Mainstream commentators finally quit pussy-footing around the truth, and said what they’ve long thought, but were reluctant to say aloud.
Category: Journalism
Zuckerberg: specialists in ID-ing dangerous posts couldn’t see the danger in openly calling for armed vigilantes because they were looking for “symbolism and innuendo”
Mark Zuckerberg on why posts soliciting armed vigilantes in Kenosha were not taken down:
“It was largely an operational mistake,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s because the team that enforces our policy against dangerous organizations is a specialized team that is trained to look for symbolism and innuendo … and understand the details of how certain militias and conspiracy networks operate.”
So they were so attuned to “symbolism and innuendo” they couldn’t see the danger of OPENLY CALLING FOR VIOLENCE????
Jesus Fucking Christ.
“Perilously close to lying” translated from lawyer-speak to English is “They’re Goddamned Liars!”
Republican-led Senatorial committee issues a report that is the legal equivalent to “knifing the president in the back,” then immediately say they found “absolutely no evidence.”
“What Senate Republicans are saying about their own report comes perilously close to simple lying.”
~ Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution
Republicans think you are too stupid to read their report and see they are goddamned liars.
Are you going to prove them right?
Republican Boogymen wouldn’t scare informed voters
“On a campaign swing in Minnesota, Trump made clear his message for the election. He repeatedly insisted that Biden ‘is the puppet of leftwing extremists,’ who will ‘replace American freedom with leftwing fascism.’”
This tells any informed voter, who understands the political spectrum, that Trump is shoveling bullshit.
Because “left-wing” and “fascism” are opposite ends of the political spectrum.
And, left-wing shouldn’t even be scary if voters remember that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as other programs designed to ensure that the basic needs of the American population are met, are all left-wing. And conservatives called them “left-wing extremism,” and “socialism” when they fought against their passage.
Defeat voter suppression: Drop your ballots off at the county clerk
Roscoe Woods, president of American Postal Workers Union Local 480-481 in the Detroit-metro area, said he didn’t initially think the policy changes were about the election. But after what he’s seen and heard from his members, he says he’s now “a firm believer that it’s a fundamental effort to undermine people’s confidence in this agency and make it harder to vote by mail…There’s no other explanation.”
Newsweek tries to apologise/not apologize over Kamala Harris Birther bullshit
So, after running an opinion piece questioning Kamala Harris’s citizenship using the exact same Birther bullshit used against Barack Obama, and then arguing in an editorial note it was completely different,* Newsweek’s own staff revolting seems to have caused them to realize their mistake. Or not. They have now issued one of those “I’m sorry you misunderstood me” non-apologies.
The Daily Beast reports:
“Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Nancy Cooper and the magazine’s recently hired opinion editor, Trump-backing conservative activist and attorney Josh Hammer, apologized on Friday after nearly a week of defending a right-wing law professor’s op-ed questioning Sen. Kamala Harris’ U.S. citizenship and her eligibility to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”
*Newsweek magazine’s original defense of the Birther opinion piece pointed out the article questions the citizenship of a natural-born American-born citizen – just as was Barack Obama, whose parents were from a different country – just as was Barack Obama’s father, and just happens to be a person of color – just like Barack Obama, and is therefore completely different than the racist Birtherism bullshit used against Barack Obama.
In the original Birther bullshit opinion piece, after admitting the law has been settled, law professor John Eastman (whom Newsweek fails to mention ran against Harris for the office of California Attorney General) argues born-in-California Kamala Harris doesn’t deserve citizenship because we were still pretty racist when she was born. See our original piece here:
Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel
We have now reached the point in the Pink Floyd movie The Wall where Bob Hoskins breaks into Pink’s hotel room, and finding him catatonic, calls for a doctor to shoot him full of whatever will get him on his feet and through the next show.
Trump’s decline as descibed here by Brian Karem is the path of Frontotemporal dementia, PSP imo. The lumbering walk, the slow monotone speech, the loss of energy-it’s all coming together right on schedule and it will continue to worsen https://t.co/rXx9nQBQFG
— Tom Joseph (@TomJChicago) August 12, 2020
And we all remember how that turned out.
Shhhhh! You’re not supposed to say it out loud!
Somebody needs to tell Trump that when you are destroying a government agency to ensure your reelection, you aren’t supposed to say that out loud.
Today’s Rant: And the Racist Birtherism Begins
Whatever is old is new again when it comes to Republican politics.
John C. Eastman, professor of law at Chapman University, suddenly has a problem with born-in-California Kamala Harris’s citizenship.
Sound familiar?
Read more on Today’s Rant: And The Racist Birtherism Begins
Too Stupid To Know Better, Feds Admit they violated 4th Amendment
Today on TV, the Deputy Director of the federal paramilitary force in #PDX discussed the infamous van video. He described a textbook example of an unconstitutional arrest.
— Andrew Crespo (@AndrewMCrespo) July 22, 2020
But… he doesn’t seem to know it.
That is a BIG PROBLEM. Let’s unpack this. It’s important.
(thread)
Absolutely stunning. Kris Cline, Deputy Director of the Federal Protective Service, admits the agents had no probable cause to arrest the subject, says the subject wasn’t arrested, then describes the action of taking him into custody in a textbook example of a custodial arrest.
Without realizing he’s wrong.
The deputy director of the Federal Protective Service … A law enforcement agency … Doesn’t understand a basic tenet of criminal law … That anyone who has watched a season of Law & Order would know.
Harvard law professor Andrew Crespo walks you through it in this Twitter thread.