Conor Friedersdorf
@conor64
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Omni-American, staff writer at The Atlantic, founding editor of The Best of Journalism–subscribe here: https://t.co/z6wyUHjoSp
Joined February 2008
I truly have no theory of mind for this person.
Conservatives complain about this kind of thing but what we should really be asking is why the rich people on our side aren’t doing this. Leftist billionaires fund leftist protest movements. Why don’t conservative billionaires fund conservative protest movements?.
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I am skeptical of all claims that it would be too damaging to tell Americans the truth about what their government is doing in part because every time the theretofore classified details have emerged no disaster followed. Quick, specify the biggest cost of the Snowden leaks.
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Protecting victim identities is defensible. Redact all names for all I care. But allowing a carveout for "classified material" is a nonstarter for anyone who believes in the possibility of wrongdoing by *people with the authority to designate whatever they want as classified.*.
Great idea. Rep. Thomas Massie "introduced a bill. to require the disclosure of all unclassified material in the [Epstein] case while protecting victims’ identities.". I.e. THE MINIMUM the stooge Bondi should have done already.
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So Flynn is: 1) appalled by Epstein; 2) believes in a conspiracy; 3) trusts the man who said, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” How?.
.@realDonaldTrump I hesitated to write this however, with the utmost respect and deference to you for all you’ve withstood (few know it better than me what the “deep state” can do when they want to turn on a person). The EPSTEIN AFFAIR is NOT about who killed him or if he.
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Having given up on the idea that there was any amount of cognitive dissonance that could shake the loyalty of MAGA diehards, I think we may actually be witnessing an example of it.
The administration invited influencers to the White House, handed them binders that said "Epstein Files: Phase 1," and staged a photo op outside with the binders. Now Trump calls the whole thing a dumb hoax. There is just no way for an honest person to look at this set of facts.
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Right, one irony of Trump's *the Democrats made this all up* absurdity is that until recently he was inviting the Clintons to his wedding and donating to Democratic campaigns and going on the radio to praise Bill and Hillary.
@conor64 The simple fact is that MAGA is Trump and it's whatever Trump says it is. No one should be surprised about this. People forget too that Trump is a part of the NYC elite, he is not "of the people".
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Useful background: voters elected a president who has long shown extreme disregard for truth and logical rigor in public statements, and when his critics point this out they get attacked by his loyalists, who support him anyway, so he has no incentive to change.
So the Epstein Files are a "dumb hoax" and yet the Attorney General who deliberately peddled this "dumb hoax" is doing a great job, won't be fired, and we should stop criticizing her? Someone make sense of this for me.
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Trump has been quite explicit about what he thinks of his supporters: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" That isn't an obscure quote!.
Does he think his supporters are retarded?.
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RT @ggreenwald: The brazen audacity of how Trump is heaping scorn on his own supporters over Epstein, the complete fabrications he's invent….
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I'm fascinated by the psychology of people who watched Donald Trump turn on many of the people he hired in his first administration, watched him turn on Mike Pence, yet are shocked, as he turns on their faction of MAGA, that he would be so disloyal.
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Wow, Trump says "only" bad people are still interested in this story. Even Hillary Clinton only called *half* the people in her least favorite faction "deplorables.".
NOW - Trump: "I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going."
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A majority of Americans sensibly concluded that our very wealthy country can increase our soft power and goodwill towards us by saving lots of lives at bargain prices. And because we live in a representative government that majority conclusion results in foreign aid outlays.
So this is a pretty fundamental point and James is wrong. His point proves too much. The rest of the world has no claim on the earnings of Americans. In part because those claims are bottomless. You can always tax another dollar that will alleviate harm in poorer countries.
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Is there anyone out there who can explain why the Lisbon airport has such an onerous security protocol *for people leaving*? Every time I pass through there's an hour long line that's so unexpected that half the people in it are freaking out about missing their flight.
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I remain genuinely confused as to how someone could conclude *only now* that Donald Trump is willing to protect bad actors.
Yeah. Trump ain’t in them. I’d have been leaked the documents during his first term. No way. But he’s now protecting bad actors and this cannot stand.
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Trump repeatedly lied about his foreign policy record to make himself seem less hawkish than was the case based on his actual public stances on multiple wars Many of his supporters believed the lies.
"I didn't vote for this!" cry the anti-establishment podcasters. Well, what did you vote for? When did Trump ever articulate a tangible policy for ending the war in Ukraine? He just demanded to be restored to power, then he'd wave a magic wand and somehow end the war in 24 hours.
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There's a certain kind of very online MAGA voter who is so on guard against the left falsely claiming inhumane treatment and gaming empathy that they've lost the ability to see actual abuses and inhumanity even as the government perpetrates them. They've lost their own empathy.
These are the most humane version of deportations possible. Concerns about them are exploited to undermine support for any form of immigration enforcement. If there's any hate here, it's the Left's attitude toward ICE agents just doing their job.
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RT @TheFIREorg: A student journalist published anonymous editorials alleging that administrators misused a $50,000 grant intended for campu….
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RT @YAppelbaum: "“I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.”. Obama weighs in on the Abunda….
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RT @mattyglesias: I would just add that “the attorney general, the director and deputy director of the FBI, the VP, the head of DOGE, and t….
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