Frank Zollo 🌹

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Hi @NYTimesPR, thanks for responding. Appreciate it. I'm a subscriber and I think some of your reporters do some great reporting.
Just to respond to your response to my post:
1) There were no facts "misstated" by me. You cited three examples in response. Only one of them was about specific *named* GOP House members (and it wasn't from "yesterday", it was from a year ago.) So I stand by my post.
2) As others have pointed out already, none of the 3 articles you cited have the names of any GOP individuals in the titles ("Right-Wing Republicans" "a Kansas Republican" "G.O.P. Fingerprints"), in comparison to your original "Who is Darializa" takedown piece. Where is your "Who is Brandon Gill" or "Who is Keith Self" or "Who Is Randy Fine" or "Who Is Mary Miller" critical profile pieces? How about "Who is Tom Emmer," given the GOP House Majority Whip just a few days ago spewed racist crap about Somalis? And where are the Peter Baker tweets summarizing *their* most controversial claims?
3) This isn't a new criticism. Many have made it against your paper for many years; that you go harder on the left than the right, that you even occasionally whitewash the far right. Remember when you had to do a public response in 2017 to a NYT profile that went super soft on a... Nazi? https://t.co/IF6DhTwcrp. Remember when you guys did a softball piece about a far-right, Islamophobic Trump aide's love for cooking? https://t.co/dp0Sf9PQg9.
Oh, and dare I ask: where are the fawning 'Trump voters' in diners' equivalent pieces for DSA members in NYC bodegas? Isn't it time?
4) Finally, that your response to my post was to proudly say you guys at the Times have "been documenting the increasingly extreme viewpoints on both sides of the political spectrum" kinda makes my point for me. One side's extreme wants universal healthcare and an end to genocide. The other side's extreme says Somalis are "garbage" and wants "remigration", mass deportations and white supremacy.
But, hey, "Both sides!"

[matthew remski @matthewremski]

So I finally watched some Heather Cox Richardson because she was talking about the crucial distinctions between capitalism, communism, and fascism, and the place of liberal democracy in relation to them all. Pretty silly stuff.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Hasan Piker: “Israel is the actual terrorist. Hezbollah would not exist if Israel had not invaded and occupied Lebanon. Right now it is the only force in Lebanon that is actually fighting back against the alien invaders that are illegally blowing up villages. I don’t care about your fucking feelings. I care about the truth. The truth is Hezbollah in Lebanon right now is not only fighting a just war, they’re fighting a moral one. Israel’s actions in Lebanon are war crimes. Facts don’t care about your fucking feelings”

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

@RyanRuocco I won't tell you my age, but I had to google "I don't know about you but I'm feeling 22". Probably went over the heads of a lot of people my age. Well done.

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

Realize that the US military hasn't actually fought to defend freedom since 1945. More accurately "They died enforcing the global capitalist order which facilitates a moderate level of stability between trading states" which doesn't really have the same ring to it.

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

Today marks Nakba Day, an annual day of remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed.

Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us — one of home, tradition and memory over generations.

[Giorgia Meloni @GiorgiaMeloni]

Le immagini del ministro israeliano Ben Gvir sono inaccettabili. È inammissibile che questi manifestanti, fra cui molti cittadini italiani, vengano sottoposti a questo trattamento lesivo della dignità della persona.
Il Governo italiano sta immediatamente compiendo, ai più alti livelli istituzionali, tutti i passi necessari per ottenere la liberazione immediata dei cittadini italiani coinvolti.
L’Italia pretende inoltre le scuse per il trattamento riservato a questi manifestanti e per il totale disprezzo dimostrato nei confronti delle esplicite richieste del Governo italiano.
Per questi motivi, il Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale convocherà immediatamente l’ambasciatore israeliano per chiedere chiarimenti formali su quanto accaduto.

[حيدر | Haydar @chronicalihere]

That time he blew up a packed Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 people and wounding dozens of other civilians. Or how about one of the other 600 drone strikes he conducted?

He not only droned hospitals, but weddings and even the funerals for those killed in the weddings. He normalized the use of *double-tap* strikes where they would target civilians in one strike and then immediately strike the first responders who came to aid them— which has been frequent in Israeli and American warfare since.

The cognitive dissonance is scary.
Stop celebrating this man. He's a war criminal. You rightfully criticize Trump; but Obama built so much of the capabilities and apparatuses that Trump abuses today to commit his own crimes and atrocities. From caging children to stripping civil liberties.

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

"Again and again and again thrice over, I am not saying that those issues do not matter. I’m just saying that ending the mass murder should feel like a more urgent concern. I don’t think this should be controversial."

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Ending Western Warmongering Should Be Our Number One Priority

All these wars and genocidal atrocities are an invitation to reclaim a sacred part of ourselves by treating them with the urgency they deserve. There’s no way to live an authentic life and move into a truth-based relationship with reality without doing so.

