Excellent piece Joe. I used to be a huge Taibbi fan. I actually own several of his books. At this point, I can’t stand the guy. He’s taken such a ridiculous turn. The example of the AP being barred from the White House press room for refusing to use the ridiculous name for the Gulf of Mexico and Taibbi’s response to that is a perfect example of how he’s got his head up his ass.
While I never read his earlier work, pretty much everyone agrees it was really good! It's pretty sad he squandered that sentiment. We need good journalists in time like this.
I've watched as Matt has disappeared down the rabbit hole. He won't touch Palestine. Walter is very pro-Israel, so that might be part of it. I imagine Matt's lost much of his former followers, given how toxic his comments section is now.
The Twitter Files revealed there was considerable evidence of governmental influence on Twitter to censor. The emails were quite explicit. Surely, that is worth bringing to the public's attention. There may have been times of overlap, but it's just not possible to consider Glenn Greenwald in the same company as Taibbi, Shapiro and Weiss.
Glenn has consistently addressed the censorship, and hypocrisy, of those who turned around and start complaining about pro-Palestinian speech. He has done this since the beginning of this new censorship on pro-Palestinian speech. Unlike the others, Glenn can, and does, try to keep his eye on all the underhanded acts that we, the people, ought to be aware of. I, for one, am grateful to him for his perspective, and trenchant analysis.
I agree Greenwald has been outspoken on Palestine, which I appreciate. My problem is that he's far too cozy and positive about the right: he spent years on Tucker Carlson's show feeding their propaganda, and Peter Thiel funds him. For example, he's spent the last two weeks chastizing the left for not supporting Trump's "pledge" to cut the Pentagon budget. A few days ago Trump stated he wanted a $1 trillion budget, the largest in history.
100% I unsubscribed to Racket over Taibbi refusing to take a firm stand over pro Palestinian censorship. What I never understood was Matt’s complete refusal to go after the New York Times for its December 31st, 2023 article “Silent Screams.”
The piece contained all sorts of fabrication about Hamas’s purported “mass rape” tactics on October 7, 2023. Ryan Grim and The Intercept not only debunked numerous purported facts about 10/7 rapes, but also tied the article’s co-author, Annet Schwartz, to an Israeli propaganda operation. This scandal has got to rank up there with the Jason Blair and Judith Miller scandals. To top it off, Matt’s white whale, the Censorship Industrial Complex, said nothing about this obvious perfidy and its connection to both a disinformation project and foreign interference into American politics.
Matt could easily have written a book about this.
I agree with you that Matt seems 100% determined to stay on Walter Kirn’s good side and he also doesn’t want to upset his new audience.
Thanks for this piece, Matt’s face plant on censorship/ 1st Amendment issues is being overshadowed by a congresswoman saying something stupid about him- Joe Wrote’s article and your reply both point out what Matt Taibbi’s real problems are.
The lack of Palestine coverage last year really gave Taibbi's game away. The state was violently suppressing speech, and the media was helping him do it. That should be the story he focused on! As far as I know, he wrote almost nothing about the biggest First Amendment story of the year.
Agree on Greenwald. It's an insult to him in any way equating him with Barry Weiss. And personally, I soured on Taibbi when I read his interview denigrating David Ray Griffin regarding the latter's work on Sept. 11. This was back when Taibbi was a regular for Rolling Stone.
I’ve always wondered why he keeps Walter around. Yeah, he’s written some books, but he doesn’t have crazy name recognition. He’s not a journalist and he’s not certainly not a particularly deep thinker.
I actually think it's less about Biden and more about the nebulous liberal Democrats. He's upset he was booted off MSNBC, and has tried to extrapolate that into a political message: unnamed liberal professionals are trying to destroy the First Amendment, which is just not true.
It's been disappointing watching Taibbi's slide. He really has some great journalism under his belt from earlier in his career. I stopped reading him after the Twitter Files though. The fact that he saw all social media suppression as being done against conservatives by liberals was so ridiculous that I could no longer take him seriously. Then it was just horrendous that the first time he spoke up after Oct. 7 was to criticize the NYTimes for accusing Israel of blowing up a hospital (the first time they did it) which of course turned out to be true. It was like, dude, really? THAT'S how you're going to chime in here? Despicable.
One commentator speculated that Russiagate broke his brain, and I can see that. I have lots of skepticism for what turned out to be mostly a conspiracy theory that accomplished very little other than distracting from so much of what Trump was *actually* doing during his administration (especially to the environment). But to go to the right because the establishment legacy media was off-mark is completely stupid. It's just another reason to go further left, thank you very much.
I think also that Taibbi just spends too much time online and has lost sight of the bigger world outside of Twitter threads. (Same with Glenn, who is also disappointing.)
