsula with mainland China and believe that would be a good thing.
Crap. Now I am going to have to look at maps and see if that peninsula thing is possible.
Good hunting :-)
The Taiwan Strait is a darn sight bigger than the English Channel!
That I knew. But the Chinese are nothing if not industrious.
Ha ha!!
Your definition of normie suits your agenda. A true normie doesn’t care much about what is going on abroad. Normies are sick of politicians laundering our tax dollars towards endless foreign conflicts, while our own country deteriorates under inflation, crime, and open borders. Ukraine is such a thriving democracy that elections and opposition parties have been suspended, while Zelensky's commissars snatch the few remaining able bodied men off the streets to send them to front lines as cannon fodder. Tucker, Trump, and Elon are literally Putler for dissenting about this bloodshed. Russia was the first to send condolences after 9/11 and could have been an ally against the larger threats of China and Islamism, but our foreign policy "experts" have decided that they are the biggest enemy.
The DIE Squad represents the worst of America. They have turned their districts into crime infested squalor. Bowman should have been expelled for pulling a fire alarm before a vote. Omar openly boasts about helping Somalia, not the country she has been elected to represent. Tlaib voted present when all other reps condemned Hamas using rape as a weapon of war. AOC and Pressley’s sanctuary districts are collapsing under the weight of illegals, who will become their new voters.
No matter how much MSM pearl clutches about Moscow, they can’t ignore that the decay of our cities has been an intentional choice: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/throwback-thursday-cities-fupaz-boblee
Agree. I could give two shits which corrupt ex-Soviet dictatorship controls eastern Ukraine.
If "true normies" do not care what happens outside our borders, then they are stupidly short-sighted, and a very few years from now the world will have devolved into chaos and murder worse than it is now.
The world is too interconnected to ignore.
But probably you're just projecting your own thoughts onto the rest of us.
"True normies" care about things that actually affect them. Sometimes that is what is happening outside our borders.
Notice how many Americans support Israel. Probably fewer Americans would still be *thinking* about Israel if not for the pro-Palestinian groups blocking our highways, tearing down posters of kidnapped children, and assaulting American Jews.
Initially, most "normies" were supportive of sending aid to Ukraine. But now that the Democrats are openly doing more to protect Ukraine than to protect our own borders, "normies" are beginning to ask whether our tax dollars should continue to be poured into the money pit that Ukraine has become (especially when some portion of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs).
"Normies" are concerned that Biden and the Democrats are going to allow China to seize Taiwan. They've noticed that vast amounts of Chinese money are being poured into the U.S. to gain control of land and institutions. They see young military-aged Chinese men starting to pour across our border. As a result, China looks like a much bigger threat to "normies" than Russia does.
The depressing reality is that the world IS going to devolve into more chaos and murder, largely due to how Democrats have approached foreign policy in the past 15 years. Europe has invited their doom in through the front door (and it isn't Russia). China is engaging in colonialism in Africa, and Democrats are not saying a word. Leftist prosecutors are determined to free violent criminals to roam American streets, and Leftist politicians are determined to let crime grow by repealing laws against it.
"Normies" are concerned, but we have very little power to do anything. So most "normies" concentrate on what little they CAN control. If that looks like ignoring things they can't control...what else can they do?
Celia, here I agree with you. On one point, though, I must say: We cannot ignore Ukraine because Taiwan seems more in jeopardy; we cannot ignore Russia's aggression because military-aged men have been pouring across our border.
As a born Brooklynite and old enough to remember far better days, I saw clearly from the first that media like The New York Times were trying desperately to find families with children among the thousands of lone men crossing the Rio Grande -- just as they had tried hard to post photos of Muslim families crossing on leaky boats to Samos and Lesbos in Greece. In fact, most of those migrants were marauders who stole from Greek villagers who had provided shelter and succor to the "refugees." Whole farms were stripped even of their olive trees. My comments on this topic were routinely declined -- one of the reasons I canceled my NYT subscription.
I am under no illusions as to what threatens the United States. I say all -- Russia, China, Islam, and our own border -- do. Biden is not the man to address these issues, nor is Trump.
Haley is decried as a war-monger. Maybe we need one.
At present, Russia's aggression does not directly affect us. We have much, much bigger threats to our nation than Russia poses at the moment.
Indeed, the biggest threat Russia poses to us at the moment is that if we keep threatening Russia, they have a nuclear arsenal they could use against us. Once they feel we have become a truly existential threat to them, they have no reason not to do so.
War-mongering got us into this situation. War-mongering will not get us out.
"the biggest threat Russia poses to us at the moment is that if we keep threatening Russia, they have a nuclear arsenal they could use against us"
I just read an article about the Royal Navy test firing a Trident missile. The test failed for the second time when its booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea next to the launch site. I recall reading reports of deterioration in our own nuclear missile defense system.
So let's keep poking the bear. My guess is their missiles work.
The answer is to hone our own missile-building skills, not cower.
I disagree, Celia.
Russia's aggression will directly affect us in time, it just doesn't at the moment. If the US abandons Ukraine to its fate, a conclusion amenable to so many of the commenters here, and Putin ultimately through attrition prevails - what does that mean for NATO? Putin will understand that we won't have the will to see things through, we don't have the staying power (see Afghanistan, disastrous withdrawal..) - so why wouldn't he test our resolve in a few years time and begin probing the borders of Finland, or Estonia? Why wouldn't he provoke us?
Trump, of course, taken literally, if in power and with blinders on, would have left NATO by then. And then Europe could be in the news, when the rules based international order in place since 1948 goes up in smoke, and they will be the refugees and asylum seekers flooding the southern border.
We as a country have the will to pick our future, we had better be wise about it.
I don't think even most conservative people here would be comfortable "abandoning Ukraine to its fate." But there should have been peace talks a long while ago, and our politicians seem to be completely uninterested in that.
It won't matter WHAT Russia does in a few years' time if the U.S. falls to a combination of internal (Leftist) and external (illegal migrant) forces before then.
