Coleman Hughes

Today is the day! My first book, "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America," is now out in fine bookstores everywhere! The Audiobook is read by yours truly! penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671726/t…

I use AI to do research (i.e., find things to read, explain parts of academic papers I find ambiguous or confusing), transcribe interviews, generate pushback on my column thesis, suggest trims when I'm over my word count, sharpen podcast interview questions, and perform a final fact check on columns and editorials. But mostly it's compressing the ancillary tasks to the main job: reading, thinking, and writing.

@ZaidJilani Suddenly I organized this government-funded trip too? Put down the pipe, dawg

@ZaidJilani BTW, I released a YouTube video about the Israeli junket trip that has had over a million views for years. Zaid is not breaking a story here. He is, however, randomly adding a fake detail about me avoiding Palestinians. That's the part Zaid made up. youtu.be/wv8F4NLr4E0?si…

@ZaidJilani Not true, for the record. There were two separate trips. I went on the larger trip that had been planned with many months of lead time, but most of us could not add the 3-day B’tselem trip that was offered on much shorter notice. I would have happily done it if I had been able to

Hi Zaid. My last try here. You have the timeline backwards. Lee/Jesse/Nancy went on their own trip, which they planned, *before* I arrived in Israel for the actual Consulate trip. Almost all of us could not make their trip, since it was planned late and on short notice. That is where they met Palestinian folks in the occupied territories. After their self-planned trip ended, the consulate trip began, and the rest of us arrived in Israel. That trip had been planned more than six months in advance. On that trip, I hung out with Lee practically the whole time, met one of his B'tselem friends from the pre-trip (who was lovely) and participated in *all* the trip activities that Lee/Jessie/Nancy did, including meeting and speaking to Arab-Israelis, who were lovely and had many legitimate grievances against their government. In sum: These are two separate trips you're conflating to smear me. I have no problem with strong attacks on my views. But I'd prefer if you didn't make stuff up about my life.

Start at 1:23:46 youtube.com/watch?v=1cbw1u…

Some ppl have been bamboozled by Joe Kent's "just asking questions" routine, and have failed to detect his bizarre insinuation that Israel may have tried to kill Trump (a truly crazy idea to entertain IMO). Yes, Kent did insinuate that Israel might have been behind the Butler attempt on Trump's life. But you need to listen to Tucker's question in order to see the insinuation. The timestamped link is in the tweet below. Tucker asked, in essence: Since it's clear that Israel pushed Trump into this war, what kind of pressure do you think they applied? Kent answered, in essence: There are two possibilities [of pressure Israel could have applied]. First, it could be the lobbyists in his ear. Or second, it could be much darker. We still don't know what happened at Butler, we don't know what happened to Charlie Kirk, but we know Trump feels like his life is threatened. In the context of Tucker's question, that is a clear insinuation that Israel might have been behind both Butler and Charlie Kirk. How else can you read it? The hedging he does immediately afterwards––"by no means am I saying Israel did this or that"––doesn't undo the insinuation. It just clarifies that it is an insinuation, rather than a confident statement of Kent's beliefs. Either way, it shows that Kent is in La La Land.

I typically write articles to accompany debates. I did the same with Dave Smith. A lot of people prefer an article to a 2 hour podcast—so I do both. Not weird imo. Tone is subjective, but I really don’t think I was nasty about you or name-called in the article. I strongly disagree with you, and my tone reflects that. But it’s not personal. As for the Nixon thing, my tone in this tweet was really reacting to the guy who retweeted you. To be fair to you, I think he is making a more extreme claim about Nixon than you were. Should’ve been more clear that I was directing that energy more at him than you

