US Politics, January 2022 — a pro-God, pro-family, pro-bitcoin state

Amazing to me the amount of entitlement conservatives feel in regard to their right to use social media in any way they like, regardless of the corporate policies governing their access, which they agreed to abide by. If a Chik-Fil-A posted a sign "No Shoes. No Shirt. No Service." they'd rush to defend its right to eject those 'dirty hippies' who ignored the sign.

they should support nationalizing big tech

“Haha read the terms of service, their platform their rules” is not a gotcha because there can be and is a bunch of other relevant statute, ie it’s not generally true.

And to the extent it is true, a document designed to serve and protect a private company that is enforced in a completely inscrutable way is not actually great imo.

(Especially when those companies play a central role in civic society haha fml)

Ugh I spent way more minutes than it was worth knocking down misrepresentations of Section 230 the other day, 95 percent of the people talking shit about it have no idea what it actually says or does. My favorite was a guy who said it was part of the DMCA and so the "Fairness Doctrine" applied, which is wrong in at least three different ways.

If MTG can convince a judge in court, with with discovery of the relevant facts, and Twitter's lawyers making their company's case, then that's fair enough. I happen to think the policy she breached was not inscrutable and was designed to protect more than the corporate interest. Especially when those companies play a central role in civic society! You appear to disagree.

I’m not saying anything about Twitter (my employer btw) banning MTG.

I’m saying your “read the TOS” gotcha is feeble and that’s a good thing.

Why won't she just join Trumpster or whatever it's gonna be called, they'll never ban her

I think the fundamental confusion a lot of these jerks (and others) have is that just because social media has further democratized politics (and other fields), for good and for ill, giving a broad platform to big-mouth nobody would-bes that's big enough to help win elections, does not mean that these social media platforms are an actual tool of our erstwhile democracy. That is, Twitter etc. helps Greene (et al.) inflate her self-worth and get elected, amplifying this particular asshole into a national supervillain, but people like her confuse the platform for a lever of power they wield when in fact they are the one lending power to the platform. If you don't know what the product is then you are the product, and so on.

Has anyone successfully sued a social media company for banning them?

woah caek have u met Jack??

Are you trying to lure caek into saying he doesn't know Jack? Because that would be a feeble gotcha.

xp I have met zero employees irl on account of the novel coronavirus!

ahh I'm the same at my job I started a year and a half ago

Kamala is just not very good at this

January 6 will be remembered by history as a momentous date because it is sir rowan atkinson's birthday. wishing a happy 67th to mr. bean

— lauren (@NotABigJerk) January 6, 2022

Anyone see any caravans massing at the border lately? Asking for a friend.

Twitter seems to largely have liked Biden's just-delivered speech, but I'll feel better when there are more arrests of big names than big names giving speeches.

Biden remembers the violent imagery of Jan 6, including the first time a Confederate flag was waved in the Capitol. (Biden is currently standing about 30 feet from a statue of Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the confederacy.)

— Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) January 6, 2022

America mang

Trump derided the members of the House select committee on Jan. 6 as “totally partisan political hacks” and suggested that their focus should be on his claims — not based in fact — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“In actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself,” Trump claimed.

the fake lie is big news

this Michael Harriot piece is really great putting this in historical perspective

https://thegrio.com/2022/01/06/in-this-country-mobs-rule/

i haven't really seen too many arguments countering the "don't amplify trump" consensus on the left. i don't think i agree with josh marshall here. it's worth grappling with even if we disagree.

...
This prompts a broader question. It’s become doctrine for many right-thinking people that people shouldn’t “amplify” what Trump is saying. That only does his work for him, we’re told. This is the logic that got him booted off social media. But if what Benjy says is right, this state of affairs, which has clearly driven Trump to distraction, has also proved almost the best of all possible worlds for him. Trump’s supporters hear his message loud and clear: through NewsMax, OANN, talk radio, Facebook and to a significant degree on Fox News. But for the rest of the political world it’s muffled. So the horror and craziness of Trumpism recedes from public consciousness while people are focused on the day to day imperfection of the Biden presidency.

This hasn’t made Trump any weaker. His hold over the institutional and electoral GOP has only intensified since leaving office. The very small number of elected officials who refused to support the Big Lie have mostly been drummed out of the party. Trump’s Big Lie propaganda has become unassailable in heavily state-legislative-gerrymandered states where it will matter most. In short, the “don’t amplify” doctrine has allowed Trump to speak freely to his supporters and intensify his hold over the GOP, while keeping the incendiary messages that mobilize a majority of the country against him largely off mainstream airwaves.

All of the upside and none of the down.

...

At it’s worst, this “don’t amplify” doctrine is part of a species of liberal myopia which posits that the American right only exists as an outgrowth or effect of decisions made by or within mainstream or progressive media. If it is not acknowledged, “amplified” if you will, it all but doesn’t exist. Or, if it does exist it is without enough substance or sustenance to avoid dying on the vine. This is all the most risible folly.

I’m not saying we should rush to get Trump back on Twitter or other social media or that networks should cover every speech live. Journalism is about making choices. Private companies are responsible for the speech they carry on their platforms. But most of “don’t amplify” doctrine is based on myopia, a feel-good if well-meaning misunderstanding of how both journalism and political power work.

...

Look what we got by not amplifying Trump

Good piece, thanks.

Remember when “fake news” meant something else for a week, when it referred to all the actual fake news about Hillary Clinton that was floating around Facebook and elderly email forwards?

