“Some guys can drink and drive, some guys can’t. I mean, what is drunk?” - Viggo Mortensen

The extended cinematic roadiverse

And from the Kyiv Independent’s reporting, it sounds like they were asking anyone they could on background and getting completely contradictory answers from both the military and political side. But, I don’t believe the US would accept that they were firing him from some unknown in the Ukrainian government and I don’t think WaPo or Reuters would run stories based on nobodies (at least 2) in the US government.

So your theory that it could be a feint to bait Russia makes more sense to me than this being Russian propaganda.

If it’s not, you’d think they’d want to rip the band-aid off quickly to limit confusion though, given how widespread and pernicious Russian propaganda is.

https://archive.is/DqeYw

They have a great reputation though. Their founding story is really cool if you aren’t familiar with them. Founded by journalists who were fired en masse for refusing to give up editorial control to ownership. And he for sure gave that interview. It’s also being reported by Ukrainska Pravda and Euromaidan Press. Both are well-respected and serious about not publishing anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

The stat checks out with the poll they cite - 72% had a negative view of Zaluzhnyi being fired; 90% saw him as the most trusted person in the military (if you search for “72” it’s the only hit).

It is weird though! No direct comment to Ukrainian media but they told the US they were firing him yesterday. Jake Sullivan said earlier today that they supported Zelensky’s right to make personnel decisions. Now an interview on Italian TV. At first, I kinda thought it was being leaked to pressure Zelensky not to fire him or maybe leaked to gauge reaction by Zelenksy. Now I’m just confused :)

Edit: also covered by The Guardian

Does anyone have any idea why this story is breaking in every country in the world but Ukraine? Rai is Italy’s public broadcaster. It’s so bizarre.

This is another wordpress blog pretending to be a news organization. There’s no ownership info. Their contact page is just a generic form. There’s no listed editor and only one author. I can’t find any evidence that “Narinderpal Singh” exists (no socials or articles with other organizations). This site is plagiarized or more likely bot-generated. “Singh” is covering the Everything beat - US politics, celebrity news, sports, the history of world cancer day, tech news, and the death of Namibian presidents - and not citing any sources.

OP’s comment was about Biden trying to undermine and weaken Netanyahu because he hates him.

This is what I replied to:

Is it obvious he hates them? Hasn’t he been vocally very supportive up until basically election season started?

He wasn’t providing vocal weapons, was he? Shipments of military-grade fuck-words, perhaps?

Care about whatever you want but the fact that there’s decades of evidence that they despise each other seems relevant.

Here’s an archive link to that Atlantic piece, which is a really interesting read.

You’re wrong. Biden fucking hates the guy (and his government). Democrats do too. Why would they like him? Netanyahu has tied Israel extremely closely and nearly solely to the Republican party. He basically campaigned for Trump. After Biden criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Netanyahu timed the announcement of new settlements to Biden’s arrival in Israel just to humiliate him. He did the same thing just hours before his inauguration.

They fought publicly last year with Biden saying that Israel “cannot continue down this road” (about judicial overhaul) with an Israeli diplomat saying that "As long as he is Israel’s prime minister, things are likely to deteriorate.” There have been numerous reports that they have barely spoken and that things have been tense when they have. Biden is reported to have ended that conversation with the never-affectionate “this conversation is over.”

They have like 15 years of bad blood between them, personally and politically.

Wasn’t intended as a gendered statement but apologies and edited all the same. Sorry! :)

There’s a little link for you at the bottom, pal

Friends don’t make friends fish in the sewer for truthy nugs.

You didn’t post evidence. If you come across some I’d be happy to but I don’t fact check propaganda. I’m not gonna spend hours of my life fact-checking some garbage written by a guy who writes for two propaganda networks for an authoritarian regime. I already know it’s bullshit.

If you had any media literacy skill you would too.

That is from a source even worse than the first. They are liars and propagandists. That’s the reason no one credible is reporting it. They’re known for publishing propaganda, conspiracies, and fraudulent claims.

Everyone “debunking” this has a reputation for publishing lies. But you don’t seem to draw any conclusions from the fact that every place you find this “proof” turns out to be a toilet. You don’t believe it because they’re credible people making credible claims but because they’re telling you what you want to hear.

If there were credible claims they would be EVERYWHERE. It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist writing for the New York fucking Times. The story would be bigger than the original. Look up the Jayson Blair scandal. Dozens of news organizations were still talking about it more than a decade later.

I’m calling the propaganda outlet I’m not naming a toilet. Are you even reading my posts?

The 40 beheaded babies claim is a long-debunked myth and a claim never made by either the Israeli government or the IDF. It began and spread on social media.

The unsupported claim about dozens of child beheadings gained traction after live news reports from Nicole Zedeck, a correspondent for Israel-based i24NEWS, who was reporting from the scene of an attack near the Israel-Gaza border. In videos the news service posted to X on Oct. 10, Zedeck said Israeli soldiers told her what they witnessed.

In one clip, she said “about 40 babies at least,” who were dead, according to a commander, “were taken out on gurneys.” In another clip, she said babies had “their heads cut off, they said” – but she never mentioned a number.

The claim about “40 babies beheaded” appears to be a combination of those two separate details that Zedeck relayed during the live broadcasts. She did not make that claim herself, as the social media video wrongly asserts.

