In defense of the Democrats in power at the time: it's 2023 and coming up on the most important election of our lifetimes and they didn't want to just walk up to Donald Trump and hand him the biggest W they possibly could.
Okay, that's good to know. When I'm in your group chat and you add a third party, is there a ding and a little message at the bottom that says "Joe Schmoe has been added to the chat?"
When there is this much of a opposition to power over this long of a period of time, the calculus seems to shift to it being a question of whether it'll happen before the guy dies (maybe *VERY* shortly) or after. I don't think that Erdogan can survive a second Ankara.
The minimal example of this is showing somewhere where people with the wrong politics got punished for those politics. (Which doesn’t have to literally be the thing punished, we understand pretense.)
OH!!! Then we're back to the punishment that happened under Covid. Seriously, there were years of people being banned and censored for having bad opinions (and, yes, it happened under Trump too).
It includes stuff like the Joe Rogan thing where there was a push to have him shut down. Remember Psaki talking about that? I can find you the discussions we had here at the time, if you want.
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them.
I'm a Teams user, myself. I have to go up to the "view and add participants" button, scroll down to "add people", click on "add people", type the first part of the guy's name in the chat, then scroll down and find the guy and add him and *THEN* he's in the group chat.
I'm wondering if Signal is something around as onerous or if you'll accidentally do it by typing with all of your fingers one key to the left or right.
Hey, if you're having a blast, you can't ask for more than that from a video game.
Graphics good? Mechanics fun? Familiar and different at the same time?
Great! Glad you're having a blast with it. As a fifty-something, I keep looking for a new game that will capture the magic of, oh, 2011 or 2007 (even as I know we'll never have 2010 ever again).
Are we talking about power responding to insults to power and limiting ourselves to that?
Because, if that's the case, I suppose I can point to Trump in general, including the part where he was president for a while, and how The Deep State (the *REAL* power) responded to this grave insult of Trump being President.
Well, if stuff like that doesn't count either, I'm going to be stuck talking about prosecutions of people who participated in J6 but never made it inside of the building and were prosecuted anyway.
Is censorshp for stuff like "Fauci funded the labs that leaked Covid 19" considered "prosecution" or is it merely censorship?
Is lèse-majesté being defined so narrowly that it only applies to stuff like this or does even stuff like that not count because it's not an example of criticizing *BIDEN* and, anyways, it didn't stick?
There is an old joke. "Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday!" is one formulation (but I have seen the vice-versa before).
Doug Mackey went to prison for making a variant of the joke by creating a meme that said Republicans have to vote in person but Democrats can vote by text.
Eh, this strikes me as likely to turn into a "find the rock" game where I provide a story and you explain how the person in question is particularly bad and so doesn't count and then I'll bring up the government pushing for censorship and bannings on social media and that'll turn into how that doesn't count and then you'll again say that you can't imagine how an American would think lèse-majesté is okay and I'll say that you can do it if you imagine one being on the wrong side of one and we'll be right back here.
One of the problems with 2016 is that this problem was avoided entirely by confidently pointing out that Clinton didn't lose the election so therefore they don't need to change anything and this was followed by Trump losing in 2020.
But now, in 2024...
Well, here are the top 10 theories:
1. It's all Joe Biden's fault.
2. It's all Kamala Harris' fault.
3. Podcasts and social media.
4. "Too woke."
5. Elitist words.
6. Elitist policies.
7. Testosterone.
8. Inflation, inflation, inflation.
9. The border.
10. Trump is one-of-a-kind.
I'd probably argue that you can pick your favorite three out of there and say "this is why" and just point to those three (any of them!).
But the main thing that worries me are the ones that can easily preface a "therefore, the Democrats don't need to change".
It was all Biden's fault. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change.
It was Harris. 100%. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change.
Democrats didn't embrace podcasts. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change policies, they just need a Joe Rogan.
Why does this matter?, you may ask. Well, I'd say that it's hard to win if you don't know why you lost.
it is not a ‘government emergency’. This is a _research_ emergency.
The headline, for some reason, didn't mention that the University Presidents were calling for an emergency meeting but the Prime Minister was calling for one.
The story was written by Patrick Staveley. That's his Twitter account, if you want to write him and tell him that his editor messed up with headline choices.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
A wise lord?
"
Mike Waltz is married. The woman to whom he is married has a sister. This sister is married to Scott Stapp, lead singer of Creed.
Edit: Never mind. They got divorced last year.
"
In defense of the Democrats in power at the time: it's 2023 and coming up on the most important election of our lifetimes and they didn't want to just walk up to Donald Trump and hand him the biggest W they possibly could.
"
Okay, that's good to know. When I'm in your group chat and you add a third party, is there a ding and a little message at the bottom that says "Joe Schmoe has been added to the chat?"
It does that for Teams.
On “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Problem: Himself”
When there is this much of a opposition to power over this long of a period of time, the calculus seems to shift to it being a question of whether it'll happen before the guy dies (maybe *VERY* shortly) or after. I don't think that Erdogan can survive a second Ankara.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Ahura Mazda seems like a pretty wise guy.
