Nausicaa Renner 🍷🌑🌊

co-founder, editor @DropSiteNews. contributing @parapraxis_mag . married @JonahFurman. email nausicaa at dropsitenews dot com.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[Nausicaa Renner 🍷🌑🌊 @nausjcaa]

Journalism is the first draft of history (maybe). Canon is like, the twelfth draft. Or more accurately the telephone game of history. The hubris…

[Max Tani @maxwelltani]

NYT book review editor Gilbert Cruz is stepping down, per a note to staff. He'll become "Canon editor," where he will build a team dedicated to "expanding our embrace of those moments when we invite experts and readers alike to help us declare the definitive works in a given discipline."

[moe tkacik @moetkacik]

wrote about the time the New York Times killed a story about a girl impregnated by the Meir Kahane, the terrorist idol & spiritual leader of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir & modern Israel

[Nausicaa Renner 🍷🌑🌊 @nausjcaa]

truism

[Sky News @SkyNews]

"The fact the British government takes that position and then continues to lend support to an open genocide being waged by an indicted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu tells you everything you need to know about this."

＠DropSiteNews co-founder ＠jeremyscahill on the Home Office decision to bar Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker from entering the UK.

🌍 https://t.co/rB90NphURH

[Sky News @SkyNews]

"Trump is fabricating a victory narrative because he waged a war based on lies and was fought to a standstill by a country that said openly, 'we're going to light up the Middle East."

@DropSiteNews co-founder Jeremy Scahill tells @SkyYaldaHakim it is President Trump who has been "erratic" and unclear with his messaging throughout the Iran War.

🔗 https://t.co/yLMtzwVONe

[Manu Raju @mkraju]

215-208, the House for the first time passes a bill to rein in President Trump’s war powers on Iran.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Trump on Iran:

In that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you are shooting in a more moderate manner.

[Equator @Equatormag]

In an unpublished essay from 1949 – translated into English for the first time by @MortenHoiJensen and introduced by Pankaj Mishra – Thomas Mann reflects on America’s ‘terrifying moral decline’

[Just Foreign Policy @justfp]

"Members of Congress must stop making excuses and act" to stop war in Lebanon

"Every day that we do not act to stop the assault on Lebanon, we enable another genocide. The War Powers Resolution is targeted to end Netanyahu and Trump's war crimes."
-@RepDeliaRamirez

[Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha]

This morning in Palestine, Israel took four Palestinian female students hostage during a raid on the town of Birzeit in Ramallah.
The four female are students at the renowned Birzeit University. Three of them were kidnapped from their homes

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

SXSW and any other conference that has to deal with the UK’s censorship regime to bring in speakers should go to Dublin or Madrid or Lisbon or anywhere but London

[José Luis Granados Ceja @GranadosCeja]

This new story from EFE confirms @DropSiteNews's earlier reporting that the US oil blockade makes their offer of aid totally moot, as it cannot be delivered.

"The UN has nearly 20K tons of food in Cuba that it cannot distribute ... due to fuel shortages."
https://t.co/WIFsR4mK2J

[Deconstructed Cachapa @AntiClimaco]

Was committed to being quiet and guarded but was once again bested by my own jollity and love for my fellow human🙄🙄

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

💢 ICU Patients Die After Israeli Strike Knocks Out Hospital Systems in Tyre

Some of the intensive care patients at Jabal Amel Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre died after an Israeli strike near it knocked out the facility’s power, oxygen, and life-support systems, Press TV journalist Hadi Hoteit reported.

➤ The casualty toll from Monday’s attack rose to 13 killed according to local media. At least four were killed and 127 wounded at the hospital, including 39 members of the hospital’s medical, nursing, and administrative staff, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).

➤ The strike destroyed a residential building opposite the hospital, causing extensive damage to one of the last hospitals in southern Lebanon still providing intensive care, surgery, and pediatric services.

➤ Channel 4 reported that a large apartment block directly across from the hospital was reduced to rubble in the attack.

@HadiHtt

[David Weigel @daveweigel]

New look from me at how the AIPAC wars are affecting downballot Dem primaries.

In polling shared w me, 314 Action found its candidate in #PA03 tanking once @DropSiteNews reported on how 314 previously took "toxic" AIPAC $. https://t.co/Nyk7BvFRqc

[Cenk Uygur @cenkuygur]

I’ve been banned from the UK. I tried to get on a flight to London to attend SXSW London and give a speech at Oxford. I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore? This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!

[Nausicaa Renner 🍷🌑🌊 @nausjcaa]

@ryangrim I do get a lot of DC calls I don’t pick up……

[Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا @SMohyeddin]

Bill C18 must be reversed. It has backfired. It is dangerous and is leaving a massive vacuum filled by misinformation and disinformation. I shouldn’t have to use a VPN to access news on social media in Canada. @DropSiteNews 👇

[Nausicaa Renner 🍷🌑🌊 @nausjcaa]

3,324 killed since March 2 in Lebanon.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🚨 55 killed, 187 injured in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced today 3,324 killed and 10,027 injured across the country since March 2nd.

Over 25 people killed in Israeli attacks across Lebanon on Thursday, L’Orient Today reported.

Reuters reports 20% of Lebanon is now under forced evacuation orders.