Open Mic for the week of 7/3/2023
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
It seems Erica Marshall may not exist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/04/twitter-erica-marsh-suspended/Report
Seems likely. I like the Russian implication. But sometimes a dog on the internet is just a dog.Report
Checking in on the weekly beer thing…
The Daily Mail reports that:
The last AB press release was on June 26th.
The twitter account has tweeted this and some people are wondering if it’s a double entendre.
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The NYT’s framing of this is not how I would have framed it:
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There has to be a happy compromise between fighting disinformation and letting the gov silence critics.Report
So, for example, where is the line drawn? Example: Vice channel’s “(RE-Solved)
“(Re)Solved. Internet sleuths and professional investigators re-open some of Hollywood’s most notorious and controversial celebrity deaths.”
I’ve watched a few of these, and as best I can tell, they are as crazy as the UN 1 world gov’t conspiracy theories, etc. So, for entertainment they are ok, but if they jeopardize important people or gov’t institutions, they gotta go? Draw me some lines “you shall not pass”.Report
Are they trafficking’s in lies or slander that would get them sanctioned in court?Report
My problem with how this works conceptually is the Obamacare discussion before roll out.
The claim that you can keep your Doctor was a central pillar, various people claimed you wouldn’t be able to, the various “truth” sites evaluated those people and said their claims were lies, then Obama got the lie of the year from one of those same sites.
So a group devoted to neutral evaluations of facts bought into the lie of the year and couldn’t bring themselves to understand that the critics were right, so they convinced themselves that the critics were behaving badly.
No one was a bad actor.Report
There were lots of bad actors. Many criticized openly and often even here.
The problem with that example is the government believed the ACA induced private insurance actors to do one thing, when it in fact induced different behavior. That was and remains sadly unfortunate, but no Congress has ever produced legislation that 100% created its expected outcome. If it had, Mississippi would have expanded Medicare and have thousands more jobs then it does.Report
So the gov was telling the truth even when it was lying? And pointing that out makes you a bad actor?
The take away should be that regulating speech is really hard because not everyone you think is a bad actor views themselves that way.Report
And the government is currently silencing critics how exactly?Report
Here’s a link to the ruling (warning: PDF).
There’s a section where the judge says “you’re not allowed to do this anymore!” and it’s a numbered list.
I imagine that if the government wasn’t doing anything in that numbered list, then nothing will change and this ruling is forbidding behavior that wasn’t being engaged in.
Silly judge!Report
The problem with that list is it prevents the Administration from correcting factual errors (known as lies to the rest of us). It prevents the Administration from keeping tabs on known bad actors (like Russian troll farms). And it keeps the Administration from telling is own story, since that could be construed by that bad and vague language as “pressure”.
Yep – Silly judge.Report
The corrections it made, the tabs it kept, and the stories it told stomped on, like, regular Americans.
You can’t make an omelet.Report
you are so funny in the morning Jaybird. Russian Troll farms telling election lies, or lies about Ukraine, don’t stomp on ordinary Americans, except by creating a world where they can hide from reality, threaten violence against election workers who were actually doing their jobs, and avoid vaccinations that could have saved their lives. Telling people the truth about how you get Covid, How you fight Covid and how you prevent Covid stomps on precisely no one except those who want to make a fast buck on other people’s fears and misery.
And even IF none of that were true, the Constitution and the First Amendment are not a suicide pact nor a framework for mutually assured destruction. Responsible government has an obligation to confront lies when and where they happen, especially when those lies restrict individual freedom (like to vote) or threaten individual lives.
And frankly given how Elon ahs chosen to run Twitter, I think this ruling is setting us up for a LOT more loss of trust.Report
Zuck came out and admitted that they censored things that ended up being true.
I appreciate that this comports with your vision of how things need to be done sometimes but there are other visions out there and some of them disagree with your vision.
You haven’t done a very good job of selling your vision.
Though I appreciate the implication that anybody who doesn’t agree with you is a Ruskie sympathizer. That’s a nice little 80s throwback.Report
Zuck doesn’t work for the government – which is where the prohibitions of the First Amendment lie.Report
And the judge’s ruling doesn’t hit Zuck.
