Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

You are here: Home / In Like Quinn

In Like Quinn

by | 174 Comments

This post is in: 

Life comes at you fast:

A controversial blogger who calls herself a “friend” of neo-Nazis was tapped to join the New York Times editorial board on Tuesday — but rapidly pulled her nomination after an avalanche of backlash ensued.

Quinn Norton — whose previous work includes a lengthy essay sympathetic to the notorious neo-Nazi Internet troll known as Weev — was supposed to join the newspaper as a “lead opinion writer on the power, culture and consequences of technology,” according to a statement Tuesday.

“We’re excited to have Quinn to help our readers understand what’s possible and what’s sensible, and where we’re all headed,” The Times said in the statement.

But The Gray Lady backpedaled on that glowing assessment of Norton after Twitter users pointed to her checkered past.

I know nothing about Quinn. Nothing.

But I do know we don’t need voices sympathetic to Nazis when we’ve gone a bunch in the White House.

Reader Interactions

174Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Looks like she needed to be torpedoed. The NYT fucked up and then unfucked it. For tonight, at least.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    Can I just add that every single time I see a commercial for Untuckit short sleeved shirts I want to punch that grifting motherfucker for ripping people off.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    I would bet money they thought Quinn was a liberal thespian. And did not even bother reading anything she had ever written.

    However, I feel confident Quinn will make a fortune on wingnut welfare after the PC snowflake NYT did not want her.

  12. 12.

    justawriter

    Coming soon to a Fox Channel near you, either Quinn hosting her own newshour or a long series of essays on how this just proves whitey can never catch a break. Not sure which would be worse.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    I think one day the PQ will start falling apart like a vampire on True Blood that has been staked to death.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    Someone posted this idea in a previous thread, but it’s well worth repeating:
    If not bothering to vet your hires is good enough for the White House, it’s good enough for The New York Times.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Until a few hours ago, I had never heard of Quinn Norton. Looking forward to returning to that blissful state of being.

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    @Amir Khalid: I cannot believe they were so lazy. The tweets people were showing were just heinous. Not even close to “kidding” kinds of things. And she is nasty even when not using epithets.

    She already had the snotty, defensive tone down, though.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    Gott im Himmel.

    (Plus anything computer related named Norton is a crappy waste until proven otherwise.)

  30. 30.

    Starfish

    Quinn is being smeared here. Why did Bret Stephens get to continue, and Quinn have to give up?

    In the mid-2000s, a good chunk of the internet revolved around weev’s nonsense. I think he was affiliated with Encyclopedia Dramatica. Quinn dated Aaron Swartz who killed himself when the government came after him for making public a large chunk of data from JStor. Most recently, she went after Robert Scoble for groping some drunk married woman at a conference.

    She was there for a lot of important moments in tech culture, and she has some interesting things to say. I don’t think she deserved this.

  37. 37.

    opiejeanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: It was. and we were on the edge of our seats for both his second and third run. Brilliant performances by several competitors but that one terrifying crash that one guy had made us cringe.
    I mistook Harano for him because I was cooking, and about lost my mind when he sat down thinking it was Shaun.

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    was supposed to join the newspaper as a “lead opinion writer on the power, culture and consequences of technology,” according to a statement Tuesday.

    She can now speak more authoritatively than ever about the consequences part.

  40. 40.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Starfish:

    a good chunk of the internet

    More like a bad chunk, and a chunk I’ve blissfully missed, having ever heard of exactly one of those names you mentioned. And, yeah, I’ve been around since uucp days.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    In-house announcer on MSNBC was swallowing his words earlier today. Granted I was in another room and only partially paying attention, but when he mentioned All In with Chris Hayes It sure as shootin’ sounded like he said Bowling with Chris Hayes.

  45. 45.

    terraformer

    I’m amazed at how bad the NYT has become. The Grey Lady used to be the bastion of journalism, or maybe I thought it was and it wasn’t. But damn, it’s like they’ve decided to go all-in. I don’t know why. Power I suppose? A seat at the table maybe? Hell, I don’t know.

  46. 46.

    No Drought No More

    I’ve concluded the shot-callers at the Times enjoy intentionally insulting democrats/liberals as much as does FOX. It’s a game to those people, a big game.

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    So Trump’s lawyer says he paid Stormy Daniels $130k out of his own pocket. Lots of lawyers here – is this the first lawyer in the history of “Anglo-American law” to pay someone off for a client without using the client’s money? I mean, this story is as believable as the Easter Bunny.

  51. 51.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Starfish: A commenter at LGF pointed out that she called President Obama the N word so good riddance. She can go write for Breitbart or Stormfront.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Oh, thanks! I’ll read it in a few, but should be interesting.

    And I found this piece on the “out of pocket” discussion, but got distracted and didn’t get around to posting it earlier.

  54. 54.

    Ohio Mom

    Inspired by all of today’s hoopla, I read (well, to be truthful, skimmed) a piece Quinn wrote about an upstanding Nazi in China during WWII, who saved Chinese lives.

    I was reminded of my fifth grade best friend’s mother pointing out to us that the mafioso (we lived in NYC and so knew exactly what the Mafia was, and did) went home from a day of crime and murder and lovingly bounced their grandkids on their knees.

    When I was ten, this was a terrible insight; half a century later, reading Quinn’s fey piece grappling with this conundrum as if it were a novel observation, I am not impressed.

  55. 55.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Gin & Tonic: Shorter Starfish: “I don’t see why consistent, overt homophobia and racism should possibly be seen as disqualifying for an editorial position at the New York Times simply because I like the writer’s other work. I also think actually using one’s own words – with truly minimal effort – to build such a case against said employment counts as libel. I am not a crackpot.”

