#do not read fox news article comments

[uboat53]

You know, there's been a lot of liberal critique of The New York Times and other mainstream outlets lately accusing them of "normalizing" Trump. These outlets have generally responded that, in the interest of covering all sides, they need to publish pieces from a conservative viewpoint that liberal readers disagree with. They're both right and wrong when they say this and, to understand why, I need to explain how they're repeating exactly the same mistakes they made in 2016.

In 2016, you have to remember, Trump took the GOP by storm. The party itself tried to stop him with both the official party apparatus and peripheral apparatus like FOX News doing their best to diminish his support, but none of it worked. Instead, Trump won the primaries despite never winning more than a plurality in any contested state even while he was still opposed by a huge number of Republicans.

Of course, if you read or watched political news outlets in October of 2016 you wouldn't know any of that, because the immediate action of just about every political news outlet to Trump's nomination was to fire all of their conservative commentators who opposed him and hire a bunch of conservative commentators who supported him. By the time the general election debates were happening, you could be forgiven for thinking that all Democrats supported Clinton and all Republicans supported Trump.

(Note: Nothing similar happened on the Democratic side because nearly all liberal commentators already supported Clinton. Sanders' support in the primaries was surprising, but not overwhelming. He tended to win primaries or caucuses that limited turnout in some way to more enthusiastic supporters while Clinton tended to win primaries that were more broad-based and that was reflected in most of the coverage.)

In other words, by removing the many anti-Trump conservative voices from their air/pages, news organizations gave the impression that all Republicans supported Trump, effectively activating partisan loyalties and subtly encouraging Republicans with doubts about Trump to fall in line. This is what we mean by "normalizing."

They're doing the same thing today. They're not publishing articles where they examine the claims of their MAGA columnists (or their liberal ones for that matter!) and they're not publishing articles about the divides that still remain in the Republican Party and the conservative movement generally (Trump was consistently losing 30%-40% of the vote in 2024 even after it became clear he was going to win), they're just publishing articles arguing for/against Harris and Trump with no deeper analysis whatsoever.

This is why liberals are correct that mainstream political news organizations, even those like The New York Times which are often seen a liberal, are complicit in "normalizing" Trump. These outlets are correct that they need to cover conservative points of view which their liberal readers may find uncomfortable, but they don't have to present them as "the one true conservative" point of view.

By presenting Trump as if he represents all of conservatism rather than just the MAGA faction of conservatism which is staunchly opposed by more traditional conservative factions, these media organizations have fed fuel into a narrative us "us vs. them" which has done as much or more than partisan media to build the partisan polarization of this country.

[beemovieerotica]

ngl I am very concerned when I see people on here declaring CNN, NBC, BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc etc all irredeemable propaganda with the same broad brushstrokes as a right-wing MAGA would

so conservatives are getting their news from Fox, what is everyone on here doing? because it does feel like unsourced tiktok and twitter and tumblr and reddit threads from anonymous internet people have replaced that??

like there has to be some way to read news from actual journalists and be able to parse those stories yourself and conscientiously weigh reporter biases (this is what reading comprehension is) rather than covering your eyes every time you see a particular news logo you've decided is Fake News

there's a post floating around of everyone clowning on the headline of a WaPost article (rightly or not) but the full text of the article itself is fully readable in the screenshot and just...it's so painfully obvious that no one is reading beyond headlines anymore, because the actual text is fully calling out the IDF for horrifying crimes - but the comments are all like "look at them covering up for israel" ?? no they're not???

I'm honestly reeling from this because it was one of the most heartbreaking and condemning stories I've read recently, and it ends with "what did these infants ever do?" like this is exactly the type of story that needs to be seen!! and everyone who is supposedly in support of Palestine is passing it around without even reading it and saying that it's propaganda!! I'm losing my mind

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

It's behind a paywall so if somebody has access I would love to read the article

Update : got it, thanks @aimsies-mctaymellburg

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

As Fox Mulder in the hit sci-fi show, the actor and singer peddled fringe conspiracy theories. Now the 63-year-old says Mulder’s paranoia is everywhere.

In hindsight it wasn’t a great idea for me to kick off an interview with David Duchovny by suggesting that he was a musical dilettante. You’re most likely to know Duchovny, of course, as Fox Mulder, the conspiracy-theory-guzzling FBI agent in The X Files, one of the biggest shows of the Nineties, watched at its peak by 30 million in America alone. Perhaps you saw him as the womanising writer Hank Moody in Californication or the 1960s detective Sam Hodiak in Aquarius. You may even have read some of his five books.

