#poor schaffer

[prettywitchiusaka]

So, I finished the audiobook for MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios this past weekend. I enjoyed it, but didn't get as much spilt tea as I was hoping for regarding Doctor Strange.

In fact, they seem to skip over anything regarding the good doctor save for a few mentions here and there. They don't even devote a chapter to him in their Phase 3 section of the book FFS!!! I don't know, maybe it's just my copy of the book, but I feel like there were certain things they couldn't include because of Disney and/or Marvel trying to block them. Who can say?

There were two things of note regarding MoM I found interesting, though;

Apparently, Dan Harmon did an uncredited re-write for Multiverse. I don't know how much of his draft is in the final film, but that might explain some of the cynicism present in that movie. Don't get me wrong, I love Community (a show about how people are made better by being/growing with other people), and I think Dan's a great writer...it's just I feel that the further his career has gone on, the more nihilistic he's become and it reflects in his writing. Or maybe it's the writers he works with on Rick & Morty who reflect that, I don't know.

2. Apparently Michael Waldron and Jac Schaffer became friends during production of their respective shows and actually talked about how best to hand off Wanda from her show to his movie, breaking Marvel's Top Secret rule for each production…which is so strange to me.

Waldron actually talks about how he has great respect for Schaffer and didn't want to let her down. Now, he might just be talking out of his ass, I don't know. But if he's telling the truth, it sort of confirms my belief that Waldron is a decent guy in person (albeit an idiot), and his arrogance comes out in his writing. Or maybe @aeltri's right and Waldron knows how to play the politics game and played Feige and Schaffer for suckers.

[bluelotuswrites]

Hellblazer's Apprentice Playlist

We gotta get one for every one of my fic series :)

To Live Forever- Rik Scaffer

Let Me Live/Let Me Die- Des Rocs

Poinsettia- Rik Schaffer

Supernatural- Barns Country

Dead Man's Party- Oingo Boingo

Desert Orchid- Hackberry

Farewell to Arm- The Smyrk

The End of Jason Todd- The Smyrk

House of the Rising Sun- Heavy Young Heathens

Raise a Little Hell- Bonne & Clyde Musical Track

Houdini- Dua Lipa

Play With Fire- Sam Tinnesz

Voodoo mon amour- Diablo Swing Orchestra

Hayloft I & II- Mother Mother

Anti-Hero- SEKAI NO OWARI

Love From the Other Side- Fall Out Boy

Glitter & Gold- Barns Country

Who Are You, Really?- Mikky Echo

Absinthe- IDKHBTFM

ZITTI E BUONI- Måneskin

Magic- Mick Smiley

Necromancin Dancin- Bear Ghost

Flesh 'N Blood- Oingo Boingo

Arsonist's Lullabye- Hozier

Far From Home (The Raven)- Sam Tinnesz

Hell's Comin' With Me- Poor Mans Poison

Uma Thurman- Fall Out Boy

Black Hole Sun- Soundgarden

Limbo- Royal Blood

Afterlife- Avenged Sevenfold

Cracker Island- Gorillaz

Bones- Imagine Dragons

West Coast Smoker- Fall Out Boy

Not Human- Elegant Slims

Necromancin Dancin- Bear Ghost

Lose Control- Teddy Swims

Too Sweet- Hozier

Man With a Hex- The Atomic Fireballs

Do It All the Time- IDKHBTFM

Eyes Closed- Imagine Dragons

Poker Face- Lady Gaga

Enchanté- Dirt Poor Robins

[elsalouisa]

Letter from Ella to Ernie, Ilinskoe Sept. 26, 1884

"My darling Boy, Today there was a féte just op[p]osite the house on a meadow on the other side of the river. | told you, how on Serge’s namesday we gave different things to the Ilinskoe schoolchildren; well on my namesday those of the other villages belonging to us, were also to have the sam{e tre}at. But the weat{her whas too bad & as todafy it} is a holy day & an {im}portant one in {the} Greek church one could get the people all together. The weather was quite warm luckily. We drove across in boats & arrived on the meadow where all the people were waiting - On a long table were: pockethand kerchiefs, white china teapots & also cups with little patterns on them, leather, ready for boots, knitted shifts & stuff for shifts, horsecovers really a large rug & samovars (kettles for boiling water for tea). In a basket were little snips of rolled up paper on each written one of these things. Then it was arranged that only one of a family should come & draw out these papers & get what was written on them. Even then there were 200 peasants. With these things each got three cromos — coloured pictures of the Emperor & family & one scene from the coronation. Then the schoolchildren had toys, & bonbons were thrown amongst them. There were also 2 races of boys tied up in sacks. The whole lasted 2 hours & was most amusing as we gave the things. Thank Miss Jackson for her dear long letter, | was so fearfully shocked to hear about Frl. v. Schaffer’s death & shall write to poor Grossmama. The books about games from Bumpus arrived quite safely — Now tender love & kisses from your loving Sister Ella"

[bloodmaarked]

dracula // bram stoker

first published: 1897 read: 17 june 2024 - 04 july 2024 pages: 656 format: e-book (+audiobook)

genres: fiction; horror; fantasy (paranormal, vampires); gothic favourite character(s): lucy and quincey least favourite character(s): van helsing

rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 thoughts: dracula got onto my radar somewhere somehow fairly recently and given it's one of the classics with probably the greatest cultural impact i thought i'd give it a read. i'm not that interested in horror or vampire lore but even given that, i was impressed with the many genuine moments of thrill and terror. it's clearly a classic for a reason and has stood up remarkably in that sense for over a century.

