Monday, February 06, 2023
Seems Bad
Sure reporters will have microphones in every Republican's face demanding a response to this.
Found Out
Always the ones you most expect.
BALTIMORE — A neo-Nazi leader recently released from prison has been arrested again and accused of plotting an attack on the Maryland power grid with a woman he met while incarcerated.
Brandon Russell, 27, and Sarah Clendaniel, 34, are expected to make their first appearance Monday in Baltimore and Florida federal courts on a charge of conspiring to destroy an energy facility, which carries up to 20 years in prison.
"Direction"
This is not Bob Loblaw's lawblog so I might off here but this sounds like it's aimed at straw donors.
Certainly some of your faves are going to be returning some money.
WILMINGTON, Del., Feb. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FTX Trading Ltd. (d.b.a. FTX.com), and its affiliated debtors (together, the "FTX Debtors"), today announced the FTX Debtors are sending confidential messages to political figures, political action funds, and other recipients of contributions or other payments that were made by or at the direction of the FTX Debtors, Samuel Bankman-Fried or other officers or principals of the FTX Debtors (collectively, the "FTX Contributors"). These recipients are requested to return such funds to the FTX Debtors by February 28, 2023.Some of your faves might be implicated!!!
Certainly some of your faves are going to be returning some money.
Chait Has Always Been Like This
This piece from the WaPo in 2003 holds up pretty well!!!!!!
You you might remember these types of arguments. War and "the trans debate" are not really similar issues, but the centrists are going at them in the same style. The anti-war view was mostly excluded from anywhere except blogs then, as the "pro-trans" view is mostly excluded from anywhere except twitter. Still somehow the All Powerful Left (THE TRANS MAFIA) must be combatted and denounced in several hundred frothing opinion pieces.
In both cases "The Left" view was/is never presented as anything but caricature from the mouths of people concern trolling it while claiming that The Left was failing to care about Iraqis/care about children (before the Iraq war became a fake humanitarian mission, The Left failed to come up with their own plan to remove Saddam's nonexistent weapons). The Left is Unserious and Unreasonable and Unwilling To Engage My Arguments and Blinded By Ideology etc. It's just how centrists do things. They go on a fart huffing bender and then sanctimoniously address The Lefties of their imaginations.
It was as ridiculous to imagine that Dick Cheney wanted war in Iraq for humanitarian reasons as it is to imagine all the anti-Trans people are motivated by a deep concern for the welfare of children and teens. Yah, Joe Rogan and Andrew Sullivan and Jon Chait and Jesse Singal, these guys just spend all day every day thinking about how to make the lives of children better.
In both cases "The Left" view was/is never presented as anything but caricature from the mouths of people concern trolling it while claiming that The Left was failing to care about Iraqis/care about children (before the Iraq war became a fake humanitarian mission, The Left failed to come up with their own plan to remove Saddam's nonexistent weapons). The Left is Unserious and Unreasonable and Unwilling To Engage My Arguments and Blinded By Ideology etc. It's just how centrists do things. They go on a fart huffing bender and then sanctimoniously address The Lefties of their imaginations.
It was as ridiculous to imagine that Dick Cheney wanted war in Iraq for humanitarian reasons as it is to imagine all the anti-Trans people are motivated by a deep concern for the welfare of children and teens. Yah, Joe Rogan and Andrew Sullivan and Jon Chait and Jesse Singal, these guys just spend all day every day thinking about how to make the lives of children better.
Don't be a sucker, just laugh and point.
Tired Of Playing Whack-a-Mole
My mild obsessions can be annoying, but I can't actually fill this very fine blog with content every day without them, so I have to embrace them.
There's often some value in pointing out the fallacies in people's bad arguments, but with repeat offenders in The Discourse, it's enough to observe that they have a long track record of mendacity and/or stupidity. That their nametags suggests they are Very Important People, paid by Very Important Publications to write Very Important Things, does not mean I have to treat everything they write as if it were a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
No need to treat dumb liars as anything other than, even if the NYT and The Atlantic and New York Magazine pay them lots of money.
It's just a game to these monsters. Chait cares about trans kids as much as he cared about Iraqis, which is, at best, not at all. "At best" is a generous interpretation given the number of deaths he encouraged.
