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mattdpearce.com
Matt Pearce
@mattdpearce.com
54K followers 1.1K following 1.7K posts
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. Opinions are my own (but they are correct)

https://mattdpearce.substack.com
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Reposted by Matt Pearce
dinfontay.com
"The responsibility of the California writer is to regard our dear Didion as a sheer rock face to be respected but also avoided. One literary evocation of the Santa Anas is a description of nature; three is a sign of negligence." — @mattdpearce.com
The ecstasies of betrayal
Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza, and the literature of treachery.
mattdpearce.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
offline.mountainherder.xyz
Concerning the Chotiner is opening up new fronts
karenho.bsky.social Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 13h
A new kind of rapid Chotining. Please appreciate the alt-text.
Isaac Chotiner: "You would have to be brain-dead to read this piece and not immediately wonder who is funding Semafor Gulf." Quote post of Ben Smith saying: "Fascinating @msergie piece on covering a monarchy" about a Semafor article on Saudi Arabia's crown prince Smith responds to Chotiner: "That's a hell of an allegation/implication, Isaac. To figure out the literal answer to your question, you'd either have to look and see who the sponsors are in the email (I haven't checked today!) or read our publicly disclosed list of investors. I believe you're trying to imply that it's the Saudi government? Have you read more of our coverage, or just this tweet? My impression — correct me if I'm wrong — is that you're working on zero information and smearing us in general, and an experienced journalist @msergie whose work I suspect you're totally unfamiliar with in particular." Chotiner responds:"I’m not making any allegation. I’m making a simple point about how an average reader—myself included—might respond after reading this ridiculous piece" Ben Smith: "Just asking questions! Come on. You genuinely know better. Or read Mohammed's long career of work covering the Gulf and the Syrian war before you imply he's some kind of stooge." Noah Kulwin: "The point is not about who funds your reporting/if your colleague is a “stooge”. Isaac’s comment is that the reporting is so bad so as to make a reader wonder who is funding it" Smith: A reader, sure. A journalist who can do very basic homework, kind of lame. Chotiner: "You are right, I’ll do some homework now by perusing Jay Solomon Semafor pieces, and reading Jason Greenblatt Semafor columns. In the meantime, I will formally say that I am making no accusation and was just astonished at how inane the piece was" Chotiner quote-posts with "I see Semafor loves running column after column by this guy (https://semafor.com/author/faisal-j-abbas), who also publishes pro-Saudi conspiracies about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi https://arabnews.com/node/1386291" Ben Smith's post says "I hope I'm not overreacting, but it makes me crazy when people I think of as reporters do this "just asking questions" stuff. Feel free to report it out by googling/asking me/reading our various scoops and reports about the region — these two just now" and links to two Semafor articles Chotiner quote posts Ben Smith: "You might have heard that the UAE is helping destroy Sudan, but at the next Semafor event, all is well." Screenshot says "Held at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, Semafor will spotlight insights from the Global Findex 2025 report and the Global Digital Connectivity Tracker, translating global research into actionable, locally relevant conversations. As the third stop on The Next 3 Billion Tour, this edition explores how the Gulf's growing investments in Africa can accelerate digital connectivity and financial inclusion. With Abu Dhabi's focus on sustainable finance, digital transformation, and cross-border collaboration, it offers a strong platform to examine how technology and capital can work together to expand access and opportunity." Ben Smith's post says "Just asking questions! Come on. You genuinely know better. Or read Mohammed's long career of work covering the Gulf and the Syrian war before you imply he's some kind of stooge."
November 25, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
lopatto.bsky.social
ok go off mattdpearce.substack.com/p/the-ecstas...
Nor does publisher Simon & Schuster escape liability. New York Times veteran Ginia Bellafante summarized Nuzzi’s book as “a grafting of her own crisis onto the current national maladies, one attempted in the spirit of Joan Didion, and so close to its apparent source of inspiration that the cruelties of the Santa Ana winds are invoked at least three times.” The responsibility of the California writer is to regard our dear Didion as a sheer rock face to be respected but also avoided. One literary evocation of the Santa Anas is a description of nature; three is a sign of negligence.
November 24, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
jvl.bsky.social
Matt Pearce from the top rope:

"The responsibility of the California writer is to regard our dear Didion as a sheer rock face to be respected but also avoided. One literary evocation of the Santa Anas is a description of nature; three is a sign of negligence."
November 24, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
diedfrombeing.labeledrude.online
im sorry Samizdat Google Doc is an excellent display name
November 24, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
ilprofessore.bsky.social
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social shame theorem strengthens.
November 24, 2025 at 3:32 PM
mattdpearce.com
Nuzzi vs. Lizza vs. the group chat
mattdpearce.substack.com/p/the-ecstas...
We don't dwell much on karma as a literal concept anymore. But in a democracy - in theory - media does have a correctional function. I use that word in the penal sense. When egos get too big, the lies too great, the betrayals too much to bear, media does its Big Brother act and starts applying countervailing pressure to restore things to an equilibrium. It's just that in the old days, media was magazines and newspapers; today, it's all of us who make content. Lizza's disgustingly detailed second chapter, paywalled, marked the first time I saw a lot of people maliciously infringing on an independent substacker's copyright on a mass scale via samizdat Google docs and pdfs to deny the author his expected dollars. The main characters here may be gripped incurably by mania and self-delusion and revenge, but the rest of us don't have to be. Maybe some sort of balance is coming back to bear, via pulverizing recoil.
November 24, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
hayao.lol
RIP Udo Kier, a true original
📽️

his one and only social media post:
Udo Kier film should not be streamed on Netflix. envelop yourself I. the darkness of the movie hall and submit to the artist's vision
November 24, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
dgraham.bsky.social
This is the funniest planned economy ever
semafor.com Semafor @semafor.com · 1d
A person directly familiar with the conversations tells Semafor that Donald Trump has personally pressed Larry Ellison to revive Brett Ratner's "Rush Hour" franchise.
www.semafor.com/article/11/2...
Exclusive: How Trump is trying to remake American culture — starting with his favorite buddy-cop franchise
The president is offering some creative input on potential upcoming projects.
www.semafor.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
jowolff.bsky.social
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
November 23, 2025 at 8:29 PM
mattdpearce.com
Still, we are confronted by one unavoidable reality here: Sagas of hubris and treachery are universal literary genres, approachable by any reader. If you can hack through the regrettable prose and the intrusive metaphors about bamboo, we are presented with rich texts of the human condition. Who could resist Ryan Lizza publicly declaring that he’s just celebrated one year with somebody else, “the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known, someone whose beauty, inside and out, takes my breath away,” then issuing a tabloid assault seemingly calculated to inflict maximum reputational and emotional damage against his ex? And to then keep piling on? Why does Keith Olbermann keep opening his mouth to remind everyone of his romantic entanglement with a then-teenager? These are characters so deeply addicted to their passions that they cannot stop choosing to destroy themselves. As Jean Genet once wrote, “Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.”
November 23, 2025 at 10:18 PM
mattdpearce.com
I wrote about karmic rebalancing.