It hits the government against which the prohibitions of the First Amendment lie.Report
For actions ultimately taken (or not) by Zuck and Elon and all the rest.
None of which takes away the insanity of a world where the government can’t call out bald face lies. Or openly describe Russian troll operations. Or even make statements disagreeing with political opponents.
All of which are now banned by that injunction. It makes the government unable to speak. Which isn’t what the first amendment is about either.Report
I’m pretty sure that it means that the government has to say it out loud in front of God and everybody rather than going straight to Zuck and telling it to him without anybody else knowing.
Like, the numbered list specifically talks about going straight to the companies and not being allowed to do that anymore.Report
As long as social media (;like legacy media) remain in non-governmental hands, there will be, and should be, reasons and pathways to speak directly. That’s how the real work has to work if we want to actually keep society running.Report
You know what this reminds me of? Citizens United.
I wouldn’t mind having a conversation about the limits of political advertising. Might be interesting.
But the government censored a documentary. It argued in front of the Supreme Court that it could ban books.
And so here we are.
“But I want to have a conversation about the limits of political advertising!”
“Pity about the censorship of movies and book banning arguments.”Report
There is no free speech issue here.
The government never violated any 1st Amendment rights.
This is yet another “principle of convenience” which no one should take at face value.
Conservatives can’t state a principle here, which they won’t (or haven’t already) abandoned the moment it suits them.Report
The happy compromise is for the government to present their case as to why something might be mis or disinformationn and refrain from censoring the public.
Thought this was settled 200+ years ago.Report
Jaybird, why do you think it’s OKAY for people to just GO ON THE INTERNET and LIE about stuff?!Report
It’s not the people lying about stuff that create the worst problems.
It’s the people who go on the internet and tell the truth that you need to shut up.
(Did you see Zuck on the Lex Fridman podcast? He is definitely *NOT* helping.)Report
Jaybird, your problem is that you refuse to accept that moral truth is more important than factual truth.Report
I’d be happy to stick to actual truth.
Here’s an oldy but a goody: Can you treat COVID 19 with Ivermectin? IS it more effective then the Covid Vaccines?
See those are actual truths, with peer reviewed medical studies and everything. Yet this ruling PREVENTS the government from calling out the lies STILL surrounding those statements. Funny that.Report
“Yet this ruling PREVENTS the government from calling out the lies STILL surrounding those statements. ”
wut
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19Report
That government website is not social media. The language in this injunction means the FDA can’t call up Facebook and remind them that the Ivermectin posting crowd is in fact lying, nor can the FDA remind Facebook to send people to this website.Report
“WINNERS DON’T USE DRUGS”
— William S. Sessions, Director, FBIReport
When you say “calling out” lies, do you mean publishing correct information, or calling out liars?Report
Both. The funny thing about Free Speech is it’s not consequence free, and if you lie in public, you deserve to be called to account.Report
The government should NEVER call people to account for anything that isn’t illegal. EVER. In a government of “laws, not men”, the government should favor truth, but not favor people no matter how many times they don’t speak the truth.Report
What does this mean, for the government to “call people to account”?
Give us some examples.Report
So Donald Trump shouldn’t be indicted for lying about retaining classified documents? Or the White House shouldn’t call him a liar publicly?
Interesting . . . .Report
“So Donald Trump shouldn’t be indicted for lying about retaining classified documents?”
I said I wasn’t talking about crimes.
” Or the White House shouldn’t call him a liar publicly?”
No, it shouldn’t.Report
Donald Trump lied about retaining classified documents for a LONG time before he was criminally indicted. And its your contention the WH shouldn’t say anything about that? While the GOP in the House calls Administration officials liars all the time in public hearings? How do you feel about that?Report
The House and Senate are perfectly acceptable places to call people liars.
