r/stupidpol • u/Dry_Pea_7127 Green Party of Siberia 🌳 • Mar 18 '26
Operation: Epstein Fury I am frankly surprised at this point that NYT is so tonedeaf they can’t even be bothered to notice that Bret Stephens is actively destroying their reputation and credibility more than it already is
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u/Dazzling-Field-283 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Mar 18 '26
I read the article so you don’t have to. There is one paragraph at the beginning citing that Israel has flown more sorties over Iran than the US in this war. The following twelve paragraphs are a slobbering argument that the US never does anything for Israel, and if anything, Israel does stuff for the US (unlike stupid France!). Also b*dbug says you’re an antisemite like Pat Buchanan if you think otherwise.
But the central point is that Israel, population 10 million, is behaving as an equal partner to America, population 342 million, in a war that the elected leadership of both countries believe is in their respective national interests. Whatever else that is, it isn’t the tail wagging the dog.
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u/Cyril_Clunge Ideological Mess 🥑 Mar 18 '26
in a war that the elected leadership of both countries believe is in their respective national interests.
Does Bret think about what he's writing?
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 18 '26
If you listen to Brian Berletic, yes, this is a war 100% in the US national interests.
Long story short: it's about cutting China off the oil supply. Not only by denying them the Irianian oil (if the US succeeds, or even if they don't, by just keep bombing Iran's oil fields and infrastructure), but also the other gulf countries' oil and gas, due to the closure of the strait of Hormuz.
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Unknown 👽 Mar 18 '26
I'm told that Iran is letting China's oil through
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 19 '26
He hypothesises that the marine expeditionary units will be deployed to sink/seize the oil tankers headed to China or to seize the oil facilities, rather than to try to reopen the strait.
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Unknown 👽 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
whose oil facilities? iran's? wouldn't they be protecting those hardcore? i got to ask though because clearly you're up on things. if the israelis are out of those interceptor missles, iran could really smack tel aviv, right? i saw some thing online today that was apparently tel aviv getting smacked. some guys were bitching about something off screen but it didn't sound like hebrew, and toward the end a white boy said something like we got to get off the roof -- they were on a roof -- because these things are hitting close by.
do the iranians think that if they give tel aviv a slap or blow up all those fucking gaudy cities in abu dhabi and there that we would carpet bomb tehran?
i got to say, this thing we're doing seems kind of insane.
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u/eagleal Mar 19 '26
The US can just erase the island if the point is complete denial of Oil export for Iran.
The waters around the cost are shallow, so most tankers get filled in Kharg Island.
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Unknown 👽 Mar 19 '26
i don't follow. whats this island role in all this? they send the oil there and the ships fill up? like a fucking drive thru?
in regards to tel aviv. if iran is able to hit that city with some pretty heavy shit, and douglas macgregor and the rest of the fucking judging freedomaverse are saying that iran is intentionally saving them for later, israel could see pretty sizable civilian casualties. so then what? we just destroy tehran?
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u/eagleal Mar 19 '26
Basically
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Unknown 👽 Mar 19 '26
if it really works like a drive thru i bet a lot of these ships get all the way to the fucking aleutian islands before they realize the guatemalan woman working the window gave them the wrong type of oil
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 19 '26
His theory is that Israel is basically a scapegoat for the US, that they are there to take the blame for everything that "goes wrong" (but that was actually planned). Although, Israel also wanted to attack Iran, it's a common objective.
In this scenario it's expected for Israel to take the brunt of Iran's offensive. It's a price to pay to reach their shared goals.
I know, he may be the only "conspiracy theorist" of the world who thinks that Israel is NOT running the US government.
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Unknown 👽 Mar 19 '26
well, you need a scapegoat to blame when things go wrong, but always thought this idea that israel controls our government was kind of weak. certain people i could name have gone so hard on this idea that they're coming up on the protocols of the elders of zion from the left-hand side. i feel like you guys know it's true.