Duchovny, a New Yorker living in Los Angeles, is less known for music, although he’s been making rather decent folk-rock for a decade — songwriting, playing guitar and singing in a honeyed drawl. His 2015 songHell or Highwater has been streamed more than a million times while Layin’ on the Tracks, from 2020, has pointed lyrics about a certain politician (“It’s a killing joke that no one laughs at/ A stupid orange man in a cheap red hat”). He has released three albums, with a fourth due next year, and this month plays Latitude festival in Suffolk and the 2,000-capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London.

So does the 63-year-old feel that he should no longer be seen as just a musical dabbler? “That’s part of a lazy person’s perception,” he says, bristling slightly. “It’s a lens through which people want to see me. I think music is an innocent art form — you listen to it and you have a response. To bring any kind of baggage to bear on it in the beginning seems to me to be dishonest, but that’s the way things go.”

YouTube clips of recent shows suggest people were having a lovely time, I say. This doesn’t have the soothing effect intended. YouTube footage lingers “because of the horror of the cell phone”, Duchovny says. “It’s a pet peeve of mine.” Is he tempted to ban them at his shows, as artists from Prince to Bob Dylan have? “I don’t know that I can enforce that view on anybody.”

For Duchovny, it’s as much about phones limiting his performance as it is about the audience not living in the moment. “To do something unique or for the first time, to reach for a note or play a different melody — all these are chances you might take if you weren’t inhibited by the fact that somebody is [recording] it,” he says. “You’ve got to be able to fail and the ubiquity of cell phones makes failure scarier than it needs to be.”

Failure is the key to another of his jobs: podcasting. In his series Fail Better, he adroitly interviews guests including Bette Midler, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn about their failures. “I feel like I’ve been failing my entire life,” Duchovny said on launching it in May. That may sound strange from a man with English degrees from Princeton and Yale, who has won a Golden Globe for The X Files and another for Californication.

Is he familiar with Elizabeth Day, the British journalist who has hosted a successful podcast called How to Fail since 2018? When Duchovny announced Fail Better, Day tweeted: “I might invite David Duchovny on @howtofail to discuss his failure to be original.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he says. “If she wants to be rigorous in her thinking, she would investigate what my approach to failure is. I don’t know what her approach to it is. My sense, since failure is universal, is that there’s room out there for more than one discussion.” This is a rather po-faced response to what seemed like a playful comment from Day, and surprising because Duchovny has a wicked sense of humour. He can also afford to be more magnanimous, given that his podcast is at No 12 in the UK chart and hers is at 54.

Gillian Anderson, his X Files co-star, certainly likes his podcast, writing this week on Instagram that she had listened to all of the episodes and found them “intimate and vulnerable … very smart questions, although I wouldn’t expect anything else from you [David]”.

“It’s very sweet,” Duchovny says. “I will email her and thank her. I’m sure somebody running my social media is … I don’t really like to be on social media.” Later that day his Instagram account replies to Anderson’s post: “Thank you for listening, you have an open invite [to appear on his podcast]!”

That encounter would be worth hearing because his relationship with Anderson is fascinating. Despite their chemistry in The X Files there were rumours of friction — although they looked to be getting on swimmingly when they appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show in 2016 to publicise the return of the show, which ran for two more seasons.

When asked by Kimmel about frostiness between her and Duchovny in the Nineties, Anderson collapsed into giggles, laid her head in Duchovny’s lap and put any froideur down to the dampness of Vancouver, where the series was shot. Her hair kept going frizzy, she explained, and “for every single take we’d have to stand there and blow dry my hair again”.

“And I got pissed at that?” Duchovny asked.

“Well, I think it added to the tension,” Anderson said.

“It kinda makes me sound like an asshole,” Duchovny replied.

Anderson had nothing to do with him leaving The X Files in 2002, he says now. “That was just me wanting to have a family, but also to try other things. It had kind of taken up my life. There was no animosity with the actual show and the people that I worked with. I am proud of the show — it was culturally central in a way that it’s very hard to do these days in a fragmented landscape. There’s so many lightning-strike aspects to it that I can’t help but think of it as some kind of a miracle.”

The X Files gave conspiracy theories a kind of nobility — “the truth is out there”, as its tagline ran. Now they are more widespread and pernicious. “Mulder’s way of looking at the world was through conspiracy and that was the fringe at that point,” Duchovny says. “It doesn’t seem to be so fringe any more. It’s really the world that [The X Files creator] Chris Carter foresaw happening almost 30 years ago. He’s almost clairvoyant in that case.” Is Duchovny more evidence-based than Mulder? “Not at all. I’m an artist — I am associative-based and I see poetry as science and science as poetry.” So are there some conspiracy theories that he buys into? “No, I’m talking about art. I think conspiracies are mostly just lazy thinking.”

