#huffpo

[ahb-writes]

You know what that is? That’s an act of defiance. My life, every damn day, is an act of defiance. Fuck your "model minority." I will obliterate every stereotype that you have about me walking in the room as an Asian woman — whatever you think that is.

Sophia Chang (in "Meet The Korean-Canadian Woman Who Helped Bring You The Wu Tang Clan" by Ja'han Jones)

[whatisthedeal]

When I say I cackled

[siryouarebeingmocked]

>Huffpo

Not even shocked.

>The parental rights crowd won out, and the Central Bucks school board became a 6-3 conservative majority. 

>With that came a tangled web of proposals designed to silence anyone who isn’t white, straight, cisgender and conservative, including rules to dictate what teachers can wear and how students can express their gender identity and sexuality.

Last time I checked, anyone could wear non-gender confirming clothes, regardless of sexuality, gender identity, or political tribe.

Also, I like the implication that teachers didn't really have a dress code before.

It's also hilarious that this article implies rightie parents are hysterical about inappropriate books for kids, while the article itself plays on the left's own hysteria about "banning" books.

Such as saying "removing books from public school curriculums and school libraries is banning them". It doesn't even have to be at the public's request, apparently.

Look at the nontroversy over "Maus".

And it's extra hilarious when the mainstream left and progressives have little problem with censoring things, if it's for the "correct" reasons. What's the difference between claiming something is bad for kids and claiming that it's "misinformation", exactly?

Residents would come to public meetings and read excerpts from books they wanted to ban, cherry-picking explicit passages so they could accuse the libraries of having pornographic material.

“They take ‘Genderqueer’ and they open it up to the page where there is a dildo blow job, but they don’t talk about the rest of the book or what the book is even about,” Smith said, referring to Maia Kobabe’s bestselling book that describes their journey to figuring out they’re nonbinary.

How dare they throw accusations of child grooming over pornographic content in the book.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

[evermorre]

say what u will about that article, but I think this is true and something white women (like me) can apply in our actual, daily lives: "Women of color, particularly Black women, have been pointing this out for years: White women actively uphold white supremacy by staying silent when they could be vocal."

[asteracaea]

why on earth was this published today 😂

[baddywronglegs]

THANKS HUFFPO I'LL STOP SWALLOWING WHOLE POTATOES THAT'LL FIX ME

[sayruq]

[sexhaver]

"actually if you don't vote for the guy who lied about beheaded babies and is currently funding the genocide that enabled to the tune of $14 billion, YOU are the one who wants a genocide, because it could get even worse for [insert random minority group here later - Editor] in America! if you carry this train of thought through to its only logical conclusion and get mad at me for explicitly saying that hypothetical future American deaths are worse than real current Palestinian deaths, i will start monologuing at you like a YA novel protagonist before linking a barrage of HuffPo and Buzzfeed articles about the five things Biden managed to accomplish in between not saving Roe v Wade and not stopping student loan payments and mishandling covid. i am the mature one here"

[drdemonprince]

i was on NPR talking about Autism shit two weeks ago, and i have the book sales figures from that week and that national media appearance had.... absolutely zero relationship to sales. on the typical week these days, 1,400 to 1,500 copies of Unmasking Autism will sell. The week that I was on NPR there was a slight dip; only about 1,300 books were sold.

i have done a lot of press for my books. For Laziness Does Not Exist I did easily a 100 damn podcasts and radio shows and newspapers and excerpts in magazines. none of it corresponded to a noticeable bump in sales. the biggest "get" my publicist found for my latest book was the Glennon Doyle show, a booking she and her team celebrated and then spent months clamboring excitedly for... it, too, had no obvious relationship to sales.

Unmasking Autism became a bestseller because some other guy made a tiktok about it, and then a bunch of tiktokkers made videos about it too. all on their own. without any prodding from me, or any relationship to me. it was completely organic, passionate, and sincere, and rooted in the book's true merits and usefulness to other people, and that's why it inspired lots of sales. and continues to more than a year and a half later. all the press I did for Unmasking Autism prior to the release of that tiktok did relatively far less. NPR, Goop, the LA Times, Lit Hub, Jacobin, Huffpo, the New York Times, the Financial Times, MSNBC, Business Insider. Didn't matter. at least not much. so why do i bother?

publishers really ride your ass trying to make you give lots of interviews and show up for lots of events but it's all based on the worship of traditional media and magical thinking that it will somehow convert listeners into buyers. and that's just not how it works. the truth is 95% of books never sell more than 5,000 copies, and most people don't buy books or read them. i love reading but i dont think this is itself some terrible loss, as most books are padded-out commodities made for sale more than a work of true artistic passion or scholarly merit, and sometimes listening to a 90 minute interview with an author tells you the bulk of what you need to know.