the first part which followed jonathan harker exclusively was so good at building the atmosphere and setting up dracula as a character. jonathan meets and lives in close quarters with the vampire himself and it's just a brilliant few chapters where tensions are increasingly high, the mood is eerie and nerves are set on edge. i think ultimately this was my favourite part of the book, although the parts that focused closely on lucy, dr seward and van helsing were a very close second. bram stoker was incredibly good at building tension.

the book as a whole was not consistently as brilliant, and that's what's led to my 3.5* rating. dracula suffers from what i imagine many books of this era do (i know the sherlock holmes series certainly does at times), which is that they do a whole lot of yapping about nothing of interest. i know this book could've been cut right down if they edited out all of van helsing's blah blah blah, and all the "poor, poor, dear mina"'s. the worst of it happens after the focus moves away from lucy, and it got difficult to remain engaged with the story (the thought of DNFing crossed my mind briefly). i happened to find the free audiobook of this on spotify (the inaudio edition narrated by randal schaffer), and i started using it to read along whilst crocheting. in my next sitting when i tried to read again during another dragging section of the book, i honestly couldn't really get through it without the help of the audio, even though i wasn't even a massive fan of the narration! the blabbing just continued on too long, and i was hovering at 4* still until it was getting towards the end of the book and i was still sitting bored through pages of nothingness.

there were a lot of interesting themes, such as religion, gender roles, etc. that would've made an interesting discussion in school or at a book club. the little research that i was prompted to do was also really cool, for example finding out that dracula was probably closely based on vlad the impaler (who looked crazy btw).

i'm glad i read it. would i recommend it? yes, but be aware of the type of book you're going into, and remember that this was written back when authors wrote for people who had longer attention spans and who didn't have any other entertainment to turn to like the next episode of love island!

[your-subby-creature]

*skitters into your inbox* hey!! if u have anything u wanna infodump about rn or whenever u want, i am sitting down and very ready to listen :D

Hello!!! Since I've been feeling kinda sad/anxious/insecure today (forgot my meds oops), I think for our infodump I'm gonna tell a nice story out of trans history that's always been a niche favorite of mine. Mind you, this is my interpretation, and truly only based off one article from long ago, so take all my tales as slightly taller than they appear. Now settle down, and let your pal Creature spin you a yarn.

..

In the late 1890s, an old farmer, one Mr. Otto Schaffer, was living out his years on a small plot of land in Kansas. He'd served in the Civil War, a Union man through and through, and was content to settle down and make his living in the calm country of the once-bloody state.

Unfortunately for Otto, this land held more than the idyllic calm he'd imagined, and one day a terrible storm rolled through. They say it was as he was sending up a prayer to his God that a bolt of lightning struck poor Mr. Schaffer dead, but the man lived alone, so there's no way to tell what really happened that stormy night. Either way, that storm was his last, and when the townspeople came to collect Otto's body, the lightning strike wasn't their only surprise.

Now, they didn't quite use the same terms and divisions we have now, so when the press ran the headline "The Old Soldier a Woman," it was really about as close as they could get to explaining the deceased Mr. Schaffer's transness. They seemed to sense it too, seeing the man in front of them as more than his assigned sex at birth, never once misgendering him in the article, never questioning that he'd get the soldier's burial he deserved.

It was an honor reserved for men, in those days, and not a single one of his brothers in arms so much as thought of refusing to raise their guns for the final salute as Otto Schaffer's body was lowered into the ground. It must have been a shock, then, as the guns went off and the whole town said their goodbyes, when a single dove fell from the sky, shot dead by the salute, coming to rest near Otto's grave.

The papers honestly seemed more intrigued by this second death than any of the events prior we may see as more salacious today, calling it "peculiar and romantic," spending more time on what the dove could have meant than anything truly surrounding Otto or his body.

The article was published around the state but no further, just another oddity to read in the paper, nothing special about the old soldier Otto Schaffer except for the dove who lost its life to his final gun salute.

Other than this single article, we know nothing of Otto's life, nothing of the man he was or the person he would have been today, and yet I find myself smiling when I think of his story. He's the earliest evidence I've found for an American trans funeral, and yet he was respected and honored by his local community, by the military, by the press (who cared more about the bird than anything, so it seems.)

I feel a kinship with him, a tie that binds across the centuries, and while I know his existence is more complex and ambiguous and altogether unknown, his story never fails to remind me that we've always been here, and we've always been loved by someone.

..

(Remember that this is heavily narrativized by some guy on the internet, fully my creative nonfiction take on a primary source. The original is available in the Digital Transgender Archive, either Otto Schaffer's name or the headline "The Old Soldier A Woman" should get you to it. It's important to write and teach our histories through storytelling, but I don't want to create any impressions that this is all objectively 100% hard fact that's had no personal spin at all. I embellished for narrative effect, and I gladly and openly admit it. Lastly, this whole story exists in a broader context of colonialism and white supremacy and the gut-wrenching history of the United States, and I do want to make sure we remember and acknowledge that. )

-your Creature

[ultimateheadcanontournament]

Round One

Steve Rogers

"Listen, I love bisexual Steve as much as the next person, but I love gay Steve even more. Steve who realized early on he was only attracted to dudes and was totally fine with it and it didn't really cause issues for most of his life. He was disabled and poor, who cares what (who) he was doing, right? But then he was forced into fame via wartime experimentation and the propaganda machine surrounded him with women and started nudging him in the direction of having a public sweetheart for the good publicity, and he had to start grappling with the idea that this might be his life now. He'd have to hide something he'd never been ashamed of before unless he managed to drop out of the limelight after the war. But then he crashed a plane in the Arctic, woke up in the 21st century, and realized he was somewhere where he could be in the limelight and be himself, and impact things for the better by doing it. And he lived happily ever after in the 21st century the end~ (note: dealers choice whether this headcanon includes Stucky or not. It does for me but could also work without it.)"

