Law of average
Lick the boot; taste the shekels
When he was more interesting, journalist Matt Taibbi wrote of the “church of averageness” that decrees the drab monotones that are US political media.1
In a nutshell, anybody truly stimulating, let alone radical, is filtered out so that mass media ‘personalities’ are always the dullest possible.
And he should know: Taibbi is, or at least has been, all but a regular on Bill Maher's Real Time, US TV's hellish apotheosis of starry Dem v GOP milquetoast mundanity – but with snark!
Lately genocide-denying2 junkie3 Maher has, to no one’s surprise, been going hard on the stupid kids – you know, the ones who've been throwing campus hissy fits because of some mass murder,4 mass starvation5 whateverness.
Maher’s denials of apartheid,6 ethnic cleansing,7 and genocide8 – and his angry indignation at whoever opposes those things – may not come so much from his acute cannabis addiction as from his extreme, well-documented hatred of Arab-Muslims.9
None of which has ever come close to getting Maher even reprimanded (forget sacked).
Because Maher learned his lesson in 200110 when he negatively compared the courage factor of US remote-control warfare to the suicide attacks of Muslim militants.
When that show was promptly canceled, and Real Time commissioned some months later, a much different tone was taken – and has, profitably, ever since.
So it was unsurprising, last year, to find seated opposite Maher the UK’s latest edgelord of the Overton window,11 Konstantin Kisin – henceforth KKK because his middle name is ‘cringe’ with a K.
KKK got an earnest round of applause – seriously – from Maher’s audience for the following ridiculous statement:
“I think the truth is both, er, sides of the media spectrum… they’re not doing good journalism ‘cause good journalism is boring.”12 (my emphasis)
No prizes for guessing who’s never read any “good journalism” in his goddamned life.
Though KKK ingeniously describes himself as “Politically Non-Binary,”13 his geopolitics, at least, can be anticipated with Swiss-clock accuracy:
If it’s Western foreign policy, so too shall you find it, uncannily, to be KKK’s ‘opinion.’
KKK really broke out from his YouTube doldrums, and onto flagship BBC shows with regularity, when he could capitalize on his Russian ethnicity once the 2022 Ukraine crisis kicked off.
Indeed, in 2023’s appearance with Maher, he did a bit that’s remarkable, in retrospect, for how resolutely his tune changed later.
His voice cracked and shook, eyes watering – stirring, Oscar-worthy stuff – as he retold of his Ukrainian friend’s resolve: “this is our country, we’re not leaving.”14
Six months later – with genociding the fuck out of Gaza the new solemn-sworn duty of Western power – KKK’s voice cracked once again, or would have if he’d been on TV, with a heart-rending plea for… surrender: It's Time to End the War in Ukraine.15
KKK claims he never changed his mind; that he’d always predicted negotiations with Russia, etc.16
But the cheap bastard puts his most clickbaity articles behind paywalls and, as we’ll soon examine further, he’s a fraud – so brutally consistent journalist Michael Tracey’s take rings true:
“This failed comedian [KKK has a whole ‘canceled standup’ origin story] spent month after month smugly trolling anyone who criticized the war policy he was using identity politics (‘As a Russian…’) to promote.
“Now he senses the political winds shifting, and abandons his supposed conviction. Not only unfunny, but a coward as well.”17
Ouch.
In any case, it’s now known that Ukraine could have had peace – and far, far less dead – in early 2022 – and on broadly the same lines KKK advocated a whole, gory eighteen months-plus later – but his beloved Western powers scuppered those talks.18
The obvious real reason he heroically threw in the towel – right then, at least – was because ‘the current thing’19 had moved further east – and KKK likes klicks.
And, oh, boy, did 7 Oct 2023 bring not only breathtaking Palestinian resistance of a kind not seen in decades, but also mountains of klick potential for KKK.
Which brings us to last week, and KKK’s big update – in fact, nearly twelve months to the day of Israel launching its latest, exceptionally brutal, ethnic cleansing front – that he's finally “off the fence” about “Israel’s war” (aka ethnic cleansing, etc).
Before we wade into KKK’s depths, however, note how KKK finally came “off the fence” – just in time for 7 Oct 2024 when – twelve months prior, he published an article about Oct 720 on rogue hall monitor Bari Weiss's ghastly, if less miserly, “Free Press” Zionist propaganda page.
He named this seedily tendentious, poorly-sourced21 screed about Western cultural superiority The Day the Delusions Died because it hinges on how, KKK believes, a new phase of human history began (!) on Oct 7.
For KKK, you see, Oct 7 wasn’t about Israel-Palestine, no, it was really all about his pet hate: immigration.
So he took his shot and went straight to the root of the Palestinian plight22 – which confirms KKK’s worst fears about, and provides his best argument for, what could happen when huge numbers of foreigners flood into your country:
Of course he didn’t.
Because everything began on Oct 7 when the Delusions Died, according to this thundering elephant dick, who muses:
“[H]ow many people, after the horrors of October 7, believe that a secure border is anything other than the most basic test of national security?”
Great point!
Indeed, few in the world would love a secure border to call their own than… the endlessly terrorized-from-without,23 with minimal recourse,24 Palestinians,25 brainbox.