One failure that has shaped Duchovny is that of his marriage to the actress Téa Leoni, who starred in Bad Boys and Deep Impact. They married in 1997 and have a daughter, West, 25, and a son, Kyd, 22, but divorced in 2014. “That darkness does deepen you. It makes you more empathetic and humble,” Duchovny says. One of the themes of his podcast is “the difference between humiliating and humbling. Often we focus on humiliation in our culture. I don’t see any positives coming from humiliation, but I see a lot of them coming from humility.”

One wonders if the reference to humiliation has something to do with Duchovny checking into rehab for sex addiction in 2008. Could him playing the bed-hopping Hank in Californication be a case of art imitating life? “People never tire of trying to figure that out,” he says with a sigh. “But to me, that’s not what acting is about. I don’t look for things that are mirroring my life in any way.”

Well, there are parallels in Reverse the Curse, the 2023 film that Duchovny directed, starred in and adapted from his book Bucky F***ing Dent. He plays a would-be novelist who has “sacrificed his artistic dream to put food on the table”. His father, a publicist, did the same, publishing his debut at 75, the year before he died. The film has some really funny scenes, including one where Marty and his son have a farting competition in a motel room that ends up smelling like “an aquarium that fed a sock”. That may have come from a line in Aquarius where someone says something similar about a police station. “I might have ripped it off, I’m not sure,” Duchovny says. “ You can ask Elizabeth Day about that.”

David Duchovny will perform at Latitude festival, near Southwold on July 25 and 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12 on July 27

[rougedraconteur]

I wanted to make a separate post about all the “clickbait articles” regarding Chris Colfer and his “comments” concerning being on Glee and being told not to come out. Many folks are upset at the media coverage, and, as fans, they are outraged on his behalf on what they see. Maybe they are right.

However.

It is a hard stretch to call entertainment media actual news reporting, but there are a lot of jobs and a lot of money attached to the industry, so these things are all carefully crafted and controlled at a certain level for desired results.

First of all, let’s look at the original interview. The View is a topical news show that also purports to be about entertainment, and contains a mix of women from various backgrounds as hosts. It is part of ABC’s NEWS division, not their entertainment division, and is overseen by that department’s executives. It has won 31 Emmys, and no less a respected news source than the New York Times has called it, at one point, “the most important political TV show in America.” In 2021, The View had become the most-viewed news and talk program in daytime tv. (Wikipedia, inc. sources and references.) most importantly, Disney is the parent company, as it is the parent company for 21st Century Fox. Just getting on this show is a big deal. But Disney has all the control (and power) here.

Next, let’s look at who controlled that interview. Whoopie Goldberg runs that desk, and is the biggest draw. She is one of less than 20 living EGOTs, a Disney Legend, very respected in the industry, her Q score must be in the single digits, very high recognizability Quotient, she is recognizable and repected around the world, and appeared with Colfer in most of her scenes on Glee, which was heavily referenced in one of the clips chosen and shown in the interview. She is also a personal hero of his, in early interviews he cites his deep love of her in Sister Act as one of his inspirations to get into acting. The fact that he was able to get placement on that show for the one day he was in NYC is telling.

The clips that were shown, as well as the questions that were asked, and by whom, were all read from note cards and approved in advance. Alla, his well-respected publicist, was with him, as was his long-time agent, Rob, I am sure. They know what they are doing. They all chose together to talk about him coming out, and what he was told, and why. We feel it is all a tired rehash, but there are some slight changes in the actual WORDING, he finesses it a little more here. And it matters. This show contains seasoned interviewers, lawyers, political strategists, as well as celebrities who constantly deal with media. They know about spin, about what to ask, about when to ask it, about who asks what. Whoopie really did not ask much, yet I still felt she was entirely in control, along with Chris and his team, of this whole interview. They also know about legal lines and limits, actual news reporting standards, and what Bob Iger wants the message to be. They also know why Bob Iger wants the message to be a certain way.