it's freeing to know that the effort i put into getting my books out into the world have almost zero relationship to the books' success. marketing just does not work. it's a relief. unmasking autism did fabulously because it's actually both good and useful. laziness has had a long life span because it speaks to real problems in people's lives and gives them a message they are desperate to hear. but no amount of thirsty ass online shilling will make somebody realize that and it's maddening to try. you just gotta focus on doing good work, work that you enjoy making or need to make and that you feel good about, let things flop if theyre gonna flop, and keep on living your life.

which is all good news because i really do hate a lot of these fucking interviews. how can i stomach being on npr or in the atlantic or whatever these days given how complicit nearly all major media outlets are in justifying this genocide. like who fuckin cares about them, who wants their approval. who needs it. it's of no value

[booasaur]

Regarding a possible ground invasion of Lebanon (this is a HuffPo journalist who has great contacts in DC):

Reminder that this is what he posted in June, and has thus been borne out:

Dem voters have mostly adopted the tactic of closing their eyes to the carnage in the Middle East, except to support it or criticize those who want to stop it, with the hope that if they just got to the election and won, things would... change? Not matter? The Biden-Harris administration would no longer have to worry about the threat from Zionist donors and voters and actually use US leverage to push for a ceasefire?

Things are escalating fast now, before the election, as everyone actually knowledgeable about the area predicted. Netanyahu will see this as an opportunity to help Trump and even if it doesn't end up affecting the result, get in as much violence as he can before Harris takes over with what he fears will be a more standard Dem position of favoring Israel but not to the point of risking America's reputation and safety, as Biden has allowed. Or possibly he views Biden-Harris as exactly what they've been so far, a Democrat administration with no red lines that has normalized the killing of Arabs and Muslims in a way that a Republican presidency would not have.

So what's the plan? Even in Dems' best case scenario going forward, thousands would still die in Palestine, much of the West Bank would still continue to be annexed, but what's some more after a year or 75?

But now, with Lebanon being attacked, and Iran knowing Israel will strike them next with full impunity and US support, what are Dems going to do? How many more deaths and how much more suffering will they allow?

More importantly to them, a regional war comes with the risk of making the administration look weak and ineffective, a framing Dems always have to fight uphill against, especially compared to Trump, and especially a WOC. If this risks tilting a few key tens of thousands of votes, then what?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Harris campaign kicks into high gear

July 26, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Kamala Harris has the Trump campaign on its back foot. Whatever Trump’s advisers expected from V.P. Harris, they were wrong. Although Trump and his surrogates have tried several lines of attack, each attempt backfires as Trump offends important constituencies he needs to win. In attacking Kamala Harris, Trump is offending Black Americans, successful women, mothers raising blended families, couples trying to conceive, young people, and more. The Harris campaign has responded forcefully, using a pointed sense of humor that is refreshing and attractive to younger voters who see the internet as a battlefield of ideas.

On Thursday, the Harris campaign released a powerful television ad that was a “no-holds-barred” look at the threat to democracy posed by Trump. See The Guardian, ‘We choose freedom’: Kamala Harris campaign launches first ad. The ad is embedded in The Guardian article; I urge you to watch it. If you don’t, here is The Guardian’s description of the ad:

Released on Thursday morning, the ad opens with shots of Harris’s smiling face behind a podium, the word Kamala, the word Harris, and the American flag. The soundtrack is the beginning of Beyoncé’s song Freedom, to which Harris entered and exited her first speech to campaign staffers after gaining lightning speed momentum on the road to becoming the presumptive nominee. The ad is narrated by Harris, whose first words are, “In this election we each face a question. What kind of country do we want to live in?” She continues: “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate,” she says, over shots of Trump and JD Vance. “But us, we choose something different.”

On social media, the Harris campaign has been even more aggressive. The Harris campaign took a clip of Trump imitating Kamala Harris, saying, “I’m the prosecutor and he is the convicted felon.” After Trump admits that he is a convicted felon and Harris is a prosecutor, the ad immediately cuts to a picture of Kamala Harris with her voice saying, “I am Kamala Harris and I approve this message.” The Harris campaign is showing early signs of social media savvy—just as Barack Obama’s campaign did in 2008.