“At present”! In 1938 nobody even dreamed that Hitler, by wanting a piece of Czechoslovakia, endangers in any way Britain or France. In fact, the German generals were perfectly aware that Germany was not ready for war and that if France and Britain acted, Germany was toast… I don’t to need to remind you what happened to Britain and France just two years later. And it totally gets me that, when dealing with a criminal war started for nothing by a lunatic dictator, some people talk about war-mongering referring to the help that the US is giving the victim after it was attacked. Does elementary logic have any value anymore or we’re dealing in abberations, like the wokes?
Actually it’s Biden and Democrats who are the real threat, not the, “Marauders” and criminals who will after all do what they do which is maraud and commit crime. But they couldn’t do it without Biden and Democrats enabling them.
That goes without saying.
It should. But the Left says the real threat isn't marauders and criminals, it's racists and bigots. And they control the vast majority of the media.
This was very well put, Celia M.
"(especially when some portion of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs)"
And, I suspect a bunch of that money has disappeared into the pockets of corrupt US oligarchs including the Bidens. We know there has been long standing funny business with the Bidens in Ukraine. I would like to see an accounting of where all that money has gone exactly and hear what our strategy is with Ukraine/Russia.
I notice on my Nextdoor feed here in San Diego that no one even cares about the border mess until it bites them. Normies don't care about anything that does not directly affect them and don't realize where their tax dollars are really going.
Precisely so, Celia. Well said.
I could not agree more, Celia!
“you're just projecting your own thoughts onto the rest of us”
Badabing. Oliver wiseman and Peter Savodnik do this in every piece. Idiots.
Am disappointed in the Free Press this morning. Pishing this tosser Savodnik at us bright and early was a bad play. What a bought and paid for stooge. I see Savodik is “draft age” in Ukraine, when is he leaving for Kiev to volunteer? The war in Ukraine is lost. The Ukrainian army writ large as hard as they may fight (and video footage shows them fighting hard) the overwhelming military superiority of the Russian forces arrayed against them is too much. Think Maripol. No tougher lot than the Azov units there and how did that work out. Yet, we persue this relentless effort to shore up a failed and corrupt regrime and so it goes around the world with a foreign policy that at best is schizophrenic. What a load of crap this Savodik just spewed. Tucker ought to ask him to come on for an interview from his studio in Maine. Then Savodik could ride up crumbling I95 and rusting bridges and then take the crumbling State “highways” up towards Locke Mills taking in the sights of prosperity and the bright future the locals have before them. But don’t complain peasants, the 1% up at Bethel have your backs, just run over to Augusta and ask that genius governor and Secretary of State running the place. It’s all good. You may be half starving and can’t avoid gasoline for your 15 year old pick up truck which is rusting out. But the folks with their third or fourth “vacation” home are doing just fine! Foie Gras and water crackers anyone? Joe Biden feels your pain…wait that was the other grifter, Joe well let’s put is this way, doesn’t feel much unless Dr. Jill tells him to feel pain or wipes the melted ice cream off his chin before it hits the drool cup under his jaw. How dare we complain. Sorry Bari, you all have to find better than the asshat you shoved at us this morning.
Ukraine has put up a great fight. They should be proud of their resolve.
The U.S. media is doing an atrocious job of communicating the reality of what's happening there right now. The Russians are producing artillery barrels and shells at a much higher rate than we can, and they are using that artillery advantage to relentlessly pressure the Ukrainians right now. The spring offensive that western leaders hoped would result in big gains against the Russians, and that Ukrainian military leaders didn't want, stalled out immediately with minimal gains. By the accounts I read, a lot of Ukrainians died in those offensives.
While the Russians aren't capable of a big breakout, they're successfully pursuing a strategy that worked very well the limited times it was tried in WWI: bite and hold. Rather than trying grand breakout and encirclement attacks, they're simply pounding Ukrainian positions with artillery and then taking territory 50-100 meters at a time.
Ukraine is quite large, so if you look at the daily or weekly map it appears the lines are barely moving, but it's clear right now that the Ukrainians military is under intense pressure. Another $60B for artillery shells that won't be there until 2025 isn't going to change the fact that 2024 is very likely going to be a rough year for Ukraine.
Wicked!
And you wonder why I despise Wiseman. Because the drivel he spouts demonstrates he is not a wise man.
We cannot stop that devolution. It is stupidly short-sighted to continue bleeding ourselves dry in the attempt. None of this is about democracy. Not here. Not there. It is about money. Money here. Money there. It is time to take the training wheels off and let those nations beholden to us ride on their own. Had we not been so completely overbearing in our modern foreign policy decisions I think the likelihood of success would be far better. But you cannot become what you abhor, in this case totalitarian/authoritarian, to defeat it.
🔥
Normies get concerned when they're asked to continually support a war, including repeated escalations by their government, when the same government refuses to make a case for what a realistic end game looks like.
Biden can talk about the goal being returning all territory to Ukraine, but that's not realistic. It's idealistic, and he gets to use it as an excuse for not talking about the reality that there will be a negotiated settlement at some point when the Ukrainians run out of men willing to throw their lives away for the oligarchs and government officials making so much money from this war.
"The world is too interconnected to ignore"
I suspect there are a few hundred thousand Iraqis and Afghans that we wish we "normies" hadn't ignored the lies our government told us about WMDS and promoting "democracy" in their countries.
The world being interconnected was a choice made by elites against the will of the populace.
We have been so indoctrinated with certain ideas that we can’t conceive of them not being a law of nature. Globalization, outsourcing manufacturing, and just-in-time supply chains did not evolve naturally. They were chosen for us.
Elites vs. the populace. Yawn. We are all interconnected too.
Maybe survivalists are on their own, except I doubt they've made their own Jeeps, razor wire, Bunsen burners, pots, solar panels, bandaids, bullets, or shotguns. . . .
The world being interconnected was a choice made by elites against the will of the populace.
We have been so indoctrinated with certain ideas that we can’t conceive of them not being a law of nature. Globalization, outsourcing manufacturing, and just-in-time supply chains did not evolve naturally. They were chosen for us.
I am completely concerned that a bunch of saps in gaza and ukraine/russia are being slaughtered so the Regime(TM) can spend old munitions and have to buy new ones with my money.