ETA: I’m being a bit facetious with that. I try not to call people names, and I think society would be better off if we got away from it. But members of the legislative branch speak for themselves. The executive branch speaks for the country. The White House also is a political entity, even though I wish we’d get away from that, but they do speak for the country, more clearly than any other branch.Report
Free speech means you must remain silent.Report
It’d be easier to embrace moral truth as being over factual truth if moral truth didn’t change every 20 minutes.
Say what you will about factual truth, but it’s a lot more repeatable a lot more often.Report
The religious person has no trouble changing their mind about what truth looks like every five minutes because to them, the only truth that matters is that they’re moral. But if you bitterly cling to “facts” then sometimes you’re moral and sometimes you’re not.Report
In the “Greatest Nation” on earth, this a an entirely prevetnable tragedy:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/04/1185904749/u-s-maternal-deaths-keep-rising-heres-who-is-most-at-riskReport
In related news:
Biden faces renewed pressure to embrace Supreme Court overhaul
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/04/biden-pressure-supreme-court-overhaul/
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of more than 100 lawmakers, recently renewed its push to expand the court. Several Democratic senators, including Sens. Tina Smith (Minn.) and Edward J. Markey (Mass.), have voiced support.
Planned Parenthood and NARAL, two of the nation’s largest abortion rights groups, have announced support for court expansion. And in recent days, influential Black leaders including Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III have said they supported adding seats to the court after it rejected the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
“The court is already in a very unhealthy state,” said Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group that backs court expansion. “The public’s confidence in the court has never been lower, and the court’s legitimacy derives from the public having a belief that its rulings are nonpolitical. The crisis is already here.”Report
Biden the institutionalist won’t ever go there. Hell, he still thinks you can negotiate with Republicans in the Senate.Report
The general public doesn’t support Affirmative Action. AA has been on notice that it’s on very thin Constitutional Ice for the last 20 years.Report
If that were the only ruling in question, we wouldn’t see the seismic shift of opinion regarding the Court and its legitimacy.Report
My point is the AA ruling should increase it’s legitimacy, not decrease it for the general population.Report
In other, still related news:
Senate Republicans fear abortion could derail hopes for majority
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4079745-senate-republicans-fear-abortion-could-derail-hopes-for-majority/
“In the Senate, Republicans have a huge opportunity to get the majority back, but suburban women voters will not vote for our candidates if they are turned off by what they feel are extreme views,” the strategist said.
“Any state where Republicans have trouble with suburban voters because of the Trump brand, they had double trouble with suburban voters because of abortion politics, and it was for no reason because there is no chance a federal ban on abortion happens, ever,” the source said.
That last sentence is a doozy.Report
It used to be the case that Donald Trump would never be president.
It used to be the case that Roe V. Wade was settled law.
I no longer take comfort in these sorts of statements.Report
This is why Democracies work and are more stable over the long haul.
The GOP took an extreme position for abortion and they’re going to get punished for that. The Anti-abortion movement is big enough that they get a voice and a seat at the table. They’re no where close to big enough to set policy.Report
Ha!
That’s funny.
Because they are setting policy in what, two dozen states? States where they have often cemented or tried to cement permanent minority rule by gerrymandering. And they got a SCOTUS majority after 40 years of dedicated judicial nomination work. Plus they captured the House – albeit by a slim ungovernable majority.Report
If you drill down to a State, or better yet a city, then you can find places where the socialists are elected and will no doubt enact grand experiments which we’ll see fail.
For the nation, the anti-abortion movement has enjoyed a level of success that they don’t deserve if we look at how many toes they’re stepping on and how popular their policies are. They’ve over reached and will no doubt be given a hair cut. The GOP will probably need to lose some elections that they could have won before that happens but whatever.Report
Well, another year of record breaking heat.
Earth Keeps Breaking Temperature Records Due to Global Warming
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-04/world-records-hottest-day-ever-on-july-3Report
Of course, it’s all nonsense since the high temperature here in Fort Collins, CO on July 5 is going to be 62 °F, some 25 degrees below normal :^)
All that extra energy in the atmosphere doesn’t just mean heat, it means extreme events in all sorts of ways. Fort Collins has only reached 90 °F three days all year, and has already received most of a year’s worth of rain (with the monsoon season still to come). Heat domes elsewhere have completely changed the usual patterns here this year.Report
we had the eastern edge of one of those heat domes last week. Multiple days with the heat index over 15 which is way not normal for June down here.
