106 Comments

That Bari Weiss and her media operation embraces the likes of Rufo tells you all you need to know about her. The endless harping against "cancel culture" and "wokeness" by Weiss, Berliner, Bill Maher, etc., is just another imitation of Trump's success at turning reality on its head. Evidently pays pretty well too.

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Rufo is that agent provocateur who proudly weaponized the term "CRT" knowing he lied about how and where CRT is taught all along, right?

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When pressed, Rufo has admitted that he doesnt know what CRT actually is, and apparently it doesn’t matter

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Now that he's poisoned it! He certainly succeeded in what he wanted to do, that's for sure.

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Bari made her bones as Elon Musk’s useful idiot. I’ll bet he and his cohorts are can be counted on to help.

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Where do the millions come from? Exactly who supports The Free Press? I’m curious why (at least one of) the ousted college presidents haven’t taken legal action? The Free Press has a very predictable reporting style. They select a target, question their professional, political, and educational credentials, then they turn to personal character assassination. NPR didn’t run and hide. They rightfully supported their CEO. I could be wrong, but it appears much of this work is driven by Weiss’ ego.

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Yes - it's a playbook. Making the funders public is critical.

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Powerful, competent women scare the pants off the right. And the women on their team have to become crazier and crazier to continue to please.

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The toxic masculinity that is attempting to force us back to 'barefoot and pregnant' days frightens the right (republican) constituency beyond sanity. Thus the willingness to accept the false masculinity of trump and his 'p---sy grabbing' boast as real manhood and strength.

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Very much agreed that panic often makes us foolish.

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founding

That Barry Weiss and these Right Wing Free Presses are called out for jumping on the Trumpian playbook lies is now much clearer. Thank you, Judd! Anyone who spread the lie that January 6th was caused by Antifa or outside agitators and not the Bugaloo Boys, Proud Boys and 3 percenters, all led by Trump and Steve Bannon deserves to be included in those indicted for doing all they could to treasonously over throw our government. Add to those who should need more legal help all those who deny that Russia involved itself in our 2016 and subsequent election.

Trump's criminal trial in DC presided over by Judge Tanya Chutkan must happen before this 2024 election!

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Another well reported article on how easy it is to spin "cherry picked" information to change the views and facts to smear people and companies. Need to read all articles with the intent to wonder why is this happening and who is making the money.

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Crystal clear reporting on this evolving fascist media strategy.

These are not conservatives but reactionary propagandists agitating/auditioning for the big bucks.

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A well written, researched and delivered reporting on the reality that surfaces once the bull shit is scraped away. Thank you again...and keep scraping... as and when necessary.

It is appreciated by those of us that already have a good idea as to what reality in this world is, but little time to do what you do, research wise.

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At the NYT Bari Weiss found out that readers can only take so much fact free writing. Her columns were seldom more than a rehash of whatever the right was pissed about at the moment, unless of course she was defending Bibi Netanyahu, then is was all about how he would save Israel from all enemies foreign and domestic. (That worked out well, right?) Now that she has her own publication she is free to spew whatever bullshit moves her. But if people get tired of it and revenue dries up it will not be from cancel culture, it will be because she was, is and will always be full of herself and full of shit.

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Wow; great reporting here. As an NPR listener, I was perplexed by the Berliner article and follow-up, but it's a bit more clear now. Also somewhat frightening just how much of our media is leaning further to the right. A moderate viewpoint is nowhere to be found it seems, so the best we can hope for is fact-checked information, which seems to be viewed as leftist. Hmmm...

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I might very much be alone on this hill, but one of the things that makes me so mad about the “recipe” that Rufo and The Free Press is following is that it stifles and silences legitimate criticism and conversation around some things that are happening within the media and higher education. We could, as a community, be discussing things like plagiarism, University governance, media management, and diversity of thought in higher education and media in a constructive way that can help to move us all forward. Instead we are all banding together to fight off these idiots and NOT having these conversations because we don’t want to be seen as being on the side of the idiots. Sometimes, it’s all so tiresome.

Thanks, as always, to Judd and the team for your thoughtful, fact-checked, and responsible journalism. Please know you are appreciated.

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You’re not alone on that hill.

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Nope. You are definitely NOT alone on yon hill. You have company mate.

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From what I’ve learned from Glenn Greenwald, it’s not only NPR where Bari Weiss is no longer championing free speech. It seems there was a lucrative moment when it was profitable to be in full support of free expression as long as it wasn’t one’s own ox that was being gored.

Hypocrisy is not a good look for anyone.

It always surprises me that so many choose to wear it.

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The GOP is already trying to "pre" cancel free speech protests at the site of their convention in July, pressuring Milwaukee and the Secret Service to expand the security perimeter to exclude the local park designated for protests. So much for free speech for others.

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Protests are fast going extinct. If the protestors are in fact peaceful, there is a "fear" that counter protests will make them "disruptive." Constitutional law requires a protest to be peaceful but it doesn't say squat--yet--about the noise level.

I wonder if the Christian Nationalist/neo Nazi folks now excoriate Skokie, which was about preventing a neo-Nazi march based on what it said, not how it was said. NOPE said the Supremes.

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I think you buried the lede. I’d like to hear more about this iced coffee thing. Does it have some kind of alternative creamer, like soy or almond milk?

As the New York Times has told me, true Americans drink their coffee hot without creamer or sugar, preferably in Midwestern diners.

(/s)

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Apparently it’s only cancel culture when it’s done by the “left “. Great article and it confirms why I subscribe.

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Are these examples of an organized attack on successful women who do not fit the radical right’s ideology of feminine.

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I found this quote, attributed to Christopher Rufo, that says a lot about who he is: "We have successfully frozen their brand—'critical race theory'—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.' We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

CHRISTOPHER RUFO

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May 13·edited May 13

There is zero equivalency between the actions of these goons and the folks they villify on "the left."

This is about hypocrisy and theft. They will use their structured and nuanced falsehood generating machinery to enrich themselves at the expense of all and everyone else.

And if their efforts end up tearing down the whole country in order to better feather their own nests, they seem ok with it.

I know people, family members who subscribe to this doctrine. They are fact averse in the extreme.

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