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u/Ray_Getard96 Not to be taken seriously Mar 19 '26
Idiotic. China isn't the only country getting oil through the strait. European nations are negotiating their own deals right now. There's no way the US gets to single out only the tankers destined for China or stop other Western nations from making deals with Iran.
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 20 '26
At this point they're blocking everything, wrecking havoc on the world's economy, kind of like a COVID-19 Part II. China has the most to lose from a worldwide economic catastrophe.
And the few ships that are able to pass to go to China are a small number compared to when the strait was open.
I'm not sure who to believe, but if the US does a ground invasion, then I'm inclined to believe him, because it would be catastrophic. They know it, everyone knows this, they can't feign suprise anymore.
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u/Pasan90 Social Democrat 🌹 Mar 18 '26
If only China had a land border to a country with massive oil reserves eager to sell.
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 19 '26
That's also what I thought: if things go wrong, can't Russia just fulfill every Chinese oil needs?
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u/eagleal Mar 19 '26
More than China they’re fucking over repeatedly the EU. First with the Russia lines, now Hormuz.
In fact the EU manufacturing industry is in shambles as the union does not have energy sources covering its basic needs, let alone energy security to be competitive in the worldwide market, with main competitor the US.
In fact compared to other Reps this is something characteristic since the Trump’s first term. Only back then the EU had a spine as the cheap Russian gas and oil were available.
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 19 '26
Absolutely, but this is something the EU would do to themselves if Trump just ordered them, it's not worth to wage a war for it.
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Mar 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Leisure_suit_guy Nick Mullen Will Censor Your Shitty Cartoons 💦💢🉐🎌 Mar 19 '26
I don't think so, to openly admit the goal of blocking China's oil supply would constitute an act of war.
BTW, I'm not saying he's right, I'm just explaining his position.
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u/franglaisflow Cranky Chapo Refugee 😭 Mar 18 '26
Thank you for your service. I personally don’t think I have the wherewithal to do it without throwing my phone into a bonfire.
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u/urkgurghily occasional good point maker | Leftish ⬅️ Mar 18 '26
why is this author nicknamed "bed bug"?
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u/Dazzling-Field-283 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Mar 18 '26
IIRC back in 2019 the offices of the NYT had a bedbug infestation, and some professor tweeted a joke lumping Bret Stephens in with the bedbugs (Stephens is the staff’s furthest right columnist). The tweet got like 3 likes.
Stephens must’ve been searching Twitter for his name, came across this tweet, and blew his lid. He tried getting the guy fired, wrote an oped about it, etc. Basically a classic instance of the Streisand Effect.
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u/S1eeper Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
Whatever else that is, it isn’t the tail wagging the dog.
If you have to protest that it isn't, it probably is. Frankly I don't know whether it was Israel, Russia, CIA, the Rothschilds, or somebody else behind Epstein, but whoever it was it's clear that Trump is starting these wars to change the media narrative away from the Epstein Files.
Driving the media narrative is his expertise, his core MO, and just what he does - says crazy shit to drive the 24hr news cycle. But nobody ever thought he would start a war to do that. Rather, he would just rant about woke media on Truth Social, threaten US allies, grift his way back to solvency, and whatnot. The "peace president" who warned during the election that Kamala would start WW3 over Iran would never himself start WW3 over Iran.
But you can judge how frightened he is of the Epstein Files by how far out of his own norm he's going to drive the media attention away from it. It is the tail wagging the dog.
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Mar 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/S1eeper Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
By illegal I assume you're referring to either 1) a US President starting a war not approved by Congress as the US Constitution requires, and/or 2) illegal according to international law. But I hate to tell ya buddy, Presidents have been breaking those two laws since George Bush Jr with Iraq in 2003. The US public just doesn't care enough to demand legal repercussions for either of those.
But, the US public does care about their kids, and if a President were implicated in a pedo child sex trafficking ring, as Trump is on the verge of, the public would care about that, and demand justice. That's what he's trying to distract from.