But no there’s no climate change to worry about.Report
Over 15?
Our heat index here is 110, so we’re getting warnings and what not.
Temp today is 85. Hmm… 6 degrees cooler than average.Report
over 115. Clearly a finger slip while typing.Report
NBC news reports: Lab test confirms white substance found at the White House is cocaine
Drug-law-relaxation advocates are, of course, pouncing.Report
Blame the intern.Report
If they fire an intern because of Dr. Jill Biden’s habit, that’s BS. They’d better get that person a cushy job at the Department of Something or Other as a GS-12 or 13.Report
They have a hundred interns. We typically have a mid single digit percentage blow themselves up every year through stupid things that could easily be avoidable.
Coke would be exceptional and not how they normally self destruct but whatever.Report
Just when you thought Dark Brandon couldn’t get any more badass…Report
He strikes me as an opium guy.Report
Tincture of Laudanum drives away the Malarkey.Report
Good news! Mistakes were made!
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HOLY CRAP I MISSED THIS PART OF THE ARTICLE:
MAYBE IT’S KAMALA’S!!!Report
Eventually, perhaps, we’ll have some answers, though I doubt it. In the meantime, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.Report
It’s a wonder why they’re even printing the article after deliberately putting those details in it.
Fox News, amirite?Report
The actual MSM news people are doing their jobs, reporting what little is known and adding or changing information as things develop. The real news media aren’t publishing irresponsible speculation about whose cocaine it was and how it got there, though I’m sure that reporters in their cups are making obvious jokes. Though they probably know better than to slander the Vice President in a place where they might be overheard.
My guess is we’ll never know where the coke came from, so we can make lame jokes — Hunter, anyone? — but unless someone finds something, this is a two-day story that will drop down the memory hole.Report
Well, the Secret Service is expected to conclude its investigation sometime next week, according to CNN.
So there’s at least one more day of this.
If we find that there’s no way to know whose it was, it’s good that we figured out this massive and gaping hole in the White House’s security.
I mean, if it was left in the cubbies right next to the SCIF, that’s someplace that a terrorist could have put a bomb in and we’d never have known who it was!
Or anthrax.Report
We know how this is going to end, right? Secret Service knows who it is right now. They’re going to sit down with that person about 4:00 today with the Chief of Staff, who will tell the person “Good luck with your private sector job, we’ll have a nice picture of you shaking hands with the President on your last day a week from today. Don’t, ah, don’t actually try to say anything to him other than how much you enjoyed working here. Oh, and totally unrelated, we’re never going to identify whose cocaine that was that’s been giving us a bloody nose all week. Just not enough clues, gosh darn it. Anyway, just wanted to tell you how it was all going to work out.”Report
I mean, I know what *I* think (It’s obviously Jill Biden’s).
But what’s being reported about this is what’s funny. There are people who are lying. We know that they’re lying. They know that we know that they’re lying.
But here we are.
Politico reports:
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Sounds like a dead drop…Report
I always heard that dead drops are the best way to get your weed confiscated by nosy passers-by.
Seems like it’d be twice as true for coke.Report
“EV charge points in Britain are now nearly as expensive as gasoline”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/ev-drivers-in-britain-see-jump-in-public-charging-cost-.html
And that’s for a “rapid charger”. The kind that, with frequent use, degrades battery life.
I took my ELECTRIC CAR for its first EVer SERVICE and was SHOCKED! Prepare yourself for this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kOTGEtjUdI&ab_channel=TheMacMaster
“Electric Cars, EV, Electric Vehicles, call them what you like, we are told that they are the future of motoring, we are also told that they are cheaper to run than petrol or diesel internal combustion engine cars. However I believe that isn’t the actual reality of EV Ownership. I own an all electric Porsche Taycan and found that with the initial outlay and using public electric charging points driving an Electric Car costs substantially more than running a petrol or diesel car, even charging your electric car at home is now more expensive because of the rising Electricity Prices. I’ve had my EV now for just over a year and it’s due it’s first EVer service. So in today’s vlog we are going to Porsche Leeds to se just how much it costs and what’s involved in servicing an Electric Car.”