Terrence Fletcher

"Fletcher had decided long ago that Andrew was going to be his new protege. Fletcher also knew that Tanner was a visual learner and wouldn't be able to play without being able to look at the sheet music, which is what lead to Andrew replacing him as Schaffer's new core drummer in the first place. I believe that Fletcher hid the folder as some messe-up plot to speed up the process of turning Andrew into his 'Charlie Parker'."

[zealctry]

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). Bipolar I disorder is defined by manic episodes which may manifest as delusions, hallucinations, overconfidence, grandiosity, talkativeness, extreme disinhibition, irritability, decreased need for sleep, and highly elevated mood (Carvalho et al., 2020). Type I diagnosis requires at least one manic episode with or without episodes of depression.

Manic episodes may compromise psychosocial functioning to an extent that requires hospitalization (Carvalho et al., 2020). In mania, a person has abnormal mood that is either euphoric, expansive and elevated, or irritable with increased energy (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In addition, in mania, a person has a group of class B signs and symptoms, like decreased need for sleep, inflated self-esteem or grandiosity, flight of ideas and racing thoughts, unusual talkativeness, distractibility, psychomotor agitation, poor decision making, increase in goal-directed activity, excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., engaging in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments), and possibly psychotic features (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Bipolar disorder is often life-threatening, with 15–20 % of those diagnosed committing suicide, and one-third to half attempting suicide (Dong et al., 2019; Schaffer et al., 2015).

[pcttrailsidereader]

An Unintended Legacy

Jeff Schaffer authored or co-authored the Wilderness Press PCT guidebooks that served as ‘bibles’ for most PCT hikers from 1973 until apps increasingly superseded these resources some 40 years later.  Jeff contributed a story in The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader: Oregon/Washington (2011) where he recounted his serendipitous entry into the PCT guidebook business decades earlier. He went into the Wilderness Press offices hoping to write the definitive work on the Owens Valley and the Eastern Sierra only to discover that it had already been written.  Instead Tom Winnett recruited Jeff to join the team he had organized to write the first PCT guidebooks.  The first California edition came out in 1973 and the Oregon/ Washington edition was published in 1974.  I, and many others, appreciated the more detailed descriptions of the flora, fauna, geology, and history provided by the Wilderness Press guides.  They sold over 100,000 copies.

Jeff Schaffer recently shared a little more background regarding the Wilderness Press guides. Tom Winnett was in charge of the first edition of the first California edition, first available in 1973. Jeff noted that “virtually all guidebooks used a 4.75" by 7.625" format, which would barely fit in men's pockets. Sexist, but very few women were backpacking back then. 15' topo maps were shot at 1:104,000 scale. To print them at 1:62,500 would have made the book much longer, and heavier (but then, in those days, everyone wore heavy packs; what's an extra few ounces? The maps are virtually useless at this scale, but at least they show a lateral extent of about 7 miles. We caught a lot of flack about the map quality (and about the poor binding - not our fault (OK, it was; Tom went with a very cheap printer).

For the first edition of PCT: Oregon & Washington, we used the same book size, for continuity, and both 15' and 7.5' were shot at a 1:50,000 scale. The downside is that the lateral extent was about 3 miles. Bummer.

Back in 1975 my first edition of The Tahoe-Sierra Trail was published, and it was 6" by 9" and 320 pages. Had it been the old size, it would have been 400+ pages. No one screamed (maybe some cursed) at not being able to fit the book in their pants pockets. It set the new standard for guidebooks.

I took over for the next major editions, 1977 for PCT: California and 1979 for PCT: Oregon/Washington and what I introduced in this 6" by 9" format were sections, essentially from one major road crossing to another one, Sections A-R in PCT: California and A-L in PCT: Oregon/Washington. Also, each section had a section map (this not until 1995 in PCT: California, for economic reasons - damn expensive book!). The Forest Service eventually adopted my sections, and then the PCTA followed, and as they say, the rest is history.”

[generalmacnamara]

poor Xander and Schaffer, any time John is doing okay they must suffer :(

---

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Just watching a guy I'm familiar with on this - this time, he's talking about the new Speaker of the House, but he is also talking about the long-term plans of Christian Nationalists. (He used to be one, was born to a prominent Evangelical-preacher family and spend the 1980s and 1990s fronting this shit himself before he came to his senses). He's nice and angry, too. Frank Schaffer talking about why we should all be very afraid and at the voting booth voting Blue no matter Who. If you're inclined to books, The Power Worshippers is a good, scary read. Even scarier was that it was published before the decision on Roe v. Wade. Goes deep into the history of why the U.S. is so messed up now (and always has been). Also look up "Project 2025" and shudder. We're going to have to ensure Democrat-majority or we're going to have to have a civil war if we want to retain our lives and rights. If you're queer, if you're a woman, if you're not white, if you're disabled, if you're poor, if you're anything but a wealthy white Christian man, your neck is on the chopping block. Biden might be, in a lot of ways, an utter turd, but I'll vote for a turd over a butcher-hook.

sorry but i want to hit every american talking about not wanting to vote democrat anymore with hammers. lol

[manhuntingbonanza]

I found ccpd just as scary as other gangs, cause they're corrupted police forces paid by your kidnapper. Imagine after narrowly escape starkweather's clutch and wanders in carcer city, you found police officer and you call for help with relief, only for them to bring you back to starkweather (also they beat you up to a pulp or shoot your kneecap for good measures)

This is a really good take, given how CCPD fucking hates poor people too. It also helps that Gary Schaffer, the police chief, didn't even tell the rest about who Cash really is.

