The fake news problem came up in comments this morning, which reminded me of a recent long but well worth reading piece in The New Yorker, in which David Remnick discusses the coming Trumpocalypse with President Obama.
In the piece, PBO identified the fake news phenomenon as a serious matter, but his comments suggest folks haven’t truly wrapped their minds around the scale of it yet. Even its propagators underestimated its effectiveness, but you can bet your ass the beneficiaries in this cycle have noted its success. It’s the echo chamber on steroids, metastasized worldwide. An excerpt from the Remnick piece:
“Until recently, religious institutions, academia, and media set out the parameters of acceptable discourse, and it ranged from the unthinkable to the radical to the acceptable to policy,” [PBO’s political director David] Simas said. “The continuum has changed. Had Donald Trump said the things he said during the campaign eight years ago—about banning Muslims, about Mexicans, about the disabled, about women—his Republican opponents, faith leaders, academia would have denounced him and there would be no way around those voices. Now, through Facebook and Twitter, you can get around them. There is social permission for this kind of discourse. Plus, through the same social media, you can find people who agree with you, who validate these thoughts and opinions. This creates a whole new permission structure, a sense of social affirmation for what was once thought unthinkable. This is a foundational change.”
That day, as they travelled, Obama and Simas talked almost obsessively about an article in BuzzFeed that described how the Macedonian town of Veles had experienced a “digital gold rush” when a small group of young people there published more than a hundred pro-Trump Web sites, with hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers. The sites had names like TrumpVision365.com and WorldPoliticus.com, and most of the posts were wildly sensationalist, recycled from American alt-right sites. If you read such sites, you learned that Pope Francis had endorsed Trump and that Clinton had actually encouraged Trump to run, because he “can’t be bought.”
The new media ecosystem “means everything is true and nothing is true,” Obama told me later. “An explanation of climate change from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist looks exactly the same on your Facebook page as the denial of climate change by somebody on the Koch brothers’ payroll. And the capacity to disseminate misinformation, wild conspiracy theories, to paint the opposition in wildly negative light without any rebuttal—that has accelerated in ways that much more sharply polarize the electorate and make it very difficult to have a common conversation.”
We’ve discussed the Fox News phenomenon for years, how it creates a closed loop that turns formerly reasonable parents and grandparents into unrecognizable, rage-addicted assholes. Well, this is worse, and it will be with us when the last O’Reilly viewer croaks. The anti-dote to fake news should be real journalism, of course, but as I look around, that seems to be in short supply.
I think I’ll go make an extra-large shaker of old fashioneds.
Corner Stone
This is what white people in America wanted. They are getting it.
Nick
In middle age, a man takes stock of the arc of his life. Here’s mine . . .
One of my first memories is my father shouting: “Come here, Nixon’s on TV!”
Don’t remember anything but Star Wars from the Carter administration.
From dawning awareness up into college: Reagan, then Bush
I spent most of Clinton’s two terms either in college or getting out of grad school.
From my late 20s up through marriage, employment, travel, financial crisis: Bush and more Bush
My children were born in Obama’s two terms.
And now at 45, thinking about another 8 years that will see me through close to old age: the Trump epoch
Where did the time go? And how has so much of it been spent under such loathsome people? Childhood, adulthood, and now middle age?
Jumbo76
Why are you shaking your old fashioned? It’s a stirred drink.
Corner Stone
Who gives a shit about the fake news problem? Actual “news” like the very liberal MSNBC has been very busy spending the last several days flatly repeating every leak out of the Trump Tower, with no context. And has been passing on the Trump saves Ford manufacturing jobs.
We already knew R’s never bothered fact checking potentially bogus sites. Now we have to ask WTF of the actual media, also?
ThresherK (GPad)
Gotta run. Me and some other anti-Trump protesters are scheduled to block ambulances from getting to the ER at a hospital. A six year old will die, but we don’t care.
-as reported in some Steiniac’s FB feed, but you heard it here first before it becomes One Side to Consider on NPR.
kindness
I think the ‘real’ news problem was bigger. The MSM couldn’t care less about actual positions or policy (or bold lies for that matter). The MSM treated it like a reality show and Donald excels at Reality Shows and the MSM loved that. Ran with it when they weren’t repeating lies about Democrats.
Now that Fox News is an actual player and the rest of the media gives them ‘respect’ we’re screwed, Until we have a media that is able to call bullshit bullshit right away we won’t win again because Republicans now see, they don’t have to be remotely truthful any longer.
Corner Stone
Let’s just face it. The country was going straight down the shitter, and with it probably all the globe as well. White people in America said, “Yeah, we’re fucked. Let’s have whatever history survives record that a black man was in charge when it happened.”
Fast forward – Oh shit. The steady, reasonable and decent human being held us out of the brink….Ok, great. Now let’s elect a racist buffoon who will wipe his legacy from the history books and also appoint someone whi is the exact opposite of the last two African American AG’s! Yeah! That’s what we need to do!
Corner Stone
@ThresherK (GPad): You also need to rape an injured female in the back of one of those ambulances to complete the bonus cycle. Then don’t forget to stop by the Soros Check Station!
GregB
Twitter is effectively the Ministry of Truth for the next President.
Terrible for a mediocre or even decent leader. Horrifying for a cabal of bad actors.
Litlebritdifrnt
The other day I logged onto Facebook and there on my timeline was “ANGELINA JOLIE FOUND MURDERED IN HER HOUSE” and seeing as no one had mentioned anything on Twitter I just ignored it. However, what about all the people on Facebook that aren’t on Twitter?
PaulWartenberg2016
I keep asking why we can’t use FRAUD criminal charges on these faux-news: they are taking money for providing false services. They’re like plumbers who take your fees and then install leaky pipes. This shouldn’t be a First Amendment issue.
Corner Stone
Man am I glad I canceled Thanksgiving.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: The country was mostly doing fine before some angry haters decided to trash it.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Corner Stone: Jinkies! You’ve got more complete reportage than I do!
This protest-ambulance blocked-child dies ER is a genuine RW myth. It is a sequel to the same thing done by BLM protesters in Memphis this summer.
Major Major Major Major
I hope (hope hope hope) that all this “technology is ruining everything!!!11” stuff is just more of that needless worry that springs up around all information technology (like in a thing I wrote!). I mean, Trump is, after all, (sadly) well within the known range of stupid shit Western democracies did pre-Facebook.
Mike in NC
I lived in California during part of Reagan’s first term, and basically nobody there gave a shit what was happening daily in Washington, DC. Now we get buried in bullshit 24/7 no matter where we live. Those were the good old days. Hawaii looks inviting but there’s no way I could convince my wife to move again.