Yes, I got whiplash from how fast that was turned around.

This hasn’t made Trump any weaker.

Reporting Trump's every brain fart in the MSM and all over Twitter didn't make Trump noticeably weaker either. The support of the entire conservative political apparatus, comprised of the wealthy and all their foundations, think tanks, FOX, OANN, hundreds of AM talk radio blatherers, lobbyists and spin doctors, and huge donations to candidates at every level, combined with the highly politicized evangelical churches and quasi-religious organizations like Focus on the Family are the backbone of Trump's power.

The MSM and liberal punditry keep trying to figure out how to bring Trump down through the means at their disposal. Those means are not powerful enough so long as Trump keeps his own power centers in line behind him. They exist in a parallel world of their own, wholly apart from the rest of us.

the entire "mob attacking the institutions of democracy and our police friends" point is 0.0000000% persuasive with conservatives because their honest, true, first reaction is "why didn't you say anything when black lives matter was doing that everyday across the country", and the conversation immediately blows up because they will not believe a single thing you say, no matter how you do it or what your sources. because they all just KNOW that BLM was so violent and that the cops were so decent and fair. it's like sticking your finger into a stargate portal

sorry, that was out of context - i was watching biden's speech, the part where he's talking about the horror of watching people assault the cops and the capital and all that

Karl and Aimless both otm.

NPR and the Washington Post are changing exactly zero minds about 1/6. If you're paying attention to those outlets you are already on a side. The people whose minds need to be changed have already decided those outlets are the opposite of what they need to pay attention to.

Also true that the knee-jerk conservative response is "whatabout" re the alleged antifa rampage that had dozens of cities in flames, with a summer of ruinous looting, all summer.

One tires of hearing/saying this, but it is still the case that you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

I don't know the solution for any of this and in darker moods I also kinda don't think there is one.

That could be dangerous, and I’m surprised he hasn’t tried it yet (if he did, I missed it).

i think he's actually been trying that one for a while, i think i remember some crazies in arizona talking about it

I think the “don’t amplify” thing has its positives but it may lead to complacency on our side as we underestimate the burbling on the other side, and our complacent response emboldens them.

I’ve been reading John Ganz’s reflections on a similar right wing attack on the French legislature in 1934. A couple days later the left parties and trade unions assembled a much larger peaceful counter protest. The lack of such a response or organizational capability here in the US emboldens the right that they were on the right track. Heck they had no consequences for invading state capitols with armed militias in 2020.

Also the French government responded to the crisis with major social legislation like the 8 hour day and paid vacation, while our government is obviously incapable of that.

Well, if you want to get more obviously historic, look no further than the rise of he who Godwin suggests not naming. The long and short of it is, if someone tries once, they will try again, and ignoring a persistent problem just allows them to gain strength. Whether our current problem person is gaining strength is up for debate, but given the GOP has mastered the art of power as a political minority (a la the aforementioned party) he might be as positioned as well as he needs to be.

At the moment of silence for the Capitol Police officers who died, there were only two Republicans who showed up.

Rep. Lynn Cheney. And her father. The 80 year old former Vice President.

An extraordinary image of where this country’s politics are right now. pic.twitter.com/IJ2YS2y2yN

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 6, 2022

Makes sense. Dick Cheney knows a lot about watching other people die at the behest of an executive branch employee.

Meanwhile lol Kristof.

https://www.opb.org/article/2022/01/06/nicholas-nick-kristof-oregon-governor-candidate-qualification-ruling/

xxxpost at least the H man saw jail time.

So proud of my state.

TL;DR: Rep. Albio Sires is retiring from the House. Sleazeball Senator Bob Menendez held that seat before Sires. Menendez's son is running to replace Sires. He'll almost certainly win.

A businessman who once ran for senate in Arizona ... has challenged former President Donald Trump to a live debate at the latter's upcoming rally and offered to donate $1 million to charity if the former president accepts.

"I look forward to seeing you on January 15," McCarthy said, "Although I know you won't do it because you're a little bitch."

McCarthy is then shown exiting his truck and using a flamethrower to torch a "Make America Great Again" hat.

Trump ain't doing shit for "charity." If he offers to just hand him a brown paper bag of unmarked bills he might get somewhere.

"Stop with your fundraising, stop establishment-candidate endorsements," McCarthy continued. "Stop pushing this gene therapy, the sauce." It's not immediately clear what McCarthy was referring to.

Current GOP platform:

https://cdn3.whatculture.com/images/2014/02/The-Thing-1982.jpg

Current Dem platform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fP-0-dEHhA

Covid:

https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/the-thing-monster/intro-import.webp

^ soon to be elected to the Tennessee state senate

Dem platform for the past few decades:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QP9Zqge4s

this is good?!

Very interesting section from Biden's speech.

At ~35 second mark, he notes that car prices are too high and that there's two solutions:

1) Invest more, to bring more capacity to the sector

2) Make everyone poorer so demand goes down. pic.twitter.com/9UhmxSaV9N

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) January 7, 2022

the world is terrible, etc. but can't imagine previous D presidents saying that.

On the Ted/Tucker interview:

Rather than truly defending himself, Cruz meekly tried to explain away his repeated comments, and that same host wasn't having it. The host literally began the interview by calling Cruz a liar - repeatedly - and Cruz didn't even directly dispute the premise.

Squirmin' Ted!

The two contradictory Ben Garrison cartoons on Jan 6th, drawn a year apart, are really something aren't they ...

were they drawn a year apart? I think they were like a month apart!