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @Corner Stone

    More hygienic to go there, as the workers who parade around in costume won a labor agreement a few years ago which no longer requires them to share underwear.

    Really.

  63. 63.

    mai naem mobile

    I saw Quinn Norton and McCardle trending about the same time and thought Quinn Norton was McCardle’s publisher. Figured Norton had been involved in some merger and become Quinn Norton.

  66. 66.

    Corner Stone

    @Gin & Tonic:

    So Trump’s lawyer says he paid Stormy Daniels $130k out of his own pocket.

    I’m not an attorney. But I have sat at a table with a dozen people who had avg billable rates of $800 per hour and up argue for 45 minutes about a $30 personal charge to one of their accounts.
    So, no. The answer is no.

  69. 69.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Corner Stone:

    Still no understanding of why WaPo hired McMegan. She is no less vile.

    I’ll agree with your first sentence but not your second. McMegan is self-absorbed, vapid, careless, and annoying as all fuck, but I don’t think she’s capable of writing the truly vile and hateful stuff I saw earlier today from Quinn (someone had captured a bunch of representative tweets — which the NYT evidently couldn’t be arsed to do — and they were a sewer of racist, homophobic filth).

  70. 70.

    TS

    Just cancelled my 3 months old NYT subscription. Said the only person worth reading was Paul Krugman – every one else supported the worst president in US history.
    Was only costing $8/month – shame it is such a lousy paper.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think McMegan pushes just as many damaging ideas and policies but leaves off the N word or homophobia (I think, anyway).
    Neither warrants a post at a major national paper.

  74. 74.

    Sab

    @Ohio Mom: Wondering if I substitute the Washington Post for the NYTimes if my 93 year old dad with dementia will notice.

    I HATE paying for NYT subscription.

  75. 75.

    GregB

    I saw on the Twitter that Common Cause, I think, forced Cohen’s hand into making this claim.

    Now word that Gary Cohn may become the next COS after Kelly gets kicked to the curb in this latest mid season finale of As the World Burns.

    I see also reporting that economic prognosticators are starting to hedge on the strength of the economy.

    Stay tuned and buy some popcorn or Cheetos.

  76. 76.

    Starfish

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I didn’t know her from what she was doing from Twitter before I was even on Twitter.

    I knew her from this that she wrote in the aftermath of Aaron Swartz’s suicide. I knew her from this that she wrote about Robert Scoble.

    People are saying that she is anti-gay because she was using slurs on Twitter. Is she really doing more to harm gays than Ross Douthat, or is his anti-gay more acceptable because it is more polite?

  77. 77.

    eemom

    Wait a minute here. Of course the NYT is fucked 7 ways to Sunday….but hiring an overt Nazi sympathizer? Presumably because they didn’t even do a google search? This is an entirely new level of fucked.

  78. 78.

    Chet Murthy

    @Starfish:

    In the mid-2000s, a good chunk of the internet revolved around weev’s nonsense

    What rot. Maybe amongst some nutjobs out on the fringe. Not anywhere near where all the action was.

    As for Quinn, the old joke “but you fuck one sheep …” still holds. She fucked her sheep. She’ll need to atone.

  79. 79.

    Starfish

    @JR: Imagine that journalism is dead, and the editorial page of the New York Times is staffed by people who can generate clicks. Do they choose Brianna Wu or Naomi Wu?

  80. 80.

    different-church-lady

    @Starfish: When you find your defense of someone rests on the relative damage they do to gays, you should have the good sense to quit right there.

  81. 81.

    Corner Stone

    @GregB:

    Now word that Gary Cohn may become the next COS after Kelly gets kicked to the curb in this latest mid season finale of As the World Burns.

    Trump already despises Cohn after Charlottesville. So I wonder how long that could last.

  84. 84.

    eemom

    @Starfish:

    Oh shut the fuck up, you freakazoid troll. Lemme guess — you’re a sock puppet for the guy last night who was defending Jeff Sessions on the ground that “Anglo American law” is a well recognized “term of art.”

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    In an unrelated note, I hear that Bristol Palin is getting divorced.

    Such a shame. She seemed so stable.

  90. 90.

    kindness

    Jesus would these same people tweet to the WaPo over their hiring Megan Mc Arglebargle. I shit a brick when I saw they signed her.

  91. 91.

    Ohio Mom

    @Sab: He’s past doing the crossword, he won’t notice that, so I think it worth a try. (I remember how sad it was when I was visiting family in NYC and noticed my elderly uncle had given up the puzzle because his brain was no longer up to it.)

    If he does notice, blame the delivery guy, sigh, and re-up the subscription.

  92. 92.

    Tenar Arha

    It’s ironic that she had a whole thread where she was dragging the NYT like a month or so ago.

    I promised myself early in my career that I wouldn’t work for the NY Times after they spiked the 2004 NSA spying story, and I never have. This was quite an emotional read for me.

  93. 93.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: Whoa! That’s not the Anaheim park. Yuck!
    The Florida park tried to recruit my youngest when she worked at the Anaheim park. She took a look at the pay and conditions and told them very politely to fuck off.

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    @Suzanne: She was married? i thought she was just spitting out little Palins. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you know.

  95. 95.

    Wendell Ricketts

    Not to mention the 2013 tweets that emerged in which she was regularly calling people “fag.”

  97. 97.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gin & Tonic:
    In Malaysia a lawyer isn’t allowed to mix their funds with the client’s like that. I don’t know just how it works in the US, or in New York if that’s the relevant jurisdiction, but I would expect some similar rule to apply.