Everything about that interview was very calculated, imo. Though, to most of us, I guess, it seemed like the same old rehash. But it wasn’t. For instance, he was told if he came out, it would ruin his career. But over the many years of speculation—was he outed? Was he forced into coming out, going back in, or did he choose for himself?—this is the first time I have heard him clearly say he chose this for himself, yes he was very scared, he did not know his character would be gay until he read the script, he came from a place where that was scary and dangerous, he was very young, etc.; but he acknowledged that his appearance and mannerisms and voice made it extremely hard to closet him in a believable way, so HE CHOSE to come out, though reluctantly and with some trepidation, and he included the story of the rainbow paper clip chain for his reason why, for emphasis. He WAS a debate state champion, after all, and is a seasoned writer now, he knows the power of language to shape perceptions. I have heard most all his live interviews since 2009, and I don’t think I recall that anecdote, or how memorable and sympathetic it is toward him, as a role model, which he specifically addresses as also a choice. Being a role model separated him from others in a very real way, he was a hero but also got death threats and hate mail, he required security, he was used by the show as an example of their progressiveness, but also separated from his peers in bts photos and invitations to events because he was openly gay and others could not be seen hanging out with him as it made them look gay, as well. He has said before he did not seek being a role model, for all those reasons. He is reshaping his coming out narrative regarding Fox and RIB and their roles in all this drama while still delivering an important message about the industry during Pride Month. He says if he wanted to be an action hero, he could not come out. He says he was told that.

That still holds true, for him and others, if he says too much. Conversely, if he did/does not, he would/will be rewarded, these things don’t change. This is their process, this is how it works for everyone, this is what they expect from team players, this is the industry, like it or hate it. And it does not always mean something sinister. (Although sometimes it does.)

There is a huge desire from Disney to reboot Glee in some way, it is still extremely popular on Disney+, and Dana Walden may have now found the gimmick to make that work, according to recent rumors. Now the job is to set up all the dominoes and remove any obstacles to reach that goal. And, based on that final look between Whoopie and Chris, whom she clearly adores, they understand this situation, what’s at stake, and what’s to gain here, and they expected this interview to get the results they both wanted. They, at least, delivered their end of the bargain, imo. I thought it was brilliant and subliminal and delivered a big punch for such a seemingly minor project, a new book, from a former actor. Glee, for him, was a long time ago.

The fact that Variety, an entertainment inustry trade publication, was the first to report on it, almost immediately, also matters, as does their headline. They set the tone for all the other articles, many publications of which are tied to Disney, their subsidiaries, or other major industry players with connections to that show, the showrunners, or the actors. Many of them included links back to the original interview. They want the buzz, and the reactions, to see how they read across media. Chris got a lot of coverage here because he still matters to not just his fanbase, but to the public, and to the industry, and to his community. Clickbait only works if people are interested, and this much is a crazy level of interest.

Again, Glee made BILLIONS for Fox, and Iger is looking to shore up Disney+ offerings to further entice new subscribers.

[beardedmrbean]

After a report implied many voters of color in swing states are souring on President Biden, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, sparked outrage for implying they are only doing so because they are uninformed and blinded by their feelings.

CNN's "State of the Union" host Dana Bash spoke to a panel on her show about a recent report from The New York Times, "Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds." The report included polling that claimed, "Black voters — long a bulwark for Democrats and for Mr. Biden — are now registering 22 percent support in these states for Mr. Trump, a level unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times."

Bash addressed Crockett and read an excerpt from the report, "In a remarkable sign of a gradual racial realignment between the two parties, the more diverse the swing state, the farther Mr. Biden was behind, and he led only in the Whitest of the six."

"It’s really scary for me," Crockett replied, before going on to explain why she thinks this shift appears to be happening.

"Here’s the deal, perception is reality, and so when you look at the data that was provided in this poll, it talks about how people feel… it is all about how you feel in that moment," she said. "While the facts may not align with their feelings, their feelings are dictating their reality and their reality is that they feel better or they felt better when Trump was in office."

Crockett added that Democrats have been "trying to push back" against this, even as "some very popular African American artists out here saying things like ‘Oh I got checks when Trump was in office. I want those checks again,’ not understanding that really came from Congress."

"So we have got a couple of things, the perception issue and then we also have an issue as it relates to civics in this country and people not understanding exactly how any of this works," she concluded.

As footage of Crockett’s statement shot across the internet, commentators condemned her rhetoric on social media.

"’Voters are too stupid and they don't understand their betters’ is probably not a great campaign message for Democrats," The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway wrote.

"The utter disdain these elitist lawmakers have for their own constituents is really mind-blowing," commentator Joe Concha wrote.

"Where did she get such a sense of superiority?" journalist Miranda Devine wrote.

"Pre Obama the Democrat’s stock response to dropping numbers in a demographic was, ‘we’ll go and listen, and try hard to earn that support,’" columnist David Marcus wrote. "Today it is, ‘they are wrong, and somewhat ignorant, we’ll show them why we are smart and right.’"

"Imagine being this dismissive of your voters? Democrats seem to think the people who they need to elect them are all stupid and incapable of understanding what’s actually happening," radio personality Mike Opelka wrote.

"Oh really," Fox News host Lawrence Jones III wrote.

Many commentators, especially Black conservatives, scorched Crockett for appearing to underestimate Black voters' ability to grasp politics.