That Intercept article is hyperbolic and editorializes like crazy. The Daily “going to press” on a single episode with something that could be proven untrue after further investigation is nothing like Caliphate except for it being a podcast. Caliphate was a feature 12-episode documentary series that had serious reporting errors. Comparing those two things is NY Post-level tabloid reporting. It was reasonable for them not to record it but the Times’ follow-up report says that they confirmed their initial reporting and debunked the propaganda article. The only issue left in that article is one witness – and, again, they interviewed 150 people for that investigation – who later said that he couldn’t be sure if it was Hamas or non-Hamas Palestinians who committed sex crimes because civilians crossed over after the military collapsed. He didn’t change his story about what he saw. That doesn’t dramatically change the reporting, let alone “debunk” it.

Go read the original article debunking NYT.

I literally just told you why that article is bullshit in the last post. The family that is the focus of that article disputes the article. They DO NOT renounce the article. They DO NOT believe that they were misled. Miral Alter wrote a post because she was confused and wanted to protect her sister. She quickly took it down, a detail the article omitted when they published it anyway. They didn’t contact her to find out why she had removed it because they didn’t care if they were misrepresenting her. She’s upset that they used her to construct a false narrative about sexual violence. In spite of this, they haven’t issued a correction or retraction. The headline and subheading of that article are both the polar opposite of the truth. But they don’t care. The point was constructing that false narrative, not telling the truth. That’s why they have a terrible reputation. That’s why the article was removed whenever it was posted. It’s garbage.

Them pausing a podcast to investigate claims isn’t them not believing in it. The Times regularly publishes corrections and have issued one about that article regarding a person’s age. And that’s after further investigation. It’s not surprising that they didn’t air it afterward – it’s a daily podcast that discusses the most important news stories of the previous few days. I listen to that podcast and I can’t recall them ever covering something that was months old.

The ‘guys’ who “actually debunked it” – an anonymous author publishing at a propaganda outlet – are a bunch of fucking liars, which is why it was banned to begin with. The Times followed up with that family:

The Times article described the case of Gal Abdush, a mother of two who was killed along with her husband after fleeing the rave, and her family’s anguish over the uncertainty. Based on video of how her body was found, Israeli police officials said they believed she had been raped, and some members of the Abdush family said they feared the same.

“It seems to me, and I really hope I’m wrong,” said Zvika Alter, a brother-in-law, in early December, “that she was raped.”

Since the publication of the Times article, a few family members have denied or cast doubt on that possibility, including another brother-in-law who said he spoke to Ms. Abdush’s husband before he was killed. Critics have also seized on an Instagram comment by Miral Alter, Zvika’s wife and one of Ms. Abdush’s sisters, suggesting that The Times misled the family about the focus of the article.

Ms. Alter, whom The Times had not interviewed before the article was published, deleted the comment shortly after posting it. But critics circulated images of it to assert falsely that the family had renounced the article.

Last week, Ms. Alter told the Times that she was upset her post had been used to question whether Hamas sexually assaulted women and that when she made it, she had been “confused about what happened” and was trying to “protect my sister.”

After this was published, the propaganda outlet corrected “minor typographical errors” but mentioned nothing about the family calling them liars, disputing the thesis and headline of their article. It’s been five days since that story was published. They didn’t mention that she quickly deleted her post to begin with or contact her to ask why. They didn’t mention that she was upset that they had used her comment to help cover up horrific sexual violence. They are exploiting a grieving family to promote a false narrative. Those intrepid, upstanding anonymous reporters at propaganda rags!

That article is an object lesson in why you shouldn’t fish “news” out of the toilet.

Archive

For those coming to this late, know this: there’s a little army of racist ghouls patrolling these threads to promote their agenda - in this case arguing that it’s somehow legit and anti-racist to get the gang together to call out ‘the Jews’. Yet not one of these pathetic cowards are brave enough to step into the light to defend it.

Here’s why: it’s indefensibly racist. They’re painted into a corner and can’t defend it without removing the mask.

When people demand that Muslims declare a loyalty oath against Hamas or Hezbollah or ISIS, or when they hold Muslims (or Palestinians) collectively responsible for their actions, it’s inarguably racist. This isn’t different.

Today they’re encouraging you to target Jews; tomorrow it’ll be BIPOC or Muslims. We should resist racist bullshit as ever. It’s cancer to a liberation movement. These people are tumors to be excised from the movement, not people to be followed or promoted in it. And I say that as someone who’s fought for a Palestinian state since the second intifada.

The Kyiv Independent covered this as well. It’s a much easier read for anyone who’s interested but doesn’t want all the in-depth details of the investigation.

I assume you mean the Times articles (there are 5 links in that post). Edited to add archive links to those two articles.

An investigation isn’t evidence of it.

From the large investigation article:

A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.

Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.

Photos, videos, GPS data, witnesses, and expert testimony are evidence.

If that’s the reason why they were yelling that, it’s racist even if it’s not genocidal. Substitute any other ethnicity or race into that sentence. Demanding that Jews attend a protest or swear a loyalty oath is racist – the same way it would be if a bunch of people were yelling “where’s the Blacks?” or “where’s the Muslims?”