Service cost: 750 pounds. Not including the new tires.Report
The dude buys a car worth $90,000 and whines about a yearly service charge of $750?
Wait don’t tell me; He also makes regular Facebook posts about bootstraps and rugged individualism.Report
It’s a valid point. I mean, it’s an electric car. There’s not much to service. The tires were separate. There are no fluids (except perhaps windshield wiper fluid). There’s little to lubricate. Basically they hooked up a computer and ticked boxes off. And the point was the “allegedly” EVs are supposed to be lower cost cars to service and to “fuel”.Report
I mean, I bet a Nissan Leaf doesn’t have that service charge.Report
But the leaf was discontinued.
“Why was the Nissan Leaf discontinued?
What we know about the EV set to replace the Nissan LEAF
The LEAF has lost ground, with sales falling consistently for several years. According to a report from Automotive News last year, Nissan will not be rolling out a next-generation LEAF model. Instead, Nissan is planning for a more modern EV to replace the LEAF, designed for today’s buyers.”Report
Translated: the Leaf was not an SUV.Report
EVs typically include little-used friction brakes, so hydraulic brake fluid (and potentially grease for the associated moving parts). Most EVs have a one-speed transmission to transfer power from the single electric motor to the drive wheels, so transmission fluid. Newer EVs with bigger faster-charging battery packs require heat management during heavy charging, usually done with a coolant fluid and radiator. Heat pump heating and cooling have refrigerant.Report
Reporters are kinda telegraphing that they know whose it is.
Ana thinks that it’s Hunter’s rather than Jill’s, though.Report
It should be easy to dismiss any allegations it was Hunter if Hunter has never visited the White House. Sign in logs should document that, assuming family has to sign in. If he’s not been in the WH within the dates the coke was found, one could exclude him…again, assuming family has to sign in…
But yeah, probability would suggest that hit’s him…Report
Probability would suggest that family doesn’t go into the WEST WING, which I remind everyone is the _office space_ of the White House and not the residential area.
Seriously, people. Why the hell would Hunter Biden be in the west wing? Why would he be entering there instead of through the personal entrance?Report
Heat related deaths up in Texas after state legislature and governor invalidated local laws requiring water breaks:
https://www.texasobserver.org/texans-die-from-heat-exhaustion-after-governor-bans-water-breaks/Report
It’s weird how they’ll just brazenly lie in the headlines like that.Report
Yeah, that article is throwing so many things I can’t tell what its point was. Two people died on a hiking trail – because of the ban on water breaks? Prisoners died – water breaks? “Most” of the 11 didn’t have A/C in their homes – were they at home and weren’t allowed water breaks? It just doesn’t make sense.Report
How about I diagram it:
1. Texas is suffering a tremendous heat wave, so hot that people are dropping dead while doing even normal outdoors things like hiking;
2. The heat is expected to become more frequent due to climate change;
3. Water breaks are important for all workers, especially those working outdoors or without air conditioning; For example, 4 workers died from heat exhaustion.
4. Abbot cancelling water breaks will likely lead to more entirely preventable deaths to workers.
Fortunately, most news readers, and voters, can navigate these logic points without assistance.Report
The headline is factually true, if misleading.Report
Alaska Leads Country in Eskimo Deaths throughout Biden EraReport
Also probably true all the time.Report
It looks like the edited “mandatory” into the headline. Originally it said that he banned water breaks.Report
Isn’t mandatory immaterial, though? Many of the deaths noted in the article have nothing to do with workplace deaths.
That said, it is kind of outlandish that the government of a state with heat like TX would remove that protection, enabled at the local level. It doesn’t speak well of the legislature.Report