Juice Box
@Corner Stone: When I read comments on various non-political websites, it really seems like they voted for a different Trump than we voted against. They voted for a man who “cares about the middle class”, who “wants to do something about crime”, and who, of course, wants to make America great again”. They really do thin at he is “a successful business man” with good insight into jobs. Clearly there are racists who voted for him, but there are a lot of people who, while they may have appalling ideas about race, voted for him for other reasons, too.
Xboxershorts
It has roots in Goebbel’s propaganda machine, but here in America, it’s grandfather is The Arkansas Project
sharl
I’m sure it was linked and discussed here already (probably yesterday), but here’s a WaPo piece about a guy who ran a fake news mill. Like at least some other fake news generators (e.g., the Macedonia kids), he wasn’t himself pro-Trump, he just found that right-wingers would reflexively click and share pieces that were anti-Hillary or pro-Trump. That of course generated a lot of ad revenue. Market forces at work, baybee!
ETA: corrected (replaced “by” with “about”)
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I thought Obama cancelled it as a final FU to America.
Oh wait was that before or after the JADE HELM and FEMA Camp roundups.
Why is that this bullshit spreads like wildfire, scares them shitless, but when it fails to actually happen, they continue to believe the next conspiracy?
Or is Obama not actually going to let the inauguration happen, maybe we should be on guard for what happens January 20 th?
Corner Stone
Something hovercraft said in a previous thread had me considering something, re: fake news.
I, and IMO we, had considered that the Trump’s surrogate’s top goal was to obfuscate anything about Trump and keep anyone else from being able to say anything otherwise. Mainly just disrupt, blather and shut down any discussion.
But it’s pretty obvious now that their actual prime directive was to swat aside anything about Trump and immediately get the Crooked Hillary soundbyte narrative out. If they had 30 seconds of airtime they spent 27 of it talking about emails or the Clinton Foundation or the FBI investigation.
I know that sounds obvious now, but at the time it seemed like all their buffoonish lying and interrupting and rude behavior was to keep anyone from saying anything about Trump. Ailes knew how to leverage cable news airtime, and they did so very effectively.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Here’s Justice Souter in 2012 explaining exactly how we got Trump. This country is too stupid and lazy and suffering from terminal civic ignorance to live, leaving us handful of Cassandras as the only ones to note how we got here.
Jeffro
@Nick: That’s funny…my first TV/political memory was me walking into the living room and seeing Ford & Carter (not sure it was a debate, possibly just a news cast) and telling my dad I wanted Carter to be president “cause he’s nicer”.
No wonder we haven’t gotten along too well since. ;)
I saw the FB fake news reports (including this very cool one about an app that helps sort out fake news from real news) and forwarded it on to my mom.
Her response was, “Well a lot of people have opinions”(!) I was like, “Mom, this is a news. report. telling about. some kids. who can help us. sort out. CRAP” No response to that yet.
I think a lot of the ‘olds’ are going to feel so stupid for falling for this crap, that it’ll be easier for them to believe EVERYTHING is made up. Why not, they’ve already been conditioned to hate the LIEBRUL MEDIYA for fifty years.
We could probably slap together a “before you believe” list in about 30 seconds and try to promote that with friends and family…
“When you see something on FB, before you believe it:
– ask yourself if it already fits your notions about the other side
– ask yourself if it’s getting you wound up
– check 3 of the following sources to see if they’re reporting it at all…or if they are, how they are ‘spinning’ it
– and if it’s too good to be true, run it by snopes dot com or something”
Ai-yi-yi…
JPL
My fear is that Bolton is Secretary of State and Rudy is at Homeland Security. Michelle Rhee at Education is just the cherry on top for these folks..
I hope this is fake news.
Bnad
The Colbertian solution for all this fake news: create a tidal wave of OBVIOUSLY fake news (seeing some of this already like “Zuckerberg dead”). Remind people that they need to check, or at least think about sources. Do this now before their bullshit meters are boiled to death like poor little frogs.
trollhattan
@Xboxershorts:
Adam’s post re. Nicolae Ceaușescu and how he rebooted the methodology to suit the 21st century seems more chilling and on point each day. Put another way: like Mussolini and Goebbels, but with less nuance for our short attention spans. Who’s gonna stuff this genie back in the bottle?
JPL
Betty, If you are around what’s a good cocktail for Thanksgiving? The group is not into sweet though.
hovercraft
How will Trump make America great again? Truthiness.
Paul Waldman
The most dishonest candidate in history will construct a fake reality for his supporters to inhabit when he’s president.
Corner Stone
@Mike in NC:
Dump her and take me. I make kick ass nachos.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
1) Human nature
2) We libs don’t push back on things like this often enough or follow up down the road. “How’d that Jade Helm thing work out, Alex Jones? Did anyone get their guns confiscated, Wayne LaPierre? I forget – did churches get taxed into bankruptcy under Presidents Clinton or Obama, Mom?”
3) We libs think that other people think. Or worse yet, that they’re thinking when they vote…they clearly vote mostly on emotion (even us ;)
VOR
@Jeffro: I have been repeatedly told by Right Wingers that Snopes is not reliable and has a huge liberal bias. I suspect it is because it debunks all the nonsense they want to believe.
ruemara
The problem isn’t fake news. Much of it is abjectly ridiculous on its merits. The problem is the desire to believe completely, without question. All the fake news in the world wouldn’t have convinced me to vote Trump.
And in other news, one of my aunts passed away just now of cancer. It was a 3 year long battle, but she died peacefully in hospice care. I won’t lie and say I loved her. I’m connected to my blood relations more out of duty than anything else. But I did admire her when I was growing up and I can’t say it doesn’t affect me. She was elegant, professional, a business shark in her own way, owned her own homes and raised two wonderful women for whom I can say I am truly sorry for. 2016 has been a trash year. Requiescat in Pace
trollhattan
@JPL:
If they’re people you like and who want to dive right into commiserating about last week–sazerecs. No pussyfooting.
Kay
@hovercraft:
At the beginning of Trump’s campaign i wrote here about how much scrutiny he would get as a candidate and how there would be all these investigations and revelations- and then there was one Bloomberg story and one NYTimes story and that one reporter at the WaPo.
So there’s no reason he can’t invent his Presidency. Something could intervene but it will have to be something that does not now currently exist.
nominus
I’ve been talking about this for a while this year – go read 1984 again. Read the part at the end where Winston’s illusions are finally shattered. He had been holding on to a scrap of evidence that the party destroyed information. He had proof that the party was manufacturing falsehoods out of whole cloth. It wasn’t just his words, he had tangible proof.
And
It
Didn’t
Fucking
Matter.
