…I’d just as soon see a few folks I can think of get their asses thrown to the damn wolves
Until four years ago, there was what you might call a Floor of Decency. This was the basic minimum standard of behavior to be an accepted member of society. Even when people did bad things, they at least tried to pretend that they were good, that they operated according to the basic values of society. You may or may not like the people in, say, the Obama or Bush administrations, you may think they made grave mistakes, but you have to admit they generally strove to meet this basic minimum.
The Postal Service’s performance has not been as bad as initially feared, but handling of mail ballots has been inconsistent enough that some people are choosing to vote in person.
we’ve crossed some kind of threshold in the past few weeks. It’s not so much that Trump is lying more as that the lies have become qualitatively different — even more blatant, and increasingly untethered to any plausible political strategy.
…so I’m sorry about a lot of stuff
How could we have been so blind? How could we have been so naïve? How did we not believe that the worst was possible until we plummeted into it?
…but given we’ve been having kind of a nice time in our little digital neighborhood here I guess one thing I’m sorry about is bringing the misery this morning
…so if I skip something I really shouldn’t have from the last few days do throw it in the comments…if nothing else it’ll make me feel better in a misery-loves-company sort of a way to know it isn’t just me bringing the misery
So, Russia, You Want to Mess With Our Voting Machines? The United States should threaten to retaliate — and I’m not talking about economic sanctions or legal indictments.
In a letter to Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, House Democrats detailed how a $265 million public relations campaign tried to bolster President Trump. Ultimately, the campaign collapsed in late September amid recriminations and investigation.
In an interview, Trey Parker, Matt Stone and their collaborator Peter Serafinowicz discuss the back story of “Sassy Justice,” their deepfake video that used images of President Trump and others.
…I’ve made it this far through the shitshow of the last few years without succumbing to the dubious delights of self medication but thank fuck it’s nearly the weekend…because I don’t rightly know how I’d make it to the end of this road if we didn’t have something approaching a couple of days off between now & November 3rd
19 Comments
I’m all for honest reporting about Joe Biden’s flaws, and there are many, but pushing the Hunter Biden computer story is irresponsible at best.
Seriously, a moderately motivated group of middle school kids could concoct something that’s more convincing. I keep waiting for a group of Tik-Tok teens to pop up and say, Hah! We trolled you, Rudy! This doesn’t even approach the Wile E. Coyote scam level.
Speaking as someone who has been both an editor and a reporter, those emails read as the editors saying “This story has problems” and him just losing his mind over that. That is the editing process!
It is so profoundly weird that he did such good work in Brazil on Bolsonaro but doesn’t think Trump is cut from the same cloth. Hate to break it to a gay man, but Tucker Carlson isn’t gonna go out of his way to protect your rights, dude.
I remember walking through the offices of a newspaper years ago. They had a sign outside a particular door that said: “Editing Room. Check your attitude at the door.”
IMO there is a point when a journalist gets so famous that it’s really difficult for them to still be a good journalist. Sometimes that’s because they’re spending more time hyping themselves, or they become aware of their own (vomits in own mouth) “brand” … but celebrity just makes it harder to do the reporting groundwork necessary on stuff.
Good example of this is Bob Woodward, who gets legendary levels of access and time with whoever he wants because he’s Bob Woodward … and ultimately, his journalism reflects that. I don’t think he’s a good journalist, I don’t like his insider schtick, I don’t read his books. And at the same time, he gets stuff that nobody else does, and that is a huge part of the job! Even Trump, who is unaware of literally any part of the president’s job was like “Yeah, I gotta sit down with Woodward.”
I dunno if Greenwald has hit that level of fame or this is just ideology on his part — he sure fucking hated Hillary Clinton! — but he’s preaching undisciplined journalism here and it sure seems like as we learn more, the sources behind this become increasingly less believable.
“Today, NBC News noted that a document purporting to show Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in a corrupt relationship with Communist leaders in China was actually ghost written by an academic and published under a fake identity.”
To what is Heather Cox Richarson referring here? I haven’t seen anything about this.
…if you scroll up to the link bryanl cites there’s some explanation of most of it…seems like the document in question was seeded a while back but didn’t get the sort of traction that even that NY Post article that got choked on social media managed
…& not without some reason as it turns out, since it seems to have been connected to (among others) that Epoch Times bunch that were mentioned in a different DOT a little while ago as being suspect in various ways…but since the document was posted on a blog by an academic who first completely denied but later claimed partial authorship & admitted the nominal author is a fabrication it would seem that quote is substantiated as far as I can make out
While Marx said that religion is the opium of the people, preventing them from uprising, Trump’s “it is cool to be cruel” leadership is the opiate of much of the United States. Many of us don’t do those drugs, and I dearly hope that is reflected on Tuesday.
i did catch that walmart was pulling its guns and ammo off the shop floor for a while
seems someone is expecting trouble
tbh..dutch news always follows the us elections…but ive never seen them get quite this worked up about it…me thinks thats probably not a great sign (tho…its not like they are saying much of anything i havent heard before from the comentariat around the internet…just odd the news seems to be mostly agreeing )
…& Peter Serafinowicz has been in a bunch of funny stuff but might be not all that well known generally because I think most of it has been UK tv shows…in case anyone’s interested in where he came from
…well, I seem to recall his attorneys claiming that would be the first step in turning him over to “the mob”…so that might be an interesting development
…either way I do not look forward to having to deal with any version of the way that goes that doesn’t involve him being charged with murder & subsequently convicted…because the idea that his actions that night were justified (or justifiable) is frankly anathema to me
I’m all for honest reporting about Joe Biden’s flaws, and there are many, but pushing the Hunter Biden computer story is irresponsible at best.
