I've long been an admirer of Matt Taibbi's journalism and writing style -- so much so that it helped inspired me to become a writer myself. Early on as a writer, I would read as much of his work as I could, quote him at length in pieces I struggled to find the right words for, ...read more
Just today, Young Turks founder and head anchor Cenk Uygur was called out for a series of misogynistic blog posts he wrote in the early 2000s. These posts included complaints about not getting laid enough (“It seems like there is a sea of tits here, and I am drinking in tiny ...read more
Matt Taibbi is not having a good month. As American women rise up to defend themselves from the predatory behavior of men in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, every prominent male media figure with a history of misogyny has suddenly become an open target for ...read more
While deeply embarrassing for the United States, President Trump's creation of a new African country 'Nambia' during a luncheon with African leaders in New York is actually extremely worrying. In what could well be another sign of his worsening mental state, Trump appeared to ...read more
Matt Taibbi's latest report in Rolling Stone is an unnerving read that should give everyone cause for very serious concern about the mental state of the president. While much has been written about Trump's mental health from a decidedly liberal perspective (our own Robert ...read more
Modern Republicanism will go down as one of the most cynical, lazy political ideologies in modern history. It is built almost entirely on a religious belief in the power of free markets, and the vilification of immigrants, women, and minority communities. If Donald Trump can be ...read more
In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party's victory over Theresa May and her Tories in England, some liberals who either sided with, or had sympathy with, the American far left, were quick to re-litigate the Democratic primaries: Corbyn and Labor gained 29 seats in ...read more
In this issue of Banter M: Why is Matt Taibbi Attempting to Undermine the Russiagate Investigation? - Rolling Stone's legendary journalist Matt Taibbi has straddled a bizarre fence on the Russiagate investigation, taking a deeply cautious, wishy-washy position. It's unclear as ...read more
If you haven't figured it out by now, this is what every single day of the Trump administration is going to be like, however long it lasts. It's going to be a relentless 24/7 gangbang of incompetence, corruption and scandal, with trespasses large and surreal oddities small coming ...read more
As the Russian hacking story continues to unfold and the media goes to war with itself over what we can trust, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction. With the latest revelation that the Russians may potentially have incredibly damaging intel on ...read more
"I'm as worried as anyone else about the possibility of Trump getting elected. But if it happens, it's not going to be because The New York Times allowed a few reporters to investigate the Clinton Foundation. It'll be because we're a nation of idiots, who vote the same way we ...read more
You might recall how, several weeks ago, Michael Moore appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and declared with a predictable blast of controversy that Donald Trump would be elected the next president of the United States. Trump, he said, will ride on the backs of like-minded ...read more
As a big fan of Matt Taibbi's excellent journalism over the years, I was dismayed to read his latest Rolling Stone column on the Brexit debacle in Europe that was, quite frankly, shockingly ignorant. Taibbi's piece, sardonically titled "The Reaction to Brexit is The Reason ...read more
Poor David Brooks -- the New York Times columnist who has spent his career feeding the egos of America's upper classes with moralistic fables of economic darwinism and the need for blacks to adopt their values, is not having a good time. As the leading Republican figures ...read more
If you've followed Matt Taibbi's career for the past decade, you have probably come to wait with bated breath for the latest installment of his epic Tom Friedman takedowns -- and his latest does not disappoint. While Taibbi is a first rate investigative journalist, his uncommon ...read more
Matt Taibbi's latest piece in Rolling Stone attempts to explain why Bernie Sanders would make a great President, and his argument is a good one. Despite the media's relentless attempts to distract voters from real issues, Bernie Sanders is amazingly sticking to his script of ...read more
Poor old Bobby Jindal - the world's least inspiring politician really is doing his best to pull the rug out from Donald Trump's feet to regain the momentum he never had in the Republican primary. Here he was hyping tomorrow's debate: And Matt Taibbi calling him out for ...read more
