Richard Hanania Profile picture
Feb 13, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Important context: Ukraine is repressing Russian speakers, arresting opposition figures and launching a cultural purge, with tacit US support. It chose the path of repression because it thought Russia was weak and the US would bail it out. It bet wrong. ti.me/32QLp4o
“The Ukrainian government started by taking his TV channels off the air, depriving Russia of its propaganda outlets in the country. The U.S. embassy in Kyiv applauded the move.”

Sure sounds like America stands for democracy! If they’d shut down LGBT, then US would’ve been mad.
The Ukrainian government with US support prevents pro-Russian figures from owning TV stations or running for office and then we’re told democratic and sovereign Ukraine is making a free choice to join the West.
The opposition that’s been arrested and repressed is not a small bloc. They were the party that finished second in the last election! All those articles about the decline of democracy worldwide, especially in Eastern Europe, somehow skip Ukraine.
The pro-Russia opposition engaged in evil nefarious plots like getting Ukraine free vaccines, which the government and the State Department, the real rulers of the country, rejected.
“When he decided to take those channels off the air last February, it was not only a defensive move, says Danyliuk, his former security adviser. It was also conceived as a welcome gift to the Biden Administration.”

Yet another sign of a healthy “democracy.”
“Rather than working through the justice system, Zelensky has imposed sanctions against Ukrainian tycoons and politicians, freezing their assets by decree…The U.S. has avoided criticizing the crackdown, not wanting to ‘micromanage.’”

Reads like a parody of self-delusion.

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More from @RichardHanania

Jun 3
Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

What are we doing? Image
How to think about immigration. You should be paranoid about the possibility that the US rejects geniuses. One brilliant entrepreneur can or inventor can carry a lot of dead weight. Almost all immigration is good, but this would be true even if it wasn't. richardhanania.com/p/exchange-wit…Image
Read 4 tweets
May 8
Earlier I discussed Casey Means, Trump's nominee for Surgeon General, and her mystical and quack beliefs.

I've looked into her story about how she left her residency. It's very strange, and indicates that there's something that we don't yet know.
Means says she was in an otolaryngology residency and almost finished, but she instead decided to quit because her surgical residency didn't focus on nutrition enough. Isn't that something she would have known well before 4 years of residency, on top of medical school? Image
I think the real reason was she was unfit. Look at her cohort. The other two doctors went straight through their residency normally. Means, in contrast, had a one month gap between June-July 2018. I don't know what can explain this, but it indicates something abnormal happened. Image
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Read 5 tweets
May 8
Trump just nominated Casey Means for Surgeon General.

This is a lunatic who will do serious damage to public health. Thread here, which will only be able to scratch the surface. Image
She'll be the first occupant of the office to believe in using spiritual mediums, praying to ancestor shrines, doing full moon ceremonies to amplify her dreams, asking the trees in the forest to deliver her a hunky man, being a shroomhead, and praising indigenous wisdom. Image
She has no academic achievements to speak of. All she did was med school and she dropped out before completing her residency. This is weird, as anyone in medicine will tell you.
Read 16 tweets
Apr 28
I've written the Trump reckoning you've been waiting for.

I used to think Dems would turn us into Western Europe. That looks good now when the other side is offering third world levels of incompetence, corruption, and authoritarianism.

This is MAGA now. richardhanania.com/p/what-i-got-w…
I convinced myself that the choice was between leftism and conservatism, but it's actually first world leftism versus third world authoritarianism.

I didn't want to believe it! It means I have to be much more pessimistic about the future of America. Image
Partly it's because I was getting bad information. People close to the admin told me that RFK wouldn't be at HHS and economic policy wouldn't be so insane. But it turns out I was only talking to people who agreed with me, and they were engaging in their own wishful thinking. Image
Read 5 tweets
Mar 7
Here is Vinod Balachandran, the lead researcher on a team that just created an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, which has a 90% death rate.

His study showed that within five years, 75% of patients were both alive and cancer free, a miraculous result. mRNA technology for covid was of course pioneered by Katalin Karikó, a woman from rural Turkey.

We debate immigration and ideas, numbers and data. What gets me is the overwhelming gap between the accomplishments of scientists like this and the lives that they're saving on the one side, and the sense of mediocrity you get from immigration critics that is so overwhelming it's offensive. One guy is unlocking the mysteries of the cell and giving those who were doomed to a painful death more time on this earth with friends and family. The other is whining "I want whites to own the local 7/11."

For me, it's sometimes easier to be motivated by hate than a positive vision. Many people are like that. But if that's you, it's good to direct your hate at the right targets. Immigration restrictionists hate people because of what they look like or where they were born. That's wrong, and should be replaced by a feeling of hatred towards those who would deny humanity its ability to move forward because they need reasons to feel superior to others.Image
One genius creates value that outweighs what thousands and thousands of less spectacular individuals cost. That's even granting the premise of restrictionists that the average immigrant is a cost, which is simply not true. richardhanania.com/p/exchange-wit…Image
To be fair, here is a thread arguing that the results might not be as impressive as they originally seem. This is what science is about, any new innovation will be validated or discredited and learned from. It will be talented people from all over the world who push knowledge forward no matter what the result. The bitter racists will have nothing to contribute to this mission regardless of what the results of any particular line of research are, except perhaps delaying human progress.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 30, 2024
Ayn Rand on racists as losers: “The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a ‘tribal self-esteem’ by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe” Image
“Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.” Image
“The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify—particularly for people of limited intelligence—the least demanding form of ‘belonging’ and of ‘togetherness’ is: race.” Image
Read 5 tweets

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