Oh and FJB is a corrupt POS allowing all of those deaths - he could stop both actions tomorrow if he wasn't a corrupt POS
Many hippies of the anti-war movement, now baby-boomers, unfortunately sold out to cocaine and TV in the 70s. Now we have the degenerate TV culture we have today. The old, and new normal, is peace.
TV culture? What in the world does TV have to do with culture today?
What is culture?
Culture encompasses the social behavior and norms.
Don't most people watch TV?
Culture can mean many things. In the West it used to mean upholding Judeo Christian values. Which meant much flawed thinking and diversion from the beatitudes, while at the same time affording us a path to individual freedom and rational thinking in the arts and sciences. That’s much too broad a conversation for here though.
However, one thing we can be certain of given what’s happening in the world. If you value your culture and its freedoms but you don’t uphold and maintain it, someone with stronger convictions than you will come along and give you theirs. And give it good and hard.
Aside from that, apparently most young people don’t get their information from TV any more. We have powerful computers in our hands. The TV is old hat to a large number of consumers in a certain demographic according to those in the know. Retirees still consume a fair amount of TV though.
Actually, judging from observation of my high school/ college grand kids, no. They watch Tik tok, FB, X.
I guess I should have been more specific - I should have said mass social media culture, and getting information in quick snippits whether it be tiktok or cnn, rather than reading a book.
Thanks Yuri. On point as usual.
Yup, this is where the Free Press sometimes falls down in analysis of issues and policy. There is a false equivalence, or just the wrong framing.
Good points. It’s not so easy as Putin’s dictatorship is evil. He was wrong to go into Ukraine, but I think the question is what happens now? How does it end? What do we make of the many in eastern Ukraine and Crimea who identify more with Russia? What about men in eastern Ukraine who left Ukraine to fight for Russia instead of Ukraine? For something of a historical parallel, it may help to look at Northern Ireland and what happened there and why.
Are you going to post this same thing under every FP article?
Ukraine is a European democracy? You mean the country where the corrupt leader travels the world in comfort and begs for money while shanghaiing 45 -50 year old men off the street to send them to a meat grinder, has canceled elections so he can stay in power and closed churches? That European democracy?
Give it up wiseman. You're shark jumping every day now
Did I miss the announcement that Wiseman IS the Free Press now?
#MeToo
I knew right from seeing the title who authored the article. I know of no one who uses the term "normie".
I believe it's the derogatory term the woke use against the sane.
"SLANG DICTIONARY
normie
[ norm-ee ]
January 13, 2021
WHAT IS A NORMIE?
Normie is a slang for a “normal person,” especially someone seen to have conventional, mainstream tastes, interests, viewpoints, etc. It is intended as an insult but often used ironically.
Normie is also sometimes used by specific in-groups to refer and distinguish themselves from specific out-groups."
The hipper term for “normie” might be “basic”.
LOL. Yes. :D
The new name of the Free Press: Oliver's Twist? Rumor is he pleaded: " Bari, may I please write some more."
Brilliant!
True democracy is often code for CIA installed government
Federalization movement as loped to a Republic. Even conservatives speechwriters talk about democracy and not the republic. Words matter.
Don’t forget coming to the USA congress on more than one occasion asking for more money while his countrymen are getting killed…or giving a speech last year at the Grammies. Democracy is one of those words that the left has changed the meaning of to suit their narrative.
Yah, those Demoncrats!
Just remember, if you don’t support sending endless piles of cash to the corrupt strongman who suspended elections and banned the opposition party you hate democracy.
Saying “The Squad” and “Tucker” in the same breath is absurd.
Tucker has been clear he loves America, or ar least what it used to be, and calls out the failures that are driving us away from that ideal. Putting East Palastine over Ukraine? Damn right.
Calling out the depth of corruption in our government, media, academia is necessary and patriotic if we hope to have a chance of not going down tubes.
The Squad are the new nihilists who want to bring America down.
Read the Vanity Fair hit piece that tried to "expose" that Tucker was fired from Fox for a "racist" email. It is laugh out loud funny. A clear plant by Fox and Tucker's other enemies to discredit him. But they made the mistake of publishing the actual e-mail. The e-mail was a paean to humanism and a lament for the hatred that has gripped both sides, where Tucker laments his initial joy at seeing the snot beaten out of an Antifa man. Truth matters. Tucker is loved because he exposes the truth. And that is a cardinal sin to those who seek to rule us.
Not just Variety. Also the WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/tucker-carlson-is-leaving-fox-news-db31f2fa, where they spell out at length more than just the emails, but also text messages during the Dominion Voting Machine lawsuit, urging management to fire a female colleague who dared to fact check things Tucker said on air, and no doubt being one of the main reasons FOX was going to get nailed for defaming Dominion Voting Machines by repeatedly accusing them of being part of alleged election fraud (in addition to Tucker’s private views on Trump coming out during the discovery portion of the lawsuit:
“ Before the Dominion suit was settled, Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had already concluded that Fox News and Fox Business did in fact broadcast false claims about Dominion, voiced by both network hosts and Trump associates. In a statement announcing the settlement, Fox acknowledged the judge’s findings.”
“ Court documents also revealed Mr. Carlson’s feelings about Mr. Trump. In a text message exchange from January 2021, Mr. Carlson said the network was “very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” and said “I hate him passionately,” referring to the former president.”
Guess who owns the Wall St Journal?
So Rupert owns the WSJ, Lachlan got rid of both you and Tucker. Makes perfect sense.
Tucker is an agent provacateur. 150, million views on that interview. He’s doing just fine.
I’m sure Tucker is doing well financially. He’s a genius at making money off the Tsunami of Stupid. Such an apt description of his followers. Too bad he lied about Dominion Voting Machines and cost FOX almost $790 million for the lies they had to admit to as part of the settlement.
I agree Maureen. Also, Tucker is a journalist with a loud megaphone trying to drown out the propaganda our leaders spew via the msm. Anyone is free to turn him off. However, these Congresswomen have sworn an oath to follow our constitution and have voting power to spend our tax dollars and alter our lives. Their public statements deserve scrutiny since they are bound to their respective oaths.
Wiseman writes “ it’s often hard to tell who Carlson wants to win the Ukraine-Russia war”.
