24 Comments

I can only assume I’m not walking around sporting a “Be Brave, Call Bullshit” t-shirt daily because somebody is too cowardly to pull the trigger. There’s simply no other explanation.

That said, we could just start bootleg TFC merch...

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Sep 15·edited Sep 15

The "Take a Knee" video from FIRE is hysterical. I hope FIRE does more in that genre.

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So I realize that, as journalists, you three probably have #opinions on this, but I honestly thing that, for articles of that low of quality, don't link to the original piece. Link to an archive copy. Giving that garbage more clicks and views just encourages it. "They" (as Tucker would put it) don't care if you _like_ it or not. They just care if you _read_ it. Hate views generate just as much revenue as any other kind of view.

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founding

For real. I thought Moynihan being unemployed would spur the need for a merchandise revenue stream... where are my we the fif hats??

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I really enjoyed the Smoke ‘Em podcast, but was sad that the episode wasn’t titled “Some Idiot Wrote This”.

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Was there a point to the LA Times article other than filling space? The only point this dum dum made can be summed up in two quotes.

1) "Weiss moderated the most-certainly-not-right-wing-how-could-you-even-suggest-such-a-thing event," So, the debate was apparently a right wing event and the amount of hyphens really drives the opion home.

2) "Real journalism? How about some truth in advertising: The debate’s title should have been “Agitating for Followers: the Art of Calling Attention to Oneself While Saying Absolutely Nothing.” Really excellent conclusion to a piece that says absolutely nothing. Does the writer's article count as "real journalism?"

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When we moved into our house in Raleigh, there was a mezuzah in the door frame. It some colorful, geometric shapes on it, and we had no idea what it was. It remained for a few years, until in a fit of curiosity, I pulled it off the door frame it was nailed into, wondering if it had some Hebrew scripture in it (I knew of the concept, at least). And, yep. Having answered the question, I put it back, and it remains to this day.

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Is that Fire/FP debate ever going to be released anywhere?

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Hey Fifdom people! Has anyone read Prophets without Honor by Shlomo Ben Ami? Just bought it based on a rec from an Unspeakeasy gal.

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When articles get read out aloud you know it is going to be bad, and the original piece by LAT's Lorraine Ali did not disappoint. Related, I know it's the Daily Beast and the Wealth and Power beat, but this recent headline was lol: "Musk’s Views on Uyghurs Even Creeped Out Bari Weiss: New Book"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-views-on-uyghur-genocide-even-creeped-out-bari-weiss-book

Speaking of unserious, Jann Wenner does not come off looking particularly great in this new interview with NYT's David Marchese:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/arts/jann-wenner-the-masters-interview.html

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An emphatic "yes" to an event at the new Reason space in DC!

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My question for Bari Weiss and many others in the centrist 'anti-woke' milieu - how do you square your ostensibly strong pro-free speech stance with wanting to take unreconstructed antiporn feminism off of mothballs? And, make no mistake, in spite of the debate nature of this event, Weiss has been downright laudatory toward folks like Louise Perry, who's essentially the 2010s answer to Mary Whitehouse.

Sorry, but I'm not interested in an agenda which is ostensibly pro-freedom of expression, but that sees freedom of expression ending as soon as it becomes at all sexually explicit. This kind of politics is just a slightly more centrist and feminist version of Chris Rufo's bullshit and I don't have the time of day for it.

More generally, I'm pretty far from "anti-anti-woke" (I'm a 5th subscriber and FIRE donor, among other things), but I don't trust Bari's agenda and her lack of transparency about that agenda.

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Will be nice to have Jane C back on the pod!

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So satisfying! Yay.

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