They deadass tried to kill him while they were just thinking he was just some homeless guy. Those pigs have got to be some of the most terrifyingly realistic characters in the entire Manhunt series.

[madeofitzits]

The moral victors of the Vanity Fair Cocktail Hour trivia game 💕

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

I don’t know anyone who collaborated to destroy the twin towers in New York but I recognised the guitarist Jon Schaffer in the crowd on Jan 6th trying to destroy democracy along side actual violent fascists who don’t consider Jews, Muslims, black people, Hispanics, queers, gays, trans or gender nonconformity people human beings. While at the same time protecting rapists, advocating for forced pregnancy and child marriage.

So yeah, the invidiousness that that is people I have paid money to see in concert trying to overthrow a government so they can violate the human rights of the people THEY LIVE WITH hits harder than a bunch of outsiders taking advantage of poor airport security. Jon Schaffer is more anti American than a Muslim terrorist.

Retweet if you think Jan 6 is worse than 9/11 and actually believe in the US constitution

Fuck you if you compare January 6 to 9/11

[youngsamberg]

Andy and Akiva on Busy Tonight!!!

[fictionz]

New Fiction 2022 - July

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "1 Paralipomenon" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

More begetting children and all their names before coming back around to more of David's reign. So many chapters are just appendices to previous events.

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "2 Paralipomenon" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

Two Paralipomenon, say that five times fast. So now it's on to Solomon and his riches (again), Roboam talking about how his little finger is bigger than his dad's dick, and Jeroboam getting whipped with scorpions all the way to the fall of Jerusalem. It's basically another look at what we saw in Kings.

Dracula Daily - "July" by Bram Stoker & ed. Matt Kirkland (1897, 2021)

Dracula’s finally outta that musty old castle, though leaving Jonathan in the lurch is quite the cliffhanger. And that poor, poor captain.

Bad Hare Day by R.L. Stine (1996)

A mish-mash of various ideas from earlier books. It has the vibe of Haunted Mask and stealing secrets from weird adults, the experimenting with illicit stuff from Monster Blood, animal transformations from various books, bratty younger sister who bullies the protagonist, a Slappy-like snarky villainous character. It’s too much of a remix and more slapstick than horror.

Egg Monsters from Mars by R.L. Stine (1996)

A decent creature story, but the latter half kind of sags with the protagonist spending a lot of time just trapped in a freezer and struggling to stay warm. The villain is genuinely frightening but also one-dimensional and doesn't really explain his motivation well. And there's not enough of the egg monsters. It's close to a top tier book but just sputters too much along the way.

"Bathtub Mermaid" by Edith Zimmerman (2022)

Someone has to hear about the doll thief.

"its time for… the dark cabinet" by itstimeforcomics-blog (2015)

When you least suspect it.

Lost Highway dir. David Lynch (1997)

One can see the continuation of a theme in Lynch’s work since Blue Velvet. Does he want us see the darkness or the light?

Mad God dir. Phil Tippett (2022)

If the journey ends for you, it doesn’t mean it’s the end.

Mr. Malcolm's List dir. Emma Holly Jones (2022)

British accents always class up the cruelty.

Thor: Love and Thunder dir. Taika Waititi (2022)

Whoof, what a drop from Ragnarok.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers dir. Akiva Schaffer (2022)

A reflection of a reflection that is unaware of what it sees.

Where the Crawdads Sing dir. Olivia Newman (2022)

Pump up the volume on the mystery, tone down the romance.

Nope dir. Jordan Peele (2022)

The most fun take on Jaws since the original. A real hoot and also really fucked up at times. An understanding of horror by someone who continues to bring cool ideas to movies.

Vengeance dir. B. J. Novak (2022)

You get awful close but you shouldn’t have been the face of it. Now we ask, what did we learn?

Fear Street Part One: 1994 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Really going for it right out of the gate. I’m in. Now I need to know if I should go back and read Fear Street after reading this bunch of Goosebumps books.

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Even the devil craves a kind word.

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Legacy is mankind’s ruin.

Goosebumps - "Bad Hare Day" (1996)

Erf, the book was rough, and the episode doesn’t do itself any favors by leaning into the snarky villain.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1988-1990)

A nostalgia bomb like every one of these 90s cartoons tends to be, though the tropes eventually wear thin when watching it all in one go. Monterey Jack may be what crystallized my appreciation of cheese.

Better Call Saul - Season 5 (2020)

This show... it doesn’t build the way Breaking Bad builds. It’s more of a roller coaster with the sense of hitting the same drop a few too many times. This season is a bookmark in place while you wait for the extra season that should have been season five.

The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022)

I feel bad for the actors and crew of this ostensibly standalone TV show. Your makers should have had the fortitude to stick the vision.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Better, but only because it is exactly what I remember. It’s comfortable, like an old pair of socks.

[patriotsnet]

Why Is The Media Against Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-is-the-media-against-republicans/

Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Mcconnell And Co Are Playing As Dirty A Game As Possible In Their Quest To Fill Ginsburgs Seat Before The Election But You Wont Find That Story In Most News Coverage

Bookmark

US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell at a press conference at the US Capitol on September 22, 2020. McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would take up President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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The argument against confirming Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court before the inauguration is a Republican argument. They invented it, they enacted it, and they own it. That’s because it was Republicans, not Democrats, who changed the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to eight for 10 months in 2016, when a Democratic president was in the White House. It was Republicans who argued that no Supreme Court nominee should even be considered by the Senate in an election year. And it was Republicans who promised to block the confirmation of Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees in the event that she became president while Republicans retained control of the Senate.