Jamie Dimon, President and CEO of JPMorgan is now officially a billionaire after JPMorgan shares neared a record high. We know this because the media has decided it is a big story - an American tale of one man who rose to the top and reaped the rewards of his labor. Of course ...read more
If there were a person who could speak for digital news media as a whole, I imagine that person would presently be delivering an epic mea culpa to readers everywhere. The last six months, to put it charitably, have been rough for this industry. And while the websites that ...read more
If you're looking for the second least-surprising news item of the day -- after the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson for killing Mike Brown -- here you go. First Look Media just announced the fate of Racket, Matt Taibbi's not-even-published online magazine that ...read more
A couple of weeks ago, Matt Taibbi departed First Look Media in a torrent of bad blood, leaving Pierre Omidyar's $250-million online journalism start-up to go back to the stability and apparent sanity of Rolling Stone. Just yesterday, Taibbi seemed to breathe a very noticeable ...read more
(Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America) This past Friday, Matt Taibbi appeared on HuffPost Live to talk about his new piece in Rolling Stone. The article, on a JPMorgan Chase whistleblower, was originally supposed to launch Taibbi's online magazine at First Look ...read more
We're creating an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property. - President George W. Bush, October 2004. When the housing bubble burst back in ...read more
(Photo: Robert Johnson/Business Insider) Part of what we do here is write about the media and there's nothing more inside baseball than writing about the media. There are more jokes than I can count that involve journalists breathlessly detailing the comings and goings of other ...read more
Updated Below So Matt Taibbi is officially out at First Look Media. Yesterday, the outlet's founder Pierre Omidyar -- the tech billionaire responsible for eBay -- released a statement confirming what many had begun to surmise given Taibbi's extended "leave of absence" from the ...read more
Yesterday, Bob Cesca went after Matt Taibbi for making the claim that President Obama's record on corporate America has been worse than George Bush's. Generally, I agree with Bob's assertion that this claim is off the mark (Bush presided over a virtually unprecedented era of ...read more
What the hell is Taibbi smoking? In an interview with Democracy Now!, the newly minted First Look Media editor and former Rolling Stone polemicist was asked a preposterous question, and naturally responded with a preposterous answer. The question: "Who was tougher on corporate ...read more
Matt Taibbi is one of the best writers about politics, the media, and finance on planet earth right now. When I say that, I don't mean that everything he writes is particularly revealing or that every one of his pieces can legitimately be called a journalistic triumph, but if ...read more
It's Friday, so kick back, relax and pore over these headlines and internet goodies while you wait to bail and go get to drinking. 1. An "Orwellian Monopoly." That's a good way to put it. The New Republic: The United States of Comcast 2. Matt Taibbi is back with a lengthy piece ...read more
Matt Taibbi explains why he hasn't updated his Rolling Stone blog in over 2 weeks: I want to apologize for this space being blank for quite some time. I actually spent the bulk of the last two days on a long blog post about the "Dr. V." story in Grantland. But then I got all the ...read more
The money men in the Republican party are clearly aware that they have a very, very big problem going into the midterms in 2014 and the general election in 2016. The problem? Their party is made up of 'fools' - apparently something they're now getting serious about. Writes Matt ...read more
As a country, we owe a pretty sizable debt of gratitude to Matt Taibbi for his reporting on Wall Street over the past few years. Still, it's nice to see him return to straightforward politics once in a while, mostly because the insulting farce that is political punditry right ...read more
"First of all, any white guy anywhere, rich or poor, who steps out in public wearing the mantle of 400 years of black suffering instantly shoots to the very top of the world asshole pyramid. Most white people grasp this instinctively. If they don't already teach it in ...read more