  98. 98.

    Starfish

    @different-church-lady: “On October 16, 2014, Ross Douthat, spoke at a fundraiser for the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund), a right-wing legal funding group that supports the criminalization of homosexuality.” Douthat has a much larger platform than Norton has ever had and has raised money for his causes. Yet, he has a column at the NYT.

    Norton is much less influential than he is, has always had a much smaller platform, and is not actively raising money for anti-gay causes.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Corner Stone:

    I think McMegan pushes just as many damaging ideas and policies but leaves off the N word or homophobia (I think, anyway).

    I won’t argue with you. In all honesty, I haven’t read enough McM to have any clear idea what policies she routinely pushes. Mostly, I know her because of all the mocking she gets here and a few other places, and that’s mostly of the ThermoMix-pink Himalayan salt variety.

    Neither warrants a post at a major national paper.

    Here we are in full agreement.

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne: I kind of wish I were too big a person to chuckle at that news, but Bristol has shown herself to be a nasty, if damaged, piece of work. and the husband posed for some obnoxious anti-Obama picture with his horrid soon to be ex-MIL

  103. 103.

    Starfish

    @different-church-lady:

    I shared a stage with Bill Keller a few years ago. He used the wrong pronoun for Manning, I corrected him. We chatted back stage about what I mean by diversity, and rights, among other things, he cordially said he's think about it.— Well that was fun. (@quinnnorton) January 3, 2018

  104. 104.

    Chet Murthy

    @Starfish: shorter: “but whatabout Ross Douthat? henghhhh?”

    Pie for you.

    ETA: These auto-fellators who think the Internet was all 4chan and people with nose-piercings and shit. Fuckin kills me. I was there in 1994, when the College of Human Ecology’s undergrads (who knew “textiles” included acrylic fighter-plane nose-cones?) came online. I was there, helping the Fortune 500 get their sites online in the late 90s and early noughties. I remember when I stopped buying paper mags and started reading political blogs. And that was a fuck-ton more important than a bunch of tattooed nose-pierced nutjobs who think “imagine no goverment, heh heh, heh FART” is a political philosophy.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    That’s one I’ve never seen, but looked it up and it sounds adorable! Will have to see if I can get my hands on a copy.

  107. 107.

    efgoldman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    McMegan is self-absorbed, vapid, careless, and annoying as all fuck

    MBA from Chicago, but she constantly misplaces decimal points and commits basic arithmetic errors.

  108. 108.

    Starfish

    @Chet Murthy: You are saying you are older than me.

    I am saying that writing off Quinn Norton as anti-gay when she was taking on Glenn Greenwald because he did not respect transpeople enough shows that people have really superficial knowledge of Quinn or the things that she has written about.

    It is all there. The stuff that was wrong. The stuff that was right. But all anyone is reading is a group of tweets hand-selected for them by other people.

    If we start writing off people for having been wrong on the internet, the whole thing falls down.

  111. 111.

    James E. Powell

    @mai naem mobile:

    I thought of Quinn Martin Productions, a big time producer of TV shows when I was growing up – FBI, The Fugitive, Twelve O’Clock High among many others. At the beginning of each show a loud announcer voice guy would say, for example, “THE FUGITIVE, A QUINN MARTIN PRODUCTION!”

  115. 115.

    different-church-lady

    @Starfish: There seems to be a whole lot of cherries in that tree. But hey, what’s a few N-words and Neo-Nazi sympathies among cyber-pals, right?

  116. 116.

    James E. Powell

    @Starfish:

    If we start writing off people for having been wrong on the internet, the whole thing falls down.

    It’s not that she was wrong on the internet, she was evil on the internet. We can write off people for being evil.

    And pointing out that other people are equally or even more evil than her makes you look pretty silly.

  119. 119.

    sharl

    @Starfish: You’re far braver than me in trying to explain Quinn to anyone who didn’t know anything of her background – a truly messy and frequently awful history that did not leave her well suited to deal with the respectable world. If there is anyone who seemed a likely candidate for a life on the Island of Misfit Toys Creatures, it would be her.

    I first became aware of her being hired (ever so briefly) via a tweet that screen-cap’d her blasé acknowledgement of her friendship with Nazi freakazoid weev. That was followed by a cascade of other tweets quoting other self-incriminating stuff from her. She should have anticipated this, and her supporters who worked to pitch her hiring should have as well.

    I only happened to know much of this already since I’ve followed her, off-and-on, since she first came to my attention in the days following the suicide of her former lover Aaron Swartz. Given her history, the idea of her getting a gig at the NYT never would have even occurred to me. Such a gig is more likely reserved for someone raised in a proper home, who knows society’s norms well; say, someone like Megan McArdle, or David Brooks. Certainly not a woman whose earliest memories include crouching down near her father and grandfather, whose guns were drawn in preparation for the consequences of a drug deal gone bad. Such a person would be far less likely to reach exalted heights in any profession, let alone big media. (Her dad survived to do a stint in San Quentin, fwiw, but eventually went to his grave kinda messed up. Might have been the VN war, or maybe he was fucked up before going there; if I recall the narrative accurately, I don’t think QN knew herself.)

    It was one disaster after another with her, since her earliest years. No justification for the bad choices of course, and she made some doozies.

    NYT definitely needs to do some better background checking on their potential hires.

  120. 120.

    different-church-lady

    @sharl:

    NYT definitely needs to do some better background checking on their potential hires.

    Yes, but they’re stuck with David Brooks.