Thank you! Taibbi, Weiss, and Greenwald got high on their own supply and are now basically grifters. Even Andrew Sullivan is having second thoughts about them (after consulting with God)
Freedom of Speech is not a “God given right”. That is just another example of sloppy Republican hermeneutics. They conflate the constitution and the Bible as if they are expert at reading either of them. The Bible more often instructs its readers to shut their traps and listen. Way, WAY, more often. Freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Freedom to listen and learn is a God given right if you even want to categorize it that way. The Bible and the constitution are very different animals that speak different languages with different aims.
Well that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I'm guessing that the insertion of your opinions, as conventional wisdoms, that you're very impressed with yourself. Probably come from a well to do family, standard stereotype and single issue d’jour obsessed. It's a good grift as well, young squire. Attack the character of anyone who leaves your secular cult and feed the rage bait of your fellow faux leftist sock monkeys. If it doesn't work out for you, you always have your trust fund to fall back on..🤷🏻
I’m another former Taibbi subscriber who has also lost respect for him as he’s slid to the right in the culture wars. I used to think he was an old school journalist suspicious of anybody in power, regardless of their party or team. I respected the concerns in the twitter files about the dangers of overreach if national security organizations were too influential with social media moderators. I even appreciated some of his criticism of journalistic laziness and credibility when it came to Russiagate , though I wish people had remembered that an actual conspiracy isn’t needed when the parties’ interests converge. But when Taibbi defended his lopsided criticism of Democratic/liberal violations of free speech by claiming that Republicans /conservatives had less institutional power (despite having the courts, Congress, and many state legislators and actually putting censorship into state laws rather than voluntary guidelines or terms of service) he lost me. I also unsubscribed when he failed to mention attacks on Israel/Gaza protesters as free speech concerns. It still surprises and depresses me that he’s gone as far as defending Trump Administration actions that are the most obvious and blatant violations of the first amendment I’ve seen in 65 years on earth.
Thank you for sharing. It’s good to know at least some people support the first amendment consistently, while others just defend the “right” to lie and be blatantly racist on social media as the crux of “free speech.”
Starting with Huizenga certainly gave people from Michigan where this joke was headed. We know he’s a Devos liar from way back. Matt, Bari, etc. long lost any claim on the First Amendment by seeking the big bucks their forums seek.
Excellent piece Joe. I used to be a huge Taibbi fan. I actually own several of his books. At this point, I can’t stand the guy. He’s taken such a ridiculous turn. The example of the AP being barred from the White House press room for refusing to use the ridiculous name for the Gulf of Mexico and Taibbi’s response to that is a perfect example of how he’s got his head up his ass.
Same - I loved Griftopia and The Divide and his Rolling Stone series on Cory Booker's time as mayor of Newark.
While I never read his earlier work, pretty much everyone agrees it was really good! It's pretty sad he squandered that sentiment. We need good journalists in time like this.
I've watched as Matt has disappeared down the rabbit hole. He won't touch Palestine. Walter is very pro-Israel, so that might be part of it. I imagine Matt's lost much of his former followers, given how toxic his comments section is now.
The Twitter Files revealed there was considerable evidence of governmental influence on Twitter to censor. The emails were quite explicit. Surely, that is worth bringing to the public's attention. There may have been times of overlap, but it's just not possible to consider Glenn Greenwald in the same company as Taibbi, Shapiro and Weiss.
Glenn has consistently addressed the censorship, and hypocrisy, of those who turned around and start complaining about pro-Palestinian speech. He has done this since the beginning of this new censorship on pro-Palestinian speech. Unlike the others, Glenn can, and does, try to keep his eye on all the underhanded acts that we, the people, ought to be aware of. I, for one, am grateful to him for his perspective, and trenchant analysis.
I agree Greenwald has been outspoken on Palestine, which I appreciate. My problem is that he's far too cozy and positive about the right: he spent years on Tucker Carlson's show feeding their propaganda, and Peter Thiel funds him. For example, he's spent the last two weeks chastizing the left for not supporting Trump's "pledge" to cut the Pentagon budget. A few days ago Trump stated he wanted a $1 trillion budget, the largest in history.
It's stuff like that makes me cautious about him.
100% I unsubscribed to Racket over Taibbi refusing to take a firm stand over pro Palestinian censorship. What I never understood was Matt’s complete refusal to go after the New York Times for its December 31st, 2023 article “Silent Screams.”
The piece contained all sorts of fabrication about Hamas’s purported “mass rape” tactics on October 7, 2023. Ryan Grim and The Intercept not only debunked numerous purported facts about 10/7 rapes, but also tied the article’s co-author, Annet Schwartz, to an Israeli propaganda operation. This scandal has got to rank up there with the Jason Blair and Judith Miller scandals. To top it off, Matt’s white whale, the Censorship Industrial Complex, said nothing about this obvious perfidy and its connection to both a disinformation project and foreign interference into American politics.
Matt could easily have written a book about this.
I agree with you that Matt seems 100% determined to stay on Walter Kirn’s good side and he also doesn’t want to upset his new audience.
Thanks for this piece, Matt’s face plant on censorship/ 1st Amendment issues is being overshadowed by a congresswoman saying something stupid about him- Joe Wrote’s article and your reply both point out what Matt Taibbi’s real problems are.