It's Friday, so sit back, relax, and read this stuff while pretending to work. Then bail early and go play Grand Theft Auto V. It's what I'm gonna do. 1. The NeverEnding Story If the prospect of another game of ridiculous GOP brinksmanship and subsequent government shutdown ...read more
Tom Friedman, The New York Time's meaningless columnist in chief published one of his best pieces yet last week - a true testament to his ability to regurgitate banal pseudo intellectual garbage week after week. The ludicrously highly paid Friedman churns out articles on the ...read more
David Brook's latest NYT column on gay marriage is, well, rather weird. After reading it a couple of times, it's clear Brooks thinks gay marriage is ok, but his argument is so convoluted and condescending it makes you want to dunk his head down a toilet bowl. Brooks ...read more
It really is a guilty pleasure, but I do love it when clever, funny writers take on not so clever, humorless writers. Intellectual slap downs are like junk food to journalists, and Matt Taibbi has provided years of unhealthy food to people like myself, largely at the expense of ...read more
Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi - his mixture of acerbic wit and penetrating insight is a rarity in journalism these days, and I pretty much agree with his stance on most issues. That's why I was little alarmed to read this from his blog on Rolling ...read more
Matt Taibbi and the Huffington Post's Ahmed Shihab-Eldin had a great discussion about Mitt Romney's naked hypocrisy when it comes to the national debt. Taibbi pointed out that Romney's entire career was built around loading companies up with debt then extracting as much value out ...read more
Watching Mitt Romney lie truly is a sight to behold - he now does it so effortlessly that you have to give him credit. There has been a metamorphosis in front of our eyes over the past year. Romney once appeared like a stiff robot, fumbling lines and committing gaff after gaff ...read more
Matt Taibbi on the vice President's scoffing last night: The Romney/Ryan platform makes sense, and is not laughable, in only one context: if you're a multi-millionaire and you recognize that this is the only way to sell your agenda to mass audiences. But if you're not one of ...read more
Another bad sign for Obama. Pew's latest poll: It really is astonishing that just by looking the part, Romney has propelled himself back into the Presidential election despite lying for the better part of 90 minutes. As Matt Taibbi writes: Romney's performance was better than ...read more
After a week of Romney trying to undo the damage of the "47%" video, these are the latest numbers on his likeliness to win the election if it were held today (from Nate Silver): What conclusion can we draw? Andrew Sullivan deduces the obvious: We have found that Romney in ...read more
By Ben Cohen: If you want to understand the type of country a politician wants to build, it is often a good idea to take a look into the life they built for themselves before stepping onto the national stage. Obviously it's not the only indicator, but someone who has dedicated ...read more
By Chez Pazienza: Several years ago, Rolling Stone politics-and-finances writer and national treasure Matt Taibbi, who at the time was a columnist for the New York Press, put together a list of the men and women he dubbed the biggest hacks in the world of political journalism. ...read more
Matt Taibbi has a good point when it comes to attacking Romney for apparently not paying any taxes (a fact yet to be proved): What they [the Democrats] should be doing instead is hammering Romney on the missing returns, yes, but focusing even more on the returns he did release. ...read more
The title for Taibbi's latest blog post: And if you take the time to read Friedman's New York Times piece 'Syria is Iraq', it's hard to disagree. Just take a look at these two completely contradictory and nonsensical paragraphs: 1. And, for me, the lesson of Iraq is quite ...read more
By Ben Cohen: New York Times columnist and Pulitzer prize winning author Thomas Friedman is one of the highest paid scribes in the world. In 2005, the New York Magazine reported that Friedman was being paid $300,000 per year from the Times and $40,000 per speaking engagement - ...read more
Matt Taibbi spends most of his time these days reporting on the gigantic scandals that occur on a daily basis on Wall St, but old habits die hard and Taibbi couldn't help himself after being nudged by a reader into engaging in his favorite hobby - bashing the New York Time's ...read more
By Ben Cohen: When faced with a serious problem, it is always crucial to understand exactly what you are dealing with in order to change it. The first step is an awareness of the problem itself - if you don't see it, you can't fix it, and the problem remains. And if everyone ...read more