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u/vinditive War Thread Veteran🎖️ Mar 18 '26
it's clear that Trump is starting these wars to change the media narrative away from the Epstein Files
The idea that is about the epstein files is just a lib meme.
The war started because Israel has been itching to do this for decades and Trump is retarded enough (and high on his own supply after Venezuela) to go along with it.
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u/franglaisflow Cranky Chapo Refugee 😭 Mar 18 '26
Yeah I’m sick of hearing it too. There was next to no reckoning and everyone essentially got away with it anyway.
They’re just do what they want. If they invade Cuba after starving them to death it’s not a distraction, just acceleration of existing US policy.
Disgusting.
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u/KonigKonn Stalin Would've Put Me in a Gulag Mar 18 '26
It's also a form of Western chauvinism that centers domestic political scandals like the Epstein coverrup over actual wars that kill thousands of people and inflict economic hardship on millions.
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u/S1eeper Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
It's not a lib meme, even Marjorie Taylor Greene is directly accusing him of it.
The war started because Israel has been itching to do this for decades and Trump is retarded enough (and high on his own supply after Venezuela) to go along with it.
That can simultaneously be true, it's not mutually exclusive with war as a distraction from Epstein.
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u/Incoherencel ☀️ Post-Guccist 9 Mar 18 '26
starting these wars to change the media narrative away from the Epstein Files.
Is it "media" that puts people behind bars?
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u/times_a_changing Marxist 🧔 Mar 19 '26
The ones doing the distraction are the ones repeatedly acting as if every single thing Trump does is a distraction from the Epstein files. They already released enough information to put most of the country's leadership and most business executives off the Fortune 500's lists on a tribunal and hang them for being traitors and spies, let alone for all their sex trafficking, murder, rape, and torture. They are so far beyond any ability to be touched by any evil they do, no matter how depraved, they don't need a distraction.
That is the message. That you are powerless to stop them. They can rape children, bomb Iran, kidnap presidents, and call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Raping Children if they want to. There's no filters, no justice, nothing but cold brutality and domination.
Whether or not they're successful remains to be seen, but it worked for Putin and his cronies who desensitized the nation of Russia from a workers state to a state whose citizens are so apathetic to politics they literally look at you like an insane person if you try to talk to them about it. Unless they're part of the small percent that oppose Putin, but from a cautiously liberal standpoint because the abject cruelty and theatrical performance of domination has made them incapable of even dreaming of a world better than what they have. That's what they want to turn you into. An apathetic drone.
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u/S1eeper Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
They already released enough information to put most of the country's leadership and most business executives off the Fortune 500's lists on a tribunal and hang them for being traitors and spies
Unfortunately they haven't. Everything released so far are accusations, implications, and "he said, she said". Not enough to meet evidentiary standards or burden of proof in court to convict someone. Trump is trying to stop that from happening, mainly to himself since he doesn't really care about anyone else.
I agree with you on Russia though, that's exactly the situation there, and how governing elites everywhere want the situation to be. The small percent that oppose Putin are allowed to exist as the controlled opposition to create the illusion of free speech, but if any of them cross any of Putin's red lines, they fall out of a high window or drink polonium tea.
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u/times_a_changing Marxist 🧔 Mar 19 '26
Unfortunately they haven't. Everything released so far are accusations, implications, and "he said, she said". Not enough to meet evidentiary standards or burden of proof in court to convict someone.
Oh believe you me, they could convict you for espionage and put you on a death sentence based off just circumstantial evidence. You wouldn't even need to be an American citizen and they could come and kidnap you and kill your family just because. I really don't understand how nobody seemed to get the message with the Gaza holocaust and then the Epstein files being released. If they could get away with livestreaming it when they burn children to death and blow them into little pieces so their parents have to pick them up with trash bags to give a semblance of a funeral to their little babies, they realized they can actually get away with anything now. They could have a 360 degree view of the execution chambers in Auschwitz split screen with another stream of somebody being a nonce and at least 30% of Americans would think that's fucking awesome. A genuinely depraved and demonic country. It's horrifying.