"In other words, according to Democrat @RepJasmine Crockett, Blacks are too stupid to understand how much better they are under Biden," conservative commentator and former 2024 presidential hopeful Larry Elder wrote. "Not too bigoted! If Trump said this, Democrats would be drawing up another article of impeachment."

"Once again telling the Black community that we are not intelligent enough to see what’s going on and understand it," former Republican congressional nominee Jeffrey A. Dove wrote. 

"Democrats: Blacks are too emotional to think clearly. Smart pitch," HotAir associate editor David Strom wrote sarcastically.

[a-frog-in-a-bog]

You guys know that you should be fact checking and reading sources for everything and not just takes you don’t agree with right? The number one way misinformation spreads on this site is people reading something that validates their feelings and slamming reblog without any second thought. And this isn’t me preaching on a high horse I am also guilty of this.

For example a long time ago I saw a post that said “Fox News just published an article calling all aces and aros pedophiles!!1!1!” And while it was believable that Fox News would demonize any sexuality that doesn’t fit their narrow definition of normal what tipped me off is that most conservatives don’t know what ace or aro means much less have an opinion on them. 30 seconds later I found the article and lo and behold that is not remotely what the article was about. The actual article in question was essentially a callout post for Washington post for being a cringey liberal newspaper and one of their points was “they ran an article on Valentine’s Day about what people who don’t feel romantic love are doing instead of going on a date” and in a completely separate point said “last month they published a review about a play where the main characters are all pedophiles”. The author surprisingly didn’t even pass any judgement on EITHER point, like it literally was just “haha look at this liberal newspaper and their dumb articles” (btw all the comments were either “lol I thought this said aromatic as in smelly” or “this isn’t a new identity I know many couples at my church who feel this way”). Not even the most bad-faith zero reading comprehension could produce the earnest belief that this article was calling aces and aros pedophiles, the op was genuinely just trying to fear monger and spread misinformation and scare naive people for no reason. Or maybe for discourse reasons which imo is even worse.

But a quick glance in the notes proved that not one person had fact checked this claim, or even questioned it. This post had over 10,000 notes when it came across my dash!! And everyone fully trusted that op was being honest bc it aligned with their beliefs!! And they were understandably terrified about the implications of this nonexistent article!! I debunked the post and linked the actual article as proof but I have limited reach and clearly damage had already been done. Ok I’m done rambling sorry

tldr fact check everything, even claims you believe and agree with bc some people are stupid and some people have malicious intent

[influencermagazineuk]

Scarlett Johansson Takes Legal Action Against AI App Using Her Likeness and Voice in Ad

Credit: Koimoi / Instagram Scarlett Johansson, renowned for her role as "Black Widow," has entered a legal battle against an AI image-generating app named Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar. The app utilized Johansson's voice and likeness in an advertisement posted on X, formerly Twitter, prompting the actor to take legal action, as reported by Variety. Johansson's attorney emphasized the gravity of the situation, stating, "We do not take these things lightly. Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have." The ad, posted on October 28 but reportedly no longer available, featured footage of Johansson behind the scenes on "Black Widow." In the clip, she says, "What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett, and I want you to come with me..." A graphic then covers her mouth, and AI-generated images resembling her appear on the screen. A voice, imitating Johansson, states, "It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it." The fine print beneath the ad clarified, "Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person." Despite attempts to seek comments from representatives of Johansson and the Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar app, Fox News Digital received no response. AI expert Marva Bailer suggested that Johansson's public disapproval might inadvertently boost the app's popularity. Bailer commented, "There's a lot of possibility that they don't care if they get in trouble, and it's worth it to get their name out there because everybody's talking about this application right now." Bailer highlighted the misuse of the app, intended for users over 13 to create enjoyable content with photos and voices. She emphasized that using it for advertising purposes goes against its intended use. Furthermore, Bailer noted potential repercussions on Johansson's upcoming projects, with the false ad affecting her publicity cycle. The expert also raised concerns about the broader issue of content creation's accessibility and the need for federal regulations in the U.S., considering varying state laws on the right of publicity and likeness. In October, a proposed "No Fakes Act" was introduced as a discussion draft by a bipartisan group of senators, indicating a growing acknowledgment of the challenges posed by deepfakes and AI-generated content. Read the full article

[thatstormygeek]

Reading an article on some of Trump's recent comments sent me off on a web search where I ended up finding a couple articles written about the same topic from NBC and Fox News (the Fox News article references the NBC one).

And it was really startling to see the opinions of young left(ish) voters treated more seriously on Fox News dot com than they are here on tumblr.