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Elie Mystal

And that argument is simply untenable. We do not have a legitimate third branch of government if only one party gets to choose its members.

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Vaccine Advocacy From Hannity And Mcconnell Gets The Media Off Republicans’ Backs But Won’t Shift Public Sentiment

Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell and Tucker Carlson

Amid a rising media furor over the steady stream of vaccine disparagement from GOP politicians and Fox News talking heads, a number of prominent Republicans spoke up in favor of vaccines early this week.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible” and asked that people “ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.” House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, got the vaccine after months of delay and then publicly said, “there shouldn’t be any hesitancy over whether or not it’s safe and effective.” And Fox News host Sean Hannity, in a widely shared video, declared, it “absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.” This was treated in the press as an unequivocal endorsement, even though the use of the word “many” was clearly meant to let the Fox News viewers feel like he’s talking about other people getting vaccinated. 

Is this an exciting pivot among the GOP elites?  Are they abandoning the sociopathic strategy of sabotaging President Joe Biden’s anti-pandemic plan by encouraging their own followers to get sick? Are the millions of Republicans who keep telling pollsters they will never get that Democrat shot going to change their minds now? 

Ha ha ha, no.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

— Matthew Gertz July 20, 2021

The Technology 202: New Report Calls Conservative Claims Of Social Media Censorship ‘a Form Of Disinformation’

with Aaron Schaffer

A new report concludes that social networks aren’t systematically biased against conservatives, directly contradicting Republican claims that social media companies are censoring them. 

arrow-right

Recent moves by Twitter and Facebook to suspend former president Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the violence at the Capitol are inflaming conservatives’ attacks on Silicon Valley. But New York University researchers today released a report stating claims of anti-conservative bias are “a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it.” 

The report found there is no trustworthy large-scale data to support these claims, and even anecdotal examples that tech companies are biased against conservatives “crumble under close examination.” The report’s authors said, for instance, the companies’ suspensions of Trump were “reasonable” given his repeated violation of their terms of service — and if anything, the companies took a hands-off approach for a long time given Trump’s position.

The report also noted several data sets underscore the prominent place conservative influencers enjoy on social media. For instance, CrowdTangle data shows that right-leaning pages dominate the list of sources providing the most engaged-with posts containing links on Facebook. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino, for instance, far out-performed most major news organizations in the run-up to the 2020 election. 

In The Past The Gop Would Be Rallying Their Voters Against This Bill Their Failure To Do So Now Is Ominous

Mitch ?McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro

With surprising haste for the U.S. Senate, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, just after passing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. And Democrats could not be more excited, as the blueprint covers a whole host of long-standing priorities, from fighting climate change to creating universal prekindergarten. The blueprint was largely written by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who released a statement calling it “the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s.”

Sanders isn’t putting that much spin on the ball.

While the bill fallls short of what is really needed to deal with climate change, it is still tremendously consequential legislation that will do a great deal not just to ameliorate economic inequalities, but, in doing so, likely reduce significant gender and racial inequality. It’s also a big political win for President Joe Biden. In other words, it is everything that Republicans hate. Worse for them, it’s packed full of benefits that boost the middle class, not just the working poor. Traditionally, such programs are much harder to claw back once Republicans gain power — as they’ve discovered in previous failed attempts to dismantle Social Security and Obamacare. 

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

But that’s not really happening here. 

The Actual Reason Why Republicans And Their Media Are Discouraging People From Getting Vaccinated

Independent Media Institute

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN Medical Analyst, said last week, “A surprising amount of death will occur soon…” But why, when the deadly Delta variant is sweeping the world, are Republicans and their media warning people not to get vaccinated?

there’s always a reason

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Jake Tapper on CNN last Sunday, “I don’t have a really good reason why this is happening.”

But even if he can’t think of a reason why Republicans would trash talk vaccination and people would believe them, it’s definitely there.

Which is why it’s important to ask a couple of simple questions that all point to the actual reason why Republicans and their media are discouraging people from getting vaccinated:

1. Why did Trump get vaccinated in secret after Joe Biden won the election and his January 6th coup attempt failed?

2. Why are Fox “News” personalities discouraging people from getting vaccinated while refusing to say if they and the people they work with have been protected by vaccination?

3. Why was one of the biggest applause lines at CPAC: “They were hoping — the government was hoping — that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated and it isn’t happening!”

4. Why are Republican legislators in states around the country pushing laws that would “ban” private businesses from asking to see proof of vaccination status ?

Death is their electoral strategy.

Is there any other possible explanation?

So, what’s left?

Destroying Trust In The Media Science And Government Has Left America Vulnerable To Disaster

For America to minimize the damage from the current pandemic, the media must inform, science must innovate, and our government must administer like never before. Yet decades of politically-motivated attacks discrediting all three institutions, taken to a new level by President Trump, leave the American public in a vulnerable position.

jonmladd

Trump has consistently vilified the national media. When campaigning, he the media “absolute scum” and “totally dishonest people.” As president, he has news organizations “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” over and over. The examples are endless. Predictably, he has blamed the coronavirus crisis on the media, saying “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media.”

