Open Threads

In the comments on yesterday’s post that mentioned Voldemort (Erik Loomis at LGM), there was some discussion of the difference in commenting at LGM vs here.  I was surprised that some commenters didn’t know that every new commenter’s first comment has to be approved by a front-pager.   In addition, the reason there’s not a lot of spam here is that policy, plus our spam filters.   Also, I won’t re-hash our commenting policy, but the net of it is that we hardly ever ban a commenter unless they’re spewing hate.

I don’t want to re-hash the LGM stuff, but I did go and read the comments on a couple of Cheryl Rofer’s posts there.  I prefer the formatting and style of our comments, but I found it helpful to sort by comment rating, since the commenters there seem to pretty consistently rate comments.  I think this is one of the only ways that places with a large number of comments (like Reddit) are usable, since the crowdsourced rating pushes the garbage down.  The threads here generally max out at about 250 comments (for a busy post), so thankfully we don’t need to use some of the tools that the commenting system there (Disqus) uses. (All of this is my opinion, not John’s or anyone else who writes here.)

The main point of this post is to let everyone know that we spend a lot of time keeping garbage out of the comments, and if you didn’t know that, it’s worth pointing out that it just doesn’t happen by accident.  We also don’t pay writers here, which I think some other blogs do, so we’re able to self-support without ads, which is a major reason this place is usable.

About CommentsPost + Comments (170)

I was at the gym today watching a bit of Fox News — I mean, if you’re going to do one no-fun thing like work out, why not combine it with another no-fun activity, like watching right-wing nonsense?

Fox seems to be back to non-election footing, by which I mean they’re focusing on stories that push their favored narratives.  Today’s was a story about the woman who accused Duke Lacrosse players of raping her back in 2006.  Apparently she made her first public statement admitting that she lied.  Other stories I’ve seen in the past few days include the guy who choked out a homeless man on the subway and was acquitted at trial.  (I think they’re pretty disappointed in that one, since the UHC CEO killer has been the vigilante with more traction.)

These stories reminded me of one of Josh Marshall’s reader emails:

I’m writing now somewhat in response to the broader conversation about Democrats/men/algorithms/media and somewhat in direct response to TPM’s recent article about Democrats adapting to the “new media landscape.”

A lesson that I spent several election cycles but at this point believe as a near axiom is that “our voters” (e.g., liberals, people of color, people who live in this-zip and not that-zip, etc) just don’t respond to bad-faith communications in ways that are helpful to Democratic candidates or progressive causes. There is no machine to get Democrats outraged about obviously fake shit for the obvious but really astrategic reason that Democrats don’t want to do that. […]

Without getting into too much detail, I’ve been through multiple rounds of qualitative and quantitative tests involving rumors, memes, etc, and Democrats and “Dem +” voters just… respond to this stuff like adults are supposed to. I want to be clear that I am not talking about negative messaging or the notion of beating up on your opponents credibly (everyone responds to that stuff, and everyone also claims that they don’t). I am talking about, basically, winking at your own base.

Just my POV, but one borne of years of TRYING to figure out how to do Karl Rove stuff for the good guys.  […]

I think this framing misses one of the key focuses of Fox News.  While they certainly do a lot of fake shit, they also spend time covering stories that fit the conservative worldview:  A black woman accusing white privileged men of rape.  A white man killing a homeless man and facing consequences instead of applause.  And so on.  In fact, I’d say this is more effective than their lies.  There’s always a crime story that will reinforce Fox’s contention that cities are urban hellholes — it’s just something so minor or commonplace that traditional media wouldn’t report it.   Any story about fear of the new — like the endless NJ drone stories — are definitely in the Fox wheelhouse.  None of these are fake shit.

So, when we talk of a Democratic alternative to Fox, or at least when I talk about it, I definitely don’t think we ought to create our own set of liars spewing bullshit.  The kinds of stories I’m talking about are stories of people being denied insurance coverage, women dying in parking lots for lack of a D&C, farmers who wouldn’t be able to harvest crops or keep cattle without immigrant labor, and youth pastors raping kids.  Obviously, 24/7 coverage of stories like that would be like listening to Kindertotenlieder on repeat.  But there are a ton of bright side stores that are also missed by Fox:  urban gardens, community organizations working together to help others, the retired nurses who came out of retirement just to help with vaccinations.  Hire a bunch of young, excited reporters and put your content out as stories as well as social-media-sized morsels (video, gif, whatever).  Make it left-wing infotainment, and not always overtly political or even about politics.  I think this is what Oliver Willis is getting at, but with some leavening of good news:

Let’s Give Them Something to Talk AboutPost + Comments (153)

Anti-Vaxx isn’t just for measles:

A key legal adviser to Robert Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary, is at the center of efforts to push federal drug regulators to revoke approval for the polio and hepatitis B vaccines and block distribution of 13 other critical vaccines.

Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has been helping Kennedy select top health administrators as part of the Trump transition process, is deeply embedded in longstanding efforts to force the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withdraw a raft of vaccines that have saved the lives and health of millions of Americans.

Here’s the interesting / terrible thing about polio:  everyone focuses on the aftermath (paralysis), but acute polio is often an extreme medical emergency.  Before vaccines, rural states would have special polio hospitals where sick kids would be transported because the local hospitals didn’t have the facilities or expertise to basically run a pediatric ICU.  Here’s a 7 minute film about the West River Crippled Children’s Hospital and Polio Center, Hot Springs, SD if you’d like to be transported to a time where polio vaccine didn’t exist.

Because we’ve essentially eradicated polio, we also aren’t sure about the longevity of the immunity provided by polio vaccination.  So imagine a disease as serious, or more serious, as COVID in its acute phase, unleashed on a population that may or may not have herd immunity.

Oh, also, looks like Kash Patel is going to make it through his confirmation hearings.  It’s becoming ever more clear that the reason the Gaetz nom tanked had little to do with principle, and a lot to do with a bunch of Republican Senators hating Matt Gaetz.

Hegseth is probably the one question mark, considering that the hits just keep on coming for that dude, including his view that out gay military personnel are part of the Marxist agenda.

Polio BoyPost + Comments (160)

Looks like we could use an open thread.

Here, have some happy dogs.  I was doing some electronic filing today and came across this image.  Possibly from H,E, Wolf last year.  No idea!

Thursday Evening Open ThreadPost + Comments (39)