It shouldn’t matter what Tucker thinks about that. Tuckers focus is whether the United States should be funding the war and the consequences of our involvement. He reports on things we would rather look away from and points out our naivety. I wish there were more Tuckers. It still amazes me, how his shining a light in dark corners will unhinge the left.
Why should any viewer or reader know the personal viewpoint of ANY interviewer? Shouldn’t it be the job of the interviewer to let the viewer understand the point of view of the person being interviewed? When did the interviewer have to show bias in his reporting? No one watching an interview should have any idea about the opinion of the person doing the interview / the story is not about him
Putin is a violent autocrat, i.e. one of the bad guys. We used to know that. We used to know we were the good guys. Putin is awful and Tucker is a useful idiot.
Ahh, yes. The “we are the good guys” POV.
It’s hard to grapple with the idea that maybe our hands are not so clean. But grownups need to take hard looks at themselves and own up to our mistakes before we can get back to being the “good guys”.
That’s what Tucker is doing.
Brave, rational, incisive. Yes, Maureen!
Read The Devils Chessboard, it might help clear up who the good guys are.
Hint: it isn't the CIA
We also *knew* - when it suited those in power - ahem Barry Soetoro cough, cough, that the 80's wanted their foreign policy back and there would be "more flexibility" towards Putin come 2012. Be careful saying what "we" know.
And Hillary’s misspelled reset button.
Yes, it wasn't simply misspelled. It translated to "overload". And it was stolen, to boot.
Iraq, Libya, Syria are very recent examples of us not being good guys.
Very shallow. Find new people to tell you what to think.
Manichaean framing of reality is not a sign of a deep thinker.
“Good Guys & Bad Guys” is for 1950s television Westerns.
The Squad IS the threat to democracy … and the de facto hosts to the Oppression Olympics.
The AOC posse will love America if it becomes what they want it to become.
Oliver’s piece stank of faux-fairness: it had a token expression that both sides were bad, but then spent 95% of the time trashing only one side. It read as a hit-piece on Tucker (who I often disagree with, but nowhere near as often as I disagree with the Squad!).
When the initial outrage over Tucker’s Putin interview started, I immediately thought of Barbara Walters’ repeated softball interviews with Fidel Castro back in the day. No one seemed offended that she batted her eyelashes at him, and never raised the subject of him being a dictator. She also interviewed Putin in 2018.
As for Tucker‘s visit to the grocery store, it suffered from the classic error that people make when discussing other countries: The price of groceries in Russia only makes sense in the context of average wages (just as it does in the US). The only calculation needed to understand the cost of living is percentage of peoples’ earnings spent on food, housing, energy, transportation, etc. Once the basic needs are addressed, we can look at issues of affluence and discretionary spending.
Well what they really mean when they cry they are saving democracy is they are saving democratic control. And it is transforming America away from the constitution and a republic. Pure doublespeak.
The obvious spin relative to Tucker Carlson, and the fact that this has been a pattern for a number of days, is concerning. It LOOKS bought, to me. It looks mechanical and lazy, certainly.
Putin is not honest, and he is not a good man. But what he said about America's broken promises, as far as not extending NATO, and as far as us interfering directly in Ukrainian democracy was clearly true. Liars don't lie all the time. They lie when it suits them. They tell the truth when they can and it also suits them.
It's really strange to me, watching all the people rendered insane by the idea of listening to the perspectives of a man with whom we as a nation are seemingly expected to go to war, in a war which would not serve ANY stratetic American interests. Why not listen? Are you stupid? Can you not form your own opinions?
ALL THIS ANTI-PUTIN RHETORIC IS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FOR US. The elites don't trust the people. And as Mike Benz described at length, the same measures the CIA has long used overseas to overthrow other nations, and to wage informational warfare (propaganda) have been weaponized AGAINST US. When you see the word "democracy" in the American press, what it means is that Blackrock and the Department of Defense meet over fancy lunches to discuss what to do with the rest of us. That is their version of "democracy", because all the members of the elite get votes.
That is an oligarchy, and we live in one NOW. Wake up.
Listen to or read this interview: https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-national-security-state-the-inversion-of-democracy/
Let’s hope the naive authors of today’s bilg read the comments section. The comments are way better. maybe they will learn something.
Bari better start doing better.
Nah, they will just roll their eyes and feel superior.
And call it editorializing and not lecturing
There is a lot of insight and wisdom in the comments section!
She has a simple decision: is she willing to pursue principle at the cost of the entirety of her friend group, and maybe much or all of her family? These people are savages and they are unforgiving. Once the Wand of Hate has been directed at you, you are forever stained and foreign, absent abject, craven groveling that may or may not work or even be visible to the ideologues.
The Trans stuff is so patently insane that is low risk. And as a Jew, writing against anti-Jewish racism is scarcely audacious, although depressingly uncommon among those who otherwise think about nothing BUT race. But that is dark skinned folks. BIPOC. Jews are different, they say. Somehow.
It's an interesting time. We are being asked to choose sanity over insanity; and on the other side, insanity over sanity. Watching how people approach this decision--which amounts to a choice between conformity and thought--is interesting.
I'm a new subscriber and this is the first time I have considered not renewing my subscription. The content of today's email is bad. "Tucker Carlson and the Squad: Two sides of the same coin?" is the level of quality I would expect from a second-tier legacy newspaper.
I wonder if Bari would consider revisiting her commitment to send emails to her subscribers every day. I certainly understand why she would make that decision, particularly in getting TFP off the ground, but I think that implicit endorsement of the 24/7 news cycle is misguided. I know I'd VASTLY prefer fewer emails featuring higher quality, more meaningful stories.
At $8/month, it remains true that Bari has earned a few months of my money for past services rendered, but if there are too many more emails like this one, I will probably unsubscribe (although I'll email her first I guess). Reading today's message was worse than a waste of time, leaving me first annoyed and then crestfallen. Although wading into the comments managed to buoy my spirits a bit, ha.
Somewhat tangentially, today's email made me worried that Bari is going to unintentionally create a simulacrum of the NYT. Please don't be like the Californians who move to Texas and vote for the same policies that ruined California. Remember why you left!