Science has been another Trump target. He has gutted scientific expertise and administrative capacity in the executive branch, most notably failing to fill hundreds of vacancies in the Centers for Disease Control itself and disbanding the National Security Council’s taskforce on pandemics. During the coronavirus crisis, he has routinely disagreed with scientific experts, including, in the AP’s words, his “musing about injecting disinfectants into people .” This follows his earlier public advocacy for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, also against leading scientists’ advice. Coupled with his flip-flopping on when to lift stay-at-home orders, the president has created confusion and endangered people.

Media Bias Against Conservatives Is Real And Part Of The Reason No One Trusts The News Now

Members of the media were shocked as he was supposedly revealed as incredibly anti-woman presidential candidate, perhaps even the most ever nominated by a major political party in the modern era. He had admitted that he reduced women to objects and the Democrats pounced, seeking to make him lose him the support of women and, in turn, the presidency.

I’m not talking about the media coverage of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and the “Access Hollywood” tape, but his predecessor, Mitt Romney.

His sin? Saying that he had “binders full of women” that he was looking at appointing to key positions were he elected president. Sure, it was an awkward way of stating a fairly innocuous fact about how elected executives begin their transition efforts — with resumes of candidates for every position under the sun —- well before an election is held. Yet, the media and commentators came for Mitt Romney and they did so with guns blazing, as he was portrayed as an anti-woman extremist… for making a concerted effort to hire women to serve in his administration as governor of Massachusetts.

There Is No Liberal Media Bias In Which News Stories Political Journalists Choose To Cover

1Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

2University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.

3Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID 83460, USA.

?*Corresponding author. Email: hans.hassellfsu.edu ; jh5akvirginia.edu

?† These authors contributed equally to this work.

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‘it’s Time To End This Forever War’ Biden Says Forces To Leave Afghanistan By 9/11

The enormous national anger generated by those attacks was also channeled by the administration toward the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was conceived to prevent any recurrence of attacks on such a massive scale. Arguments over that legislation consumed Congress through much of 2002 and became the fodder for campaign ads in that year’s midterms.

The same anger was also directed toward a resolution to use force, if needed, in dealing with security threats from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That authorization passed Congress with bipartisan majorities in the fall of 2002, driven by administration claims that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction.” It became law weeks before the midterm elections.

Once those elections were over, the Republicans in control of both chambers finally agreed to create an independent commission to seek answers about 9/11. Bush signed the legislation on Nov. 27, 2002.

The beginning was hobbled when the first chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, decided not to continue. But a new chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, filled the breach and performed to generally laudatory reviews.

Long memories

Top House Republican Opposes Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot

But McCarthy replied by opposing Katko’s product, and more than 80% of the other House Republicans did too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially said he was keeping an open mind but then announced that he too was opposed. This makes it highly unlikely that 10 of McConnell’s GOP colleagues will be willing to add their votes to the Democrats’ and defeat a filibuster of the bill.

Republicans have argued that two Senate committees are already looking at the events of Jan. 6, as House panels have done as well. The Justice Department is pursuing cases against hundreds of individuals who were involved. Former President Donald Trump and others have said any commission ought to also be tasked to look at street protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

But with all that on the table, several Republicans have alluded to their concern about a new commission “dragging on” into 2022, the year of the next midterm elections. “A lot of our members … want to be moving forward,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican toMcConnell. “Anything that gets us rehashing to 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.”

Resistance even after 9/11

The Taliban were toppled but bin Laden escaped, and U.S. forces have been engaged there ever since. The troop numbers have declined in recent years, and President Biden has indicated that all combat troops will be out by this year’s anniversary of the 2001 attacks.

Opiniontrump And His Voters Are Drawn Together By A Shared Sense Of Defiance

Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.

So when CNN, NBC News, Fox News, or another outlet break a hard news story, there is a good chance that a large swathe of the public won’t view it as legitimate news.

And politicians, right and left, are taking advantage of this.

The entire ordeal is part of an ever-growing list of examples in which the media seemed to be biased, whether consciously or not, against Republicans.

Before Donald Trump, there was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in 2014 accused the media of “dividing us” because they asked him about some protesters who had chanted “NYPD is the KKK” and . He also accused the media of McCarthyism when they dug into the personal life of an aide of his, who reportedly had a relationship with a convicted murderer. The mayor also publicly and privately accused Bloomberg News of being biased against him, since it is owned by his predecessor. However, de Blasio is not terribly popular within his own party, so Democrats in New York did not buy what he was selling.

The Media Has Entered The Republicans Pounce Stage Of Critical Race Theory

Now that polls show a majority of Americans oppose Critical Race Theory, the Democratic Party and their scribes in the legacy media have launched a rearguard action against parents — by casting them as the aggressors. As is true every time the Left misfires or overreaches, the media ignore the offense and focus on the popular backlash in a tactic popularly known as “Republicans pounce.”

Media coverage proves that CRT has entered the “Republicans pounce” stage. Witness the words of one Politico writer, who said on Thursday, “he right is hoping to capitalize on the grassroots angst over critical race theory and excite its base voters in next year’s midterms.” Chris Hayes, who has the unenviable position of competing directly with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, agreed Thursday night that all the Republican Party’s “rhetorical fire has moved away from the deficit and on to some random, school superintendent in Maine after his district dared to denounce white supremacy after the murder of George Floyd.”

But why are grassroots Americans so filled with “angst”? Because they are intellectually deficient and, of course, racist, according to Vox.com.

“Conservatives have launched a growing disinformation campaign around the academic concept” of CRT. “It’s an attempt to push back against progress,” wrote Vox.com reporter Fabiola Cineas. The problem is that “Republicans … want to ban anti-racist teachings and trainings in classrooms and workplaces across the country.”

