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Old 04-25-2019, 12:13 PM   #1501
sebastian_dangerfield
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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It's crazy town out here in recreational land. Weed is as cheap or cheaper than it was when I was in high school, and instead of "you holding?", I can choose from a candy store's variety of high-quality flower. Plus concentrates, edibles, etc. And I can get high at our holiday party with partners, staff, and my COO. Good times!
Get mushrooms legalized. Let's have a real party.

We're counting on you!
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Old 04-25-2019, 12:15 PM   #1502
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Re: Taibbi

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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy View Post
As Madeleine Albright said, there is always room in the world for mediocre white men.
There's always room for a contrarian pose.
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Old 04-25-2019, 12:17 PM   #1503
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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You should read more carefully, without assuming I'm writing from a party-supporter perspective.
I read carefully. I did not assume you were writing as a supporter of either party. I just thought that the suggestion that Pelosi and Congressional Democrats have something to fear if the GOP decides to go after the FBI is, well, dumb. Sorry if I didn't put that simply enough.
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Old 04-25-2019, 12:21 PM   #1504
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Re: Taibbi

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield View Post
I'm going to pull the William A. Henry card here (certain views, even though evidence can be adduced to support them, are simply not allowed to compete with others... See: Climate Change debate). We cannot debate whether the media was significantly anti-Trump. There must be a laddering of conclusions on this subject in which the argument that the media is not largely biased against Trump is thrown into or near the sphere of deviancy, many rungs below the obvious reality that, yes, the media is biased against Trump, and most other Republicans, and the only valid issue to debate is to what degree.

And no, that the media helped Trump by giving him free press is not a rebuttal to that issue. The media did assist him, while also detesting him. He was and remains their greatest pinata. Hoist him up, whip him, all roll in the ratings!



Ah, but I didn't say that. Thus your argument that follows is in your head. Decide on that as you like. I'm not pro hac'd in the jurisdiction



Vox is very much major media. It's widely read and widely cited in all sorts of media, both major and small.



Agreed. That's not major media. But like Vox, to a lesser extent, however, it is widely cited.



I'll refer you back to my opening statement here. If you argue that WaPo and NYTimes are not biased against Trump (and NYTimes biased against Republicans generally) you're in the sphere of deviancy. Taibbi is not making this argument up out of whole cloth. It's admitted even among the media itself that WaPo is in a cold war with Trump. And the NYTimes punishes Trump in both its OpEd pages and the slant of its news stories almost daily. As it punished Bush II almost daily. (Krugman is a celebrity because he decided to leave economics and bash Bush for eight straight years.) Taibbi does not have the burden of proof. His argument, obvious as it is, holds a position five or six rungs above yours. Using Henry's measurement - that ideas must be scored from elite to lunatic - Taibbi's is within the lower end of the elite category. Yours is in the "we could do just as well to ignore this as humor it" zone.

Taibbi is blunt because he can afford to be, because anyone reading his assessment is aware of the obvious volumes of evidence supporting it. He needn't repeat the obvious. You've had to parse considerably to find a way to attack it.

But I will credit you this criticism of Taibbi. He steps too far when he asserts that Russiagate was a hoax from the start. That's not true. I disagree with him there. The evidence shows Museller's investigation was initiated based on valid concerns. Where Taibbi is unassailable is in stating that the press took this investigation and hyperbolized it more than any other story in recent memory. Which is the same point I've made elsewhere, several times.

Trump will be found in all things he does to be a bungling villain of sorts. He cannot help but be so. It's his essential character. And he is so here. But if we let the press off the hook for pumping this into something it never was, for cynically whipping the easily persuaded into thinking this was Worse than Watergate, we're letting a far more diabolical villain off the hook.
My post explained why Taibbi's article, which you posted twice, is lousy. I expected the stuff he links to actually say something kinda like what he says it says, but instead it contradicts him. If he persuaded you of something you didn't previously believe, I'm not sure why. If he confirmed what you already believed about the media, well then the irony of your complaint about the media is worth dwelling on.
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Old 04-25-2019, 12:52 PM   #1505
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Re: Taibbi

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The media tilts left and is more critical of Republicans. It's also more critical of hawks. Hillary got criticism as a perceived hawk.
I know this is popular mythology on the right, and god knows you have the critical capacity of an ant when it comes to right-wing mythologies, but the traditional print media has always been hard-core centrist, tending to the center-right or center-left depending on local political preferences (see the Dallas News versus the Boston Globe) and who is in charge at a given time. This is because traditional print media is all about access.

Traditional Network News used to be the same, but with cable they now tend to try to reach national submarkets - Sinclair the ultra-right, CBN and Fox the hard right, CNN the center to center-right, Bloomberg the center, and MSNBC the center left to left. You've got more right wing cable networks than anything else, reflecting massive investment by the Murdoch's of the world.

The press of the left is a pretty modest and mostly academic groups, with publications like the Nation or MERIP. Most of the media pays no attention to them.

Sure, like any workplace, the owners and management are usually voting much farther to the right than the employees, and it is the employees who actually do the writing, but they don't run the place.

