News and Reviews - Clinton Fein

Trump’s Desperate Distraction Strategy

Let's stop pretending these military strikes against Iran, which were launched without the consent of Congress as required by the Constitution, and in flagrant violation of international law, are about national security for either the United States or Israel, or have anything to do with strategic diplomacy. No one paying attention is that gullible. Regardless of whether or not Iran was on the verge of a nuclear weapon (which Netanyahu has been saying, literally, for 30 years), and irrespective of the Iranian regime’s hardline sponsorship of terror, Trump’s entry into the war has only one strategy, and that’s distraction.

June 23, 2025

The Moral Bankruptcy of Mike Lee

A beloved and respected public official and her husband were murdered in their home in cold blood. She was also a wife and mother. Their children lost both parents and their dog. Another state senator and his wife barely survived an assassination attempt. And while doctors were removing bullets from their bodies, Mike Lee was busy in Photoshop, crafting memes.

June 19, 2025

Depending on the Context

Most people have only seen the money-shot soundbites – mere minutes from the nearly six hours of congressional grilling. Before those, all three university presidents, in varying ways, stated that they generally found calls for genocide abhorrent, that terms like intifada were reprehensible, and that they had to weigh their personal viewpoints with the policies they were paid to uphold. But like three shipwrecked survivors on a rubber dinghy surrounded by hungry, snapping sharks, their responses were stilted, carefully worded, rehearsed, devoid of emotion, and legalistic when the occasion called for shrill, self-righteous certainty to suit the black or white demands of the mob.

December 13, 2023

At the Intersection

There are people like me who recognize and support the idea of Black Lives Matter without requiring ad nauseam assurances that it doesn't mean that other lives don't. Living proof that one doesn't have to be an antisemite to support Palestinian aspirations for self-determination and a homeland (a two-state solution, not a river to the sea eradication of Israel). Supportive of Israel’s right to exist and defend herself, while vociferously opposed to narcissistic, self-interested criminals like Bibi Netanyahu and the policies he enacts under Israel’s name. Actively supportive of LGBT demands for full and equal rights and women's rights (especially reproductive freedom and autonomy over their bodies). And, more importantly, have been vocal and active in participating in marches, rallies and protests in solidarity with all these causes, ideals and aspirations for decades.

November 5, 2023

Don’t Box Me In

It is possible to feel as much empathy and pain for an innocent Palestinian mother cradling her dead baby as it is for a mother who would rather her daughter be dead than raped and beaten and held as a hostage by Hamas. I can believe in and support the aspirations of Palestinians for a place to call home and still recognize and wholeheartedly support Israel's right to exist and defend herself.

I'm perfectly okay with contradictory, shifting emotions and nuanced positions when dealing with complexities. I don't need to oversimplify anything to justify a myopic view, blind myself to injustice, or excuse my inherent, taught, and often subconscious bias.

October 25, 2023

Empathy Gaps

A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can't defuse a bomb … But we are not helpless … We can sing the truth & name the liars.
-- Salman Rushdie

In the reckoning’s wreckage, threads entwined,
The truth lies twisted and undermined,
Craven simplification, craving certainty fast,
Nuance grimly neutered with turpitude blasts.

Blood-soaked brushes paint painful portrayals
Shades of complexity lost in violent betrayals,
Neatly framed narratives shape shaky perceptions,
Subtle hues are flattened with barracking interjections.

October 24, 2023

Barbie Bashing and Branding

"Am I the only person on Facebook to not give a fuck about an over-hyped movie about a bulimic doll?" I posted recently.

Because it was impossible to escape the marketing onslaught, I couldn’t help but notice how it had triggered whiny boy-men like Ben Shapiro to burn Barbie dolls on barbeques in effete fits of pique. Enough to make the likes of Andrew Tate stop in his steroid tracks and trafficking to condemn it. Piers Morgan possibly even stopped hysterically bitch slapping Meghan Markle for a minute to denounce it, although I haven’t sought nor seen him attempt to mansplain how terrible it is.

August 2, 2023

Reimagined

My content has been consistently censored and removed from social media platforms, leading me to rely on my personal website as a means of self-expression. Let alone marketing and promotion.

In the face of the banning, deleting, scrubbing, and destruction of content, and ownership of social media platforms in the hands of unreliable custodians like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and their ilk, I am even more determined to communicate my way on my own terms.

July 31, 2023

AI and the Almighty Prompt

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in a new era of creativity and artistic expression. AI-generated art has become a captivating phenomenon that challenges traditional notions of creativity and copyright ownership. At the heart of this revolution lies the symbiotic relationship between AI and its initial prompter.

This piece explores the extent to which AI-generated art is reliant on the initial prompt and how this collaboration between AI and humans has upended previous understandings of copyright, ownership, creativity, and legality.

July 26, 2023

Dick Tricks for Mainly Pricks

Penis size anxiety. It's more a lockeroom phenomenon than a bedroom one, and it doesn't help that men's magazines have opted to make men feel as insecure and inadequate about their bodies as women's magazines have traditionally. This used to be, primarily, a gay men's issue, but so was eyebrow threading, back and ball waxing, anal bleaching, plucking, preening and pube shaving once upon a time. Straight men looked at how hot and in shape gay men were, and in return, we tricked them into feminizing themselves and gave them body dysmorphia.

July 8, 2023

Clinton Fein