Trump Continues To Push Election Falsehoods Here’s Why That Matters

Republican opposition to the commission

Rice was featured in one of the very few congressional commissions ever to receive this level of attention. Most are created and live out their mission with little notice. Indeed, Congress has created nearly 150 commissions of various kinds in just the last 30 years, roughly five a year.

Some have a highly specific purpose, such as a commemoration. Others are more administrative, such as the five-member commission overseeing the disbursement of business loans during the early months of pandemic lockdown in 2020. Others have been wide-ranging and controversial, such as the one created to investigate synthetic opioid trafficking.

In the initial weeks after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the idea of an independent commission to probe the origins of the attack and the failures that let it happen seemed a no-brainer. It had broad support both in Congress and in public opinion polls. It still enjoys the latter, as about two-thirds of Americans indicate that they think an independent commission is needed. The idea has fared well — particularly when described as being “9/11 Commission style.”

Opiniona Guide For Frustrated Conservatives In The Age Of Trump

Conscious bias or not, such practices do not engender trust in the media amongst conservatives. They only reinforce the belief that the media seeks to defend their ideological allies on the left and persecute those on the right while claiming to be objective.

This idea that the media is made up of unselfconsciously liberal elites who don’t even recognize the biases they have against conservative policies and conservatives in general goes back decades, to when newsrooms were more or less homogenous in nearly every way. At first, conservatives fought back by founding their own magazines; after Watergate and in the midst of the Reagan administration and liberals’ contempt for him, organizations like the Media Research Center began cataloguing the myriad examples of biased coverage, both large and small.

And there was a lot to catalogue, from opinion pages heavily weighted in favor of liberals to reportage and analysis that looks a lot more like the opinion of the writers than unbiased coverage.

Despite Cries Of Censorship Conservatives Dominate Social Media

GOP-friendly voices far outweigh liberals in driving conversations on hot topics leading up to the election, a POLITICO analysis shows.

The Twitter app on a mobile phone | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

10/27/2020 01:38 PM EDT

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Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.

But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.

Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the election’s hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isn’t close.

As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyd’s death, users shared the most-viral right-wing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.

Politifact Va: No Republicans Didn’t Vote To Defund The Police

Rep. Bobby Scott speaks at a 2015 criminal justice forum.

Speaker: Bobby ScottStatement: “Every Republican in Congress voted to defund the police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan.”Date: July 12Setting: Twitter

In last fall’s campaigns, Republicans thundered often inaccurate charges that Democrats wanted to defund police departments.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., is flipping the script and saying that all congressional Republicans voted to defund police this year when they opposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.

“Every Republican in Congress voted to defund police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan,” Scott tweeted on July 12.

Scott represents Virginia’s 3rd congressional district, stretching from Norfolk and parts of Chesapeake north through Newport News and west through Franklin.

His claim, echoing a Democratic talking point, melts under scrutiny. Here’s why.

The Facts

The term “defunding police” arose after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Many advocates say it does not mean abolishing police, but rather reallocating some of the money and the duties that have traditionally been handled by police departments.

Scott’s explanation

Barbera sent an NBC article noting that communities in at least 10 congressional districts represented by Republicans who opposed the bill are using some of its relief funds to help their police departments.

Our ruling

We rate Scott’s statement False.

Opinion:no The Media Isnt Fair It Gives Republicans A Pass

The right-wing media, willfully ignoring the press investigations into Tara Reade’s accusations, insist that former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not been treated similarly to accused conservative men . They have a point, but not the one they were trying to make.

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Let’s start with the big picture: Right-wing groups persistently engage in conduct for which Republicans are not held to account. The latter are allowed to remain silent after instances of conduct with a strong stench of white nationalism, but pay no penalty for their quietude. Right-wing demonstrators at Michigan’s statehouse this week — angrily shouting, not social distancing, misogynistic in their message, some carrying Confederate garb — were not engaged in peaceful protest. This was a mob endangering the health of police officers and others seeking to intimidate democratic government. Some protesters compared Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler and displayed Nazi symbols. Newsweek reported:

The media has adopted the approach that a pattern of sexual harassment claims over decades is not relevant because Trump has denied them, yet they want investigated the single assault claim against Biden. Biden responded in an interview and in a lengthy ; the media insists these things have to be investigated further. They do not ask Trump’s campaign why the president does not respond to questions. They do not ask Republicans about Carroll, Zervos or others.

Social Media: Is It Really Biased Against Us Republicans

Wednesday promises to be another stressful day for Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Their chief executives will be grilled by senators about whether social media companies abuse their power.

For Republicans, this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Two weeks ago, Twitter prevented people posting links to a critical New York Post investigation into Joe Biden.

It then apologised for failing to explain its reasoning before ditching a rule it had used to justify the action.

For many Republicans, this was the final straw – incontrovertible evidence that social media is biased against conservatives.

The accusation is that Silicon Valley is at its core liberal and a bad arbiter of what’s acceptable on its platforms.

In this case, Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz believed Twitter would have acted differently if the story had been about President Donald Trump.

Sobering Report Shows Hardening Attitudes Against Media

NEW YORK — The distrust many Americans feel toward the news media, caught up like much of the nation’s problems in the partisan divide, only seems to be getting worse.

That was the conclusion of a “sobering” study of attitudes toward the press conducted by Knight Foundation and Gallup and released Tuesday.

Nearly half of all Americans describe the news media as “very biased,” the survey found.

“That’s a bad thing for democracy,” said John Sands, director of learning and impact at the Knight Foundation. “Our concern is that when half of Americans have some sort of doubt about the veracity of the news they consume, it’s going to be impossible for our democracy to function.”