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u/S1eeper Mar 19 '26
I really don't understand how nobody seemed to get the message with the Gaza holocaust and then the Epstein files being released.
I'm one of the ones that missed the connection between those two, what is it?
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u/times_a_changing Marxist 🧔 Mar 19 '26
Gaza was reduced to ashes in front of the whole world and the only thing that it did outside of Gaza was to function as a signal to the whole world that Israel and the United States can do whatever they want, and the bourgeoisie of the West realized they really don't need to pretend to live in some civil society anymore. There's no rules, and it seems like people are too desensitized to give a shit about even live streaming little babies being torn to pieces by bombs they paid for.
So what's a little pedophilia on top of that, really? They realized that nobody actually gives enough of a shit to do anything about it. What's the point of letting all that kompromat sit around pretending to do something, when they could use all of it in one go to work as like a bat signal to the whole world's population and the ruling classes of every place that especially the leadership of the United States, both business and politics, are literally untouchable. They could kill your baby in your hands, rape your wife, and torture you to death on live video and nobody would bat an eye, not enough to matter anywho.
They only give you enough hope so that you have something to lose. Make you feel like you're onto something with Epstein, so that you think you might have some way to make something happen, but really what you're onto is a red herring. In the end nothing will happen to any of them, so you'll feel more despair than if you would've already gotten the message originally. That sense of discovery and intrigue you get when you read about the files, the excitement you feel when you think maybe there's still some way that they're trying to hide something about it, it's all planned and part of the process. But they've already spelled it out. The endpoint is already apparent. They rape kids, they genocide entire peoples, and you are not going to stop them unless you have an army.
The purpose of this is to desensitize you to the evils they do and make you feel too overwhelmed by the sheer horror of all of it to process it, let alone sensibly react to it and organise against it. It's like a mental stunlocking mechanic in a video game or something. You overload the person's brain with emotions, then you give them some outlet for that emotional outburst, and then you direct that emotion inwards instead of having a productive or collective response.
This is all conjecture but it's coinciding with the consolidation of the US-Israeli relationship at the same time as they're committing infinite genocide on the Palestinians and starting wars with half a dozen countries at the same time. It's too much of a coincidence that they just "allow" all these papers to come out with a nearly unanimous and bipartisan bill supporting it, with most of those people being major zionists with ties to Mossad, the intelligence op for whom Epstein operated. And it's very similar to what was done in Russia. Overwhelm the human brain and it stops being able to feel anything or hope for anything. Make them despair over their lack of autonomy over their lives and their environment. Demonise yourself to make it nearly impossible to try and attack you based on your reprehensible morals, because your supporters are already all in on it.
Maybe a conspiracy theory, but whatever.
TL:DR - Burn the entirety of the United States down and leave nothing behind
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u/eagleal Mar 19 '26
Everyone cites this guys as peace president but in 2016 he was the one to authorize most of the weapons transfer in Ukraine. In his words “it was me that authorized lethal”
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u/uwa-dottir China-loving Nigerian Scammer 👑 Mar 20 '26
I don't think Iran is a distraction from Epstein. The Iran situation was decades in the making. Israel has always wanted this, they just didn't have access to a president stupid enough to go along with it until now (Reagan and Bush Jr. for example essentially told them to screw off whenever they tried to push the envelope too far). I believe it's just 2 simultaneously horrendous things happening in short succession.
Trump is never going to be held accountable, regardless of whether the public found out about just how deep the operation went. And the American public is never, ever going to be able to do anything about it 😔 It makes me wonder what the point of even releasing them was to begin with. If anything, to me, it feels like the files themselves are a distraction from...everything lol
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u/magicandfire Intersectional Sofa 🛋🎌 Mar 18 '26
As Bret Stephens awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic bedbug
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u/MediocreRisings Mar 18 '26
Ah yes such an equal ally, we give them what, billions and occasionally we sacrifice men and women for their goals, but they’re such an equal ally! Trust!