The lack of Palestine coverage last year really gave Taibbi's game away. The state was violently suppressing speech, and the media was helping him do it. That should be the story he focused on! As far as I know, he wrote almost nothing about the biggest First Amendment story of the year.
Agree on Greenwald. It's an insult to him in any way equating him with Barry Weiss. And personally, I soured on Taibbi when I read his interview denigrating David Ray Griffin regarding the latter's work on Sept. 11. This was back when Taibbi was a regular for Rolling Stone.
I’ve always wondered why he keeps Walter around. Yeah, he’s written some books, but he doesn’t have crazy name recognition. He’s not a journalist and he’s not certainly not a particularly deep thinker.
All that being said I agree with. The congresswoman who claimed Matt is a serial sexual harasser played right into his grift.
Yea, he's suing her for $10 million, which will just inflate his "I'm a victim" persona.
It is all so crazy and getting scarier every day!!
Stay strong! We'll get through this.
Biden derangement syndrome. Otherwise reasonable people, like Vinay Prasad and Taibbi, go off the deep end in reaction to the Biden administration
I actually think it's less about Biden and more about the nebulous liberal Democrats. He's upset he was booted off MSNBC, and has tried to extrapolate that into a political message: unnamed liberal professionals are trying to destroy the First Amendment, which is just not true.
It's been disappointing watching Taibbi's slide. He really has some great journalism under his belt from earlier in his career. I stopped reading him after the Twitter Files though. The fact that he saw all social media suppression as being done against conservatives by liberals was so ridiculous that I could no longer take him seriously. Then it was just horrendous that the first time he spoke up after Oct. 7 was to criticize the NYTimes for accusing Israel of blowing up a hospital (the first time they did it) which of course turned out to be true. It was like, dude, really? THAT'S how you're going to chime in here? Despicable.
One commentator speculated that Russiagate broke his brain, and I can see that. I have lots of skepticism for what turned out to be mostly a conspiracy theory that accomplished very little other than distracting from so much of what Trump was *actually* doing during his administration (especially to the environment). But to go to the right because the establishment legacy media was off-mark is completely stupid. It's just another reason to go further left, thank you very much.
I think also that Taibbi just spends too much time online and has lost sight of the bigger world outside of Twitter threads. (Same with Glenn, who is also disappointing.)
Thank you! Taibbi, Weiss, and Greenwald got high on their own supply and are now basically grifters. Even Andrew Sullivan is having second thoughts about them (after consulting with God)
Freedom of Speech is not a “God given right”. That is just another example of sloppy Republican hermeneutics. They conflate the constitution and the Bible as if they are expert at reading either of them. The Bible more often instructs its readers to shut their traps and listen. Way, WAY, more often. Freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Freedom to listen and learn is a God given right if you even want to categorize it that way. The Bible and the constitution are very different animals that speak different languages with different aims.
Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Zahar:
"The entire planet will be under our law; there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors."
Tell me again, how this is just about land?
Well that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I'm guessing that the insertion of your opinions, as conventional wisdoms, that you're very impressed with yourself. Probably come from a well to do family, standard stereotype and single issue d’jour obsessed. It's a good grift as well, young squire. Attack the character of anyone who leaves your secular cult and feed the rage bait of your fellow faux leftist sock monkeys. If it doesn't work out for you, you always have your trust fund to fall back on..🤷🏻
I’m another former Taibbi subscriber who has also lost respect for him as he’s slid to the right in the culture wars. I used to think he was an old school journalist suspicious of anybody in power, regardless of their party or team. I respected the concerns in the twitter files about the dangers of overreach if national security organizations were too influential with social media moderators. I even appreciated some of his criticism of journalistic laziness and credibility when it came to Russiagate , though I wish people had remembered that an actual conspiracy isn’t needed when the parties’ interests converge. But when Taibbi defended his lopsided criticism of Democratic/liberal violations of free speech by claiming that Republicans /conservatives had less institutional power (despite having the courts, Congress, and many state legislators and actually putting censorship into state laws rather than voluntary guidelines or terms of service) he lost me. I also unsubscribed when he failed to mention attacks on Israel/Gaza protesters as free speech concerns. It still surprises and depresses me that he’s gone as far as defending Trump Administration actions that are the most obvious and blatant violations of the first amendment I’ve seen in 65 years on earth.
I'm going to defend FIRE here. As you can see from their work on the anti-anti-Israel deportations, they really are 1A advocates.
Here's the article most prominent on their web page at this moment.
https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/executive-watch-breadth-and-depth-trump
Thank you for sharing. It’s good to know at least some people support the first amendment consistently, while others just defend the “right” to lie and be blatantly racist on social media as the crux of “free speech.”
Starting with Huizenga certainly gave people from Michigan where this joke was headed. We know he’s a Devos liar from way back. Matt, Bari, etc. long lost any claim on the First Amendment by seeking the big bucks their forums seek.