Far too late, Winston is shown that facts don’t matter. The party creates fact, they remove fact, and when they have that power, reality doesn’t matter because reality is simply whatever the Party says it is. That was what Don meant when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and no one would care.
The left has to figure out a way to fight this on different terms. Fact-checking is not just useless, trying to fact-check binds us to the false belief that this is a fight over facts when it’s a fight over power and the power to shape reality. If we decide to ramp up our efforts to fact-check and police reality, we’re going to lose. I have no idea what the solution is, but the current mindset is a guaranteed loser.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
My question now is if the media is going to let them continue this for the next four years. Before the election they kept saying that it wasn’t going to win so it wasn’t as important to hold it’s feet to the fire. Well it is Shitgibbon elect now, so will there be accountability, or will they let thruthiness prevail for four years?
Corner Stone
@Jeffro:
I disagree. I can not tell you how many cycles i went through debunking the Speaker Pelosi’s Taxpayer Dollar Sucking Plane. Over and over again, every 4 to 6 weeks or so it would come back to life. With the same fucking wingnut friend! That I had patiently explained and sent documented facts to.
It’s not that we don’t pushback or don’t follow up. It’s just that the tidal wave/vortex of shit is just so enormous that where do you start?
When almost two thirds of Republicans say they believe Obama is a secret Muslim, 6+ years into his presidency and after two elections…what do you do about that?
Kay
Trump must have know after the birth certificate bullshit- “OMG, this works!”
They probably discussed it at meetings. “They let you go on for 2 years about the birth certificate! Why not!” Then they all burst out laughing.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: Some people are credulous. Some people are idiots. Some people are credulous idiots.
Let’s worry about the ones who are actually reachable.
kindness
I’m not completely down. As we all expected and as is starting to happen Republicans are once again over-playing the hand they were dealt. Sure, they can do these things because they have the votes in the chambers. But they aren’t going to help the suckers that voted for them. Those suckers might give him 2 years but they won’t give him more than 4. So, really, in order to make this a 2 year ride to Hell & back, we just have to find a way to pound out each and every transgression that is another of the 1000 cuts all Americans (who aren’t in the top 1%) are going to face. Take privatising Social Security. Take Block Grants for MediCaid & pre-tax coupons for buying insurance instead of MediCare. Even Trump voters will understand how they’ve been screwed. So it’ll be terrible but Republicans are going to help elect Democrats. Funny how zen/karma works.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: Everything I am seeing, from every outlet, is that this is over.
piratedan
to me the issue isn’t as much the “fake news” but back to the “old issue” as to who gets to decide what IS news.
endless days about Clinton’s e-mails and Benghazi… and we find out what exactly? It isn’t what they find that is at issue, its the fact that she’s under “investigation”… which means speculation and “people say” time which is easy, costs nothing and plays to all of our baser instincts.
Trump… actually on trial dockets, known philanderer, known racist, known misogynist… but those are known, nothing new here, why bother?
the fact that we have “illicitly obtained” e-mails (that actually have zippo scandalous in them) is sexy, intriguing that outweighs a presidential candidate calling for his opponents party to be hacked, get his wish and then parades the data (sans any content) as proof of her corruption, that doesn’t draw the same outrage tells me if I was in charge of the tumbrel machines, the first people in line are the copy editors and news division heads that made the calls as to what actually IS news.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
I think the problem is that we think they are capable of rational thought period.
Corner Stone
MSNBC is doing Pros and Cons of every potential Trump Cabinet member. None of the Cons mention racist or Islamaphobia or anything actually factual.
WaterGirl
I have had to step away today because I was getting so discouraged yesterday. So please forgive me if this has already been posted. This is a petition by the DCCC, so it’s at least encouraging to me to see that Democrats are taking a stand in some way. They are aiming for 500k signatures, and it looks like they are already at 300k+.
Ask them to reject Trump’s racist appointment!
http://action.dccc.org/petition/bannon
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
That is because they are shameless. Their bullshit is debunked to their faces, and they don’t care they just keep repeating it anyway. Remember Karl Rove said they create their own reality, repeating it over and over makes it real, till our side and the media move on while they keep on repeating it. Plus their echo chamber never lets any lie die, so even after we think they are dead, like Jason they keep coming back.
Emma
@ruemara: This year keeps killing good people. I am sorry for your loss and theirs.
Yutsano
@Juice Box: So basically they got conned and aren’t willing to admit it yet.
geg6
Passing on the old fashioneds myself but lots of wine on the menu for me. My avoidance of news has gotten worse, not better.
Thankfully, I’ve had my hands full taking care of my John post-shoulder surgery and the dogs, who are quite upset that dad is home but in the bedroom, from which they are firmly gated away. They are actually beyond upset, TBH.
Matt McIrvin
Darker and darker.
All this fussing about how Democrats can come back is stupid. We should be preparing to die.
gene108
@Jeffro:
If you give the gun-grabbers an inch, they sure as hell will. You think “background checks” are just going to be the be-all and end-all of it? It’s the first step towards outright gun confiscation. The next law will be a gun registry, so everyone has to register every gun, which just makes the job of rounding up Constitutional loving Americans that much easier for exercising our rights.
Even liberal* squishes like Wayne LaPierre and the NRA can be right twice a day, like a stuck clock, and they’ve blocked some of these gun-grabbing measures liberals keep spitting out.
Guns aren’t confiscated because we know and we’re vigilant.
/gun-nut
* There are several gun groups, with self-reported numbers in the several hundred thousands, who view the NRA as liberal squishes, such as the Gun Owners of America.
**********************************
In other words, you say “gun control”, they hear “gun grabbing”. We’re well past the point of reasoning with these people.
Corner Stone
@Juice Box: Look at all the D House seats we have lost, how many state legislatures, all since 2010 or so. White people in America looked around, found out we had been pulled back from the brink. That there was a chance to start regaining their sense of superiority. The world wasn’t ending. Now who are we better than? An African American President?! In *my* country!? An African American AG? In *my* country? Black Lives Matter? In *my* country?
And before I get any of this economic anxiety pushback bullshit. Nope.
Major Major Major Major
@Yutsano: They probably don’t even know. Anybody who thought those things about Trump only knows the very very surface gloss of his media image. If they pay that little attention to current events there’s no way they’re going to notice they got conned. Not with this media.
ETA: @gene108: I know an “otherwise liberal” person, family man, white, high-middle white-collar professional, who always votes Libertarian because guns. Knowing him has convinced me to permanently abandon trying to get the votes of these people. That his gun lobby has such a stranglehold on legislatures has convinced me that plebiscites are the only way to go for gun control. See also: California. Again.
The Moar You Know
It’s an insoluble problem because, like everything else, Dems are far happier turning the other cheek and weeping about how fucking unfair everything is, rather than giving the bullies a punch right back to the face.