Maybe y'all libs and centrists and Dem defenders want to take an actual look at what people are saying, not only about Biden but about their current plans for the election. Maybe you could consider using the energy you expend scolding people about how and when they vote on convincing your party to do a better job getting those votes. Whether that means better priorities or better messaging (as far as getting the word out about things that have been accomplished - not as in "lie better") or what.

I mean, I know you don't want to do that. Because this is the same thing people have been saying forever and y'all are still on your "VOTE BLUE OR ELSE" kick, so. It's just frustrating that you insist each election is the most important ever and after this one we'll work on everything, but rather than spend your time pushing Dems to, yano, do that work, you use it to scold people on social media instead.

But then folks would have to care more about actually improving the world than punching to the left.

[gobbluthbutagirl]

lmaooooo i understand the concept of being skeptical about stuff on the internet but what do we do when that happens? we go on google.com and we independently verify. we DON’T spend the two seconds it would take to do that reblogging and/or commenting to say that we don’t know if it’s real or not and/or we don’t think that it’s real. and like a)i had no clue the post would blow up like that or i would’ve included the source to start and b)the first person to link the article in a reblog did so BEFORE the first person to question whether or not it was real. meaning literally everybody who wasn’t sure could have simply checked the notes and they would have seen it. not to mention google is free, variety is not behind a paywall, and michael imperioli’s instagram is available to be viewed publicly without an account. plus i’ve seen this covered in so many other publications since? like even fox ran a story on it. if you read the news in any capacity. you have seen this by now. it showed up in apple news trending stories earlier. like tell me you get all your news from tumblr without telling me you get all your news from tumblr. also the post got 6,000+ notes overnight and 9,000+ more by the 22-hour mark and believe it or not some of those were indeed people acting stupid. an alex jones stan literally reblogged and asked if “this guy,” as in michael imperioli, as in the actor who played christopher moltisanti, “has even watched the sopranos.” so i think considering the circumstances op is allowed to be a little mean. As a treat

[carriesthewind]

Hi! I read the further comments and posts you made regarding the library poll and incoming results. One specific thing was interesting to me personally: when you brought up that the argument "it's not your property" is in some way the same argument used by cops harassing homeless people in parks etc. That never occurred to me, cuz public property (object) and public property (place) are so very different to me, I can't "take away" a park like I could a book. (1)

(2) I wonder how much of my perspective is formed by growing up and living in a country with a relatively good social security net (ofc, slow bureaucracy exist and can have very negative consequences) where (police) violence against homeless people is at least nominally lower - and how much is just the ignorance of always being treated like (lower) middle class

Thanks for the question!

To first address the "takings" question: you raise an interesting distinction. I think how important that distinction comes down in part to what we mean by "take away." So for example, while a lot of the librarians in the library marginalia poll are (correctly and informatively) talking about how writing in books damages them to the point where they need to be removed/thrown away, a lot of writing doesn't damage the book (immediately) to the point of removal, but still interferes with a reader's enjoyment. That's (part of) why librarians erase pencil markings, even though erasing itself can damage the book - the writing in the books "takes away" from the experience of other readers. Meanwhile, for something like a park, many people would argue that homeless people living in a park "take away" from other people's experience of the park; and if enough homeless people live there, it can prevent other people from being able to access (or safely and comfortably access) the park.

If you want to see examples of people talking this way, here's an article from Fox News in the aftermath of a police raid on a large homeless encampment in a Los Angeles park. Quoting from the article: "'It looks like the way it should be. It's a family park. And I think kids are feeling like they can come to a place and not worry that they might find needles in the playground,' resident Joey larva said." You can see from the way the "resident" (a.k.a local property owner) talks about the park, that he didn't feel kids could use it when the camp was there; that it was "taken" from them. (If you really want to be horrified at humanity, you can scroll down and read the comments. I really really don't recommend doing so, however.)

(Because I don't feel comfortable letting that article be the only word on the subject: here's an article from the Guardian about the aftermath of the raid - and the camp itself - focused on the victims of the raid.)

Which leads to the second part of your question - I'm not sure how much it has to do with your experiences, as opposed to mine. As someone who does public interest law in the U.S., part of the reason I'm so sensitive to these kinds of arguments is because I have seen how the state (and corporations) use the idea of property, ownership, and rules/the law to as hammers to hurt vulnerable people. And how resistant those systems in the U.S. are to considering any actual harms in applying those laws and rules. (One of my first criminal defense cases, I tried to ask the prosecutor what his rational was for demanding the punishment he wanted in his plea offer - what goal did it serve? And I went on to detail the specifics of my client's particular case and my great, law-school-approved arguments for why his offer was inappropriate (I can't give details, but please be assured - there was no rational justification for even charging this person criminally). His response was to yell that this was what he always offered for this offense, my client had broken the law (which, technically, they had), take it or leave it.)