  121. 121.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sharl: My s-i-l’s first step-dad was a drug dealer. She and her half-brother used to hide in a closet when bad shit happened. She now runs a women’s shelter.

    She isn’t friends with Neo-Nazis.

  124. 124.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    she constantly misplaces decimal points and commits basic arithmetic errors.

    C’mon, efg. You can hardly blame her for that gastritic calculator.

  127. 127.

    Mnemosyne

    @Starfish:

    Scroll down on this article to see the tweet of Manning happily posing after a teambuilding event with Mike Cernovich and other Nazis. This was revealed after she claimed she only went to a later party of Cernovich’s to “confront the enemy.”

    If all your friends are Nazis, nobody’s going to believe you when you claim not to be one.

  129. 129.

    cain

    @eemom:
    Actually Rep Schiff said the same thing on twitter. Not that I give a shit. Jeff Sessions is a racist, and it’s not like this comment of his is going to make his situation better or worse.

  130. 130.

    cain

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m stil trying to understand Starfish’s point. OK, yeah, fucked up in the internet, and what not. But that shit has consequences.. certainly, one isn’t to be on the editorial board of the NYT is it?

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    @cain:

    Techbros love their heroes and refuse to see any fault in them. Quinn’s neo-Nazi ties are less important than her insights about technology because shut up, that’s why.

  132. 132.

    sharl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Explanation (not justification) – Quinn did not befriend weev because of his white nationalism/nazi beliefs. Those two go back to weev’s old hacking/Anon days, which was part of Norton’s beat back in the day when she was a tech journalist. FTR, weev was an asshole then, even before his nazi beliefs were either not fully developed or not well publicized (a little of both was always my impression).

    Norton has long said that she argues with weev about the white nationalism shit whenever they talk; no evidence of progress on that front afaict. Also, the thing about her is that she seems to consider almost everyone redeemable, and also has always seemed loath to reject dealing with anyone because of that. Maybe it was the high school rape, after which she was kicked out of school because her (I think) boyfriend/rapist was felt to have a more promising future, so he wasn’t expelled so as not to impact his future. Maybe it was her getting kicked out of the house by her mom (can’t remember the reason for that; the high school rape maybe? Can’t remember). What the hell, I’m no shrink, just spitballing here…

    Because I’m a masochist apparently, I would occasionally immerse myself (on twitter) in that Anon/troll/hacker world that Norton, Swartz, weev, the recently deceased Jaime Cochran (@ACKFlags) and a handful of other people occupied, some more on the periphery than others. The ties that bound those people were complicated when they weren’t downright inscrutable, at least to my aging normie brain. They found friendship and camaraderie in each other’s company on that figurative Island of Misfits, which included a lot of mutual shitposting and teasing (the term ‘fag’ was commonly tossed around, for example, even with the gay and trans folks in that crowd. Like I said: explanation, not justification…).

    So Quinn went with friendship of a nazi and as such, exercised her privilege as a white non-Jewish person (fwiw her dad was Jewish, and she is bi and poly-amorous, none of which I think get you a higher humanity score in Hitler world).

    Just my unqualified, shitty analysis. People do what people do.

  133. 133.

    Felanius Kootea

    I finally cancelled my New York Times subscription today. I had justified not canceling earlier because we need credible news outlets to counter Fox and this insane White House, but as a black woman, I have better things to do with my money than subsidize people who hire neo-Nazi sympathizers. I’m still subscribing to the Washington Post, but Godammit, are there any news organizations left in the US in the Trump era that have not lost their minds?

    I’m surprised that Starfish creature hasn’t yet trotted out examples of Quinn’s non-white friends. The ones she befriended to balance out her love for the Daily Stormer’s co-founder and German Nazi businessmen, who totally suport her “sarcastic” use of the N-word to describe Obama. Fuck off with that shit.

  135. 135.

    eemom

    @sharl:

    What a masterpiece of passive aggressive humble brag apologism. “Explanation, not justification,” huh? Yeah, and I’m Emily Post.

    There is something deeply, horribly disturbing about your and your cohort starfish’s attempts to deny that sympathizing with Nazis is a big fat red line that is not crossed by anybody with any pretensions to human decency. Yes, even in these wild times. Especially in these wild times.

  137. 137.

    Chet Murthy

    @eemom: @sharl:

    Sharl, I’m in the same camp as eemom, but let me try to explain differently why Norton doesn’t get a pass based on her history. We all make bad decisions. And we all have friends who maybe aren’t the best, who maybe aren’t decent human beings. Heck, we have family like that, too.

    And so it comes to pass, that one of those friends or family becomes a threat to our nation. To our shared polity. That friend/family-member becomes a member of a genocidal group. At that point, if it’s a family member, we can be forgiven, b/c family is family, and maybe that’s something everybody ought to forgive. Even there, if we’re -public- about our embrace of that genocidal maniac, that’s a problem. B/c family is private, and the minute it becomes public, it’s no longer about family.

    Which leaves us with friends, and public utterances. I had a friend who was a real RWNJ. He once said to me “Chet, what’s the big deal about a few stress positions?” He’s always treated me really well, honestly, and I’m sure he’s got LGBT friends, too. Or at least gay male ones. I don’t know, b/c he’s no longer a friend. B/c he voted for Trump.

    These are not normal times, and if Quinn Norton thinks they are, she needs to maybe read some just-before-WWII history. Then read some WWII history. And then maybe read Arendt, or _They Thought They Were Free_ by Milton Mayer.

    Decent people don’t have Nazi friends. Only Nazis and Nazi sympathizers have Nazi friends.

