Authoritarianism, corruption, Eastern Europe, Ukraine. Words in WaPo, Slate, Foreign Policy. PhD, polisci. He/him 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 bsky: @readthedetox.com
Joined July 2014
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Neil Abrams retweeted
Look, I'm not saying he's not a Nazi or war criminal, but these are not the words you want to shout at him if you want to get under his skin and cause a meltdown.
A rather obvious problem few are grappling with: Trump and his party won't give up power after an election loss.
Fortunately, political science shows the way. In my latest for the New Republic, I explain how we force them out:
newrepublic.substack.com/p/i…
Neil Abrams retweeted
The resist lib wine moms always had the most accurate view on Trump and podcast bros hate them for it.
hey guys please remember that it was considered uncool to talk about trump's relationship to Russia from 2021-25. That's what matters. What matters is that it was uncool to talk about it for a few years so there's nothing suspicious or weird about it and there never has been and you are a dumb shitlib wine aunt if you say otherwise.
Neil Abrams retweeted
Eventually the truth gets out, and the useful idiots get discarded as no longer useful. Note that not even Russia, now on OK terms with Sharaa, continues to peddle these lies anymore. This was once one of the most noxious disinformation and defamation campaigns ever launched by a state. observer.co.uk/news/internat…
My latest in the New Republic: If Trump and his party won't accept an election loss, it's up to the people to force them. Thankfully, there's a time-tested way. newrepublic.com/article/2161…
Over and over again, people like @mtracey claim to expose the truth but only end up exposing their own idiocy. He's a good self-promoter, I guess. But everything his self-promotion is based on, he sucks ass at.
To wit: atrocity-denial. Enjoy.
nitter.cf/neil_abrams/status/164…
Atrocity-denial is the lowest form of punditry.
Which explains why it attracts such inveterate bottom-feeders as @aaronjmate and @mtracey.
So let’s take a look at their most recent foray into this scummy endeavor: Denying Russia’s forced-deportations of Ukrainian children.🧵
By the way, if you're wondering what occasioned this post, it is that @mtracey posted what he thought was the identity of Jane Doe in the Cornell case. Turns out he relied on a scammy website and posted the wrong person's name.
Neil Abrams retweeted
The truth of the matter is there is actually a pretty good chance that Michael Tracey ID'd the wrong person because he didn't understand the source he was looking at and recognizes he could be sued into oblivion for it
After identifying Jane Doe earlier tonight, I have now removed the information I published. Why? Because the principle has been served: to underscore that permanently anonymizing litigants who make sensational, spectacular, reputation-destroying claims about others -- so long as they can self-declare some form of victimization -- cannot be countenanced.
It's destructive, and an egregious abuse of the legal system by huckster plaintiff's lawyers. This practice has to end. Lawyers who seek to monetize this sleazy tactic should have to think A LOT HARDER about the claims they're willing to throw out into the public domain, using impressionable clients who may not even know what they're getting themselves into.
So why have I now removed her information?
Because I don't believe she's the main "villain" here. I primarily blame the bottom-feeding, media-manipulating, sleazebag lawyers who've made a whole cash-grab industry out of this racket.
Thomas Giuffra in particular has a lot to answer for. He's the central reason for the current debacle.
Given the intense nationwide and global interest in this case, I don't want to bring any further negative attention to this woman. I don't believe she ought to be punished or subjected to any retribution or humiliation. I believe a RATIONAL solution is necessary here. Not more character assassination -- of her, the seven young men, or anyone else. Truly, that is my genuine view.
I also recognize there are unique factors that must be taken into account given the hugely outsized publicity of this case.
So that's why I have removed the information. The aforementioned principle has been served: eroding the premise that anyone who claims any form of victimization is entitled to permanent anonymity, even as their lawyer(s) use the courts -- aided by a compliant media -- to name & shame others for the most heinous of crimes. No matter how lacking in credibility their own claims might be, or contradicted by mountains of other evidence.
That's all I ever sought to accomplish here. Not to impugn this young woman on a personal level. I have no animus toward her, and never have. I sincerely wish her the best, and hope her life is not defined by this calamity.
I completely stand by the accuracy of what I reported as to Jane Doe's identity. This is not a retraction -- it's an independent discretionary judgment I alone have made. No lawyers or anyone else have influenced this decision.
Neil Abrams retweeted
The goal of journalism is not, ever, in any way, to punch down. And doing so against a rape victim to harvest clicks isnt only beyond vile, it is deeply cowardly.
@mtracey you are a little bitch
After identifying Jane Doe earlier tonight, I have now removed the information I published. Why? Because the principle has been served: to underscore that permanently anonymizing litigants who make sensational, spectacular, reputation-destroying claims about others -- so long as they can self-declare some form of victimization -- cannot be countenanced.
It's destructive, and an egregious abuse of the legal system by huckster plaintiff's lawyers. This practice has to end. Lawyers who seek to monetize this sleazy tactic should have to think A LOT HARDER about the claims they're willing to throw out into the public domain, using impressionable clients who may not even know what they're getting themselves into.
So why have I now removed her information?
Because I don't believe she's the main "villain" here. I primarily blame the bottom-feeding, media-manipulating, sleazebag lawyers who've made a whole cash-grab industry out of this racket.
Thomas Giuffra in particular has a lot to answer for. He's the central reason for the current debacle.
Given the intense nationwide and global interest in this case, I don't want to bring any further negative attention to this woman. I don't believe she ought to be punished or subjected to any retribution or humiliation. I believe a RATIONAL solution is necessary here. Not more character assassination -- of her, the seven young men, or anyone else. Truly, that is my genuine view.
