DL Open Thread: Friday, March 10, 2023
Rep. Connolly Exposes The Jim Jordan Klown Show. Just skip down and watch the video of Connolly’s destruction of two so-called ‘independent journalists’. You’re welcome.
That’s when Wasserman Schultz went to Taibbi’s own past words. “I ask you this because, before you became Elon Musk’s hand-picked journalist, and pardon the oxymoron, you stated this on Joe Rogan’s podcast about being spoon-fed information, and I quote: ‘I think that’s true of any kind of journalism. Once you start getting handed things, then you’ve lost. They have you at that point and you gotta get out of that habit. You just can’t cross that line,’” she said. “Do you still believe what you told Mr. Rogan. Yes or no?” When Taibbi didn’t answer immediately, she repeated, “Yes or no?”
Stuck, Taibbi could do nothing but answer “Yes,” which Wasserman Schultz crisply followed with “Now, you crossed that line with the Twitter Files.” He tried to answer no, but she reclaimed her time and kept moving.
“Elon Musk spoon-fed you his cherry-picked information, which you must have suspected promotes a slanted viewpoint or at the very least generates another right-wing conspiracy theory. You violated your own standard,” Wasserman Schultz summed up. “And you appear to have benefited from it.” She went on to detail the tripling of Taibbi’s Twitter followers since he took up with Musk, and noted that since he has a subscription-based Substack, he has presumably profited. “Now I’m not asking you to put a dollar figure on it, but it’s quite obviously that you profited from the Twitter Files. You hit the jackpot on that Vegas slot machine to which you referred. That’s true, isn’t it?”
Taibbi twisted and squirmed and tried to dodge as she continued to press him. “I’ve also reinvested … “ he said. “I think it’s probably a wash honestly,” he said.
Here’s What Real Journalists Do. ProPublica investigative report discovers 21 people in New Mexico who are eligible for parole. They had been given life sentences as children, and the state lost track of them.
Yet Another Norfolk Southern Derailment. (Memo to self: Research which Delaware legislators are in thrall to Norfolk Southern and its bagman, Bobby Byrd. There are quite a few…)
Judge Uses Pro-Slavery Law, Rules Frozen Embryos Are ‘Property’. Yes, I’m writing this in 2023:
Frozen human embryos can legally be considered property, or “chattel,” a Virginia judge has ruled, basing his decision in part on a 19th century law governing the treatment of enslaved people.
The preliminary opinion by a Fairfax county circuit court judge, Richard Gardiner, which he delivered in a long-running dispute between a divorced husband and wife, is being criticized by some for wrongly and unnecessarily delving into a time in Virginia history when it was legal to own human beings.
“It’s repulsive and it’s morally repugnant,” said Susan Crockin, a lawyer and scholar at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics and an expert in reproductive technology law.
Solomon Ashby, president of the Old Dominion Bar Association, a professional organization made up primarily of African American lawyers, called Gardiner’s ruling troubling.
“I would like to think that the bench and the bar would be seeking more modern precedent,” he said.
Wilmington City Council To Pass Anti-Nepotism Law? Um, not likely. I may be the only one, but I find Zanthia Oliver’s opposition especially ironic, considering she got a job in the General Assembly exclusively due to her family connections:
“Why is it just for City Council and not for the whole building?” Oliver asked. “I understand the whole concept of it all, but why do we as council members keep bringing up resolutions and ordinances that are affecting us instead of going out and supporting our community? I thought this position was about helping the people, not about policing City Council.”
Call me Captain Obvious, but creating an ethical City Council and supporting the community are not mutually exclusive. Oliver is every bit as willfully(?) clueless(!) as she was during her brief time in Dover.
What do you want to talk about?
They never learn. Reagan promised the same thing, but ended up signing the biggest tax increase in history and increasing the deficit.
Please proceed, Mr. Squeaker. We’d love to have your caucus members on record as supporting those brutal cuts.
McCarthy doesn’t have a budget plan yet to vote on. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Biden announced an optimistic expansionary budget chock-full of popular programs AND decreasing the deficit.
Of course Biden could do that because he knows his budget will never pass as is, as it will be opposed by all the Republicans and half the Democrats. But it’s a great place to start – at least he didn’t fall into the “pre-capitulation” trap.
I doubt the Republicans will ever put forward a budget. It is too much like actual work and not flashy to the point of being a little boring and therefor likely to cost them Fox News airtime and/or some twitter followers.
To put forward a budget requires math – which is not there strong suit. Then again neither is English, science or literacy.
All Republicans voted against Bill Clinton’s 1993 budget and predicted economic disaster. It passed with VP Al Gore’s vote. That Clinton budget set the path for recovery from GHWB’s recession and, a few years later, an actual balanced budget.
REV, Bill and Karl have a new one well worth the price! You gotta pay to play! Pony up and prepare to be outraged!
The Fun Part – Delaware Cops At It Again
MacColl trial result
Maryland Ave shooting video
I don’t see where Connolly and Wasserman-Schultz are questioning the veracity of any of the “cherry-picked” and “spoon fed” information. They’re just doing a nitpicking ad hominem on Taibbi.
Did you read the articles? If you had, you would have seen precisely that.
I read the articles. I watched the hearing. Nothing from congresspersons Connolly or WSW spoke to the issue of various government agencies pressuring Twitter to suppress certain accounts.
Various government agencies have been pressuring various media to suppress material since the dawn of the republic. Government officials call the News Journal all the time to tell them what to print or not print. I see no difference.
If they aren’t edicts, it’s just talk. You seem to be in favor of talk when it’s what you want to hear.
And how were you complicit in this Thought Patrol?
I said they applied pressure, not that I succumbed to it . I was in no position to make those decisions. As an illustration, though, consider the paper’s uncritical support for the Riverfront Development Corp.
It’s not a thought patrol — you can think, and say, whatever you want, just not on someone else’s private platform. Your knowledge of the history of the press appears poor. When the amendment was written, the press was all propaganda written by one side or the other.
Just as you claimed that FT was banned — it wasn’t, a correction you never acknowledged — your understanding of things is rather muddled. Sort of the way a Russian’s would be.
Except, of course, for President Donald Trump.
In fact, the whole point of the ‘Grievance Committee”s exercise was to demonstrate that Democratic federal officials were intimidating certain social media platforms.
Turns out the only examples, which were clearly pointed out by Rep. Connolly, were those committed by Trump and his mindless minions.