There's often some value in pointing out the fallacies in people's bad arguments, but with repeat offenders in The Discourse, it's enough to observe that they have a long track record of mendacity and/or stupidity. That their nametags suggests they are Very Important People, paid by Very Important Publications to write Very Important Things, does not mean I have to treat everything they write as if it were a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
There is, as I have mentioned in the past, no fancy Latin term for the fallacy of "giving known liars the benefit of the doubt", but it is in my view a much greater source of avoidable error in the world.I'm not interested in playing Whack-a-Mole with every dumb thing that comes from wingnuttia or The Sensible Centrists. That in itself is part of their strategy, just a neverending stream of shit to keep us occupied. Every day a new justification for some horror or bigotry.
No need to treat dumb liars as anything other than, even if the NYT and The Atlantic and New York Magazine pay them lots of money.
Chait lies and some of his lies are along the lines of, "MY CRITICS ARE NOT ENGAGING WITH THE ARGUMENTS SERIOUSLY," a neat little debate trick which puts honest people (unlike Chait) on the defensive and encourages them to say, "yes, yes, I am, here's an example of it," but by then Chait, laughing, has moved onto the next bit of bullshit. It's projection and a little trick that helps obscure the fact that he is the one not engaging honestly. No you're not engaging with my very serious argument!!! Why won't you stop punching yourself!!!And here you can see @jonathanchait just lying without even having to leave the page. Hobbes’ criticism is clearly the opposite of what he’s saying here — it isn’t that Singal has “criticized the left on racism before,” it’s that he ONLY writes about racism to do so. pic.twitter.com/Y7nATlFJXH
— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth on Post & Mastodon) (@KatzOnEarth) February 5, 2023
It's just a game to these monsters. Chait cares about trans kids as much as he cared about Iraqis, which is, at best, not at all. "At best" is a generous interpretation given the number of deaths he encouraged.
Sunday, February 05, 2023
A Source Familiar With Donald Trump's Thinking
Every few years "we" return to the discussion about overuse of anonymous sources, sometimes it gets some agreement from journalists and editors, they promise to do better for about 3 weeks and then "we" forget about it again for years.
This isn't in response to anything that's happening at the moment, but there's no doubt in my mind that, for example, one of Maggie Haberman's close anonymous sources was Sarah Sanders, who would contradict things that Sarah Sanders would say on the lectern hours earlier.
That political journalists *regularly* let people be anonymous sources about their own fucking thoughts is just crazymaking. For lots of reasons, but one is that of course only *some* people are granted the cover of anonymity for ridiculous reasons. That's a grant of power by the journalist to the "source," and not a power that is granted evenly.
This isn't in response to anything that's happening at the moment, but there's no doubt in my mind that, for example, one of Maggie Haberman's close anonymous sources was Sarah Sanders, who would contradict things that Sarah Sanders would say on the lectern hours earlier.
That political journalists *regularly* let people be anonymous sources about their own fucking thoughts is just crazymaking. For lots of reasons, but one is that of course only *some* people are granted the cover of anonymity for ridiculous reasons. That's a grant of power by the journalist to the "source," and not a power that is granted evenly.
That's Governor Sanders, now. Thanks, Maggie!
America's Greatest Comedian
the spy balloon shows how far we’ve fallen behind china in steampunk technology
— Emo Philips (@EmoPhilips) February 4, 2023
Balloon Boy
Some stories capture attention but apparently not mine. Still this was funny.
Ah well.China would never let a spy balloon fly through their airspace. No strong leader would. And now, it’s flying above South Carolina. Capture the balloon. See what they are collecting. Hold Xi accountable. We need American strength back.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 4, 2023
Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times during the Trump administration, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense offical.”
Saturday, February 04, 2023
Supremos
I don't really have opinions on this beyond "accountable high priests act like they are unaccountable high priests" and, politics aside, it's quite clear many of them do not feel obligated to even mime adherence to any basic ethics or professionalism standards.
Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month.
New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered security, led to the leak and hindered an investigation into the culprit.
Turn Off The Dark
I'm reasonably sure this is somehow connected to the fact that Glenn Beck was a Spider-Man Musical SUPERFAN.
SCOOP: George Santos told some potential donors he was a producer on the Broadway Spider-Man Musical. Turns out, that wasn't the case.https://t.co/3DeXL4vf63
— Laura Davison (@laurapdavison) February 3, 2023
Friday, February 03, 2023
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