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I’ll just let Jamie Kirchick tell the story: Defending Putin’s Propagandists.

Over the past week, I have been the recipient of a deluge of attacks on Twitter from RT fans alleging that I was somehow behind Wahl’s resignation. This afternoon, a gentleman identifying himself as Kevin Gosztola, who writes for the left-wing website FireDogLake, left a message on my cell phone. He claimed to be working on a project for First Look Media — the high-profile investigative journalism start-up that employs, among others, Glenn Greenwald. (First Look’s top editor says the Gosztola has nothing to do with the outlet. More on that in a second.) I post Gosztola’s missive verbatim:

Listen to the voicemail Kevin Gosztola left for James Kirchick.

“So you don’t deny that you encouraged Liz Wahl to resign. We are going to be publishing a story at First Look Media and I know that you’re going to be losing control of the narrative that you’ve managed to create around Liz Wahl’s resignation. We have multiple sources.

“It’s fairly obvious that you have orchestrated this as part of some Foreign Policy Initiative [the think tank where I work] agenda. And this is what we’re going to be putting out there. So your fun little charade, public stunt that you’ve been putting on which the media has completely eaten up here in the United States, is hopefully over.

“If you have any comment and if you’d like to respond to me and prove that this is not how it is, you let me know. But otherwise we are ready to go. And, you know, you like to ‘fuck with the Russians’ and we’re going to respond to that and let people know where you’re coming from as you have worked with Liz Wahl to expose what you call a propaganda network.”

“When did you stop beating your wife,” does not begin to do justice to the nature [of] this rant. The call’s threatening tone is appropriate, though, for someone determined to defend the reputation of the Kremlin. What’s less understandable is why First Look Media—a new journalism venture that’s supposedly dedicated to investigating the excesses of government and corporate power—would join in.

That’s because First Look is not, in fact, involved. “Kevin [Gosztola] doesn’t work for First Look Media. He apparently spoke to Glenn [Greenwald] about the possibility of doing a story for [First Look], but Glenn hasn’t given him an assignment or a contract,” Eric Bates, executive editor of First Look Media, told The Daily Beast in an email. “Glenn let Kevin know that he shouldn’t be representing himself as acting on behalf of First Look.”

Greenwald isn’t exactly a RT critic, it should be noted.

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Rolling Stone’s interview with Bill Gates is interesting, not least because he makes some comments about NSA leaker Edward Snowden that have thrown our pal The Mighty Greenwald into a fine rage: Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview.

Do you think some of these concerns people have are overblown?

There’s always been a lot of information about your activities. Every phone number you dial, every credit-card charge you make. It’s long since passed that a typical person doesn’t leave footprints. But we need explicit rules. If you were in a divorce lawsuit 20 years ago, is that a public document on the Web that a nosy neighbor should be able to pull up with a Bing or Google search? When I apply for a job, should my speeding tickets be available? Well, I’m a bus driver, how about in that case? And society does have an overriding interest in some activities, like, “Am I gathering nuclear-weapons plans, and am I going to kill millions of people?” If we think there’s an increasing chance of that, who do you trust? I actually wish we were having more intense debates about these things.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, who has leaked tens of thousands of NSA documents, we are. Do you consider him a hero or a traitor?

I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn’t characterize him as a hero. If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of “OK, I’m really trying to improve things.” You won’t find much admiration from me.

Even so, do you think it’s better now that we know what we know about government surveillance?

The government has such ability to do these things. There has to be a debate. But the specific techniques they use become unavailable if they’re discussed in detail. So the debate needs to be about the general notion of under what circumstances should they be allowed to do things.

It’s difficult, though, because no one knows really what’s going on. We want safety, but we also want privacy.

But even in abstract - let’s say you knew nothing was going on. How would you feel? I mean, seriously. I would be very worried. Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power]. Not just bad guys. Crazy guys. Fertilizer wasn’t too good for the federal building in Oklahoma City, but there’s stuff out there now that makes fertilizer look like a joke.