Bye Felicia
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/30/greenwald-resigns-from-the-intercept-over-biden-article
It’s just so … well, first I was outraged, then I was amused, and now it’s just making me a bit sad. I mean, this is the best you can do? And now we’ve got computer-generated personas and lunatics in the mix:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/how-fake-persona-laid-groundwork-hunter-biden-conspiracy-deluge-n1245387
Seriously, a moderately motivated group of middle school kids could concoct something that’s more convincing. I keep waiting for a group of Tik-Tok teens to pop up and say, Hah! We trolled you, Rudy! This doesn’t even approach the Wile E. Coyote scam level.
Speaking as someone who has been both an editor and a reporter, those emails read as the editors saying “This story has problems” and him just losing his mind over that. That is the editing process!
It is so profoundly weird that he did such good work in Brazil on Bolsonaro but doesn’t think Trump is cut from the same cloth. Hate to break it to a gay man, but Tucker Carlson isn’t gonna go out of his way to protect your rights, dude.
I remember walking through the offices of a newspaper years ago. They had a sign outside a particular door that said: “Editing Room. Check your attitude at the door.”
Jesus. What the hell happened to Greenwald? Seems like he’s believing his own press, so to speak.
IMO there is a point when a journalist gets so famous that it’s really difficult for them to still be a good journalist. Sometimes that’s because they’re spending more time hyping themselves, or they become aware of their own (vomits in own mouth) “brand” … but celebrity just makes it harder to do the reporting groundwork necessary on stuff.
Good example of this is Bob Woodward, who gets legendary levels of access and time with whoever he wants because he’s Bob Woodward … and ultimately, his journalism reflects that. I don’t think he’s a good journalist, I don’t like his insider schtick, I don’t read his books. And at the same time, he gets stuff that nobody else does, and that is a huge part of the job! Even Trump, who is unaware of literally any part of the president’s job was like “Yeah, I gotta sit down with Woodward.”
I dunno if Greenwald has hit that level of fame or this is just ideology on his part — he sure fucking hated Hillary Clinton! — but he’s preaching undisciplined journalism here and it sure seems like as we learn more, the sources behind this become increasingly less believable.
“Today, NBC News noted that a document purporting to show Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in a corrupt relationship with Communist leaders in China was actually ghost written by an academic and published under a fake identity.”
To what is Heather Cox Richarson referring here? I haven’t seen anything about this.
…if you scroll up to the link bryanl cites there’s some explanation of most of it…seems like the document in question was seeded a while back but didn’t get the sort of traction that even that NY Post article that got choked on social media managed
…& not without some reason as it turns out, since it seems to have been connected to (among others) that Epoch Times bunch that were mentioned in a different DOT a little while ago as being suspect in various ways…but since the document was posted on a blog by an academic who first completely denied but later claimed partial authorship & admitted the nominal author is a fabrication it would seem that quote is substantiated as far as I can make out
While Marx said that religion is the opium of the people, preventing them from uprising, Trump’s “it is cool to be cruel” leadership is the opiate of much of the United States. Many of us don’t do those drugs, and I dearly hope that is reflected on Tuesday.
All treat, no tricks, it’s Fur Face Friday!
https://groupthink.kinja.com/fur-face-friday-1845524647
…thank goodness…literally, in this case
i did catch that walmart was pulling its guns and ammo off the shop floor for a while
seems someone is expecting trouble
tbh..dutch news always follows the us elections…but ive never seen them get quite this worked up about it…me thinks thats probably not a great sign (tho…its not like they are saying much of anything i havent heard before from the comentariat around the internet…just odd the news seems to be mostly agreeing )
That Sassy Justice video is amazing.
…it’s really something, isn’t it?
…& Peter Serafinowicz has been in a bunch of funny stuff but might be not all that well known generally because I think most of it has been UK tv shows…in case anyone’s interested in where he came from
aaaaand…in unrelated news… i think this poor dude had all the halloween he can take for one year
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54747625
didnt even get any candy
Yup. Fuck that.
rittenhouse is being extradited from IL to WI (per TV in Chicago)
…well, I seem to recall his attorneys claiming that would be the first step in turning him over to “the mob”…so that might be an interesting development
…either way I do not look forward to having to deal with any version of the way that goes that doesn’t involve him being charged with murder & subsequently convicted…because the idea that his actions that night were justified (or justifiable) is frankly anathema to me
just the fact that he’s still not behind bars is unbelievable…
ps. source for earlier post: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/10/30/rittenhouse-lawyers-say-he-should-released-due-extradition-error/6085295002/