Virtually every problem the Democratic party has at the moment is self-inflicted.
Kay
Cordray is really smart and really aggressive, although very polite and boring-seeming :)
Corner Stone
MSNBC is describing Sessions as a “Fierce Supporter” of Trump.
Jeffro
@gene108: I hear you, I hear you.
What’s the answer then folks? Can someone look up what the cure is when half the nation has a terminal case of Dunning-Kruger?
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin: Welcome to the jungle, baby! You’re gonna diiieeee!!!
trollhattan
@Kay:
We still have most of the smart people, which has to count for something. Can we hire some consultants for added cunning?
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: Be the political party that makes them feel smarter and better than other people? Worked for Trump.
D58826
Trump just bribed/settled his way out of the Trump U law suit. New York settled for 25 million dollars. Bet all of the records will be sealed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@kindness:
Perhaps more like The MSM high Brodierism and Mean Girls hate Hillary discouraged the sane people while the Facebook echo chamber drove the wingnuts into a frothing rage.
Maybe, now that Fox News has been flanked to the Right they have find a new place in the infotament world to stay in business, sort of looks like it’s “we’re the sane conservatives” so it’s at lest someone they will listen to occasionally pushing back. Worth noting the only two debate moderators who didn’t just roll over for Trump were Fox News personalities. My god the irony of this all.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
All news is fake. There is no news. Just like the old Russian joke – there’s no information in Izvestia, and no truth in Pravda. Our free press failed, because it was bought and paid for. Along with it goes the concept of “reality”, since everyone has their own facts. It’s all over but the screaming.
Brachiator
This is semi-horseshit. Blame media for half your problems. Blame social media for the other half.
Social media does not magically give permission. There are a number of issues being bundled into a simplistic look at this. And the old heads at The New Yorker are probably not the best place to go looking for an investigation or an answer.
With respect to Trump, some Republicans did denounce him, others simply remained silent. But his strategists and surrogates lied their asses off, ignored challenges, or simply changed the subject on the regular appearances on broadcast media. But the most important thing is that Trump supporters either didn’t care, or fully endorsed the message.
More bullshit. This is not much difference than the pamphlet wars that went on during the age of Hamilton. Only it is intensified greatly. And anyone who thinks that this was once considered unthinkable simply does not know history.
Corner Stone
“Fiery Gen Flynn”
JPL
@hovercraft: Read corner stone’s comment at 44..
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PaulWartenberg2016: They are in Macadonia and not the US.
Turgidson
And even to the extent that real journalism is happening, it has trouble competing with clickbait and sensationalism. Farenthold and Eichenwald published reams of investigative journalism that would have sunk Trump’s candidacy in early campaign cycles if it got the attention of one of the big 3 news shows or CNN. Now it’s easily drowned out by bullshit.
Major Major Major Major
Finding Common Ground: This White Man And This Muslim Woman Both Have ‘Trump’ Painted On Their Garages
(from the people who brought you The Onion)
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin:
Please give that a minute’s thought: we know we have more supporters, and half of Trump’s support was just anti-Hillary anyway. We’re going to take some hard hits but in the end, they can’t help but be themselves and it turns folks off. Wait until Trumpkins see what happens to their Medicare (and eventually, Social Security).
In the meantime, I hope Dems get off their duffs and bring out our own infrequent voters…get organized, get people registered, get ’em their IDs, and get ’em to the polls.
Oh and I made my calls to Senators and Congress today btw. Promise kept. Every day for as long as it takes!
JPL
@D58826: Yup.. It will be mentioned and then swept under the rug, like all his bad deals.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
THANK YOU! This.
D58826
@Brachiator:
I guess one difference is that in the pamphlet wars they were out on the street and you could not avoid at least hearing the other side shout. With social media you just block all of the voices you don’t want to hear.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I really hope you’re snarking, but since we’ve had several people who have genuinely been considering suicide as an option, please call this number. They are getting a LOT of post-election calls, so you are not alone.
You are a very valued commenter here. Please don’t do anything rash. We can beat them.
Kay
@trollhattan:
Cordray’s pretty cunning. He stretched his authority to cover student loans when the US Dept of Ed wouldn’t act, which shamed them into acting. I didn’t know they couldn’t get rid of him until ’18. I’m thrilled.
Imagine what the rip-off Trump Family think about consumer protection laws. That’s a threat to their lifestyle and culture, really.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@efgoldman:
how many times has The Onion been pushed as the real thing?
Chris
@Nick:
Speaking as a millennial, one of the things that reassured me until a week and a half ago was the notion that however awful the white backlash to civil rights was (and we still haven’t begun to scratch the surface in terms of undoing all the damage caused in the last fifty years), at least the worst of it was behind us. I had no illusions that white people were any less racist or that they weren’t getting even more and more unhinged, but I thought at least the nonwhite population had grown to the point where it and the non-racist whites could hold the line, and even slowly roll back the damage inflicted on us by decades of movement conservatism. Obama, after all, showed how you could win without making any particular overtures to white people riddled with racial anxieties.
That’s all gone now. With all the damage a Trump government is ready to inflict – vote suppression all across the board backed by a friendly Supreme Court, which together will make it any liberal bounce back vastly harder than it would’ve been in the past – I’m looking at an era of long term damage that’ll make Nixon and Reagan’s darkest days look like Obama’s. And with Trump’s peculiar brand of conservatism, the international damage will be immense as well.
catclub
@Corner Stone: comment at TPM :
It also wasn’t really working class, the chart of votes versus income still has Clinton winning the
lower income brackets, and Trump winning the upper income brackets. all very close to even.
Jeffro
BREAKING: Trump just paid to settle Trump U lawsuits. So much for “I never settle, it only attracts more lawsuits”. A chink in the armor! They can spin it all they want (and will) but I’m already loving that he was terrified of testifying.
So principled – not
So innocent – not
So ready to take on all comers – not
JPL
CBS News said the settlement is for the NY case, but ABC is saying all three cases. I hope that CBS is correct and the California case continues. I want to see the President-elect testify.
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman: I can’t speak for the right, but on the left, there are a lot of fly-by-night hoax sites that identify themselves as “satire” in microscopic print somewhere, but really just serve to rile people up with hoax after hoax designed to flatter liberal sensibilities. I say if it’s not even trying to be funny, it’s not satire. The Onion at least has tells: its headlines are usually crafted to be sufficiently absurd to be identifiable as satirical.
