Cenk Uygur

Wednesday

Ross Anderson

Mr. Uygur goes to Washington

You’ve probably seen a clip of Cenk Uygur, founder and host of the progressive online news network the Young Turks. Whatever clip you watched, he was probably shouting. Rarely soft-spoken or caging for clarifications, Uygur is a perennially viral figure in the online drama of right versus left; a passionate progressive advocate who GOES OFF on CORRUPT ELITES and so forth, as such videos are titled, or a hyper-emotive epitome of the “triggered-lib,” who MELTS DOWN to the tune of hundreds of thousands of views for the online right. In the clips and tweets, Trump is a fascist, his supporters are racists, Israel is genocidal, “Establishment” Republicans are corrupt and establishment Democrats are no better.

cenk uygur

Monday

The Spectator

Naomi joins the Biden family business

Naomi Biden, Hunter Biden’s eldest daughter, is now the latest Biden to come under scrutiny for doing business with foreign nations.According to an investigation by the New York Post’s Jon Levine, the president’s granddaughter lawyered on behalf of Peru’s government while living with her grandpa at the White House.The twenty-nine-year-old joined Arnold & Porter in January 2021, right around when Joe Biden was moving into the presidential residence. Eight months after joining, her name appeared in a filing that showed that she was representing the South American country’s government in a case regarding the operation of an oil refinery in the Peruvian Amazon, where the company demanded close to $600 million in damages.

Friday

Cockburn

Harry Reid haunts Bob Menendez

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been dead for years, but one of his top aides may be haunting Senator Bob Menendez, using his perch as John Fetterman’s chief of staff to do it. Adam Jentleson, a combative former Reid staffer, is a mover and shaker in Fetterman’s office — and the Pennsylvanian was the first Senate Democrat to demand Menendez call it quits this week, in almost personal terms: the statement went as far as to compare the Democrat to Tony Soprano. But why would the sweatshirt-clad gentle giant care so much? It could have something to do with how Jentleson worked for Reid, one of the Iran Deal’s most important proponents.

harry reid bob menendez

Monday

Bill Zeiser

And now the dumbest takes about Ukraine

If hot takes brought peace, mankind would never know war again. At least, that’s the impression one is left with after spending time on Twitter during Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. Some social media users seem to operate under the understanding that they are legally required to put their first — and often worst — opinions immediately onto the internet for all to see. Many of these tweets reflect the understandable human tendency to grasp at an explanation for terrible events. Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is considered an oracle of sorts on the coronavirus pandemic, put forth an interesting theory. “It’s been suggested that #Putin isn’t thinking properly, perhaps due to long #COVID19,” she wrote.

takes

Tuesday

Ben Sixsmith

Dave Rubin’s ode to the so-called ‘independent thinker‘

Dave Rubin loves to talk about ideas. In his new book, Don't Burn This Book, he tells the reader:‘I want you to walk into a bar and order yourselves a full-bodied opinion. I want you to get absolutely wasted on facts until 3:00 a.m., and then, when you’re just about ready to pass out, I want you to get another large glass of reality and chug it.’It's telling that Rubin suggests that we order the opinion before the facts. Would it not make more sense to suggest, say, blending a cocktail of facts into an opinion? Rubin’s advice seems backwards to me.But it would be wrong to take this suggestion seriously. Don't Burn This Book is not a serious work. It is, in fact, extremely lazy, bearing all the hallmarks of a project that was knocked together over a few wet weekends.

dave rubin