But why am I bothering? You don't give two shits about reality.
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Old 04-25-2019, 01:29 PM   #1506
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Re: Taibbi

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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy View Post
I know this is popular mythology on the right, and god knows you have the critical capacity of an ant when it comes to right-wing mythologies, but the traditional print media has always been hard-core centrist, tending to the center-right or center-left depending on local political preferences (see the Dallas News versus the Boston Globe) and who is in charge at a given time. This is because traditional print media is all about access.
It's also because of the fundamental economics of print. Printing presses are expensive. Print media is a business with relatively high fixed costs and relatively low marginal costs. Most newspaper markets tend to be highly concentrated, often with only one or two newspapers. Most people buy newspapers for local news. For example, for decades San Francisco had the Chronicle and the Examiner, and then the Examiner couldn't keep up and there is now only one paper in town. If you are running a newspaper in this context, then the journalistic imperative is centrist -- try to appeal to everybody, so as not to lose any readers and sell as many advertisements as you can. If you win that space, no one will threaten your franchise. So the news coverage is centrist and inoffensive. Most publishers are wealthy and skew conservative, so the editorial pages of most newspapers skew conservative, but usually not so much as might lose readers and advertisers. We have very few national newspapers, because people buy paper's for local news. The NYT is one, because it's the country's biggest city and can support better coverage. The WSJ is another, because it caters to business news. The WaPo has become one recently, but it has always been primarily the local newspaper for the capital -- no one subscribed to it outside DC until the internet made that possible. Traditional print journalism evolved within this paradigm.

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Traditional Network News used to be the same, but with cable they now tend to try to reach national submarkets - Sinclair the ultra-right, CBN and Fox the hard right, CNN the center to center-right, Bloomberg the center, and MSNBC the center left to left. You've got more right wing cable networks than anything else, reflecting massive investment by the Murdoch's of the world.
Traditional TV news was much like traditional print, for similar reasons. It's expensive to run TV stations and the profit is high on the margins. Traditional TV networks all wanted mass audiences. Cable started changing this in TV before the internet changed it for newspapers.

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The press of the left is a pretty modest and mostly academic groups, with publications like the Nation or MERIP. Most of the media pays no attention to them.

Sure, like any workplace, the owners and management are usually voting much farther to the right than the employees, and it is the employees who actually do the writing, but they don't run the place.

But why am I bothering? You don't give two shits about reality.
There is an interesting conversation to be had about the way the press covers politics. And then there's right-wing grievance and cynical working off the refs.
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Old 04-25-2019, 02:10 PM   #1507
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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I have no doubt they're dying, I just hope they don't take too many of us down with them.

They're the party of the robber barrons and of the part of our economy that doesn't work. They may just take down the part that does out of envy and bitterness.

But Shanghai is nice.
I have (some) faith that we will be able to withstand the damage. Our constitution was built for this kind of stuff.
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Old 04-25-2019, 03:53 PM   #1508
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Re: Taibbi

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Am I the only one alive who doesn't watch this show?
No the other 8 people who don't watch it make sure to announce it every five minutes.
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Old 04-25-2019, 06:56 PM   #1509
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Re: Taibbi

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It's also because of the fundamental economics of print. Printing presses are expensive. Print media is a business with relatively high fixed costs and relatively low marginal costs. Most newspaper markets tend to be highly concentrated, often with only one or two newspapers. Most people buy newspapers for local news. For example, for decades San Francisco had the Chronicle and the Examiner, and then the Examiner couldn't keep up and there is now only one paper in town. If you are running a newspaper in this context, then the journalistic imperative is centrist -- try to appeal to everybody, so as not to lose any readers and sell as many advertisements as you can. If you win that space, no one will threaten your franchise. So the news coverage is centrist and inoffensive. Most publishers are wealthy and skew conservative, so the editorial pages of most newspapers skew conservative, but usually not so much as might lose readers and advertisers. We have very few national newspapers, because people buy paper's for local news. The NYT is one, because it's the country's biggest city and can support better coverage. The WSJ is another, because it caters to business news. The WaPo has become one recently, but it has always been primarily the local newspaper for the capital -- no one subscribed to it outside DC until the internet made that possible. Traditional print journalism evolved within this paradigm.



Traditional TV news was much like traditional print, for similar reasons. It's expensive to run TV stations and the profit is high on the margins. Traditional TV networks all wanted mass audiences. Cable started changing this in TV before the internet changed it for newspapers.



There is an interesting conversation to be had about the way the press covers politics. And then there's right-wing grievance and cynical working off the refs.
All excellent points. Agree completely.
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Old 04-26-2019, 11:00 AM   #1510
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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For some reason the med places are centered on 8 Mile Road. The other day driving about 10 miles I saw a dozen. One was out of business. A guy selling cannabis went out of business?