And one of the common experiences of doing public interest law work in the united states is that some of the hardest clients to represent are those who have never been on the sharp end of the justice system before (especially former middle, and even upper-lower, class). Because people have an entirely sensible expectation that the justice system will abide by certain standards of rationality and reasonableness. And then it just...doesn't. Because when it says that the only thing that matters is, "it doesn't belong to you;" it really really means it - regardless of the context, of the harm that you've actually done, or the harm that the hammer of the system is about to do to you.

(Apologies for the depressing answer.)

[third-new]

Big TikTok alert, Trump's first 100 days (second) and more from Fox News Opinion.

YOUNGNow you can listen to Fox News articles! Welcome to the Fox News Opinion Newsletter. WELL – Fox News host comments on President Trump's second inauguration. Continue watching… NOTE HEWITT – Trump's second inaugural address was a victory for him, and for his supporters. Continue reading… JUST MAKE ME HAPPY – Donald Trump is our president and the Democrats don't know what to do. Continue…

[newtras]

Big TikTok alert, Trump's first 100 days (second) and more from Fox News Opinion.

YOUNGNow you can listen to Fox News articles! Welcome to the Fox News Opinion Newsletter. WELL – Fox News host comments on President Trump's second inauguration. Continue watching… NOTE HEWITT – Trump's second inaugural address was a victory for him, and for his supporters. Continue reading… JUST MAKE ME HAPPY – Donald Trump is our president and the Democrats don't know what to do. Continue…

[satrthere]

Big TikTok alert, Trump's first 100 days (second) and more from Fox News Opinion.

YOUNGNow you can listen to Fox News articles! Welcome to the Fox News Opinion Newsletter. WELL – Fox News host comments on President Trump's second inauguration. Continue watching… NOTE HEWITT – Trump's second inaugural address was a victory for him, and for his supporters. Continue reading… JUST MAKE ME HAPPY – Donald Trump is our president and the Democrats don't know what to do. Continue…

[beardedmrbean]

I read with a mixture of sadness and relief an essay by one Melissa Persling, who by all accounts represents the average 30-something woman in America today. In the article, she laments the fact that she’s single at 38 and feels "unbelievably betrayed by feminism." 

Persling feels that way because it is that way. For decades our culture has failed women by spreading falsehood after falsehood about men, marriage, motherhood and career. It’s been a slow, daily drip of "You go, Girl!" messages, specifically designed to delete men and babies from life’s equation. And it has wreaked havoc on women’s lives. 

In an interview with Fox News, Persling explained why she wrote her article. "I wrote a lot of that article like truly scared … I really did think, like, wow, you’ve missed your opportunity. You are going to be alone. You’re not going to have a family." 

She adds, "I was constantly fed this idea that women can do everything. We don’t really need men … I do feel in many ways betrayed by that line of thinking." 

Persling then concedes that she received this message from "so many of the women" in her life. "I want to go back to some of those teachers and coaches and say, ‘What the hell did you mean by that? Because we can’t do it all. We can’t. That’s a lie!’" 

Yes, it was all a lie — and good on Persling for calling it out in such a public way. 

Still, it’s a super hard pill to swallow, made worse by the fact that Persling has been slammed with hateful comments, particularly from men, who insist she’s been selfish. She’s a product of her choices, they say, and, well, too bad. 

It’s not that simple. 

As a life and relationship coach, I hear regularly from women like Persling who realize they’ve been duped by the narrative that being an independent, self-sustaining woman is enough to be happy. It makes perfect sense that these women would find themselves, down the road, overcome with grief at the prospect of living life alone. And they can’t turn to the culture for help because the culture hails singlehood as the be all, end all. 

Persling was smart to recognize that being a product of divorce also put her at a disadvantage since she saw women "taking care of everything" in life. Her mother may not have specifically groomed her to be a feminist, but she absorbed the feminist message of not needing a man all the same. No one told her otherwise. 

America is now saturated with women like Persling, who acted upon the wisdom passed along to them by the people they most trusted. These women thought they did everything right, only to have it turn out all wrong. To accept that the advice they received was based on lies is a hard lesson for anyone to learn. 

The truth is, this purportedly "liberated" path women have been groomed to travel has a domino effect. Because if the goal isn’t marriage and family, what is the goal? To be satisfied with being single forever because at least you have a paycheck and no one to whom you must answer? As Persling said, "I don’t want to wake up at 60 and say, ‘Oh, well, I had a lot of fun!’" 

The problem with the narrative women have been fed is that it deleted the old way but didn’t replace it with anything new. It conveniently left out the details about how women are supposed to live their lives instead. 