    They’ll hunt us down if we let them. HUNT US DOWN. You don’t “engage in a discourse”. You shun it and make sure all your friends shun it. Drum them out of polite society.

  138. 138.

    eemom

    @Major Major Major Major:

    While paling in comparison to what we’ve seen on this thread, it kind of escapes me why anybody wants to bend over backwards to prove that Sessions wasn’t the first to use the phrase “Anglo American law.” Granted. I also grant that last night’s idiot had a point about the usage being understandable in Louisiana, which is the only US jurisdiction whose law is NOT modeled on what we non-hipsters have always called “the common law.”

    But hey, if justifying Sessions-speak is your thing, go right ahead. Knock yourself out.

  139. 139.

    1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Starfish: I think FTFNYT already has enough bigots, genteel,and otherwise, disgracing its editorial page. They don’t need to add another one.

  141. 141.

    Gemina13

    @Ohio Mom: Born in Chicago, I grew up passing various mob-related landmarks, including the cemeteries where many mobsters were buried. My parents had more up-close-and-personal experiences, because Dad was Sicilian; it was assumed that a paisan would automatically know that when several gentlemen came to the door of his business and suggested he needed protection, the smart thing to do was to pay up. Dad was first-generation American, despised the Mafia, and told these gentlemen three times (once for each business) to go to hell. The third refusal nearly ended in the death of my whole family. So my parents never romanticized the Mob.

    I was taught not to be surprised that these guys, who could go out and set fire to a business while knowing there was a pregnant woman and three small boys living in the apartment above it, would go home, kiss their wives and kids, have dinner, and make sure nobody vandalized their houses or (per John Gotti) got away with running down a neighbor’s kid. They were still human, after all – they were just bad, and quite often evil.

    Uphold for evil, and you might as well acknowledge you’ve sold your soul for a pittance.

  142. 142.

    sharl

    @eemom: passive aggressive humble brag apologism.

    This makes no sense to me; what do you think I am humble-bragging about?
    I certainly don’t think I’m apologizing for Norton.

    There is something deeply, horribly disturbing about your and your cohort starfish’s attempts to deny that sympathizing with Nazis is a big fat red line that is not crossed by anybody with any pretensions to human decency.

    I can’t speak for starfish, but I’ll cop to not making it clear enough that I think Norton’s thing for weev is utterly unacceptable, and where she has expressed regret/embarrassment about her friendship with weev, it takes little effort to find other places where she subsequently dotes on him (though maybe not recently). At least up until several years ago, her sincerity regarding opposition to weev’s views was certainly on shaky ground – to say the least – and her silence on neonazi horrors like the murder of Heather Heyer does call her human decency into question (though maybe that silence was motivated by a desire to avoid the weev thing; dunno). I’ll cop to being too clinical (or whatever) in being curious about just what makes Norton tick on stuff like this, and why it seems to be such a blind spot for her.

    @Chet Murthy: Thanks. That stance has always made sense. On the matter of getting Norton to read some relevant history, she may well take different lessons from such readings than ordinary folk, and in fact folks apparently turned up what sounds like an admiring post from her on some WWII-era Nazi (I forget the name). She will confuse, confound, disappoint, and enrage people on stuff like this.
    …..How the NYT missed all this toxic content is a mystery, especially when others found it within seconds of the hiring announcement. I’m assuming she had some stellar recommendations, which (if true) would only raise further questions.

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    @Starfish:

    Q. Morton is a racist nazi. She doesn’t deserve to earn a living any way other than by hard physical labor. Just read her literature, to coin a phrase. The N Y Times started treating nazis like precious gems nearly a century ago, in 1922 (so 96 years ago give or take a few months) with a fawning biography and review of Adolph Hitler which is commonly available on the Internet. Evidently they are still going with that.No excuse!!

    I had more to say, but I forget my next point… it’s late.

  144. 144.

    Chet Murthy

    @sharl:

    How the NYT missed all this toxic content is a mystery

    There’s a joke genre for this, yes? “Why do all these X keep Y my Z??”

    e.g. theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529

    and
    lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/02/abusive-misogynists-keep-ending-associated-donald-trump

    And the answer is simple: because the NYT likes it that way. Brad Delong put it this way once: “The Cossacks work for the Czar”. If shit is fucked-up, it’s b/c somebody wants to keep it that way.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @eemom:

    Plus, what keeps being forgotten by some is that Sessions wasn’t talking about “Anglo-American heritage” or “Anglo-American law” but specifically about “Anglo-American law enforcement.” That, combined with the omission of the tribal police and the focus on sheriffs, is a pretty smoky smoking gun.

  148. 148.

    Mnemosyne

    @sharl:

    I’ll cop to being too clinical (or whatever) in being curious about just what makes Norton tick on stuff like this, and why it seems to be such a blind spot for her.

    It’s because she’s a racist, so she doesn’t notice anything peculiar when her friends spout white supremacist shit. She agrees with them, but wishes they would be more polite about it at her parties.

  149. 149.

    Tenar Arha

    @Chet Murthy: Pretty much.

    I can’t stop thinking about Kurt Vonnegut, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” And I since I tend to believe our associations do effect who we pretend to be, we must be careful who we call our friends.

  150. 150.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    It may be that I have spent too much time at Lidice and at various Resistance museums (because family reasons), but I find myself unable to summon up sympathy or concern on behalf of some ignorant barmpot who didn’t get her dream job as Voice of the Yoof because of her friendships with Nazis.

  151. 151.

    Chet Murthy

    @Tenar Arha:

    we must be careful who we call our friends.