We are working with oil extraction machine manufacturers. There's the dollars.
A friend of mine hasn't slept in two years because he runs a company that testing lab in Colorado, and he is one of the only ones that does it. He's called as an expert all the time. On the side, he's extracting oil and breaking down all of the cannabinoids (it's not just TCH and CBD in there).
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Old 04-26-2019, 02:10 PM   #1511
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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A friend of mine hasn't slept in two years because he runs a company that testing lab in Colorado, and he is one of the only ones that does it. He's called as an expert all the time. On the side, he's extracting oil and breaking down all of the cannabinoids (it's not just TCH and CBD in there).
At the risk of stating the obvious, he should keep raising his prices until he can get good sleep.
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Old 04-26-2019, 02:16 PM   #1512
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

This rings totally true to me, which may just mean I'm showing confirmation bias:

Quote:
I grew up and live in Iowa and have been to every caucus since 1980—I’ve chaired every caucus in my present precinct for over 20 years. The thing about Iowa, for obvious reasons, is that you can get really involved in presidentials and through those years, there have been a handful of them that I have thrown myself into in addition to the local stuff. One of those years was 1988, for Joe Biden. I respected him and, still single no kids, young professional living in downtown Des Moines—walking distance from his campaign headquarters, I threw myself into the race.

Everything you wrote is accurate, but there is one other aspect to Biden: he is a lousy presidential campaigner. Lousy. A lot of Democrats are rightfully worried about Bernie in a general election, but they should be also be worried about Joe—Trump will kill him. It’s more than the speaking before thinking, though that is a part of the problem. It is also in his indecision, his inability to focus on a strategy, his call with Anita Hill, all which have been on display already in this race. He is just not good at this. Great guy; great senator; great VP—and he would make a great president, too. But he cannot run a decent race for president. Maybe it is the years of running a small-state, safe-seat campaign, maybe it’s something else. But, he is unlikely to get the nomination and if he does, he is highly unlikely to beat Trump.

In 1988, he staffed up with rather snooty east-coasters and then he killed his own campaign—even his decision to get out wasn’t done well. He ran a laughably poor caucus campaign in 2008. By 2008, a serious candidate had access to the resources and know-how to at least make a basic organizational effort at running here, if he or she wanted to. He didn’t seem to have the ability to do anything other than try to ride in on his name ID. In many precincts (including mine), he wasn’t viable, which means poor organization and his supporters didn’t know what to do after that happened, which means poor training. If you want to run here, at least lock down the basics.

The guy is just a lousy presidential campaigner. I’m okay with being proven wrong on this, because I would love to have him be president. But, I won’t support him in the primary—particularly with so many good alternatives—and I fear for the party if he is our nominee.
TPM
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Old 04-26-2019, 02:40 PM   #1513
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Re: Taibbi

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I know this is popular mythology on the right, and god knows you have the critical capacity of an ant when it comes to right-wing mythologies, but the traditional print media has always been hard-core centrist, tending to the center-right or center-left depending on local political preferences (see the Dallas News versus the Boston Globe) and who is in charge at a given time. This is because traditional print media is all about access.
The traditional print media is meaningless. When has anyone read the local paper outside a big city? Does Miami even have a paper? Raleigh? Phoenix?

Those have all been replaced by the internet news aggregators.

The only print media left is the NYTimes, WaPo, WSJ, and a few others with national audiences, like maybe the LA Times or Boston Globe.

I never read the Philly Inquirer. And I don't think anyone else does.

Quote:
Traditional Network News used to be the same, but with cable they now tend to try to reach national submarkets - Sinclair the ultra-right, CBN and Fox the hard right, CNN the center to center-right, Bloomberg the center, and MSNBC the center left to left. You've got more right wing cable networks than anything else, reflecting massive investment by the Murdoch's of the world.
That's true, except that CNN is not a center to center right network. It's left leaning "mostly noise." https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-ch...ion/#iLightbox[gallery105]/0

Quote:
The press of the left is a pretty modest and mostly academic groups, with publications like the Nation or MERIP. Most of the media pays no attention to them.
Most of the sources that lean left or right don't do so to an extreme.

Quote:
Sure, like any workplace, the owners and management are usually voting much farther to the right than the employees, and it is the employees who actually do the writing, but they don't run the place.
The writing is what we're discussing. We're not reading the owner's work. We're reading what the journalist is writing:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...t-coast-215048

https://www.investors.com/politics/e...as-left-study/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.5c95ee140285
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Old 04-26-2019, 02:40 PM   #1514
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Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

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A friend of mine hasn't slept in two years because he runs a company that testing lab in Colorado,
Uncharacteristic typo- he tests labs or runs the only testing lab? And what do they test in a state where it is legal? And why does that lead to expert work?
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Old 04-26-2019, 02:45 PM   #1515
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Re: Taibbi

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WaPo,
A neighbor and friend was in a WaPo article- she is a librarian who scheduled a drag queen story hour, and that attracted hate groups- girl got a color shot in the Sunday Edition a few weeks backs. Hubby drove all around here trying to buy a hard copy- no luck. I called a lobbyist friend to FedEx me one- we are at the point where obtaining a hard copy of WaPo requires a Metro DC address.
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