The Harris campaign also went after JD Vance, who described Kamala Harris in 2021 as a “childless cat lady” who should not have an equal voice in the future of America because she does not have biological children. (Harris is a stepmother to two children with Doug Emhoff.) Thursday was “In Vitro Fertilization Day.” The Harris campaign released a statement saying, “Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Except JD Vance.” See HuffPo, Harris Campaign Wishes Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Except 1 Person.

The confidence and swagger of that ad was reflected in the Harris campaign’s immediate acceptance of debate with Donald Trump, set for September 10. But as Kamala Harris demonstrated an eagerness to debate, Trump began hedging his bets, saying he “did not like the idea” of a debate on ABC. See CNBC, ‘Let’s go’: Harris agrees to debate Trump, accuses him of ‘backpedaling’ on Sept. 10 date.

The Harris campaign also used social media to troll Trump's morning appearance on Fox News, during which Trump called Kamala Harris “garbage.” The Harris campaign issued a press release entitled Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance. The press release said,

After watching Fox News this morning we only have one question, is Donald Trump ok? Trump is old and quite weird [and] this guy shouldn’t be president ever again.

For their part, Trump and his surrogates were reduced to claiming that Kamala Harris is a “DEI hire,” a “failed border czar,” and a socialist who will destroy the economy of America.

Luckily for Kamala Harris, economic growth and border security both improved in the second quarter. On Thursday, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the gross domestic product grew at a 2.8% rate in the second quarter, well above the consensus prediction of 1.9% by economists. See USA Today, US GDP report: Latest data shows economy grew 2.8% in Q2 (usatoday.com)

At the border, crossings by immigrants dropped to their lowest level since 2020 (under Donald Trump). See CBS News, Migrant crossings continue to plunge, nearing the level that would lift Biden's border crackdown. Per CBS News,

July is on track to see the fifth consecutive monthly drop in migrant apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border and the lowest level in illegal immigration there since the fall of 2020, during the Trump administration, the internal Department of Homeland Security figures show.

My point in noting the responses by the Harris campaign is not to revel in the “zingers” and “smackdowns” that are long overdue. Rather, it is to highlight the nimbleness, swagger, and professionalism of the Harris campaign. The lightning-quick responses would be exemplary for any presidential campaign; they are stunning for a presidential campaign that is four days old.

Although it is still early, it seems clear that the Harris campaign will focus on Trump's criminality, incoherence, age, and hateful agenda. And it is doing so with a satirical edge that transfers easily into internet memes—which is an effective way to create viral messaging that reaches young people. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has been caught flat-footed, trying to ignore the awkward creepiness of JD Vance and Trump's part-time approach to campaigning.

All of this should give Democrats confidence that Kamala Harris will run a strong campaign against an opponent who will wage a vile and hate-filled counter-offensive. If the first few days of the campaign are any indication, Kamala Harris is up to the task.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[ms-demeanor]

"hey this blogger who is famous for uncovering hard-to-find documents and sharing them has a criticism of a website I like. I wonder if the links in the links it provided might have more information about this subject or if actually this person who is famously good at in-depth research misread and is misrepresenting a ten year old huffpo article. Probably that second one. And while I'm at it I should take academia's version of the RIAA at face value when they're discussing piracy, I'm sure they've got no incentive to distort facts to present themselves in a positive light after the death of someone who was being prosecuted for for violating their terms of service."

[progressivepower]

Why are you getting your news from a profiteer “influencer”;idiot hiding behind a keyboard? We send politico, guardian, huffpo, nyt, mother jones, and msnbc daily. Read #journalism https://www.facebook.com/807470321537143/posts/873294268288081?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[flagellant]

lmao the obesity article from huffpo you reblogged is so insanely incorrect

First off, the whole "Your body is just doing what it's supposed to do, you're fat because you're MEANT to be fat!" while also saying "about 40 years ago, Americans started getting much larger" hmm... Why only Americans? Why only 40 years ago?

That seems odd, that Americans, specifically, would suddenly change to being naturally fat. Even today America has a much higher rate of obesity than other places like Japan. How is that? Wonder what would be discovered if we looked at when things like beet sugar, corn syrup, etc. started to be commonly added to foods 🤔

And then the "diets don't work!" spiel, along with emotionally charged reports of people starving themselves until they passed out.

What diets specifically doesn't work? Were the people getting enough calories? Did they stop the diet, and then the weight came back? Did they start with small, gradual changes or completely overhaul their entire meal plan right away?

They say "95% to 98% of research shows diets fail" what research? What studies? What was the sample size? What were people eating? Were they given any help to maintain their diet or encourage any other healthy habits, or were they just given a list of foods to eat and sent on their way?