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

Human rights activist Greta Thunberg said they do not yet know the fate of the activists arrested by Israeli forces after it intercepted Global Sumud Flotilla ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza overnight.

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

Israeli Soldier Says an IDF Commander Spat on the Bodies of Three Children He Killed in Gaza https://t.co/Lbc9rfzJA9

[Ramzy Baroud @RamzyBaroud]

For many Western activists, this qualification functions as a form of protection. It allows them to maintain a sense of moral authority within their own societies without risking their professional or social standing. By condemning violence while simultaneously distancing themselves from the victims, they occupy a safe middle ground—one that appears principled but ultimately changes nothing.

https://t.co/ST4q5oCcxR

[It's politics @uspolitics1111]

Chuck Schumer : "Of course we say it's our land, the Torah says it. But [the Palestinians] don't believe in the Torah. So, that's the reason there is not peace."

The fact that this monstrous genocidal maniac is the minority leader in the senate is a disgrace and an embarrassment

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

"A mature understanding of our world begins with a curiosity about why the violence is happening. Violence is not always justified, but there is always a reason why it happens."

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

One common feature in western empire propaganda is that we are always given reasons for the empire's violence, while the violence of those who resist the empire gets framed as happening for no reason at all.

We've all been fed reasons for the US-Israeli war on Iran, and we all know what those reasons are. Even less-informed members of the western public have heard something about the Iranians being a nuclear threat, having a tyrannical government, and maybe something about sponsoring terrorist groups.

But the so-called "peaceful protesters" who were killed in an uprising fomented and facilitated by the United States? They were killed for no reason, simply because the Iranian government is evil and hates dissent. All the Iranian police officers who died in the uprising perished for no reason, perhaps of natural causes. It is only by pure coincidence that this happened at the exact same time the US empire was making the decision to try to topple the Iranian government.

We've all been given the official reasons why Israel has spent years blanketing the Gaza Strip with military explosives: Israel was attacked by Hamas on October 7 2023, so it needs to get rid of Hamas for its own security.

But why did the Hamas attack happen? It happened for no reason. If you look to the propagandists in the western press for answers, October 7 happened solely because Hamas are evil and wanted to kill Jews because of their religion. Absolutely no mention of Israel's savage treatment of Palestinians for generations, or the dreadful living conditions imposed upon the giant concentration camp that Gaza had become.

We've been told why the western empire is pouring weapons into Ukraine: Ukraine was invaded by Russia. The empire wants to protect the freedom and democracy of the Ukrainian people, and to deter future expansionism by Vladimir Putin.

Why did Russia invade Ukraine? No reason. Putin's just evil and hates freedom, that's all. Sure, countless western experts and analysts had been warning for years that NATO aggressions were going to lead to a war on Russia's border, but they were just rambling lunatics whose forecasts of war were proven correct by pure coincidence.

Our entire understanding of history is framed in this way. Fidel Castro killed people in Cuba. Why did he kill them? No reason; he was just a mean jerk. All the violence of the socialist revolutionaries around the world overthrowing the abusive governments which preceded them is framed as causeless genocidal carnage inflicted by murderous tyrants who simply loved killing people. The desperation caused by the capitalist exploitation that had been imposed upon those populations is completely redacted from our history books.

A mature understanding of our world begins with a curiosity about why the violence is happening. Violence is not always justified, but there is always a reason why it happens. Western pundits, politicians and newscasters will very seldom tell you what those reasons are unless it advances the interests of the western empire, so if you want to have a truth-based understanding of what's really going on in our world, you need to actively seek out the answers for yourself.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

This @BarackObama tweet will be taught in genocide studies courses as a case study of what dehumanization looks like.

[Peter Daou @peterdaou]

These f*cking Democrats are worse than Republicans.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Lmao they’re like “You guys it’s some crazy new kind of ceasefire where BOTH sides cease firing!”

[Frank Zollo 🌹 @FrankZollo]

This

[Seth Harp @sethharpesq]

Libs may look down on Hegseth and Trump openly exulting in terrorism and mass murder, but they were complicit in the exact same violence when it was presented to them as humanitarian intervention in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Only the most superficial optics have changed.

[Nate Bear @NateB_Panic]

"We would be able to totally obliterate them." Word for word Trump. Yet millions of liberals genuinely think this woman was somehow the only thing standing between 'democracy' and barbarity

[B L A K E L E Y™℠©® LLC @_iamblakeley]

We’re not doing this. We’re not going to allow them to rewrite history of the president who propped up, defended and oversaw Israel committing genocide of the Palestinian ppl for over a year and half.

Absolutely the fuck not. Fuck this genocidal war criminal.