US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

This is good: https://www.vox.com/2018/10/23/18004478/hack-gap-explained

I haven't gotten to Invisible Bridge yet (because I needed a goddamn breather already), but having read the two preceding volumes of Rick Perlstein's History of Conservative Termites Slowly Decimating the Foundations of 20th Century America within the past year, I am definitely feeling your vibe, km.

xpost problem is what do you do about the Hack Gap? How do you mitigate the damage this does to any possibility of fact-based debate? Yglesias doesn't offer solutions.

Sea level rise, fool.

he was also a unabomber victim. guess crazy is contagious

just that reading his books helps me to provide a deeper understanding of the historical precedent for today's events which often seem so unprecedented

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 5:01 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the "nothing new under the sun" aspect of nixonland is weirdly comforting.

the emphasis on how outside the standard of ‘culture’ of the GOP Nixon was, was really the eye-opener to me, reading it, last year

maybe ‘the elite political establishment’ rather than the GOP

been watching the GA gov debate. Brian Kemp is such a scumbag

So, I'm a partisan, but I'm trying to figure out what crime Andrew Gillum committed by accepting Hamilton tickets from an FBI agent other than possibly lying about where he got them? What quid pro quo happened?

He paid the cast to accost Pence!

well was it Broadway or the tour?

It was George Hamilton

hamilton is lame (except that song wait for it, which is OK), but—and this may surprise some of you here—i'd still vote for gillum if i lived in florida

you’re lame

The crime he committed was being a democrat afaict. Had he been a republican, it would have been acceptable for him to lift the tickets off the body of an undercover FBI agent he'd just eaten and partially devoured (particularly if he did so while denouncing abortion and perhaps also making a vulgar comment about a woman).

that's quite mean xp

'killed and partially devoured' is what I meant to say, of course.

to me this is the worst sort of political reporting. Okay, fine, a contradiction has emerged about the tickets, but what does it prove? It's a classic squid-ink story. Even the Politico story buries the lead:

Zimet said the acceptance of gifts by Gillum is “probably not” a federal “theft of honest services” crime “if there’s not some quid pro quo attached to it,” and a quid pro quo can either be a vote “or a promise to do something that gets you closer to criminality.”

“Florida politician fails to commit crime” might be newsworthy tbh

As soon as I opened this thread and saw this dumb Hamilton thing I knew CNN would be breathlessly reporting on it in large type font as if it was a scandal equivalent to (insert whatever Trump did today.)

The revelation is the latest development regarding a federal investigation into public corruption in Tallahassee, Florida, where Gillum has been mayor since 2014.The records, which were subpoenaed by the state ethics commissions last week according to the Tampa Bay Times, cast doubt on the explanation from Gillum's campaign that the mayor received the ticket from his brother Marcus.

The FBI probe centers on whether developers successfully influenced city projects. At one point in the probe, an undercover agent successfully infiltrated Gillum's inner circle. No one has been charged with any wrongdoing.

Gillum has repeatedly said the FBI told him he is not a focus of the investigation. But his attendance at a Broadway show with lobbyist and longtime friend Adam Corey, along with his brother and the federal agent, who went by Mike Miller, has been used by political opponents to suggest Gillum is potentially under more direct scrutiny.

I mean "has been used by political opponents" -- awesome use of passive voice, burying lead, etc

“and yet the GOP suggests otherwise” being used as implicit evidence for the purposes of a hard hitting news story is such a trash, amoral hack move.

Politico also wrote a fluff piece on Rick Scott today. Almost like they had an agenda

but he's so fluffy

https://i.imgur.com/qKyycSA.jpg

lol. he should also be in prison for defrauding Medicare

let's end this

Human existence, you mean? I'm game.

This is good: https://www.vox.com/2018/10/23/18004478/hack-gap-explained

is there a media criticism thread? so much of our current agony is directly related to the neverending stream of bullshit that we have to wade through in order to locate pieces of the truth. i have no idea how to "fix" it, or if it can be fixed.

Now two days in a row. Happening all over again. pic.twitter.com/r1RYRnbF0n

— Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov) October 23, 2018

Used to be a popular NYT thread, but that seems to have been exhausted.

not limited to NYT by any means, though. i just mean the current media landscape, fox, breitbart, nyt, talk radio, garbage local news from sinclair, megyn kelly on msnbc, everything

man why do Democrats keep acting like violent thugs omg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-24/ap-newsalert-bomb-found-at-home-of-hillary-and-bill-clinton-in-new-york-city-suburb?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=business&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business

re: media criticism, this is currently the lead story on Fox Breitbart oh wait no it's CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/24/politics/donald-trump-midterms-immigration-oval-office/index.html

can't seem to get myself unstuck from this phrase in particular:

Trump's virtuoso flexing of his significant but often diabolical political skills
Trump's virtuoso flexing of his significant but often diabolical political skills
Trump's virtuoso flexing of his significant but often diabolical political skills
Trump's virtuoso flexing of his significant but often diabolical political skills
Trump's virtuoso flexing of his significant but often diabolical political skills

theyve intercepted one for obama too

Chuck Schumer is hoping someone yells at Ben Sasse at an Applebee's so he can denounce both at once. https://t.co/dp1emdz7Oo

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) October 24, 2018

Be careful of an Obama "bomb" to win election! Would be a horrible thing to do.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2012

CNN mailroom in NY also received a bomb.

Here's the moment CNN had to handoff to DC and evacuate Time Warner Center in New York pic.twitter.com/TUtnWrss9z

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) October 24, 2018

I guess the upside here is whoever's sending these out doesn't seem to be any kind of tactical genius.

the soros false flag machine is working around the clock on these huh

Literally just overheard people I’m training in southern Indiana debating the Soros conspiracy

fucking hell

evacuating a building live on tv because you got a bomb likely from the same yahoo that mailed bombs to the clintons and george soros

2018 is fake, this is the mirror universe, i hate it

xxp oh yeah, every comment thread on Twitter is inundated with batshit right wingers who are certain this is a psyop by liberals, aided by the FBI/CIA, to gain sympathy prior to the midterms.

imagine if the left had a fraction of the psycho terrorist gusto that the right has

anybody else read Buda's Wagon? suggested.

xp

https://frinkiac.com/gif/S04E21/885867/890672.gif?b64lines=

I've been meaning to read some Mike Davis for a long time! xp

lol eliza

I'm guessing the NYT mail room will be terrified right now.

I've been meaning to read some Mike Davis for a long time! xp

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Wednesday, October 24, 2018 2:46 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(i am kind of joking in invoking it but only kind of)