The study was conducted before the coronavirus lockdown and nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.

Eight percent of respondents — the preponderance of them politically conservative — think that news media that they distrust are trying to ruin the country.

– Deal gives Atlanta company control of Anchorage TV news

The study found that 71% of Republicans have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same way. Switch it around, and 54% of Democrats have a very favorable view of the media, and only 13% of Republicans feel the same way.

That divide has been documented before but only seems to be deepening, particularly among conservatives, Sands said.

In The Age Of Trump Media Bias Comes Into The Spotlight

Almost 20 years ago, after my first book, “,” came out, I made a lot of speeches, some of them to conservative organizations. The book was about liberal bias in the mainstream media. I had been a journalist at CBS News for 28 years and, so, it was a behind-the-scenes exposé about how the sausage was made, about how bias made its way into the news. 

I said that despite what many conservatives think, there was no conspiracy to slant the news in a liberal direction. I said that there were no secret meetings, no secret handshakes and salutes, that anchors such as CBS’s Dan Rather never went into a room with top lieutenants, locked the door, lowered the blinds, dimmed the lights and said, “OK, how are we going to screw those Republicans today?” 

It didn’t work that way, I said. Instead, bias was the result of groupthink. Put too many like-minded liberals in a newsroom and you’re going to get a liberal slant on the news.    

Liberal journalists, I said, live in a comfortable liberal bubble and don’t even necessarily believe their views are liberal. Instead, they believe they are moderate, mainstream and mainly reasonable views — unlike, of course, conservative views which, to them, are none of those things.

But what I wrote and spoke about then — mainly about how there was no conspiracy to inject bias into news stories — seems no longer to be true today. 

Pandering, it seems, is good for business.

Bias shows itself not only in what’s reported, but also in what’s ignored. 

Florida Republicans Move Against Social Media Companies

TALLAHASSEE — Concerned that social media companies were conspiring against conservatives, Florida Republicans sent a measure Thursday to Gov. Ron DeSantis that would punish online platforms that lawmakers assert discriminate against conservative thought.

The governor had urged lawmakers to deliver the legislation to his desk as part of a broader effort to regulate Big Tech companies — in how they collect and use information they harvest from consumers and in how social media platforms treat their users.

Republicans in Florida and elsewhere have accused the companies of censoring conservative thought on social media platforms by removing posts they consider inflammatory or using algorithms to reduce the visibility of posts that go against the grain of mainstream ideas.

With the ubiquity of social media, the sites have become modern-day public squares — where people share in the most trivial of matters but also in ideas and information that often are unvetted.

In recent years, social media companies have acted more aggressively in controlling the information posted on their platforms. In some cases, the companies have moved to delete posts over what they see as questionable veracity or their potential to stoke violence.

DeSantis is a strong ally of the former president, and the Republican governor is supporting hefty financial penalties against social media platforms that suspend the accounts of political candidates.

America Hates The Republicans And They Dont Know Why

@jonathanchait

Americans harbor certain deep-rooted impressions of the two parties, which have held for generations. Democrats are compassionate and generous, but spendthrift, dovish, and indulgent of crime and prone to subsidize poor people who don’t want to work. Republicans are strong on defense and crime, but too friendly to business and the rich. What is striking about the Republican government is how little effort it has made to push against, or even steer around, the unflattering elements of its brand. President Trump and his legislative partners have leaned into every ingrained prejudice the voters hold against them. They have acted as if none of their liabilities even exist.

That is not the approach Democrats have taken in office. Bill Clinton famously fashioned himself as a “New Democrat,” angering his base on crime and welfare and declaring the era of big government over. Barack Obama did not position himself quite so overtly against his party’s brand — which had recovered in part because of Clinton’s success — but he did take care to avoid confirming political stereotypes. Obama frequently invoked the importance of parenting and personal responsibility. He did not slash the defense budget, and took pains to woo Republican support for criminal-justice reform. Obama tried repeatedly to get Republicans to compromise on a deal to reduce the budget deficit. Whatever the merits of these policies, they reflect a grasp of the party’s innate liabilities.

Placing Some News Sources On The Political Spectrum

Here are a few examples of major news sources and their so-called “bias” based on ratings from AllSides  and the reported level of trust from partisan audiences from the Pew Research Center survey.

Note that much of these ratings are based on surveys of personal perceptions. Consider that these may be impacted by the hostile media effect, wherein “partisans perceive media coverage as unfairly biased against their side” . A three-decade retrospective on the hostile media effect. Mass Communication and Society, 18, 701-729. ).

The Capitol Siege: The Arrested And Their Stories

It would only be logical for that memory to inform the imagination of any Republican contemplating a similar independent commission to probe what happened on Jan. 6. The commission would likely look at various right-wing groups that were involved, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, some members of which have already been charged. The commission might also delve into the social media presence and influence of various white supremacists.

Moreover, just as the 9/11 Commission was expected to interview the current and preceding presidents, so might a new commission pursue testimony from Trump and some of his advisers, both official and otherwise, regarding their roles in the protest that wound up chasing members of Congress from both chambers into safe holding rooms underground.

House Minority Leader McCarthy was asked last week whether he would testify if a commission were created and called on him to discuss his conversations with Trump on Jan. 6.

“Sure,” McCarthy replied. “Next question.”

All this may soon be moot. If Senate Democrats are unable to secure 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster of the House-passed bill, the measure will die and the questions to be asked will fall to existing congressional committees, federal prosecutors and the media. To some degree, all can at least claim to have the same goals and intentions as an independent commission might have.

The difference is the level of acceptance their findings are likely to have with the public.