If you’ve followed this saga at all, you can probably imagine how Glenn Greenwald (aka Edward Snowden’s publicist) reacted to that. The mere suggestion from a famous personality that Snowden isn’t a hero for the ages is enough to provoke a torrent of insults and sarcasm from the Mighty G, every time.

The moral logic of Bill Gates: “I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero” http://t.co/j92RVojLfK

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 13, 2014

@a_greenberg Not a deep moral philosopher, shall we say.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 13, 2014

Believing that “obedience to law” is a requirement of a moral or heroic act is incredibly stunted & vapid thinking http://t.co/eSDWNV9PW8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 13, 2014

Bill Gates on the US Govt: “Lack of corruption and a reasonable justice system.” - Yes, if you're Bill Gates http://t.co/j92RVojLfK

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 13, 2014

Hardly surprising Bill Gates is upset about Edward Snowden's revelations http://t.co/jhTQubXmzq

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 13, 2014

I think Glenn feels hurt that he didn’t get Bill Gates’s approval.

After making some of the usual disgusting Republican comments about lazy “inner city” men (do I need to translate that for you?), today Paul Ryan is issuing the standard GOP non-apology apology; he says he was “inarticulate.”

In a statement issued to ThinkProgress, Ryan said he regretted the comments and stressed that he did not intend to slander an entire community:

After reading the transcript of yesterday morning’s interview, it is clear that I was inarticulate about the point I was trying to make. I was not implicating the culture of one community—but of society as a whole. We have allowed our society to isolate or quarantine the poor rather than integrate people into our communities. The predictable result has been multi-generational poverty and little opportunity. I also believe the government’s response has inadvertently created a poverty trap that builds barriers to work. A stable, good-paying job is the best bridge out of poverty.

The broader point I was trying to make is that we cannot settle for this status quo and that government and families have to do more and rethink our approach to fighting poverty. I have witnessed amazing people fighting against great odds with impressive success in poor communities. We can learn so much from them, and that is where this conversation should begin.

Ryan’s problem, of course, was really the exact opposite of being inarticulate. He stated the Republican position on African Americans very well, using the standard “inner city” diversionary language we’ve heard so many times before, but these days it’s getting more difficult for Republicans to use this kind of dog-whistle racism without being called on it.

And notice that Ryan doesn’t address the other disgusting part of his comments — referring to the work of “scientific white supremacist” Charles Murray (of “Bell Curve” infamy), who believes African Americans are less intelligent than whites, and that “a lot of poor people are born lazy.” And this, too, is a very standard GOP position; despite Murray’s work being discredited many times over, Republicans cite him as an authority repeatedly, to this day, and he works at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the top conservative think tanks.

In the immortal words of The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi: “You know we can hear you, right?”

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Happiness Has A Hole - Solo Piano Version
Digital bonus track from the upcoming Album “My Name” available 30th March 2014

Peformed by Marie Louise
Written by Marie Louise & Michael Fragstein
facebook.com
Director: Michael Fragstein
Produced at Büro Achter April
8apr.de
Recording , Mix & Mastering
Johannes Matz

I’d love to know exactly which conservatives are “afraid to say what they actually believe,” because when I look at Fox News and right wing media and right wing blogs, I see a whole lot of people who don’t seem the slightest bit afraid to express absolutely any reactionary, sexist, racist and/or homophobic view imaginable.

“I mean, [our society is] very much like Nazi Germany,” Carson told Breitbart News [Of course. — ed.], after declaring that we were living in a “Gestapo age.” “And I know you’re not supposed to say ‘Nazi Germany,’ but I don’t care about political correctness. You know, you had a government using its tools to intimidate the population. We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe.”

Carson listed multiple aspects of America that he believes intimidates people into silence.

“And it’s because of the PC police, it’s because of politicians, it’s because of news. It’s all of these things are combining to stifle people’s conversation,” he said. “The reason that is so horrible is because the only way that you have harmony and reach consensus is by talking. But if, in fact, people are afraid to talk, you never reach consensus. And instead you grow further and further apart. And that’s exactly what’s happening, creating a horrible schism that will destroy our nation if we don’t fix it.”