Sadly, again, cheapskate KKK has his new show-stopping announcement-cum-post clarifying his bona fides – Why I'm Off the Fence About Israel's War26 – behind an iron paywall, and, less sadly, the writer doesn't know any of his subscribers from which to ask a favor.
But if the pompous video version of it27 is anything to go by, the guy’s become quite the kocktale of self-delusion and self-importance – because genuinely nothing in this hollow shitshow carries ballast.
Early on, he makes an odd presumption: “if we accept that October 7th was a terrorist attack, as I believe most people do” (my emphasis) – wait, what about all the pro-Hamas hordes roaming the streets that you mentioned in your article about (your) delusions?
Or, for instance, former Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who describes the Oct 7 offensive as “not a terrorist attack, but a military raid” wherein: “Nearly a third of the Israeli casualties consisted of military, security, and police officers [and] the number one killer of Israelis on October 7 wasn’t Hamas or other Palestinian factions, but the Israeli military itself.”28 (my emphasis)
Ritter refers to Israel’s invocation of the scrupulously underreported Hannibal Directive29 in response to the Palestinian assault, resulting in anywhere from dozens to hundreds of Israeli dead – along with their militant captors; prevention of capture being paramount in the directive’s ruthless equation.30
KKK doesn’t even get close to a serious analysis of the events of Oct 7, moving onto a truly idiotic section where he labors, hard, the frivolous point that “if Oct 7 was Israel’s 9/11, on a per capita basis only 100 people would have been killed. In other words, Oct 7 was at least twelve times as bad as 9/11” (my emphasis)
This proportion-by-population formula is just one example of KKK’s intellectual pretensions masking an insatiable penchant for crass, tabloid-style sensationalism.
Say you killed, I dunno, the most revered resident of the world’s smallest country, the Vatican (pop. 500), and the fact you assassinated the Pope became secondary to how:
This works out as though you [taps calculator] you… you murdered 30,000,000 Chinese people! How could you?! You monster! Why?!
Pretty damn stupid, right? Well so is KKK.
The fact he studiously ignores that the Oct 7 attack concentrated heavily on military targets31 underlines both a legitimacy he can’t stand to face and his own utter lack of any in this area – which, somehow, gets even worse:
“[Israel’s Lebanon pager massacre32 was] definitionally the most precise targeted and surgical large-scale anti-terrorist operation in human history,” he gushes (emphasis his), before swallowing drool.
It would also, numb-nuts, be “definitionally” a “terrorist” attack if Hezbollah did likewise – randomly murdering and mutilating anyone who happens to be nearby representatives of a popular political group33 – to Israel.
3,000 bystanders maimed, many of them blinded, and at least a dozen non-Hezbollah civilians dead, including two children, not to mention an entire society reduced to living in pronounced terror34 – this, KKK loves.
For ‘how could such cool, literal terror be “terror-ism”?!’ KKK kannot dare ponder.
Failed or not, KKK's background as a comedian (yes, despite the evidence above it’s apparently in his past) may be why he's so in awe of Douglas Murray, a truly gifted comedian who writes of Israeli Defense Force outings in the only way one can or should – with scenarios worthy of Mel Brooks:
“His unit spotted an old lady in a wheelchair alone on a street corner in Gaza. As they approached her they were suddenly fired on by a Hamas terrorist. He had placed himself under her wheelchair in order to fire on the Israeli soldiers.”35
It's not over yet – on KKK's boring podcast thingy,36 Murray made the following analysis of the latest, possibly terminal, Gaza hecatomb:
“Nobody in the region cares about the Palestinians… more than the Israelis.”
When not denying its very existence, Murray – in a pattern closely followed by KKK – applauds every Israeli (and co) act of violence, without limits, against state-designated “terrorists,” writing bizarre Nazi-apologia in the quite receptive – and since disgraced for other reasons! – Jewish fucking Chronicle:
“Average members of the SS and other killing units of Hitler’s were rarely proud of their average days’ work. Very few felt that shooting Jews in the back of the head all day and kicking their bodies into pits was where their own lives had meant to end up.
“Many spent their evenings getting blind drunk to try to forget. Nazi commanders had to worry about staff ‘morale’. When the war ended, the Nazis tried to pretend that Treblinka and other death camps never existed.”37
“Compare this with the behavior of Hamas,” Murray urges (my emphasis), to make his true, pro-genocide point crystal clear.
But dare not compare with that of Israel – whose troops post countless hours of videos on TikTok, demonically giggling and howling their way through one abomination after another across Gaza38 – leaving, reluctantly, aside the West Bank.39
In portraits presumably intended to flatter, Murray looks like he's permanently got a flashlight under his chin for campfire tales of terror:
There was a great moment on Piers Morgan Uncensored last year where, immediately following Gaza expert Norman Finkelstein’s appearance40 – during which the great scholar had been oddly, amusingly, very flattering to the host – Morgan brought in Murray via a livefeed to shit all over Finkelstein’s reputation.41
Classy stuff, but Murray’s panicked response, when asked by Morgan if he’d debate Finkelstein, was glorious to behold – pathetically rambling on about how his something-something principles prevented him debating a “Holocaust denier” – which the legendary Finkelstein is decidedly not, nor ever would, or could, be.42
Because these evil little creatures don’t have a factual leg to stand on defending Israel’s colonial iniquities, they resort, always, to the cheapest tricks in the book, that’s all there is to it – and to them.