    I do think that this must be used with some caution in normal times. In normal times, an inability to understand why a fellow citizen is not merely a political opponent, but a genocidal enemy, is a problem — bc we want for all voices to be heard in the public square, and we want for all voices to be decent. So when we hear somebody being indecent (and eliminationist), I think it’s worth it for *some* people to try to figure out why they’re doing it, and try to change them.

    But these aren’t normal times. And per many thinkers and historians, we’ve been deluding ourselves as to their normalcy for a long, long time. So even after (if! if!) the emergency passes, we’ll have quite a lot of cleanup, and in those times also, we will be unable to extend to Nazis the gift of our attempt to understand.

    Not sure I’m saying this right, but basically, I should have unfriended my Trumpist friend a long while back. B/c I knew what he was. Instead, we agreed *NEVER* to talk politics ever/ever again. Now I know better.

  152. 152.

    Mary G

    @Steeplejack: The actual dog whistle I heard was Anglo-American heritage. It is heritage that is a code word with some of these white supremacists. If he had said Anglo-American common law, or even tradition, not great, but yeah, kinda.

  153. 153.

    eemom

    @Chet Murthy:

    Christ. The longer the discussion, and the later the night, the creepier it gets.

    In normal times, an inability to understand why a fellow citizen is not merely a political opponent, but a genocidal enemy, is a problem — bc we want for all voices to be heard in the public square, and we want for all voices to be decent. So when we hear somebody being indecent (and eliminationist), I think it’s worth it for *some* people to try to figure out why they’re doing it, and try to change them.

    Dunno what you mean by “normal times,” you sick freak — but I’m afraid I can’t get on board with “an inability to understand why a fellow citizen is a genocidal enemy, is a problem” in any kind of times.

    We are so fucked.

  154. 154.

    Steeplejack

    I’m getting ready to take my leave, but I just wanted to add that there is a certain infuriating whiff of privilege around the idea of being able to play-act at racism, fascism, white supremacy, etc. (or claim you were only fooling), but then “recant” (maybe) when shit gets real. “We were just exploring the philosophical space.” Yeah, right. Well, white Quinn Norton, unfortunately, people easily identifiable as black, brown, Muslim, LGBTQ, etc., don’t have that luxury. They have to live the reality. And they have to face people like your friends, who aren’t just poseurs but are actual, dangerous racists, fascists and neo-Nazis.

  155. 155.

    AxelFoley

    @Starfish:

    Quinn is being smeared here. Why did Bret Stephens get to continue, and Quinn have to give up?

    In the mid-2000s, a good chunk of the internet revolved around weev’s nonsense. I think he was affiliated with Encyclopedia Dramatica. Quinn dated Aaron Swartz who killed himself when the government came after him for making public a large chunk of data from JStor. Most recently, she went after Robert Scoble for groping some drunk married woman at a conference.

    She was there for a lot of important moments in tech culture, and she has some interesting things to say. I don’t think she deserved this.

    Fuck right the fuck off.

  156. 156.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    Okay, I went back and checked that post. What Sessions said was “Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.” Those last three words, for me, explicitly push it over the edge from bland, generic boilerplate into dog-whistle territory. Especially, as I said above, coming after the emphasis on sheriffs and the omission of “tribal police” that was in the prepared speech.

  157. 157.

    sharl

    @Mnemosyne: FTR Norton says otherwise –

    For those of you honestly concerned. I don't support weev, that's not given in how I define friendship. I believe white folks should engage with the racists in their life: t.co/IQcN3yz58x and I believe all people are redeemable, and "all people" is all people.— Well that was fun. (@quinnnorton) February 14, 2018

    Weev doesn't talk to me much anymore, but we talk about the racism whenever he does. My door is open when he, or anyone, wants to talk, but we're talking about the stupidity of racism and the people in my life know that to be true.— Well that was fun. (@quinnnorton) February 14, 2018

    You probably won’t be surprised to learn that she isn’t winning over many respondents.

    I’m wondering though, about that thing a lot of black educated folks tell us white folks – correctly I think – that WE white folks need to work on our own family and friends, getting them to see their own racism-induced blindness…is there some line beyond which our (fellow) whites should be considered lost causes? Maybe weev is such a lost cause; after all, he has the professed beliefs and huge tattoo telling the world that he’s a nazi. I don’t know, but if anyone can reach him, it would be a (former?) friend like Norton. I just don’t get the impression she is making any progress, to the limited extent she reaches her nazi pal in whatever Ukrainian town he is sulking.

    Sometimes neo-nazis come around, though I have no idea how many. I have my doubts there are many Christian Picciolini success stories out there, but who knows? He’s also not a good example of the white-on-white racial education I just noted, since he seems to have become enlightened without such help from other white folk (per that link).

    Then there’s Kamau Bell

    Look it’s Kamau Bell at KKK rally. Are you going to get his show banned for talking to bigots? Don’t you people see how stupid these purges are or will the left have to be totally ignorant about the threat we face from the far right? pic.twitter.com/XmsCFlrWNR— Edward (@EqualityEd) February 14, 2018

    A brave and worthwhile effort which hopefully made at least modest inroads. But no single effort is going to make it all better.

    People with privilege first need to be convinced why they should care enough to learn what’s going on outside of their comfy cocoons, and there are an array of forces that work against that and in support of confirming biases (Fox News, well policed and/or gated communities, etc.). And now these angry white people have their own kind running all three branches of government, so I don’t see much opportunities to enlighten all these Weev Lites. What’s their motivation to have their minds changed? Everything is hunky-dory for them, even as their collective pockets get picked.