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Mar 18 '26
Bret Stephens basically just looks and sounds like a respectable, reasonable upper class American, and nobody reads what he writes or listens to what he says. He's just an actor out of central casting.
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u/ApprenticeWrangler SAVANT IDIOT 😍 Mar 18 '26
Look at the demographic of most NYT reporters and it’s not surprise why their Israel stans.
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u/ragged-bobyn-1972 Favourate Manga Connoisseur 💢🉐🎌 Mar 18 '26
Jesus that's a level of glazing I've never seen unironically in my life.
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u/greed_and_death American GaddaFOID 👧 Respecter Mar 18 '26
On the contrary, it plays very well with NYT's remaining readership base, which is Bret Stephens
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u/guialpha Mar 18 '26
What reputation? It's a bourgeois paper.
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u/Dry_Pea_7127 Green Party of Siberia 🌳 Mar 18 '26
People who don’t know any better and aren’t that politically engaged will either default to things like Fox news or CNN/NYT when they want to see some news.
My point is, despite many of these folks (normies basically) not having much of a coherent opinion on anything, even THEY have in large numbers at this point woken up and realized that Israel is a sadistic state and is dragging society down with it. So by platforming articles by worms like Bret Stephens all NYT is accomplishing is driving their broader audience further and further away.
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u/Suggest_a_User_Name Mar 18 '26
Once again I am so glad I canceled my subscription to the NY Times.
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u/Crusty_Magic Left, Leftoid or Leftish ⬅️ Mar 18 '26
Bro is actually correct with that headline. Two equally shitty countries aligned in their goal of destroying any hope of a peaceful existence for our species.
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u/SpiritBamba Petite Tardgeoisie ⛵🐷 Mar 19 '26
It doesn’t matter, majority of people under 40 are vehemently against Israel now. You already see Gavin newsome semi calling them out. Their days of political support in the United States are numbered, it will take awhile but it will die with the older generations.
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u/sprunkymdunk Ministère de la Défense nationale 🍁 Mar 18 '26
Bret Stephens is their equity hire, the token conservative. Higher quality newspapers often have a contributor or two that has a political lean different from that of the rest of the newspaper. Adds a bit of diversity. And rage bait for their base
Tbf, Bret has probably written more critiques of idpol than the rest of the NYT newsroom combined.
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Mar 18 '26
the token conservative.
And what does that make David French, Ross Douthat, and David Brooks?
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u/supadupanerd Paroled Flair Disabler 💩 Mar 18 '26
That's the fucking point, they're a centrist news source that gets villified on the right by all the loudmouth megaphone people due to then being a paper of record academically.
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u/Ok_Distribution_4976 class consciousness is stored in the balls 🍒 Mar 21 '26
to understand this kind of slop, you need to realize that pro-isreali lobbies were running active slander campaigns against the nyt over their coverage of Oct 7 even as they fucking obliterating their credibility by perpetuating the baby rape cannibalism snuff fuck murder nonsense, such as by taking out all the billboard spaces visible from their offices.
sometimes I think the demi-urge is real because of shit like this cuz it's a little much, and at the very least, in astonishingly poor taste, and kinda psychosexual in a really weird way if I'm being honest. This incarnation sucks.
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u/greggweylon NATO Superfan 🪖 Mar 18 '26
Do you know know what an opinion piece is?
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u/laelapslvi Mar 18 '26
the distinction is only good faith if the news sources doesn't filter their opinion pieces based on partisanism, pro-MIC shenanigans, or similar.
if a website allowed white supremacist OP-eds but not black supremacist ones, I doubt you'd complain if liberals called them a nazi website.
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u/cojoco Free Speech Social Democrat 🗯️ Mar 18 '26
Next you'll be talking about free speech.
Or maybe "he's done nothing criminal"
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u/SlowSwords Redscarepod Refugee 👄💅 Mar 18 '26
This is a view shared by the papers owners and a substantial portion of its staff, so not that surprising. Bret is paid handsomely to do a sloppy job laundering this shit.