My least favorite of these sites is Newslo (and its many tentacles with different URLs). They take the kernel of a real story and lard it up with outrageous exaggerations, and their cute gimmick is that there’s a “show facts” button that just highlights the stuff that is true, so they can say they’re disclosing their satirical intent. But a lot of those articles just end up cut and pasted in quoted text when people link the page, and of course that defeats the “show facts” feature, and we’re off to the races.
Felonius Monk
FIFY.
Instead of a Ministry of Truth we have a Ministry of Bullshit.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: The real question is, is he gonna pay off the Trump U settlement with Trump Foundation money, or Mercer cash? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
catclub
@Corner Stone: The Slate headline that Sessions will be a disaster for Civil rights. Find me one possible nominee for Trump at AG who will not be a disaster for civil rights.
qwerty42
@Jeffro: … I think a lot of the ‘olds’ are going to feel so stupid for falling for this crap, that it’ll be easier for them to believe EVERYTHING is made up. Why not, they’ve already been conditioned to hate the LIEBRUL MEDIYA for fifty years. …
Although doubtful, you might stir up suspicion and even doubt by suggesting “these folks have nothing but contempt for you. They tell you this absurd stuff that you could easily verify, because they know you trust them and won’t doubt what they are saying. Maybe they even have a good laugh about that, but more likely they justify it as necessary for a ‘greater good’ that somehow works to benefit them. They don’t care about you; why should they? You’re a mark. Like at a medicine show. They know you want to believe them; they tell you what you want to hear.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.” – Romans 3 13
(the last might be too over the top)
hellslittlestangel
We really are living in a Philip K Dick novel, bad writing, lurid cover and all.
catclub
@Jeffro: Why not just stiff them and make them go to court again to get payment. THEN ask for delay since he is President.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
MSM attention: crickets. Yeah, he was pretty cornered but not even a flesh wound. Still, take ’em where we can get ’em.
Who pays the settlement on his behalf?
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. I’m not going to take myself out but I’m not at all sure somebody else won’t.
I sure didn’t sign up for a fifty-year fight against a totalitarian kleptocracy, but I suppose none of us did. I’m decreasingly convinced that regular political activism founded on the assumption of a liberal-democratic order will accomplish anything, because it’s based on assumptions that you can usefully convince people of things, that there are approximately free elections, etc.
Major Major Major Major
@hellslittlestangel: But it’ll make a hell of a movie!
catclub
@Jeffro:
I suspect settled, yes. Actually paid? I have my doubts. see my previous. I posted it before reading yours.
Jeffro
@JPL: Man he’s gonna be on a tear on Twitter tonight!
We have nothing to fear from these clowns if we stick together and let them bring themselves down, folks.
Kay
@JPL:
Me too. All this “settling” we do in this country is for the birds. We need some trials of powerful people. They’re just buying their way out of disclosing anything.
Corner Stone
@catclub: I honestly wonder how many people who voted for Trump even knew who Jeff Sessions was before today? That is if they have bothered to even find out today, of course.
Chris
@hovercraft:
This is extremely plausible. I’ve noted before that the right wingers I know already live this way, and that as much as anything is why I never talk to them anymore. It’s impossible to have a conversation when you know that every single proposition out of their mouths requires a thorough fact-checking before you even know what to respond to them. And then you’re going to have to make them realize that what they’re listening to is bullshit in order to actually respond. And even if you succeed, within a week they’ll have forgotten all about it and be right back to believing the original line of bullshit you debunked. All of this is a best-case scenario, assuming they don’t simply divert the conversation by sobbing about how you’re being mean.
No thanks.
Corner Stone
I mean, if we can’t even get god damned MSNBC to more accurately label Gen Flynn than with the word “Fiery” then what the fuck are we even bothering with anymore.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I struggle with that too. It’s a dark view but not irrational, I don’t think. There’s no ground to stand on.
D58826
@Jeffro:
daily beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/18/donald-never-settle-trump-to-settle-trump-university-fraud-lawsuit-for-20-million.html
In the meantime there was an article that AG Sessions isn’t satisfied with the FBI investigation of the e-mails and the Clinton Foundation. So the Clinton are still at risk of a squeal to the STARR Chamber Inquisition of the 1990s. Funny how Trump dodges a bullet, the masters of the universe get by scott free but the supposed crooked Clinton keep getting investigated. If Sessions follows up on his treat I would be very surprised if indictments didn’t result. Not a lawyer but have seen enough of prosecutors indicting a ham sandwich out of pure vengeance
JMG
@catclub: Failure to pay a settlement constitutes criminal contempt of court. Judge Curiel could have him jailed. He’ll pay.
frosty
Betty – bourbon or rye in the old fashioned? Inquiring minds and whatnot.
D58826
@trollhattan:
Some how I won’t be surprised if he figures a way to shift the entire settlement to the taxpayer.
divf
@hellslittlestangel: Nah. The people sitting next to me on the plane don’t have artificial eyes, a robotic right hand, and steel teeth.
Corner Stone
We have one nasty ass cold front coming in at us in the Greater Houston Metro Area. Been rumbling thunder for an hour and in the last 15 mins has become ominously dark, like an old white person in a voting booth marking it for Trump.
If the worst should happen, and my voice is silenced like a protester in 2017 America, know that I love you all.
Well, ok, most. Some. A few.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jeffro: It’s become clear to me that for a lot of people who voted for him, being told that he’s a con man, even by Republicans, didn’t change their minds because they actually get that he’s a con man, they just don’t think he’ll con them. They’re thinking that he’ll con others, for their benefit. Other countries, immigrants, anyone who’s not white or Christian and so on.
Going to be a rude awakening, though most of them will probably find some way to just stay asleep.
He’s already showing that he conned them left and right, during the campaign, showing it with virtually everything he’s done just in the first week as President elect. Running against both parties? Sure, now let’s appoint straight right-wing Republicans to the cabinet. Jobs for the little guys? Sure, first let me tell this group of billionaires that cutting their taxes is job one….
Jeffro
@qwerty42: I like it…might go with “when people on FB or anywhere else are constantly telling you what you want to hear or think you know…every now and then you might want to check those folks out. Just to be sure.”
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: If you’re in a blue state you need to be working to make sure things don’t change. At least there’s a chance you can see with your own eyes if elections are stolen, if civil rights are being violated. If you’re not, I don’t have any suggestions.
Kay
@Chris:
They’re completely primed though. They stopped believing bureau of labor statistics reports under Obama. In a way they stopped believing their own eyes. The economy isn’t bad in Ohio. It was no better in 2004 and they thought that was GREAT! That’s what everyone is missing about the Plight Of The White Working Class. They LOVED Bush.
I can tell the economy is okay- they;re buying trucks and Harley Davidsons and loading up on high interest debt.
The flip side of that is it will be really easy to believe everything Trump says. This started well prior to Trump. There is no objective reality. There are just individuals they believe and other individuals they don’t believe.