I believe Persling when she said she’s "not even a feminist." That’s the thing about movements and trends: They seep into the culture to such a degree that they cease to need a name at all. You don’t even recognize it’s there, and yet it’s governing your every move. 

As Danielle Crittenden wrote in "What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us," feminism "had seeped into their minds like intravenous saline into the arm of an unconscious patient. They were feminists without knowing it." 

But now, thanks to Persling’s bravery, more women will wake up. 

[ntimmel]

A Matter of Trust

Last year, a video of mine went viral.

I now have two "Know your meme" pages because of it.

A couple news articles were written about me, and at one point, I got a DM from a reporter: "Hey, do you have time to answer a couple questions?"

I responded in the positive, "Sure."

I never heard from her again.

"Surprisingly" enough, she still wrote an article about me, and at the bottom of it, was the line, "We reached out to Mr. Timmel for comment."

And I found that fascinating.

Because they had reached out to me, and I responded, and my response was ignored. 

The writer/publication had absolutely zero intention of talking to me, they just wanted to cover their tracks. By dropping "we reached out to Mr. Timmel for comment," they could write whatever they wanted, while pretending I was the neglectful party.

The statement gave their article weight, and authority.

Last week, I started reading Character Limit, the book about Elon Musk buying Twitter, the other day.

Because I'm dumb, I was about halfway through before realizing, "Hey, wait... wasn't Peite involved with this, even if tangentially?"

Peite, being Peiter Zatko, aka Mudge.

Last night, I got to Chapter 23, which purported as being about Peite, but…

Well, wasn’t.

Like with the article about me, I found the Chapter fascinating.

They didn't appear to have talked to Peite, or researched him in the slightest, other than a quick glance at his Wikipedia page. 

Then they wrote what they wanted to write, stating it was how "some" Twitter employees felt.

Feelings, rumors, innuendo…

No facts.

And yet, the book is presenting itself as an authoritative take on the situation.

Because that’s the world we live in.

Fox News can lie about the election in 2000, pay over $700 million dollars to cover things, and people still watch and believe the things they continue to spew.

No one cares about facts, or reality, we care about confirmation bias.

If someone believes what we believe, then we must be right.

Interesting path society is on.

Interesting, indeed.

[igettalk]

Videos: Kamala Harris Clashes with Fox News Bret Baier in First Network Interview

On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris was engaged in an intense 27-minute interview with Fox News host Bret Baier. This is Harris's debut appearance on the conservative network as she campaigns for the presidency.When the Democratic candidate was asked if she would do anything differently from Biden after Baier played a clip of her saying there’s “not a thing that comes to mind” for changes, Harris made a bold statement, clearly separating herself from the current administration. "My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden's presidency," she stated. According to the VP, a new form of leadership is what she's bringing to the table and that she is also willing to consider ideas from various sources, including Republicans who have endorsed her campaign and business sectors.Confronted with polls indicating widespread dissatisfaction with the country's direction, Kamala Harris, who is still the current Vice President, stated that this only reflected how the public are tired with both Biden and Trump's leadership, deviating from addressing her own contribution to the decline. https://twitter.com/alx/status/1846691681850347585 In fact, she criticized the former President, citing his former officials who she claims are now describing him as "unfit to serve" and "dangerous."Kamala Harris also addressed Trump's controversial "enemy within" rhetoric. She expressed concern over his suggestion of using military force against American citizens, stating, "He's the one who talks about an enemy within... suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”The interview touched on several sensitive topics, including transgender rights. Bret Baier presented a Trump campaign ad that criticized Harris's past support for "surgical care" for transgender prisoners. However, Harris countered this attack by pointing out that such procedures were available "on a medical necessity basis" during Trump's own administration.After the interview was aired, Trump took to X, a social media platform, accusing Harris of having "Trump derangement syndrome" and suggesting she take a cognitive test. “She is barely able to talk about any subject other than the man who had the best economy ever, the strongest border in history, and who just got the UNANIMOUS ENDORSEMENT OF THE U.S. Border Patrol, ME!..She is also the WORST Vice President in history, but hopefully will soon be GONE.” In contrast, CNN reported that Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary, praised Harris's performance as "impressive," calling her "tough, smart, focused, and disciplined." You can watch the full Fox News interview in the video below 👇 https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1846704700105838695 Bret Baier also revealed that Kamala Harris arrived 15 minutes late for their scheduled interview, which cut into their allotted time. He shared with colleague Dana Perino that steering the conversation without interrupting Harris proved challenging. Baier expressed his frustration at not being able to ask all the questions he had prepared. "I had so much to cover," he said in a separate conversation with commentator Mark Levin. Read the full article