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Sorry, had to delete the Moynihan video; unauthorized bootleg, turns out!

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Will the video eventually be released in an authorized way? Or will there be a way to pay to view it?

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I got to watch it before it was taken down- and sweet baby Jesus that made for infuriating watching. Of course the grown ups prevailed.

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GODDAMNIT! 😩😩😩

Is it going to at some point be available for general consumption? Because I’ve been looking forward to getting high as hell and watching that fucking train wreck since the second I knew it was happening.

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There is not enough weed. Or heroin for that matter.

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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

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I needed an incredible amount of liquor to get through the debate. I

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I had to drive somewhere after - so it was just a mushroom microdose and coffee. That was no where near enough.

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I assume the shrooms made the debate worse

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The goal is always to up, focus, and balance. The fact that I lost the plot of pretty much everything she and Ryan Gosling said is testement to their failure.

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What does he say in the Twitter vid?

“Why is this so fucking difficult? [Sitting over here?] Why [Ezra and I speak?] Let us talk! Fucking [god?]”???

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It's so good. There was an aside to Eli at one point where I imagine he was all like "I'm just gonna let them make fools of themselves - this is insane."

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Can we find the video somewhere else I only got to watch 20 min. or so?

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Unfortunate. Had I known the event was going on I would have gone, most likely.

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May 4·edited May 5Liked by Matt Welch

I'm going TMI so look away if intimate details scare you (they scare the f**k out me).

My 1st cousin was 17 years old, partying with all his pals, before they went off to the army on June 1, 2001 at dolphinarium discotheque. He was not physically injured. His best friend lost both his legs.

He was 17. In 2003 my cousin told me "you people in the West will never understand this, never". At that point he and his friends had been in the IDF for just over 26 months.

Every single person in his unit (still alive) all showed up to their units by the evening of October 7, 2023. Exact same story for his 2 brothers (the 2 other Israeli 1st cousins).

I was thankful when Michael brought up the education of Palestinians and Arabs in the debate. It has not received enough attention. What do you do when kids on one side of the fence are taught to hate jews? What do you do when the highest honor for a mother in Gaza is for her sons to kill jews, become martyr's. Right across the fence the highest honor for a Jewish mother is for her sons & daughters to become a doctor and save people?

This is a minor detail but tells one a great deal about the "two state solution" & perpetual superficial "do-gooders" (almost Munchausen's by proxy types). In 2005, as Israel was preparing to leave Gaza, they donated a bunch of highly advanced greenhouses, ag infrastructure & equipment to Gaza. After the Israeli's departed one of the first acts of the Gazan police, joined by Gazan looters, was to smash & destroy all the greenhouses and ag equipment.

Palestinians don't want their own state. They want Israeli's state.

Jake Klein flat out lied when he said that the war between Israel and Hamas was unjust because no state had killed civilians at a faster rate than Israel . Jake used 25,0000 civilians killed since October 7, 2023. I agree with MM here on exact figures. We won't know for a long time.

However, my issue is a small civil war that nobody pays attention to is happening in Ethiopia, Tigray province and Eritrea. From 2021-2023 approximately 600,000 civilians (mostly woman and children) were killed or died from starvation and 300,000 died on the battlefield.

If we are judging whether war is just or unjust based on civilian deaths, Tigray with 7.5x more civilian deaths to date (adjusted for time of conflict) wins over Kleins ridiculous use of metrics to judge just vs. unjust wars. Unfortunately no jews can be blamed and nobody in BJG or Klein's line of activism care about black babies dying of starvation.

Samantha Powers at USAID and the WFP tried using food as a weapon of war and cut off all aid to Tigray from June of 2023 to December of 2023 (when it started trickling back in). Did you read anything about how many women and children were dying because USAID was cut off for almost 6 months in this region?

I will finish by saying thank you to Michael Moynihan (still blaming you if Boston doesn't beat Toronto tonight). For a goy, you sure do some great work on behalf of my people. My bubbe would have squeezed your face and in a thick polish accent said "Shayne punim".

To Eli Lake, great suit and get back to the pod already!!!

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Strange how a statement in one context can be so uncontroversial, but in another context be considered the most horrible of slurs. Saying the Nazis hated the Jews, or Evangelical Christians hate gays won't get an eye bat, but saying Arabs or Muslims hate the Jews is a bigoted calumny despite 1500 years of historical evidence for it.

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Many left wing historians be like "Muslims loved the Jews!"

While Jews fared better under Muslim than Christian rule, historically, I don't think it is fair to say their lives were great.

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Nice post. Getting to the root of the tree instead of the branch as MM pointed out. Religious fundamentalists and their piety will perpetuate ongoing endless call to destruction for themselves and their so called “own” people. If you are taught to hate American-led globalization then any revolt against it becomes better than none at all. Supporting Hamas can be construed by our American squishy progressives as perhaps a way to fight global warming in this regard as well as racism. And useful idiots like the little Columbia pricks or BJG can’t identify actual fascism any longer even when it’s staring them in the face. Our American left elite believe there must be something of value in any movement that hates Zionism and globalization. They can’t see the offense they are against simple grade school level morality and common sense that there is no difference between our western democracy and those who desire to murder at random for their “faith.”