    Oh, to be fair to Norton, while I didn’t find any mention from her about the late Heather Heyer, she did conduct a one-woman anti-white supremacy vigil in Luxembourg during the Charlottesville protest, fwiw. Certainly doesn’t make up for the weev love, and Norton’s apparent inability to see the danger he poses to those who don’t look like her, but I’m unconvinced by all the people calling her a full-blown nazi. She is blinded by white privilege and personal friendship, as far as I can tell.

    By the way, that WWII-Nazi reference I mentioned upthread – the one where I couldn’t remember the guy’s name (it’s John Rabe) – is in this tweet and its link (which I haven’t read):

    For people who are calling me a nazi apologist for my article about John Rabe: t.co/bm8k7lahfR srsly, wut are u talking about— Well that was fun. (@quinnnorton) February 14, 2018

    I’m turning in. Feel free to ‘let me have it’ in my absence, and I’ll respond as best I can later in the day.

  158. 158.

    Chet Murthy

    @eemom:

    Dunno what you mean by “normal times,”

    Normal times are those in which Nazis and other nuts (and their symps) comprise a vanishingly small part of the population, and have no way in public discourse. In such times, why *wouldn’t* you want to figure out what drives these diseased people? They’re our fellow citizens. Just because they’re sick, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to cure them.

    But you can only do that when they don’t pose a threat to our existence. And these aren’t normal times.

    Do you also believe in the death penalty? Do you not believe in the possibility of redemption for convicted killers and other sorts of felons? Because that’s what you’re saying you believe, for Nazis, regardless of how close or far they are, from the levers of power, regardless of how (dis-)respected their views are.

  160. 160.

    Starfish

    @sharl: I started following her around the time Aaron died too. I could never really quite tell if she was really grieving or using his death as an opportunity to get a bigger platform for her writing.

    Such a gig is more likely reserved for someone raised in a proper home, who knows society’s norms well; say, someone like Megan McArdle, or David Brooks. Certainly not a woman whose earliest memories include crouching down near her father and grandfather, whose guns were drawn in preparation for the consequences of a drug deal gone bad. Such a person would be far less likely to reach exalted heights in any profession, let alone big media.

    I felt like she was called out and trashed in a way no man would be. People seem to have forgotten how much less seriously the White Nationalists were all taken before Trump’s presidency.

    She seemed mad at Obama because of the way the Department of Justice was going after Aaron during Obama’s presidency.

  161. 161.

    sharl

    @Steeplejack: I keep reading this, but failing to see what it offers in any actionable way. Privilege is a real thing, but is it an improper assertion of privilege to talk about that? (Ignore the weev business, he’s apparently off in Ukraine, probably trying to join the local Stepan Bandera Fan Club.)

    Proper moral outrage can be a useful thing, though maybe not so much when it’s coming from those of us already following politics closely. Reports from the Florida state House District (HD27) that just flipped to the Democrats suggest that a significant amount of the outrage was supplied to “average” voting-eligible folks who saw that photo of the ex-wife with the black eye received from the just resigned senior White House staffer (Porter). I would like to think that those same folks are angry about the Trump hate toward everyone outside his preferred demographic, but it would be best to not have to count on that. And in general, it sucks that people only see Trump and his camp followers for what they really are after the 2016 election, but that’s where we are.

    It would also suck for Democrats to have to rely solely on own-goals by President Stable Genius and his crew. I’m guessing he’ll come through on this score in a big way, but it would be a lot safer/smarter to build up something proactive, even if that’s a slower process – as long as it offers significant chances for longer term gains.

    Most of us white folks are racists to some degree, few reaching weev-levels of hate, but most of us with varying levels of ignorance and biases. I believe that some of those folks can be convinced to furl their racism flags, if they are offered something of value, whether it’s decent jobs where they live, solutions to the opioid crisis that is killing so many of their family and friends, and other local issues too widespread and numerous for me to know about them.

    I’ve posted these before, gonna do it again – from Obama’s 2008 campaign:

    Racists for Obama — Plenty of white bigots will vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. There are some things they fear more than black people.

    That Salon piece was inspired in part by a FiveThirtyEight piece that came out a couple weeks earlier: On the Road: Western Pennsylvania

    The Obama campaign organized and worked their asses off in 2008, plus they had the big advantage of following Dubya. Hillary had a much tougher act to follow. But the problems are still out there, even if they differ somewhat ten years later.

  162. 162.

    sharl

    @Starfish: I personally have no doubt that her grief was real. There was probably some guilt involved as well, since she unintentionally supplied some of the information used by the Boston AUSA’s office to prosecute Swartz.

    And yeah, Norton and Swartz’s partner at the time of his death were VERY unhappy with anyone in U.S. government even remotely connected to that CFAA prosecution – Obama, Holder, etc. A mixture of intense grief and frustration I think.

    Some of the older tech wonks around Swartz, like Larry Lessig, should have provided some firmer mentoring to him, to try steering him from trouble. But that hacker culture was so carefree and laissez-faire at that time that it doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of the older folks that this young whiz kid would get himself into such deep trouble.

    As far as Quinn Norton goes, she has too much of a very public past hanging with anons, trolls and non-corporate hackers (of the more destructive variety), and writing in their rude and crude lingo, at least on twitter. Not a good fit for the Media Big Leagues. How she and her advocates didn’t see how that past would play out here is mind-blowing to me.

  164. 164.

    Bobby Thomson

    @rikyrah:

    They could have Googled her and found it out about her

    Not a chance they didn’t know it. This is part of a familiar dynamic in which the Times tries to market itself to people who will never subscribe by pushing right wing politics. I’m just surprised they backed down instead of doubling down when the blowback was greater than they anticipated.