I think it's rather odd behavior to tape a 2-hour debate with me only 2 days ago, where I never interrupted you once and so you could say everything you wanted about my arguments, all while heralding the civility of the discussion (which I agreed with), only to then release this lengthy screed on the day you release the debate using all kinds of accusatory language and insulting rhetoric that you didn't use when I was in front of you, and where you to try re-cast all my arguments into something they weren't, and then repeat the same claims you made in the debate, but in a separate article about the debate where I can't respond to them, all to convince everyone that you really won. It would never have occurred to me to write a long article trying to explain to everyone why I was really right about everything in a debate that we just taped two days ago, that was just released today, and which everyone can go watch for themselves. I thought that was why we did it. Now, beyond all that, you're reduced to claiming I'm "lying," all by radically distorting what I said? I explicitly referred to the rather-famous Nixon tapes (you can Google those), not that interview you cited, although I'm glad you published that interview excerpt because I think it's a good thing for people to hear about how the lobby works. You made what I believed were false claims in that discussion, including one about Joe Kent's claims about Israel and the Butler assassination attempt, but I went out of my way to say I assumed you did it in good faith. Anyway, I'm sorry so much of your own audience at the Free Press and on your personal YouTube page thought that I had the better case, and that you had to spend your day in your own comment section arguing with them. I'm willing to let the debate stand on its own because I'm confident in what was demonstrated.

The Nixon thing is a lie. Full quote below. What Nixon actually said: (1) Jewish-Americans see US-Israel interests as perfectly aligned. (2) In fact, they're usually aligned, but not always. (3) When they're not aligned, he ignored the lobby and acted in U.S. interests.

To be clear, I'm not endorsing Nixon's claims. But let's not lie about what he said: he never said the lobby determined or controlled his decisions. @ggreenwald

Coleman Hughes (@Coldxman) presses Glenn Greenwald (@GGreenwald) on his relationship with Tucker Carlson. @Coldxman: “I’ve heard [Tucker] promulgate lies to an extent that is really shocking to me…2020 election…Pizzagate…Aliens…Do you, as a journalist, feel that you have a responsibility to hold him accountable?” @GGreenwald: “I’m not saying everything Tucker has said has been in agreement with me. I’m not saying it hasn’t deviated from the facts. I’m not saying that he doesn’t occasionally wander into conspiracy theory. I think that’s true of a lot of people… But my journalism has focused on the people who can start wars—like the U.S. security state—and the people who can spy on us—like the NSA—and the people who go around the world killing people—like the CIA and the president—who can start wars…That’s my focus…There’s no shortage of people attacking Tucker Carlson every single day. But there is a shortage of people attacking all the other institutions. The much more damaging and powerful ones.”

DEBATE. Coleman Hughes (@Coldxman) presses Glenn Greenwald (@GGreenwald): Can you make the case for me—based on actual evidence—that we’re fighting the Iran war because of Israeli influence of some kind?

Coleman Hughes pushes Glenn Greenwald on the Israel lobby’s influence in Washington. @Coldxman: “The entire pro-Israel lobby was outspent...during the Obama years by the dentistry lobby…It’s not nearly powerful enough to get us involved in all these wars that people like to blame on it.” @GGreenwald: “If we are going to frame it as binaries—either AIPAC is all powerful and omnipotent…or the alternative is AIPAC is really kind of weak—I think it’s a disservice to the discussion. The truth lies in the middle, but far closer to the end of the spectrum where they’re extremely powerful… “This is a lobby devoted to the interests of a foreign country. And there’s nothing that remotely competes with the power of the pro-Israel lobby in terms of lobbies that come from other countries. And that's the reason why it gets so much attention. It’s just such a bizarre phenomenon of American political life.” Watch Coleman’s response—and the rest of their debate on Israel and U.S. foreign policy—now: youtu.be/AEvJQoowZUI

I debated @coldxman on the Iran War, Israel, free speech, the pro-Israel lobby, Tucker Carlson and more. Good spirted discussion with lots of very sharp differences, but it was also a civil exchange that focused on the substance of these questions: youtube.com/watch?v=AEvJQo…

A while back, I agreed to debate John Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby. John dropped out for mysterious reasons and @ggreenwald took his place. Ultimately, the festival got canceled, so I decided to invite Glenn on my podcast to (respectfully) duke it out. youtube.com/watch?v=AEvJQo…

Apt @katrosenfield observation: "Some people will gravitate like moths to the flame of whatever ideology gives them cover to indulge in socially sanctioned cruelty under the auspices of moral correctness, and it will never matter very much to them what that ideology is."

Chess is a really atypical profession. When we watch chess, we don't just care about the objective quality of the moves: we care about them having been decided by a human. By contrast, when we hire a doctor or an accountant we typically just care about the output.

The inequality causes crime narrative is activist science. 43 studies. 1,341 estimates. Half the data never published. Corrected effect: near zero. Inequality doesn’t drive crime.