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I am yet again asking Moynihan to buy a second pair of shoes.

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Begging.

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By the way, i may be biased but Moynihan looks 1000x better with his vintage (old and smelly) Stan Smiths than BJG with her fake Chanel shoes and horrible $550 Citizen of Humanity Horse-Shoe Wide Leg jeans.

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I have actually never seen her before. Why is she a thing?

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Bernie Sanders press secretary turned podcaster/Rising contributor/my fantasy girlfriend (I’ve never agreed with her ridiculous commie politics but I figured I could fix her) turned Rising host/Robby Soave tormentor/apparent crazy person.

Here she is being interviewed by Moynihan for Vice News, years ago:

https://youtu.be/IqeZy1iotTE?feature=shared

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She is infuriatingly adorable.

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I bet she was a sweet kid who was annoying yet had leadership qualities; her behavior at that debate showed anything but.

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She was always adorable but infuriatingly unattainable. The bloom is off the rose now.

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She is one of the few people on her side who actually believes in what she says on this issue and also has the tactical ability and rhetorical skill to not regularly beclown herself in doing so.

She wins by not losing her cool and getting her opponents to lose theirs first. Dangerous and effective but not necessarily proof that her side is correct.

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Fantasy GF? No judgement but seriously you're looking for a S&M relationship. She's is always bottoming from the top, which means she still wants you to be responsible for her behavior, so if you don't get a happy ending, its your fault not hers.

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I promise, she used to be much more reasonable. At least, she appeared to be. But I wouldn’t rule out S&M.

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At least he wore socks and they matched.

Probably borrowed from Eli, but he wore them.

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I'm down with his gramps look. The highwaters, tight-around-the-tummy shirt, and even the shoes. It's cute.

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Shots fired

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BJG's comment:

"Rarely have I been confronted with such open bigotry in my own life".

Is one of the more fascinating encapsulations of the emptiness of political language. Isn't a main part of BJG's schtick that she's confronted with open bigotry every moment of her life?

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Her arguments, to the extent she actually argues rather than rants, are cliché and nonsensical, her behavior is childish. I swear, she wasn’t like that during our imaginary time together.

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You need to find another fantasy girl. She is absurd.

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Oh, I moved on in October. If I’m being honest, the three names should have tipped me off sooner. Every lefty with three names is an unserious person.

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Well and she spells grey wrong. But then, gray ruffles my feathers in the same way kitchen sponges left in the water does.

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I'm surprised she didn't start any sentences with "As a Black woman..."

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Maybe Jake Klein could have followed that with " As a Jew..."

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And didn't one of them bring up Eli's family at one point? Yarf. It would be insulting except who would allow themselves to be insulted by middle schoolers?

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I don't remember as the audio was hard to follow at times, but I wouldn't put it past them. Those two assholes did not present themselves as serious thinkers.

I think that the reason BJG took to texting was that she knew that she was outclassed (and exposed and embarrassed) so she checked out.

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A sign of true immaturity. The Eli family moment...I wish it was still posted or if I was smart I would've screencasted the fucking thing for people here. When we can hear it "legally" I'll find it.

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Was it a form of ad hominem argument?

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It’s just another derivative of that bullshit of calling someone a racist, nazi or bigot to end the conversation and put the other person on their heels in an attempt to defend against that accusation

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May 4Liked by Matt Welch

I heard this story about the Coen brothers obtaining the rights to TVZ's version of Dead Flowers. Apparently, the owner of the song rights, Allen Klein (manager of the Rolling Stones), initially wanted $150K to release the rights to the brothers which was outside of their budget. They played him the scene were The Dude is lamenting his disdain for the Eagles to the cabbie (i.e. I fucking hate the Eagles, man). This scene alone convinced Klein to give the Coen brothers the rights to use the song for free in the movie and added another layer of legendary dudeness to the film.

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BJG just demonstrated why her podcast is called Bad Faith. She is the worst.

The other thing of note is that while MM and Eli both have a great sense of humor, their opponents are absolutely humorless, like any totalitarian functionary.

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Not so much as a grin from BJG after Moynihan’s “not Robby Soave” remark. She takes herself way too seriously.

She also pulled one of the same rhetorical stunts, intentional or not, that she does on Rising, in which she interrupts and filibusters, then acts petulant when called out on it.

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I’m kind of sad about how terrible BJG is at understanding countervailing viewpoints. She genuinely thinks Moynihan believes Arabs are too violent to live with?

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MM to BJG, telling her not to interrupt him: “I’m not Robby Soave, sorry.” Hallelujah!

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May 4·edited May 4Liked by Matt Welch

That response made my morning. I spit coffee across the room laughing.

Moynihan and Tim Dillion are the 2 guys I always want on my debate team.

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May 4·edited May 5Liked by Matt Welch

Don't feel sad for BJG. She is a highly educated, self-aggrandizing narcissist who is not worthy of this debate.

Debate requires real intelligence, humor and the ability to think outside her preconceived spreadsheet. She is one of those highly educated, incredibly stupid women who will always blame someone else for her own failures.

Personally i think we can kill 4 stones with one new show:

Norm's Angels.