It sounds like ALL the diets they talk about in the article are shitty. People starving themselves, people doing useless fad diets, etc. and presenting it as if weight loss is IMPOSSIBLE. Which is crazy, considering all the people I've seen who lose weight, maintain the loss, and feel insanely better than they did when they were obese.

Maybe it's not that "diets" don't work, but that the diet industry doesn't work? After all, what would happen if they encouraged people to change their relationship with food completely, starting with small, gradual changes, and work on fixing their gut microbiome and cutting out unnecessary things from their diet like processed sugars, corn syrup, etc? Then people would lose weight. Then they wouldn't need expensive diet plans anymore.

And then the industry has no more customers. Just like if Apple makes phones that actually work and aren't pieces of trash, then they wouldn't be making money from people buying new iPhones every other year. Same with the clothing industry, and the pharmaceutical industry, and every other industry.

For someone who always talks about people researching things and checking out the sources on information before automatically believing it ya'll don't seem very good at it lmao

I'd like to start off with saying that I definitely agree with you in that the way the diet industry is structured exists to predate upon invented insecurities, just like nearly any cosmetics aimed at body alteration to some degree (makeup included). We also agree that it is fundamentally built to ensure failure and ongoing failure as a norm, in the same way that we're never going to get a proper cure for cancer when the cancer industry is so insanely prevalent and profitable.

That said, I understand your...frustration, let's call it, sure, about the fact that no, I did not do any further digging into this and took it at its word. You have my apologies for that.

However. I'd like to use this as a tool for transparency and assuming best intent. Your tone and treatment of me in this is rather hostile and I don't see the purpose that it serves. If I'm someone who claims to find accuracy in reporting important, then yes, accuracy needs to be had. And it was as simple as just Googling "95% diets fail". First result is an article from the NYT debunking it and explaining why it's a myth and bad statistics.

But that same article gets me to the heart of why I'm writing things out this way: you brought it up yourself, in fact, though in deciding to get petty you probably missed the subtext. For over forty years now these numbers have been used and spread around to the point where countless literal professional doctors don't have any idea that it's false. After all, we live in a society where diet industries have for pretty much ever been able to operate with nearly no regulation, fat people aren't actually given a shit about from medical professionals and are just told to get GPS, etc...you could even say this is a systemic issue which started long before I and likely you (and most reading this) were born.

Nobody learns these things on accident. You're absolutely right that if I looked it up and researched the claims I could easily have found out their validity to be nonexistent. But why would I? This isn't new research. This isn't anything that goes against anything I was ever taught. It's just a fact of life, just the way things are. People thought the universe was geocentric.

So with that said, I have to admit that while I've done my best to not vent my irritation at you or anyone else, it is deeply frustating, sure, we'll call it, to have you walk up to me and act in this way. It would be one thing if this wasn't a case of unlearning systemic bias and normativity. That'd be on me, absolutely.

But instead of thinking things through like an emotionally mature individual and going "Hm, this dude who says it finds research/accuracy important posted some stuff which was wrong, which I'm aware has a history going back multiple decades and is still going strong. Maybe the reason they didn't do any followup research was because they've lived their entire life hearing this same statistic over and over again and therefore thought that their systemic biases were accurate and saw nothing wrong because they couldn't,"

you decided to be a cunt for no fucking reason and you knew it because you had to go on Anonymous to hide any possible consequences coming your way for your actions. So thanks for informing me about this, I'm genuinely grateful and we, again, completely fucking agree ideologically, but/so fuck you for thinking that acting like a fucking 10th grader with a gotcha was a better use of anyone's time than just typing out "Hey that diet thing you reblogged is actually completely false if you look it up" to which I would have gone "Oh shit you're right, here's some followup research I did about this thing and how it's a systemic bias that needs to be unlearned".

[macwantspeace]

article by David Moye on HuffPo August 19 > During his visit to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, local reporter Andy Mehalshick noted that “many veterans [were] upset” about the remarks and gave the former president a chance to “clarify” his medal remarks.

Although Trump was given a softball that would have allowed him to do  damage control AND praise the soldiers who’ve died for the country, he decided instead to double down.

And it was awkward.

“People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor — which I’ve given to many — are often horribly worried or dead,” Trump said. “They’re often dead. They get it posthumously. When you get a Congressional Medal of Honor, that to me is the ultimate, but it’s a painful thing to get.”

“When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it’s usually for other things you achieve… Great success in sports or someplace else,” he added. Campaigning to be Commander In Chief. [? worried - did he mean to say wounded? ]