And the only way one can excuse – or, more typically, ignore – such extensively documented apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide43 is if you’re quite simply a racist scumfuck.
Earlier this year, at some bullshit event, KKK moderated a debate44 about whether ethnic cleansing and genocide are cool or not, carefully recalibrated into its motion: “Israel’s War on Hamas is a Just War.”
One of the duo opposing was progressive journalist and podcaster Briahna Joy Gray.
It was a messy, often tense debate, with a dim audience heavily in favor of the shit premise and tangibly disliking Gray – who later reported a miserable experience.45
In the aftermath, and though he seemed less unpleasant during the debate, from the safety of Elon Musk’s asshole (X), KKK dismissed Gray and her version of events – disturbingly, and repeatedly, referring to her, a black woman, as: “DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] Barbie.”46
Hmm.
One mustn’t be all over-sensitive about things, but…
Kinda hard to imagine him calling a black man, like, say, Coleman Hughes,47 “DEI Ken,” isn't it?
Which is to suggest that, yes – and these terms are not deployed lightly here – KKK is, beyond any doubt, both a racist shithead and a misogynist shithead.
In a very real sense, craven scuzzballs like Maher, KKK, and Murray are the opposite of Finkelstein and Gray – both of whom have lost jobs48 (in Finkelstein’s case,49 perhaps, much more) for their principled opposition to Israeli crimes and distortions.
Meanwhile, Maher and Murray types can’t get fired, no matter how disgusting their xenophobic, jingoistic filth.50
And KKK sees, and kovets, that security.
KKK's not overly bright, sure, but that’s rather the point, really – and you don't have to be to know where profit lies in anglosphere media.51
He’s simply a dedicated fraud, liar, and moron – as his own – yes, you could’ve skipped to this part – 4 Nov 2023 words,52 1,000% Israeli propaganda, confirm:
“The people responsible for every single death in Gaza are the people who attacked Israel and killed over a thousand innocent people KNOWING the response. They then use their own civilians as human shields against the predictable response.
“The blood of every single person who dies in Gaza is on the hands of one group and one group only: Hamas.
“The [sic] must hand over all hostages and surrender all terrorists.
“Until that happens, every single death should be added to their murderous death toll.”
Or…
It $imply remain$ a my$tery a$ to Kon$tantin Ki$in'$ curiou$ deci$ion to make $uch a big old $how of ju$t ‘$uddenly’ going full-$cale pro-I$rael ju$t in time for I$rael’s Oct 7 pro-geno$ide fe$tivitie$ – and e$scalation$.
Please share this widely and follow me on Elon Musk’s asshole: https://x.com/MaxNorthAllen – thank you!
Note how angry he gets at the mere suggestion he insulted the military:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/really-bill-maher-gets-pissed-when-chris-wallace-confronts-him-over-shock-terror-comment-that-got-him-cancelled/
KKK’s bad links make for a post themselves:
In his other tiring tirade for “Free Press” he relied on this one again for his made-up claim of Jewish schools being “forced to close.”
BBC in fact reports three schools choosing to close, unilaterally, with no force involved at all – while all other Jewish schools remained open.
Another terrifies us that “our representatives refused to condemn Hamas’s kidnappings” with a video titled ‘Rashida Tlaib Won’t Condemn Hamas Chopping Off Babies' Heads’ – but no such decapitations ever happened; Tlaib, one person, is not representatives”; and Congressional support for Israel remains as broad and strong as KKK is stupid (if not as cheap and hysterical… well, the jury’s out there).
His reference to an “Israeli at Columbia” being “beaten with a stick” appears not to have gotten much ink since, but does call to mind this absurd story – which typifies the persecution fantasies that KKK types live to blow way out of proportion (all of Matt Orfalea’s work – https://substack.com/@mattorf – is highly recommended):
Comedian and astute political commentator Dave Smith made a response video too:
Analysis of the day’s death toll, Hannibal Directive, etc, comes around 15 minutes in – but the whole macabre film is essential if you want to know more about how Israel and co have ruthlessly capitalized on, and distorted, the events of Oct 7.
https://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/9/it_takes_an_enormous_amount_of
The video appears to be dead but the transcript is good reading, showing Finkelstein has long been in the most esteemed scholarly company, no matter his ups and downs – Murray, in contrast, resides in the gutter.
https://x.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1720738636373602458
The pure belligerent propaganda and sheer illogic of Hamas's “human shields” has been totally debunked, see below, and is only – ever – used by morons, liars, and frauds;
Anyone who thinks “the hostages” were or are a priority for Israel, even in Nov 2023, is a credulous imbecile;
‘Surrendering terrorists,’ etc… it’s truly something to witness supposed grown-ups utter such infantile, Chuck Norris-movie drivel while expecting to be taken seriously.