  165. 165.

    different-church-lady

    @sharl:

    They found friendship and camaraderie in each other’s company on that figurative Island of Misfits…

    Sounds to me more like a figurative Island of literal Assholes.

  166. 166.

    different-church-lady

    @Chet Murthy: On top of that, this is not about who your friends are: this is about who should be on the editorial board on what is ostensibly the country’s leading newspaper.

  167. 167.

    different-church-lady

    @sharl:

    She is blinded by white privilege and personal friendship, as far as I can tell.

    The NYTs already has a David Brooks, thank you very much.

  168. 168.

    sherparick

    @rikyrah: It seems amazing but it appears that a remarkable number of NY Times opinion writers, editors, and even lead reporters are just to freaking lazy to “google” to verify basic facts.

  170. 170.

    chopper

    I don’t understand how someone can be friends with a nazi. how is it that naziism isn’t a deal breaker for this person? how the hell do you just set that whole thing aside?

  172. 172.

    Was NotOnScript

    @sharl: The idea of “changing” someone just strikes me as incredibly naive.

    First off, I remember being mystified by her interactions with the US Attorney with regards to Schwartz. She actually believed that he would magically see her side of things and suddenly drop charges instead of using parts of what she said against him.These interactions might even been against legal advice, but maybe I’m misremembering.

    Second, interactions with assholes also can change you. It’s not just a one-way street. The arrogance and/or folly of youth say otherwise.

    Third, a lot of instances of change involve IRL, not just spouting back and forth on social media.

    My bottom line here is that someone who on Twitter uses the n-word about Obama and also flings around the word fag doesn’t get a spot at the NYT. I don’t care what their politics are. I don’t care about the context (on Twitter!). And it certainly doesn’t help that she is neither African-American nor a gay man.

  173. 173.

    Miss Bianca

    @SiubhanDuinne: Long-dead thread, but interlibrary loan is your friend if you want to find that movie! It’s a weird little one, to be sure – tonally it’s all over the map, but definitely worth watching!

  174. 174.

    sharl

    @Was NotOnScript: I agree with most of what you said. Addressing your points in reverse –

    Her performative slur-slinging and shit-posting on Twitter — even if several years in the past — should have disqualified her for consideration for the NYT gig from the get-go. I’ve been reading some better discussions today (as opposed to the venom being squirted at her last night, much of which she invited with a rather finger-waggy tweet at her critics). Apparently at least some of her old tweets did come up in pre-hiring discussions with the NYT, although she didn’t get into details of those discussions, beyond a specific January tweet where she said she’d never work for the NYT. It still boggles the mind that NYT would not have researched her social media content of their own volition. I’ve sadly come to the conclusion that other commenters here are less naive than I am about the NYT’s competence in such matters, and clues I’ve seen in some of today’s exchanges confirm that.
    …..QN values her longer form writing far more than her twitter output; to the extent she thinks her writing will make any difference, it would be her longer stuff where she puts her faith. It is here where I wonder about who her friends are, especially those whom she bounces ideas off of or with whom she shares early drafts. I’m wondering specifically about something she wrote 2-3 years ago (I think) on being white (or whiteness…something like that), which she intended for white readership. She is rather proud of it, and maybe deservedly so; I haven’t read it. She has said that she has received a lot of compliments about it. I wonder if the people who liked it were the largely white SV tech community where she worked for so many years. Along those same lines I also wonder if the NYT vetting person(s) were also relatively prosperous white folks. A non-tech person on twitter asked today (paraphrasing): ‘ have you noticed that nearly all the people coming to QN’s defense are white cis-het tech people, mostly tech-bros?’ I don’t have a large sampling from my own observations, but from my limited readings I would have to confirm this.
    ……Her writing that I like best is intensely personal stuff, where she is less likely to draw incorrectly broad socio-economic conclusions from her individual experiences. Some of her broadly applied ideas – like on the controversial topic of restorative justice – is largely useful wherever there exist reader comments or similar means for reader feedback, since the resulting exchanges of differing viewpoints can be fairly educational.

    A bit of an aside: one of the better tweets I saw today came from a gay woman (a Boston area ACLU activist) who challenged QN several years ago over the latter’s friendship with a Nazi. @OneKade hasn’t changed her views in the intervening years, although she doesn’t like all the online hatred being directed QN’s way. She did offer this tweet though (with a great link in a following tweet):

    Lessons from Germany. "The task of an anti-fascist movement is to encourage self-activity and self-organisation against the Nazis, to allow them no space in society and to combat them on all levels and with all necessary means whenever and wherever they show their faces."— ? kade ? (@onekade) February 14, 2018

    The link in the follow-up tweet goes to a January 2013 piece (4400 words); it would be interesting to get QN’s response to it (maybe she’s already been there & done that?):
    ………Divided they fell: the German left and the rise of Hitler

    @OneKade’s tweet was a direct and apropos response to QN’s friendship with a Nazi. The longish document – which I’ve only scanned so far – has so much more. While it was written to address German political history, it seems quite relevant to current U.S. politics (tl;dr – isolated individual actions are important, but a proper and wider political engagement that deals with actual peoples’ needs is critical).

    Finally, I agree with you on what appeared to be naivete on the part of Norton and Swartz in their dealing with the Boston AUSA. For two people from a culture supposedly infused with a strong Don’t Trust THE MAN vibe, they sure seemed to have been easily charmed and disarmed by the prosecutor they were dealing with. QN’s account of those dealings (editor’s preface here) make for some sad reading.

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