How was the food?
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
The minimal example of this is showing somewhere where people with the wrong politics got punished for those politics. (Which doesn’t have to literally be the thing punished, we understand pretense.)
OH!!! Then we're back to the punishment that happened under Covid. Seriously, there were years of people being banned and censored for having bad opinions (and, yes, it happened under Trump too).
It includes stuff like the Joe Rogan thing where there was a push to have him shut down. Remember Psaki talking about that? I can find you the discussions we had here at the time, if you want.
"
Would the Oath Keepers who got busted for "seditious conspiracy" despite never crossing the threshold count?
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Huh. He's on Twitter.
Hasn't tweeted since yesterday.
Probably busy.
"
Michael Waltz.
"
I'm a Teams user, myself. I have to go up to the "view and add participants" button, scroll down to "add people", click on "add people", type the first part of the guy's name in the chat, then scroll down and find the guy and add him and *THEN* he's in the group chat.
I'm wondering if Signal is something around as onerous or if you'll accidentally do it by typing with all of your fingers one key to the left or right.
"
Do we have any Signal users? How easy is it to add someone to a group chat?
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
Hey, if you're having a blast, you can't ask for more than that from a video game.
Graphics good? Mechanics fun? Familiar and different at the same time?
Great! Glad you're having a blast with it. As a fifty-something, I keep looking for a new game that will capture the magic of, oh, 2011 or 2007 (even as I know we'll never have 2010 ever again).
"
Are we talking about power responding to insults to power and limiting ourselves to that?
Because, if that's the case, I suppose I can point to Trump in general, including the part where he was president for a while, and how The Deep State (the *REAL* power) responded to this grave insult of Trump being President.
"
Well, if stuff like that doesn't count either, I'm going to be stuck talking about prosecutions of people who participated in J6 but never made it inside of the building and were prosecuted anyway.
"Sedition isn't free speech"?
"
Is censorshp for stuff like "Fauci funded the labs that leaked Covid 19" considered "prosecution" or is it merely censorship?
Is lèse-majesté being defined so narrowly that it only applies to stuff like this or does even stuff like that not count because it's not an example of criticizing *BIDEN* and, anyways, it didn't stick?
"
"The ones about how Covid was a lab leak?"
"Bingo."
"
I believe that that is the joke.
The humor comes from imagining that someone on the other team is so dumb that they'd believe that this is true.
Then you share it with your like-minded friend and you both laugh because ingroup/outgroup.
He went to jail for it. Not banned. Not ratioed.
"
Oh, and here's part two: Zuckerberg says the White House pressured Facebook to ‘censor’ some COVID-19 content during the pandemic.
"
There is an old joke. "Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday!" is one formulation (but I have seen the vice-versa before).
Doug Mackey went to prison for making a variant of the joke by creating a meme that said Republicans have to vote in person but Democrats can vote by text.
Seven months in prison.
"
Eh, this strikes me as likely to turn into a "find the rock" game where I provide a story and you explain how the person in question is particularly bad and so doesn't count and then I'll bring up the government pushing for censorship and bannings on social media and that'll turn into how that doesn't count and then you'll again say that you can't imagine how an American would think lèse-majesté is okay and I'll say that you can do it if you imagine one being on the wrong side of one and we'll be right back here.
"
It is easy for me to imagine an American thinking lèse-majesté is okay.
I imagine an American being on the wrong side of lèse-majesté for a while and then returning to power.
"
To do that, I'd have to imagine one being on the wrong side of one for long enough.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Axios has a fun article talking about the importance of figuring out why Dems lost in 2024.
The article states: Why it matters: It's hard to win if you don't know why you lost
One of the problems with 2016 is that this problem was avoided entirely by confidently pointing out that Clinton didn't lose the election so therefore they don't need to change anything and this was followed by Trump losing in 2020.
But now, in 2024...
Well, here are the top 10 theories:
1. It's all Joe Biden's fault.
2. It's all Kamala Harris' fault.
3. Podcasts and social media.
4. "Too woke."
5. Elitist words.
6. Elitist policies.
7. Testosterone.
8. Inflation, inflation, inflation.
9. The border.
10. Trump is one-of-a-kind.
I'd probably argue that you can pick your favorite three out of there and say "this is why" and just point to those three (any of them!).
But the main thing that worries me are the ones that can easily preface a "therefore, the Democrats don't need to change".
It was all Biden's fault. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change.
It was Harris. 100%. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change.
Democrats didn't embrace podcasts. Therefore the Democrats don't need to change policies, they just need a Joe Rogan.
Why does this matter?, you may ask. Well, I'd say that it's hard to win if you don't know why you lost.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
it is not a ‘government emergency’. This is a _research_ emergency.
The headline, for some reason, didn't mention that the University Presidents were calling for an emergency meeting but the Prime Minister was calling for one.
The story was written by Patrick Staveley. That's his Twitter account, if you want to write him and tell him that his editor messed up with headline choices.