Bnad
There’s got to be a short circuit that will disrupt the RWNJ thought pattern. It seems to be built on a foundation of thinking that the world outside one’s door is full of incompetents, and a desire to be certain one’s feet are on the right path.
Это курам на смех
In his grave, George Orwell is a perpetual motion machine.
hellslittlestangel
@divf: You just haven’t chewed enough Chew-Z.
D58826
Just saw a bit of good news on this Friday. The GOP complaint against the vote totals for governor in heavily democratic Durham county has been tossed out. The vote was 3-0, all republican. Amazing
Kay
@Chris:
When all the journalists go to white working class towns and are shocked, well, all those places looked exactly the same under Bush. They’re no worse now. Where I live Obama’s economy is better than Bush’s. And they loved Bush. LOVED. So. If they’re comparing these places to how they were in 1968 I suppose that’s valid. But 2004? Not valid.
The Moar You Know
@nominus: You are correct. Kinda never thought about “fact-checking” this way before, just knew it was useless. Didn’t really understand why until your post.
divf
@hellslittlestangel: I’m a Can-D man, myself.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: Super blue (but with a Republican governor), and part of what’s burning me is that I’m really a privileged guy in a million ways, probably in the least danger of anyone in this country. But for that very reason there’s going to be a temptation to sell out principles of basic decency in a million ways to maintain my privilege, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist it.
Kay
@Chris:
We replaced meth with heroin, so that’s a difference. Other than that the thriving white working class under Bush looks exactly like the abandoned white working class under Obama.
mai naem mobile
The birth certificate was a bit of an eye opener for me. I would try to explain to people why it didn’t make sense. …Kenya was in the middle of it for its independence from the Brits. What parent would let their heavily pregnant daugher go to a war zone? Crickets..But Kenya is segregated and was even more segregated back then.Every doctor/nurse/ancillary staff would remember a biracial child being born in a hospital/clinic back then. It would be like an albino child or something.Crickets…The geography isn’t correct.Mombasa(where Obama was supposedly born) isn’t even near where the dad’s family is from. It’s like somebody having a kid in Alaska when your family and friends arw in NY…..Crickets. You can’t reason with these people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: “Darker and darker.”
I don’t know, has US senator been beaten nearly to death on the Senate floor over a speach he made? Has a serious news paper called Obama “the orginal ape”?
Jeffro
@D58826:
1) Anything that encourages Clinton to ramp up and re-point-out what a fraud, racist, liar, and con man Donald Arsonist is, is fine with me.
2) She might protest, but Obama can/should pardon her on his way out the door as a final fuck-you to this crew. (I know many will argue that he won’t, shouldn’t, whatever – but none of us has any idea if he would, so let’s just leave it as “Jeffro’s crazy idea #73)
Roger Moore
@Bnad:
I don’t think that’s going to help. All you’ll do is convince people that it’s all bullshit and they’ll ignore the real news, too. Instead, they’ll go with what people they like and trust are telling them, meaning they’ll listen only to people who feed their existing beliefs. I’m not sure there is a workable solution; it’s just way too easy to create and promulgate fake stories.
Baud
So this post isn’t about the NYT?
Weaselone
@Kay:
Don’t know what to say Kay. It looks like certain areas of the country will only vote Democrat if the economic devastation is horrible. They shift back to Dems only out of total desperation and the moment things get better, it’s right back to Republicans.
I suspect some states will eventually shift back after enough damage is done and misery inflicted, but the Kansas experiment suggests this will be a long process.
my hope was that Democrats had the numbers to hold on to the presidency until the fever burned out, but apparently Spock has a goatee in this universe.
Bill E Pilgrim
How about the Scientific Method Party?
“You can’t just make shit up!”
Climate change data can be verified, you can’t just make shit up. News stories can be more or less verified, repeat after me, you can’t just make shit up.
Yeah the name is nerdy but nerds have taken over everything else other than politics, it’s the era of the nerd.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t have any advice for you there either. Everyone has to make their own choice on what they’re willing to do.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Yeah, I don’t get this at all. The Rust Belt has been rusty since the ’70s. Why don’t they blame Ronald Reagan and Republicans? I’ll tell you why: because the nature of the blame isn’t “the government hasn’t done anything for us.” It’s “the government does things for other people, and the media cares about what happens to other people, well, fuck that.” It was caring about black people and immigrants and LGBT people and Muslims for the past 8 years that did it.
mai naem mobile
I was talking to a guy I work with occasionally. He’s a nice guy. Not a RWNJ but not a liberal either. He’s a Jehovahs Witness, so he doesn’t vote and he’s a little concerned about Trumpy be because Hitler sent Jehovahs Witneases to the concentration camps. Anyhoo, I was telling how I couldn’t understand how people could vote for such a conman etcetc. He whips out his smart phone and shows me a bible passage about the devil ruling the world etc etc and then he tells me not to worry,that the end is going to be quick. Jeezus christ.
Chris
@Kay:
I suppose actually admitting that rural America’s not doing so hot and that it’s got as many problems as the Inner Cities of their imagination could be considered a step up from the Mayberry-esque mythology the media and GOP were clinging on to up to this point. “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and dignity…”
NotMax
The slow, steady descent of reporting into stenography has been dismal to experience.
trollhattan
A Rhee in your future? Shit, just as we were finally getting rid of her.
Note well: unlike more typical opportunist Trumpsters she’s smart, ambitious, hard-working (and abusive of staff) and really understands enough about education to harm it deeply and meaningfully.
Corner Stone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I completely agree. I haven’t seen reports of an actual lynching in some time. So I think we’re still doing pretty good.
This is fine.
FlipYrWhig
@NotMax: They shifted from viewing the news as what happened to viewing the news as what people are saying about what happened. The latter option is much easier.
GregB
I think literally unplugging from 24/7 media exposure is an important componant.
I think in many aspects this last election was tantamount to mass psychosis.
There is literally too much shit being shoved into our brains. It is breaking many of us.
I am not saying totally remove oneself from exposure but limit an also end the FB message forwared cycle to a great degree.
I now have to unplug for dinner.
NotMax
@FlipYrWhig
Also too, punditry and spin is not reporting and a wan substitute confused for same.
divf
@FlipYrWhig: I also made this point in the previous thread, as did Matt McIrvin.
(I’d provide links, but I’m too html-impaired to do so).
FlipYrWhig
@divf: Yeah, I’ve been sure of it since talking to an African-American colleague who’s convinced that the catalog of incidents of vigilante and police brutality against black men functions as symbolic retribution against a black president.