I also recognize there are unique factors that must be taken into account given the hugely outsized publicity of this case.
So that's why I have removed the information. The aforementioned principle has been served: eroding the premise that anyone who claims any form of victimization is entitled to permanent anonymity, even as their lawyer(s) use the courts -- aided by a compliant media -- to name & shame others for the most heinous of crimes. No matter how lacking in credibility their own claims might be, or contradicted by mountains of other evidence.
That's all I ever sought to accomplish here. Not to impugn this young woman on a personal level. I have no animus toward her, and never have. I sincerely wish her the best, and hope her life is not defined by this calamity.
I completely stand by the accuracy of what I reported as to Jane Doe's identity. This is not a retraction -- it's an independent discretionary judgment I alone have made. No lawyers or anyone else have influenced this decision.
Guilfoyle makes a good point. As any history buff can tell you, things always work out great for empires that rule by fear.
ALT They are also fearful of getting on her bad side. In March, at a dinner in Athens attended by Greek and U.S. officials, Guilfoyle got into an argument with Greece’s energy minister, Stavros Papastavrou, in front of the other guests. Referring to the impending collapse of the Romanian government, Guilfoyle told the group, “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here,” according to a person who attended the dinner and others who were told about it. The conversation became heated, with Papastavrou retorting that the U.S. couldn’t replace the government of Greece, which was elected by the people. Guilfoyle’s lawyer disputed the characterization of the exchange.
Okay guys, I know all communist revolutions have only ever happened in peasant societies, but I gotta say, the most advanced industrialized country in the history of the world seems ripe for one right now.
Neil Abrams retweeted
June 2014
"Back then our enemy was the regime, and they were just following orders. But now we have a common enemy, and follow common orders."
After the fall of the Yanukovych regime, the new head of the Ministry of the Interior reformed the now-infamous Interior Troops (units which included "Berkut") into the National Guard. About a 1000 Maidan Self-Defence volunteers were recruited to form two new battalions, but practically all of the 30,000 Guardsmen were the former Interior Troopers, retained under this new system, now fighting alongside those they fought on the Maidan.
In this video, two former Self-Defence fighters recruited into the National Guard talk both about how this transition from anti-government to government forces proceeded, and what the relations between the "old" and the "new" guardsmen were like.
Neil Abrams retweeted
This would be more convincing if FIRE hadn't had @mtaibbi give a keynote speech at a recent conference and hadn't partnered with @bariweiss to organize several events.
If you mean @mtaibbi, @bariweiss, or @billmaher,, then name them and fight it out with them. I will bring cheddar popcorn.
But don’t use “free speech warriors” and the “anti-cancel culture brigade” as broad terms of derision and then act surprised when actual free speech advocates push back.
Some of the best people I have ever met in my life are people at FIRE, or people I’ve met through FIRE, from all across the political spectrum. They have spent years defending people they disagree with, often intensely, because they actually believe in the principle. They fought censorship and cancel culture when it came from the left, and they fight it now when it comes from the right.
And they absolutely get caught in the blowback from this kind of dismissiveness . There is a very common habit of trying to score points against your political enemies by implying that “free speech people” are all hypocrites—that nobody really believes in this stuff, everybody is secretly partisan, and consistency is a fraud.
I’m tired of that cynicism. I’ve spent most of my adult life around people who prove it wrong every day.
So don’t casually smear an entire community of people doing difficult and genuinely admirable work. If you mean, other people name them, and they will get a chance to defend themselves.
Consistent defenders of free speech exist. A lot of them are my friends and colleagues. And they deserve better than the constant eye-roll assumption that everyone is as cynical as their critics.
Neil Abrams retweeted
Mearsheimer is smart — it’s just that he prioritizes fame and money over everything else, including academic integrity, morals, and ethics. His strategy has paid off handsomely, so why change it? And you don’t need to know much of anything to pontificate as long as you tell your audience what it wants to hear.
John Mearsheimer is one of the famous russian propagandists who apparently knows nothing about russia.
The man didn’t even know that American credit cards don’t work in russia and yet he knows that “russia will hold all of Donbas by year's end.”
How can an educated person be so ignorant?
First, being educated and being smart are two very different things. Mearsheimer is educated, but he certainly is not smart.
Second, a smart person would learn from their own mistakes. Mearsheimer doesn't. He has been making versions of this prediction for four years. In February 2024, he told Global Times - a Chinese state outlet, which tells you something about the audience he prefers - that the actual fighting would not last beyond 2025, that russia would take more territory, and that there would be a ceasefire. It is now September 2026, and he still hasn't learned his lesson.
Third, Mearsheimer knows nothing about Ukraine or the Ukrainian people. I doubt he has ever even visited Ukraine in his life. This matters because wars are won by people, not by terrain. Terrain does not hold Slovyansk for four years. When your model has no variable for a people's will, you don't make occasional mistakes - you make the same mistake every time.
Finally, people like Mearsheimer should be held accountable for their predictions. Mark the date. Check it again in December to see whether his claim still holds: "russia will control all of Donbas by year's end.”
Mearsheimer is just another brainwashed vatnik masquerading as an expert.
Neil Abrams retweeted
While y'all are sharing that NYT list, just a friendly reminder that "The Wire" is a queer show and arguably one of the most impactful for LGBTQ visibility in the 21st century.
If you're confused as to how it's a queer show, just sit with it for a while. It'll come to you. I promise.