If you want to cancel your subscription, go to the very bottom of the daily email and click on the word “unsubscribe”. That will take you to a few forms to click through to make sure you really want to cancel. You will also get a questionnaire asking why you want to cancel (this goes to The Free Press, not Substack). There are some multiple choice reasons you can click followed by “other” and a box where you can tell TFP what your reason is, if it isn’t covered by one of the choices.
Note that the way Substack works is that once you have cancelled, you don’t get a refund, but your subscription will not auto renew at the end of the term that you paid for. I have already cancelled and will be leaving this summer. However, I cancelled for the opposite reason than you. The tenor of the articles has changed since I told Bari what I did not like. They’ve gotten better. Everyone has their own opinion I guess.
As for those leaving California for Texas, my daughter lives in Dallas, and those people leaving California are leaving for monetary reasons, not political reasons. Their companies are moving their headquarters to save money, and the employees are buying bigger houses for less money than you spend in California. Their politics hasn’t changed one bit and it will eventually change Texas.
Hi Ann — that is (more or less) exactly my point about Texas, sorry if it wasn’t clear.
As for TFP, today’s email notwithstanding, I will be keeping the sub for at least another couple of months (I went month-to-month). I’m not sure if you ever watched Seinfeld, but you can think of me like George Costanza at the coffee shop, seated before an array of $1 bills, all too ready to pluck one from the ranks should his waitress fail or falter. In that context, today’s email probably only warranted a feint at one of the bills, and maybe an attempt at admonishing eye contact.
Ah, well I made the mistake of paying for a whole year and letting it auto renew last summer, so now I’m stuck here until this summer. Those people from California are making the real estate prices skyrocket in the part of a Texas where my daughter and her family live. Fortunately, they bought a house right before both the prices and the mortgage rates went up. They couldn’t afford to buy their own house now.
Agreed! And my subscription just renewed at $80 a year which was horrible timing. I can read this kind of crap in mainstream media (which I refuse to pay for). Why would I pay $80 for the same?
Yeah, today’s Oliver post was the worst yet, and if he keeps doing this, it’ll be tempting to unsubscribe, at least for a time. I can hardly keep up with their content anymore anyway.
Oh dear, NC. I think you and I have been on these comments from the start, back in Common Sense days. If TFP don’t do better than Mr Wiseman (surname a bit of a misnomer given the comments) then they’re in trouble.
How’s the book coming along?
That’s true. I subscribed because I am open to reading opposing viewpoints, expecting them to be well considered. Lately, not so much.
Thanks for asking about my book!
I typed The End a few days ago. Am editing and taking a course on self publishing.
Ditto to your first paragraph. Although I’m nowhere near any towel throwing.
Good luck with the publishing of the book. Let us know when you succeed.
That's so cool. What kind of book is it?
It’s a novel that pokes fun at the crazy people living in a HOA community.
Congratulations! What an achievement! Staring down a blank piece of paper and having the discipline to make something great out of nothing! Well done!
I’m in the book business. Would love to help you get it printed when the time is right.
Thank you, I am exploring the various options.
But you're still here. Just read the comments and forget the articles. It appears that most commenters are heading that way anyway.
Good point.
All the people who say “Tucker is buddies with Putin!” don’t have anything to say about the actual substance of the conversation they had
My perception is they lack the ability to watch it at all. They don't resent any of the content per se, but the fact that the interview was done at all. They say "WE TOLD YOU HE IS AN ENEMY AND YOU CAN'T TALK TO HIM", and for most of them, that is that. An ideological crime has been committed, and that excuses them from interacting with what was actually said in any way whatever.
But that's no different than what the Soviets or Nazis did. It Collectivist GroupThink made all the more morally atrocious for being volitional, in a world where there are not yet immediate penalties for WrongThink.
That was the way the Left reacted to Rush as well. You can't listen to him. He is nothing more than a "shock Jock". I know this because it was me. But I did listen and I listened again because he made sense and my metamorphous began.
That's the thing: good ideas sell themselves in a free marketplace. That is why censorship--the disruption of a free marketplace--is of such vital importance in a regime consisting of crime and insanity and little else.
To be sure, a lot of things still work, but that could change virtually overnight. Nobody is protecting us any more, not at a national level, not with an open border.
No one is protecting us because we are the problem. I thought the unbridled illegal tsunami was for votes but it is more than that, we are being replaced. Another 4 years of Democrat control will bring millions more. In 2 generations the America that was will be no more.
You may well be right. A couple thousand people ruling an undifferentiate world from which nationalism has been eradicated.
Shades of Merkel.
Elon may be an alien, but his TwitterX is a gift to free speech.
Unsaint, your last line is spot on that there are” not yet immediate penalties for WrongThink”,when it comes to;foreign policy , but on social issues thinking and speaking out against GroupThink can cost one’s job. The whistleblowers on the gender clinics are indeed paying an immediate price.
Wait til you retire. It loosens the tongue considerably.
That's what the New Left has been doing for years though. "Deplatforming", censoring, and shutting down ideological heretics. This isn't new. It's just not working anymore except against their own. They've shut down so many people, the people who were shut down and people who want to listen to the shut down have now become its own group and no longer wandering alone in the wilderness.
I still remember some of their mantras and baby tantrums from just a few years ago:
"The time for debate is over!"
"Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from accountability"
"The emotional labor of having to explain my pains to you with debates is Exhausting! Educate yourself!"
Korean girl bands stans
This one is still going around: "You make me feel unsafe."
Russell Brand recently commented that “right wingers”—which is to say people who have been labelled such and unpersoned, are now the most genuinely diverse group around.
You have The Left, which is defined by conformity, and Everyone Else. Everyone else is also much more inclusive and tolerant. We may not agree with you, but we will listen to you, treat you as human, and engage you in meaningful dialogue oriented around discovery, exploration, curiosity, and an attempted approximation of truth.
I've been saying branding all oppositions as "right wing" is literally their modus operandi. They've found an easy one-step solution to keep liberal sheeples in check. Anytime anyone challenges their orthodoxy, they just brand it as "right wing" (or variations thereof eg MAGA, Trump, conservative, etc.) If their liberal followers don't vote, it would almost be funny seeing how so many "educated" liberals would reflexively close their eyes and ears as soon as they hear or see "right wing". Sad to say I even know a lot of people like that in real life. It's magic. So much easier for the Dems and their activists to do this than to actually have to engage with WrongThink and make their case.