D58826
@Jeffro: I wonder if he can issue the pardon w/o making it public? If the gop backs off then the Clinton’s can use it to line the bird cage. If they don’t then they can whip it out and give the GOP the bird
SenyorDave
I think the last thing Obama do is pardon Trump for sex crimes he might have committed.
mai naem mobile
@Corner Stone: I wonder how many people especially 80+ year olds knew what a server was. I wonder how many had seen an email. And don’t laugh, there is a small part of this country which is not plugged in.
BillinGlendaleCA
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Pravda ne izvestia, Izvestia ne pravda. Truth is not news, news is not truth.
SenyorDave
@mai naem mobile: Anyhoo, I was telling how I couldn’t understand how people could vote for such a conman etcetc. He whips out his smart phone and shows me a bible passage about the devil ruling the world etc etc and then he tells me not to worry,that the end is going to be quick.
Now I do feel a whole lot better about the election.
D58826
@mai naem mobile:
Wht do I find that less than reassuring
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
Because their panicked actions prevented disaster. This is the key to all these claims. They aren’t just a claim that evildoer is planning evil; they’re a claim that the defender of truth and justice can stop the evildoer in his tracks if you’ll just pitch in to help. The failure for evil to materialize isn’t proof that it was never going to show up but that the good guys headed it off. It’s an appeal that works really well because it has an element of truth to it: there often is something bad afoot that can be stopped if we mobilize against it in time.
Major Major Major Major
@SenyorDave: What if it turns out there actually are some?
FlipYrWhig
@mai naem mobile: At one point I became pretty sure that the word “private” was more important to the story than the word “email.” SHE HAD A SECRET COMPUTER IN HER BASEMENT! By the end, though, it had all been mixed up. But I guarantee you that the number of people who could explain what the email story actually involved was infinitesimal.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: 1850-1861 is one heck of a low bar to clear.
amused
Looks to me like the MSM has found the perfect way to deflect the blame for their tilting the election in Trump’s favor. Blame the “fake news.” Don’t fall for it. They’re the ones that are at fault.
Linnaeus
I’m so old, I remember when the Internet was supposed to democratize news and allow us to bypass captured mass media interests and get the truth.
Это курам на смех
@GregB: Turning off the cable news is helpful. May I suggest also closing your book of faces account? For friends and family I am reverting to telephone calls and words written on actual paper, then placed into envelopes.
Chris
@Linnaeus:
Well, I get more out of this place than I do out of the old MSM. So it kind of worked out.
Linnaeus
@Chris:
Oh, me too. There is an upside. But it’s like I used to tell my students when assigning essays: the greatest strength of the Internet is that anyone can publish on it. The greatest weakness? That anyone can publish on it.
Это курам на смех
@Linnaeus: Yep, we believed it was the wellspring of democracy and egalitarianism. Oops.
NotMax
A little G&S seems in order.
mai naem mobile
@SenyorDave: that’s kind of the way I feel about his tax returns. Make a full set of his returns up and have him deny them. Pretty sure it isn’t legal buy then they made up some of Hilz’ emails too.
debit
@Это курам на смех: Seconding. I had been watching MSNBC up until election night, but even before then had to stop watching Chris Hayes say, “Yeah.” and “okay” whenever one of Trump’s mouthpieces flat out lied. My family is not on facebook, but we are all very carefully not discussing politics over the phone or in person, and I have high hopes we’ll all still be speaking to one another after the holidays.
D58826
Ah there we go I see what he GOP problem is in the Durham county vote count for Governor. It seems that despite their best efforts at ‘protecting the ballot’ 119k votes were cast for Cooper and only 39k for McCory. An obvious case of vote fraud.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Corner Stone: I have some lovely pictures of pandas that I just scanned.
Corner Stone
@BillinGlendaleCA: You are rapidly working your way out of being one of the few.
debit
@Corner Stone: But you still love me, right?
Larryb
Betty,
I totally agree with your prescription but this gin drinker demands equal time:
The perfect martini:
1. Fill glass with ice and put it in the freezer while you make your martini.
2. Put into a shaker:
4oz Bombay Saffire, Tanqueray or other gin with a classic flavor profile. Save the designer gin with the exotic botanicals for your next G&T.
A scant cap full of good French vermouth. I like Dolin, but Nouilly Pratt is ok.
3. Prepare your garnish. I like Mezzetta Jalapeno stuffed olives, but any good, meaty olive will work. Stay away from anything labelled “martini olives”. They invariably suck. If you don’t have good olives, a lemon twist is great too.
4. Dump the ice into the shaker. Return the glass to freezer. Gently slosh, DO NOT SHAKE, 20-25 times. The drink is cold after 20 sloshes, but I like a slightly more diluted drink, so I give it a few more.
5. Pour the drink out into the glass, garnish, and serve immediately. Extra points if there’s still frost on the glass when you take your first sip.
Major Major Major Major
@Linnaeus: …he complained, about the media, over the Internet.
The Moar You Know
@Linnaeus: Bass player in my old band was THE guy behind IUMA, the first music-hosting site on the web. He always said the same thing about music. I knew it was shit then (couldn’t have told him why but I knew the industry wasn’t just going to pack up and walk away from free money) and it’s shit now. And the same argument with the news.
About the only thing it has democratized is porn. Good going, humanity.
Bill Arnold
@Turgidson:
Was talking with a friend today about automation (e.g. a browser extension) for clickbait detection.
This paper isn’t bad though the accuracy isn’t great. Clickbait Detection. Obviously it would become an arms race.
Continuing the ramble (not well-formed), automated detection of fake news is a similar problem (also potentially an arms race). Been thinking about it for the last week, and probably have a lot of company. When “Cervantes” (upper case C) was posting in comments here, he used the word “reliable” when talking about journalists with by-lines. Perhaps a reputation+directed-network-based system would be possible and potentially hard to game. Other heuristics include location, size of media company, age of media company, quality of writing (grammar, spelling etc). All individually with poor classification value. (But combinations would be stronger.)
Another potentially useful tool would be a Bubble-Breaker. In its simplest form, it could identify usage of the talking points/propaganda of the day, and offer up curated article collections from outside the bubble. Sheesh, I would pay real money for something like that if it worked.
debit
@Larryb: My mouth is watering. You know that anti drunk driving commercial with the guy sitting up to his chest in a martini? It made me want a martini car.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill Arnold: hm. Random forest. Makes sense.
I think at this juncture you’d be better served by just entrusting your content selections to a few trusted human curators.
bemused
Whee. We’re snowed in. Must be a foot of snow. Can’t get the back door open.
debit
@bemused: Yikes! Where are you?
Corner Stone
@debit: You didn’t somehow also adopt a panda when you brought Walter home, did you?