Finkelstein plays Charlie. BJG, Crystal Ball and chubby Katie Halper are the Angels.

Norm goes around borrowing phones to call the Angels because his neighbors music is too loud. We get rid of 4 deceitful, pitiful commentators and maybe some opportunities for Moyn to do a Norm's Angels accent.

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She went to Harvard Undergrad and Harvard Law. She literally has one of the best possible educations possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briahna_Joy_Gray

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Credentials generally make educated more gullible.

Merely because one has degree's does not make one smart, in this case i would suggest it made one much more arrogant than justified by her actual intelligence.

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No she did not! I cannot believe that.

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With everything we’ve learned about Harvard over the last several months, it’s entirely believable.

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Like the point of these debates is knowing that the most odious conclusions of your syllogisms clearly aren’t true (men like Moynihan do not believe Arabs are inherently violent) so where must your logic break down on the way to that conclusion? An intelligent person is curious to figure this out, and not judgmental about people they don’t know. What a very sad state of affairs that such incurious people occupy such stature in our society.

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There is a distinct lack of Moynihan in this debate. But like a magical negro, when he speaks he drops truth.

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Yeah Moyn took the opportunity to not haggle with those dimwits. He saw the futility.

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I think she was going after Eli Lake with that comment. Lotta back & forth between the two of them.

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Holeeee shit. BJG is an unserious person. Why she has so much fucking clout is beyond me.

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And I wish the good guys had had the chance to ask BJG why she was so skeptical about the rapes and dead babies.

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I was legitimately speechless when she tried to say that Hamas doesn’t literally mean they want to wipe out all Jewish people, they just don’t want a Jewish state.

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I’m curious what happened to her originally scheduled debate partner, Nathan J. Robinson. Did he get held up at the haberdashery?

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His lazy drawl was quite irritating.

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I wasn’t familiar with Jake Stein but I haven’t seen someone bring so many notes yet say so little that was compelling since Malcom Gladwell in the Munk Debate on mainstream media.

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Excuse me, Jake Klein.

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Come to think of it, they both gave off the same ineffectual deeply unsexy vibe.

Meanwhile Moynihan is over there, gettin sexy all over it.

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When you don't really care about understanding someone else's point of view or opinions is why BJG just lectures. She and others like her aren't there to listen and understand let alone debate, they are simply from their perspective waiting to speak so they can reveal truth that just happens to coincide with their belief and perspective.

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May 4Liked by Matt Welch

Thanks for these videos Matt! 😘

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This is andrew wimsatt erasure!

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My little sister went to the debate yesterday. She said that Moynihan ate.

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He really did.

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BJG refusing to answer any actual questions is incredibly frustrating.

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But not surprising.

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She tried SO HARD to avoid doing math.

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Since Matt has name checked Zaid a few times and he immediately retweeted BJG calling everyone that disagreed with her racist, I'd actually love to see him on the show. I feel like he's on the popehat express but maybe there is still some nuance there.

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Zaid was on #181 (4/20/2020) and #334 (10/28/2021) of the pod if you want to hear the boys talk to him.

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By Zaid retweeting that tweet by BJG, can we then infer that he AGREES with that characterization of MM? If so, that’s absurd and incredibly disappointing. Zaid knows Michael enough, I would think, to know he does not believe that about Arabs…I mean he’s been on the pod several times, and they’ve known one another for quite awhile. Michael mentioned several episodes ago that Zaid seems to have unfollowed him on Twitter lol.

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That's kind of why I would like him on (again). I know he's always had a bit of a blind spot with Israel, but he's approaching insanity lately.

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Excellent job by Moynihan and Eli on the debate. Glad MM brought the root cause. It deserves a Hitchens quote - “Only in Islam has there been no reformation, and to this day any vernacular version of the Koran must still be printed with an Arabic parallel text. This ought to arouse suspicion even in the slowest mind.”

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Though the audio to the debate was a bit of a pain to listen to...it was only a fraction of the pain Michael must have endured taking part in the debate. Thank you for service, debate-me-bro brother-in-arms *salute*.

It felt much like a brotherly hazing, which absolved me of all previous sin, to flog my ears with bad faith takes from Brianna Gray while Jake Klein pushed for a mysterious ratio (ratios being built of numbers) of solider:civilian causalities without said numbers. One of my favorite moments included Brianna rambling on as the audience booed her. Talk about reading the room!

Michael always brought the debate back to reality with statements like "I thought if I waited for my turn I'd get to talk!" and "Brianna, I'm talking...I'm not your cohost on The Rising" (forgive my paraphrasing).

In the end, Brianna and Jake did exceed all expectations as their solutions included a one state solution (that state being not Israel) and The Right To Return as the Israel's correct response to October 7th. With these fatal strokes they had put logic to bed and whispered in NPR's ear that they too shared The North Star initiative (damn the results!).

I'm grateful to Michael (our debate lord in shining armor) and Eli Lake as well as the majority of the audience for fighting against this madness. Well done!

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See y'all at the reason round table!

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Lucky babe!

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May 4Liked by Matt Welch

Thank you for making Dead Flowers the walkoff music.

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