I gotta give it to them. They've successfully made "right wing" (and all derivatives thereof) into modern day leprosy. We're all lepers. The new Unclean of the 21st Century. They would cordon us all off onto a leper island if they could. And it baffles me how their sheeples bought it all hook line and sinker. Covid vaccine? Masks? Don't ever question. JK Rowling is a bigot? Most haven't even read what she said which is openly available on her website. Their Elite Overlords decreed it, and so she must be, Pubic Enemy #1. Intifada? Sure! From the River to the Sea? Of course! Don't look under the rug. Don't ask any question. Anything on the contrary is "right wing", and you don't want to catch the "right wing" virus. It must be more lethal than Covid-19.
Not to say there aren't people like that on the conservative side, but it's not fascist systematic practice like this on the right. The evidence can even be seen right here, on these comments to this very article on TFP. Some of the loudest critics are self-admitted conservatives. They're PAYING to read TFP despite how much they can't stand Oliver Wiseman's recent takes. This simply just doesn't happen on the New Left.
The reason I'm paying is quickly becoming because I value the comments section vastly more than the columns.
Agree completely
I've noticed the same thing. The people who are so adamant that we MUST support Ukraine didn't even bother to listen to the interview at all.
That's not good.
Calling @TuckerBudzyn
The preoccupation with Tucker is not by accident. He makes the Left very uncomfortable. He asks questions and exposes their evil. The recent interview with Mike Benz is an example. Actually quite frightening when you consider the potential.
Yes. The number of times this has come up in the last week feels forced and intentional.
I am sharing the link to that interview everywhere: https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-national-security-state-the-inversion-of-democracy/
“It's really strange to me, watching all the people rendered insane by the idea of listening to the perspectives of a man with whom we as a nation are seemingly expected to go to war, in a war which would not serve ANY stratetic American interests. Why not listen? Are you stupid? Can you not form your own opinions?”
Some people seem to want their news and how to think about it spoon fed to them so they don’t have to think for themselves. Critical thinking is done by only a few.
What was the Pink Floyd line? Something like "Don't worry about what to think. We'll tell you what to think."
In the present era, only people capable of identifying as conservatives are capable of independent thought. Everyone on the Left is infected with a terror of disobedience and of being cancelled. In such a world, you cannot explore, cannot ask question, cannot allow a moments doubt, PARTICULARLY when you are being asked to believe the absurd. It's like a bitter medicine (which in this case is a poison) you have to swallow quickly because otherwise you can't ingest it at all.
It's a bad way to live. It's strange to me to observe that so many people who should know better--who were in principle educated to know better--choose to live such shallow and ridiculous lives, or at least to reliably imbibe and share ridiculous ideas that work in aggregate to darken human life, make rationality impossible, and which always result in capricious and sadistic violence of all sorts.
Well said! Bring on the adrenochrome 🤣
Copied and saving. My experience exactly.
I have to thank you, Unsaint, for the best laugh of the day! Don't like me for it - you know I'm being lightly cynical..
If there is something funny about any of that I am missing it.
It's in your second paragraph..
I’m amazed at the unbridled arrogance of many authors. They are unable to have multiple thoughts in their head at one time.
Putin can be a tyrant and corrupt. Zelenskyy can also be a tyrant and corrupt. Why do we need to support 1 over the other?
Agreed. The world does not consist in zeros and ones.
The entire tone of the Oliver Wiseman essay was condescending.
The term “ progressive “ when referring to The Squad in Congress is another inversion. They are regressive in the extreme.
Isn’t it hilariously ironic that the left thinks that EVERYTHING is binary, EXCEPT sex!
Babylon Bee does make me laugh but none of this is really funny. With some exaggeration, but not nearly enough, I think I have some sense what it was like to be a Jew in Germany before the Nazis had full control.
I think most German Jews said “I know my neighbors and they know me. Weve lived peacefully here for hundreds of years.”
Only the most percipient ones could see that wasnt enough, and that their neighbors could be turned on them without much trouble.
The huge difference, of course, is that conservatives are about half the country and most of us are armed. But there is also the huge difference in access to technology and access to the organized violence of a State which knows everything it wants to about all of us.
I dont know you, but I promise you have a file and your social network has been mapped out, and I assume all of you have scores based on whatever metric interests them.
I keep reading these comments and thinking: we need an in-depth discussion on what political “corruption” actually means! I know I don’t completely understand it, but I’m pretty sure it’s more nuanced than “politics I don’t like.” Right?
I put most politicians as corrupt simply because of how committee appointments happen. At the start of each term, companies throw lavish dinners for new members. Based on how receptive the new member are determines which committees leadership will let freshmen reps/senators serve on.
The corruption continues the longer they are in office. If they get voted out, they become the corruptor. Biden has been in office for a very very long time. Mitch McConnell has been office a very very long time.
But but but.....he blew up his own pipeline. We know this is true because our CIA said so. And 17 intel agencies wouldn't lie.
Would they?????
Wasn’t it 51?
I agree. I wish more people would listen to the interview without pre-determination. I may be naive but I found Tucker was making observations about what he saw, not endorsements. Some of his comments were lamenting the decline in U.S. standards but I think he made it clear he would not chose a Soviet way of life.
Unsaint Finbar: “Are you stupid?” - Wiseman: Yes
Unsaint Finbar: “Can you not form your own opinions?” - Wiseman: No
Me: Can you continue to undermine the reputation of FP with the apparent support of its founder? - Wiseman: That all depends on Bari.
Well, at least the title is right, but that's about all. Once again we see the difference between the wisdom of Everyman and the foolhardiness of the bubble-dweller that makes his living by writing.
I actually mix with the hoi polloi each and every day; I cannot name a single person who gives a rat's behind about Ukraine, except to say that our own CIA installed this puppet dictator and that we need to take care of our own first. We might start with our own homeless veterans living on the streets before we worry about ANOTHER European war. You might want to read a little George Washington on that, "Ollie."
