[2026-07-09] @DropSiteNews@twitter.com:
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🚨NEW: Drop Site journalist Ryan Grim has authenticated behind-the-scenes messages showing Politico omitted an important detail from its reporting on how the night began that led to the rape allegations against Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Before publication, a Politico reporter told the Platner campaign that Jenny Racicot, on the night in question, had been “texting [Platner] about needing her glute massaged.” The reporter added, “That detail didn’t make our story.”
Racicot told Jake Tapper during her CNN interview that Platner had “taken something that I said as an invitation” before she subsequently texted him not to come over. Tapper did not follow up to ask what the content of the message was, and did not respond to a request for comment from Drop Site. Politico, in a statement to Drop Site, did not dispute that the outlet was aware of the “glute masssage” text, and said that it would update its reporting if further information arose.
According to a spokesperson: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews and reflects our editorial standards. In interviews with us and in accounts she gave to other outlets, Jenny Racicot said that she told Graham Platner not to come to her home and that he nevertheless showed up there uninvited. POLITICO gave Platner and his campaign ample opportunity to respond to our reporting and to provide any information or documentation they believed contradicted it. If presented with information that materially challenges our reporting, we will report it.”
Platner is expected to drop out today.
🎥 @ryangrim | @esaagar via Breaking Points
It keeps happening.
I think you confused Breaking Points with Breakthrough News. I still frequently listen to Breaking Points as they often cover interesting subjects in geopolitics. For example they also do a great job for example on Pakistan and Imran Khan. And Jeremy Scahill even comes on sometimes for great interviews But Ryan Grim really has a blind spot for US Supremacism.
I happen to be terminally online enough to know that the Rania Khalek from Breakthrough Media also recently made a misser, I think it was that she celebrated Platner on Twitter solely because he posed as anti-Israel. In any case she’s from Lebanon not from China or the US so I’m pretty sure she just got swept up in the US-supremacist generated hype about him and just believed the endorsementss.
I don’t really deal in dismissing viewpoints anymore though. Just know what the blind spots of them are and they still have interesting news to read and listen to. Everyone is biased towards some things. Though some more than others.
grim is on both breakthrough and breaking points.
also, i agree on the biased based blind spots; but i have to take extra precaution about my new sources since i don’t have the political nor historical acumen that stereoptypes tankies that would let me recognize the newest empire’s narratives. the best that i can do until i develop that acumen is filter out news sources the repeat the narratives that are old or hot enough to be recognizable by a baby leftist like me and breaking points matches that criteria.
You’re right. That also explains why Rania Khalek randomly celebrated Platner which was a bit out of character.
I don’t think “experienced tankies” are doing much better. I got banned from Hexbear for calling out ChapoTrapHouse supporting Platner, and many people uncritically support influencers from that sphere as well. I’m terminally online enough at this point to know faults in every mainstream influencers. Including all the ones I watch myself.
videos like this one and this one; coupled w presumed leftist standard bearers with clearly poor understanding of leftism like piker and abughazaleh; as well as taking into account the revelation that the track-aipac founder is a us empire’s idf aligned mercenary makes me wonder about the viability of any socialist movement in the western world considering how easily and trivially it can be co-opted and/or captured by people pretending to be leftists.
it’s made me stop reading leftist theory since it feels like a collection of loosely idealogically aligned people who work against each other as much as they do w each other.
That’s fucking funny they still defend Chapo when their community was explicitly disavowed by CTH + Cum Town years ago. Throughout the interim they’ve insisted nobody is accountable for their views since they don’t actually pay attention to what they say & it’s just entertainment/“background noise”.
If anything they don’t even defend what they say & just insist their media connections are Normal™ as if the system isn’t designed to absorb semi-clueless people & turn them into cash cows like this.