So about that Guardian story about that document Putin allegedly signed authorizing an operation to put Trump in the White House? I spoke to a fmr intelligence officer who handled that intel in real time and they were…skeptical. (My latest: ckarchive.com/b/68ueh8h8md7z)
The other thing that should make you skeptical: the byline on that story.
And it’s not just that Manafort/Assange story that Luke got wrong. He was known for stories that sounded amazing and sensational—but were thinly sourced.
And it’s not just Luke, IMHO. Beware the British press, my friends.
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"There are so many fucking Trump books," says one book editor, wondering what we're learning from any of them. Or as one industry insider quipped, “What are we going to find out in these books? That Trump threw a banana at John Kelly?” My latest:
“Everything seems more buttoned up than the streaking convention that was the Trump White House,” says @Olivianuzzi.
“The truth is the Biden White House is very opaque,” said @sbg1.
“The mechanics of reporting have changed so much,” another reporter said. “It was just this really aberrant period in which you could almost guarantee that, with enough effort, you could find out what’s going on in the Situation Room. Now you can’t—and it’s infuriating.”
For Jews like myself who have lived anti-Semitism and carry the intimate details of our families’ trauma—pogroms, the Holocaust, the Pale of Settlement, the Doctors’ Plot—the fear that this peace is just a temporary blip is always right under the skin. nytimes.com/2021/05/26/us/…
What frustrates me about the discourse on the left is the assumption that because Jews have assimilated into whiteness in the last three generations in America, that Jews have always been white and powerful, as if discrimination by skin tone weren’t a uniquely American creation.
Ignoring the history of Jews as the underclass of Christian Europe, for a good 2000 years, constantly slaughtered and discriminated against, as second-class dimi in the Muslim world (where they were also subjected to religious violence) is in and of itself anti-Semitic.
While you weren't looking, the Kremlin has turbocharged its campaign to kill what's left of independent Russian media. Journalists, including college students running a college publication, are facing jail times. cnn.com/2021/04/15/eur…
Other publications, like @meduzaproject, which publishes an excellent English-language newsletter, has been labeled a "foreign agent," which is likely to drive away all its advertisers.
Alexey @navalny has declared an end to his 24-day hunger strike. On April 20–the day before yesterday’s protests—he was transferred to a civilian hospital and examined by doctors. He tells his supporters: “This is entirely your doing.” instagram.com/p/COAeBxIFNpL/…
He didn’t seem to have gotten everything he wanted but he cites the open letter of his doctors, published yesterday, asking him to stop the hunger strike, “or soon, there won’t be anyone left to treat.” It seems the letter gave him cover to stop striking and avoid impending death
The symmetry is fascinating: yesterday, Putin announced a drawdown of the (inexplicable) massing of troops on the Ukrainian border after his big state of the nation address. Today, Navalny announces an end to his hunger strike after thousands protest on his behalf across Russia.
I heard this story, about a woman dying of #COVID19 listening to Nora Jones in the hospital, and broke down remembering how, 3 months ago, I FaceTimed my grandmother in the hospital where she was dying of covid and played her a song from her youth. npr.org/2021/03/15/977…
She could just hear it over the loud whirring of the oxygen machine and her face lit up, a huge grin on her face. We swayed together and sang together until a nurse came in to give her more medicine. It was one of our last interactions.
My YouTube history tells me it was, in fact, this song: "You Are My Only One"