There ARE good examples to follow, though. I see that President Milei of Argentina, after slashing all the Woke do-nothing Argentine agencies into oblivion, has just presided over the first budget surplus in twelve years. Not too bad for one month in office. Imagine that - a president who actually makes good on his campaign promises and the Nation prospers. I think I may have heard that tune before.
It’s very early days in his presidency, but it will be fascinating to watch!
Looking forward to singing that tune, again!
Milei has to a lot more than that..killing 'woke' won't do a thing to what really ails that nation.
www.reuters.com/markets/argentina-annual-inflation-tops-211-highest-since-early-90s-2024-01-11/#:~:text=BUENOS%20AIRES%2C%20Jan%2011%20(Reuter
That is not his only policy. He can do more than one thing at a time.
Wow, simply Wow. I have not watched someone more repulsive in the past than that 8-minute clip of Peter Savodnik. I really don't need to be lectured by a bleach-blond faux intellectual telling me what is right and wrong. His pomposity nearly made me vomit first thing in the morning. If the moral superior Peter, happens to take the moment from his most important day of talking into a video camera, let me give him a few things I know.
1- Yes, Russia is bad. It's been bad for over 1000 years and will stay the same. From Peter the Great, Catherine, the Czars, and Communists, it's the culture. Read a book or two about the country and the people. Is it a place where I would want to live? No, but it is what it is.
2- It has more nuclear weapons than any other country. I don't feel like dying in a nuclear exchange living in a major American city, so stability in Russia is better than a pipe dream of Democracy.
3- I see no heroism in Navalny- He took his risk and got killed. It's a shame, but I live in the world of reality, not a progressive fantasy land. The world is the way it is, not what our intellectual masters fantasize it to be,
4- Ukraine is not a democracy but a kleptocracy similar to Russia. It has two halves, with the eastern one that is heavily Russian; here are the facts, Peter: Russia is not getting displaced from the land it has in Ukraine. It is not happening. No amount of money or weapons is going to displace them. Yes, it was terrible, but unless Ukraine gets NATO to enter the war (see point 2), I don't think it's heroic to kill a generation by throwing them into a buzzsaw so the American Elite can feel good about itself.
I could write all day, and thanks to Free Press for showing me thoughts, even ones I despise. You did a great job today showing me Peter.
Excellent comment! I took a course in Russian history 50 years ago in college taught by an excellent professor. Point 1 was a takeaway all these years later. Russia never was and never will be a democracy. They had the czars, then Communists and now Putin. That is reality. We should manage it not try to change it or wail about “moral relativism”.
I took Russian history as well and the point I took away was they have always, always, been fearful of being attacked from the west, thus they set up buffers like poland, for example, which used to be part of Russia and Ukraine, which used to be part of Russia.
They did produce Baryshnikov, Tolstoy, and the ethereal figure skater Valieva. Mother Russia is a complex mistress.
🎯
Beautiful!
Albert here is the normie we deserve. Good post.
Wait, father is a controversial term now?
Of course it is! Bigot!
Now go pay your taxes so we can help Ukraine defend democracy!
I would laugh if it was not so sad
It's sickening.
And why is Secretary of State lecturing anyone about pronouns ?Isnt he busy trying to force a 2 state solution to reward Gaza for the 10-7 barbaric massacre?
He's playing to his strengths. He probably excels at assigning pronouns as opposed to his approach to foreign policy.
Why doesn't he try this with the Hamas at the negotiating table?
I genuinely don’t understand, why is this controversial? What are people supposed to call their dads?
It is all just a test of bullies to see if we all will obey. The bullies of course are now the law.
Sperm donor? Unless of course on e of the dads is female or trans or non binary and then it’s a mystery
Mom.
Parent or sperm provider
Birthing person-adjacent.
Sperm provider? Vagina haver? There’s something perversely objectifying about this new language, reducing humans to body parts or functions
Was wondering the same so I’ve come up with a few…
Bigger hairier person
Life Form
Flesh and Bones
Taller individual
"woman" is also verboten... My employer now refers to me (a woman) as a "menstruating employee".
What happens when you stop menstruating? Will you be a "menopausal person?" And how will the boss know?
As it happens, I am no longer a menstruating employee... I think I am now just a cog... A cog in a wheel...lol
Surely it’s against HIPAA laws to require an employee to disclose details about their medical history, such as the stage of their reproductive life! We must come up with some other term for you…older human? Human assigned female at end of menarche? Madness without end.
I don’t know whether to cry or throw up.
Please tell us more. Does your boss really use that term in a spoken sentence, written or both? Do you correct him? When did this start in your office? Do others in the office object or is everyone afraid to discuss this?
Seriously? Your employer refers to you by a bodily function?
Wrong on so many levels.
It's part of the plan. Every aspect of American life needs to be deconstructed.
If I had seen the byline first - Oliver Wiseman - I wouldn't have bothered. Let's be honest about Ukraine. They are not winning the war, we have poured in weapons and money to no effect save to get Ukrainian soldiers slaughtered and the war was preventable in the first place but for Biden's bumbling and the machinations of his foreign policy nitwits. A real president would have ended it.
A real president wouldn't have caused it in the first place. And no, Ollie, we're not going to cancel Tucker Carlson simply because he interviewed Putin. Would you prefer Erin Burnett's giddly love fest interview with Zelensky? Apparently so. In Ollie's world Russia is the existential threat because they messed with our elections. (In fact it was the DNC). In the real world, China is our existential threat and our president is in their pocket. In the real world, an administration opening OUR open borders are the real threat to America and democracy. Putin is a murderous thug who threatens his neighbors when they invite NATO to Russia's borders. China directly threatens America, no matter what we do. Open borders will destroy our country. Unless you have a plan to depose Putin (and the CIA's plans are all from Acme Products), better to deal with him and focus on the real threats. Starkly simple but elusive to Wiseman.
That's something most people on the Left still fail to acknowledge--that the whole Steele Dossier was a DNC plot. The only thing Russia seems to have done on its own is manipulate Facebook. And the Democrats freely and openly admitted that they themselves manipulated Facebook and other media in 2020 in order to make sure Trump was not reelected.