Gin & Tonic
@Larryb: Good plan for a Gibson, too, for those among us who cannot abide olives.
Mary G
Temperature in the Arctic is 36 degrees above average and I’m not even sure it’s going to matter who’s president. The tide of bullshit and appointments coming out today has me overwhelmed with horror.
Peale
@The Moar You Know: Yep. Although anyone who participated in online discussions before the democratization of the internet probably could say “Yeah. I say it coming”. This isn’t the information age I signed up for. My guess is that if we get unruly enough, we’ll end up with the restrictions on expressing opinion that they have elsewhere. We can’t really go on with forced outraged as the basis of our interaction with the news.
bemused
NE Minn, north of Duluth. Not snowing much now but from local tv weather alert, other counties still in play until 12 am. Didn’t see our county listed.
My spouse works at a car dealership and the tow calls were non stop.
debit
@Corner Stone: Nope, just the world’s sweetest dog.
Corner Stone
I wish I were snowed in. Being able to tell the world to fuck off for a while and just sit and contemplate in blanketed silence and peace for a bit.
debit
@bemused: I’m in Minneapolis proper and the snow isn’t even sticking so I don’t expect any real accumulation. Just ice everywhere once the temp drops. Going to be a fun commute home.
NotMax
@Larryb
Tough to find (and a break from tradition), but tiny pickled green tomatoes beat olives by a mile.
Corner Stone
@debit: Then in that case, [Mr Kool-Aid Man voice], “OH, YEAH!!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@bemused:
@debit:
@Corner Stone: What is this “snow” you speak of, I haz confused.
ETA: It’s 81 degrees at the cave entrance.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: I saw a graph of arctic ice the last n years and 2016 is looking… what’s the phrase, irreversibly fucked? All the other years the extent went up at the start of fall and this year it’s flat.
bemused
@Corner Stone:
It is so beautiful out there and cozy inside. Sending pics to our kids. Power blinked a few times but so far so good. This isn’t fluffy snow, wet and heavy stuff so power outages are a concern. Just glad we got a generator last summer,
kindness
@bemused: Please send some of that out to California. I’d like to go skiing over the holidays and forget all this.
debit
@Corner Stone: Swoon!
bemused
@kindness:
Wish we could all forget this nightmare. Still can’t quite believe it’s really happening.
BBA
@Matt McIrvin:
Wrong verb tense, sir. We should be prepared to die. The fact that Mandela was, and said so to the judge’s face, may have been what saved him from the gallows.
I don’t mean to take Mandela’s name in vain, but I’m getting less and less sure it is in vain.
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Kevin Drum says we are so screwed.
bemused
@debit:
The big storm is up here and northern Wi. The ski resorts will be happy, snow in time for Thanksgiving. Weird how it was in the 50’s just a day or so ago.
Larryb
@NotMax: Tried them (pickled green olives). They are interesting, but I prefer the umami you get from olives. Garnishes are definitely YMMV territory. I will never understand the gibson.
Gin & Tonic
@Larryb: And I will never understand putting an olive anywhere near my mouth.
NotMax
@Larryb
Not for martinis, but Mezzetta makes olives stuffed with Vermont sharp white cheddar cheese which are yummylicious.
Not wimpy slivers of cheese either, good sized chunks.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t blame you. Why, earlier this year I Heimlich’d a lady who was choking on one.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: I had to neoliberal one poor son of a bitch in a steakhouse one time. Very stressful.
Kudos to you.
Corner Stone
Personally, I love olives. Love them! Give Omnes all your commas but reserve your olives for me, if you please.
Brachiator
@D58826: RE: his is not much difference than the pamphlet wars that went on during the age of Hamilton. Only it is intensified greatly. And anyone who thinks that this was once considered unthinkable simply does not know history.
Twitter is the street for the social media generation.
You can be bombarded with all sides or you can retreat to a bubble.
The Internet began optimistically as the ultimate truth site. But it has been met by the establishment of deliberate lie sites where people can go to have their biases reinforced. The low point for this began with the Terri Schiavo case (one of the things that brought be to balloon juice). Even though you could easily go to the site and read the judge’s opinions, go to various newspaper sites to get the facts of the case, partisans not only started going to Fox News but they would go to sites specifically created to perpetuate the “Terri is still alive” lie.
And if someone provided links to a site with real information, partisans would deliberately ignore it.
You get similar stuff with climate change, anti-vaxxers, the various lies and over representations on the benefits of organic foods, etc. The immediacy of truth has been met with a counter-immediacy of lies.
Human beings are strange. Some of us must cling to our lies, myths, dreams and fantasies, because it sustains us.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone:
Is that even legal??
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: Of course it is. I did it, didn’t I?
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
Hell no. I see three problems with it:
1) I hate, hate, hate setting the precedent of pardoning outgoing administration members who were accused of wrongdoing. It’s a banana republic thing to do. What happens when disgraced outgoing President Shitgibbon pardons all the people on his staff for looting the treasury? If we pardon Hillary, he can claim he’s just following in Obama’s footsteps.
2) Pardons are for guilty people, not innocent ones. If Hillary is actually innocent of all wrongdoing, a remotely fair trial will exonerate her, or a conviction will be thrown out on appeal. A pardon short circuits that and lets the Republicans claim even Obama knew she was guilty but they can’t try her because Corrupt Obama pardoned Corrupt Hillary.
3) That’s assuming they’re interested in a fair trial. Yes, she could be convicted if they run a kangaroo court, but anyone willing and able to throw the law aside to that extent won’t respect Obama’s pardon anyway.
So, no pardon. No way.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
We could call them “the editor” and “the publisher”.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Shhh, we have to pretend it’s a new idea or nobody will use it. Like how Vox invented explaining things.
Millard Filmore
@mai naem mobile:
The birth certificate is a step beyond where you should have to go. Obama was born where the appropriate state agency SAYS he was born. Nothing else matters. If Trump cannot accept the authority of a state to declare who is born within its borders, he is either a revolutionary or an anarchist.
John Weiss
It should be taught from grade school to high school: always consider the source. Never take any single one as the truth. I was lucky. I was raised by a scientist and a school teacher.
Applejinx
@Jeffro:
Rubles :)
Applejinx
Oh, and…
@Matt McIrvin:
Bollocks. You’re THAT tied to the status quo? Change is not dying. There are many things about what’s currently scorned as ‘Democrats’ that won’t be missed, but we needn’t get into that right now.
This is no more sensible than the premature celebrating of Clinton’s landslide. Just accept that you’re every bit as caught up in the ‘fake news’ thing as any Republican, and we can all try to make sense of what we’ve got.
J R in WV
@Millard Filmore:
You left out the large chance that he’s a lying asshole…