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/the-ecstas...
The ecstasies of betrayal
Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza, and the literature of treachery.
mattdpearce.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
if i've learned one thing from doing union stuff while also doing other forms of organizing, it's that you're better off with people you disagree with who are nevertheless trying to do the same thing as you than with people you agree with who aren't trying to do anything
November 13, 2024 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
esghound.com
November 22, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
grenzfurthner.bsky.social
Good old Woz. Good for him.
November 21, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
ddayen.bsky.social
Marjorie Taylor Greene just announced she's leaving Congress
November 22, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
perrybaconjr.bsky.social
"What necessary perspectives do we lose, and what questions go unasked and unanswered, when Black journalists are among the first to be seen as disposable on a masthead?" www.refinery29.com/en-us/black-...
Where Have All The Black Journalists Gone?
In the wake of the Teen Vogue layoffs and the rollback of DEI initiatives in media, we have to ask: what necessary perspectives do we lose, and what questions go unasked and unanswered, when Black jou...
www.refinery29.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:03 PM
mattdpearce.com
Now there’s a curiously phrased nondenial.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/s...
In response to the allegations in Mr. Lizza's post, Ms. Nuzzi's lawyer, Ari Wilkenfeld, said in a statement, "In 'American Canto, Ms. Nuzzi discusses the only instance in her long career as a journalist in which she had an improper relationship with someone she was covering."
November 22, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
snowden.st
Imagine keeping a banger like this in your diary and failing to share it with the world. A different age, really.
In a journal entry made in 1844, Kierkegaard wrote: If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface or some other place, that it was merely an experiment in thought in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would certainly have been the greatest thinker who had ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.
May 2, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
phdgoblin.bsky.social
The last year has convinced me this applies to poasters as well
lastpositivist.bsky.social lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · Nov 10
I really think at its heart philosophy is one giant battle, taking place over many eras and nations, between people who are basically pleasant bureaucrats and people who are sexy murder poets, and it’s both super important and super boring that the pleasant bureaucrats must win.
November 21, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
adamrose.bsky.social
It's dizzying (in good way!) how many small and independent newsrooms are in Los Angeles. More spinning up as described in article.

Not sugar coating news economics here. Still, these upstarts are SO valuable to civic life and community!

Important we support them ALL when it comes to press rights.
“More of everything”: In Los Angeles, an “explosion” of new efforts aim to up the city’s local news game
A well-funded coalition building out neighborhood news, a new newsletter from an expanding for-profit site, and a nonprofit breaking through on social media are just a few examples of the latest bids ...
www.niemanlab.org
November 19, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
NEW: ICE has finally released post-shutdown detention data. The latest data reveals that a full 40%(!) of people arrested in the interior and held in ICE detention have no criminal record; no criminal charges or prior convictions. That is up from just 4% when Trump took office.
Chart showing detention population, among those arrested in the interior, by criminal record, May 2019 through present. There are three lines shown. (1) Prior conviction (which rises from around 9,000 in January 2025 to just over 16,000 in November 2025), (2) Pending criminal charges (which rises from around 5,000 to 15,000), and (3) No criminal record (which rises from around 1,000 to 21,000).
November 21, 2025 at 4:01 PM
mattdpearce.com
Unfortunately that’s usually what I do when I go on podcasts.
mikerugnetta.com Mike Rugnetta @mikerugnetta.com · 4d
Has JD Vance done anything as VP besides go on podcasts and complain?
November 21, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Matt Pearce
donmoyn.bsky.social
America 2025.
The intern was reportedly shaken, so McBurney offered to drive him home. ICE agents then surrounded the judge's car and demanded everyone to exit the vehicle, threatening to smash in the windows if they did not comply. Dana Smith, Head of Security Operations for R.l. Superior Court, confronted the agents and told both the judge and the intern to stay inside the car. After an argument, ICE confirmed they had misidentified the teen and left. The intern was released once his ID was checked.
November 21, 2025 at 1:44 PM
mattdpearce.com
lol

www.wsj.com/business/med...
According to executives familiar with the plans, foreign correspondent Chris Livesay was among the staffers who were going to be let go as part of companywide layoffs in the works before Weiss's arrival. In an email to Weiss, he spoke of affinity for Israel and suggested he was being "bullied" and isolated for his views, according to a person familiar with the matter. Weiss weighed in on the layoffs and spared Livesay, people familiar with the move said. Other CBS News correspondents say that Livesay wasn't bullied for having pro-Israel views.
November 20, 2025 at 11:17 PM