The Democrats also seem to have forgotten that the U.S. manipulated more than a few elections in other countries over the course of some 50 years or more. They eagerly cheered for us to bomb Libya. As usual, they believe in "rules for thee, but not for me."
I’m so, so close to canceling the Free Press as a result of the crappy content recently. There is so much other good content on Substack to choose from, and I can’t justify the time spent reading the FP when it is just the NYT lite.
Is the comment section anywhere else as good as here?
Which other writers are you reading on Substack that you can recommend?
Acme products. Perfect
A real president would never have paid a bribe to Zelensky to have his worthless son appointed a board member to a company in a business he knows nothing about.
A real president would never be caught in a position to have to now pay extortion to the same corrupt CIA puppet that worked him, lest he be exposed as the bumbling corrupt thief who was 'elected' to save democracy and the country from a bad orange man.
Worse, a real body electorate would not be so easily fooled
China will not aggress. Bezos said so.
'That’s what Peter Savodnik argues is Carlson’s moral relativism with Alexei Navalny’s moral clarity. All of this is part of “the great tsunami of stupid that has swept the nation.'
Lets see.....Carlson got about 150 million views of his interview in 24 hours.
IMO, Peter Savodnik sounds like one of those costal elite journalists who write for Vanity Far and after any interaction with at all, you feel like you need to purchase 2 bars of Lava soap and take a 3 hour shower.
Savodnik would jizz in his britches if he got 5% of the followers Tucker got from all of us "stupid" people.
Thanks, Evans. Reading today’s articles annoyed me, but your comments, Yuri’s and Finbar’s were the antidote.
Costal elites! Vanity Far! Very clever. I don’t think they were typos.
You actually read Savodnik?
I have. His criticisms of Harvard and his story on RFK Jr were really good. But shit statements like “the great tsunami of stupid that has swept the nation" sound petty and desperately envious coming from a professional writer.
Oh, those deplorables!
Just a note: jizz it said to be the root word for jazz 🎷
God, more Savodnik to ignore? Is this guy like the only guy you pay? And why am I paying for this junk
The Free Press? How about The Propaganda Press?
Most Americans I encounter are not in favor of supporting the “democracy” of Ukraine that ousted its democratically elected president in 2014, started a civil war, and suspended democratic elections. Give me a break - stop sending money to Ukraine, stop acting like Carlson is fringe and stop pushing the Navalny narrative. I’m really close to pressing the eject button on the free press.
Mark, please stay. We need you. The discussion is the point. TFP is just the canny catalyst.
I was going to comment this exact thing! The FP is the catalyst for great discussions. The comment section is where I get my “bang for the buck”.
Good point. I'll take that into consideration.
And none of the people I encounter like Trump. That doesn't mean no one likes Trump..
For Christ’s sake: Ukraine is a corrupt Eastern European country with the semblance of “democracy”.
It ain’t worth our boy’s blood or our country’s treasure.
Let the bloody Europeans kill each other. They’re pretty damn good at it
Or, at the very least, let the bloody Europeans pay for their own defense.
Ukraine doesn’t have elections, per diktat of Commander Zelenskyy, and that seems to be a pretty reasonable indicator on a not-democracy. A recent article described the redefinition of democracy by our intelligence agencies as the perpetuation of “democratic institutions” and not the old fashioned definition as “a nation where people elect their leaders”.
In the 20th century, the "let the bloody Europeans kill each other" policy did not result in a net savings of American blood or treasure.
True, but not everything is WW2
Putin = bad guy. Sure
Putin = Hitler? I’m not so sure
Plus, it’s ironic to the point of absurdity to compare the Russians to the Nazis. If the Eastern Front was considered a separate war, then it would be the 2nd deadliest conflict in history behind WW2.
I'm not comparing the Russians to the Nazis. I'm simply saying we should be wary of knee-jerk isolationism, which can be penny wise but pound foolish. I also think there's a big difference between using treasure vs using blood in this context.
Well, if we're going to make the comparison to WW2, then eventually the Nazis have to be mentioned.
I'm not in favor of "knee-jerk isolationism". I wish we would do something to clean up the Straights of Hormuz, for instance. That's seriously impacting global trade. Instead, there's all this talk about sending billions into a war with no clear definition of victory for either side. What's a win for Ukraine or Russia? No one seems to be too concerned. We just need to "defend democracy".
Also, blood inevitably follows our treasure. We spent billions in Vietnam even by the late 1950s, and had been supporting the British before our involvement in both the First and Second World War.
I agree with you. But 99% of the commenters here won't.
And maybe, absent the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement a/k/a the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact, WWII might not have happened in Europe. We can never know, but that alliance of two murderous dictators with hegemonic pretensions to dominate the world certainly didn’t help.
Good point. Would Hitler have invaded France if he hadn't felt secure about Russia? That pact did not break down until mid-1941.
27 million Russian soldiers died in WWII. 10 million peasants in the Holomodor forced famine. Russian life is cheap, no?
It seems to have been to Stalin.
Not sure that Britain remains among the uncracked. But we don't, either.
Because Western Europe save Britain cracked and east Europe divided
I subscribed to the Free Press thinking it would be more balanced in opinions. I am beginning to be disappointed. Wiseman’s comments that he doesn’t know who Tucker supports America or Russia is just so New York Times level. He should apply for a job there. Come on Bari, you can do better than this
Yup, I can get douche bag takes like this anywhere...
Not so sure. I saw Tucker's interview. He seems to really like Russia..
Come on, Bari! How much longer can you continue to publish the name “Free Press” over Oliver Wiseman bylines?
I mean, HONESTLY?
Bravissimo! But Putler? The slaughter in Ukraine is directly attributable to the facilitation of the military industrial complex by the US and NATO, who provoked this war, and refused to push a diplomatic solution on Zelensky. It is an unwinnable abattoir - a slaughterhouse funded by the US taxpayer.
Yes, and it is inconceivable to many Americans, maybe most, just what a destructive force our CIA has been in the world.
2014 - another US-assisted coup. And how about those biolabs and Hunter the petro-expert. (Luv your ongoing commentary, Maureen!)