US Politics: A Tale of two Joes.

[Zorral]

What a clown.  He quit the NY Times to run for governor of Oregon. But he doesn't know the territory!

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/kristof-faces-residency-questions-in-oregon-governors-race/
 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Bad enough that people who say shit like this get jobs in this administration, also bad that they don't have someone combing their social media for shit like this:

 

Yes it's from over a decade ago.  

[Martell Spy]

‘Groveling’ Ted Cruz Mocked After Extremely Awkward Tucker Carlson Interview
The Texas senator went on Fox News to seek forgiveness for offending the host.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-tucker-carlson-terrorist-capitol-riot_n_61d7a082e4b0bb04a642b29c

Quote

 

Cruz this week called it a “violent terrorist attack,” in line with a Jan. 7, 2021, statement he made calling it “a despicable act of terrorism.”

Those comments enraged far-right conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson, a confessed liar who called him out over it on Fox News this week.

On Thursday, Cruz went on Carlson’s show to bend the knee, calling his own comments “sloppy” and “dumb.”

But in one of the most uncomfortable moments on Fox News, Carlson wasn’t buying it:

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

So someone neatly put Jan. 6th to music. I Liked it.

 

[DMC]

13 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Talented beat writers for most every American pro franchise, some heavy hitters in the national sports journalism world, etc. Four years ago the founders of The Athletic bragged that their goal was to bankrupt all traditional newspapers, and I've been a very happy subscriber for years.

Is any of this surprising at all?  They proudly said they would put newspapers out of business then proceeded to...replicate the business model that was putting newspapers out of business.  While I've never been a subscriber (about a month ago my brother noticed a killer deal and we almost signed up, now I know why), I have nothing but respect for the site and the work they do -- I often get disappointed when I find out a link is paywalled on Athletic.  And yes, it's great they hire tons of journalists, provide beat writers/coverage for everything, and let the journalists produce what they want.  But it's also rather obvious that that wasn't going to be sustainable based only on subscribers.

If anything I think selling to the Times is their best option.  They are the least likely place to simply gut the site.  Or, more accurately, they are the most likely to gut it the least.  Frankly I'm more confused why they spent so much money on it.  When's the last time the NYT had much of a sports page at all?  Do they all of a sudden care about prestige sports reporting?

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Bad enough that people who say shit like this get jobs in this administration, also bad that they don't have someone combing their social media for shit like this:

Is there any context to this?  It's pretty weird to use the term "undocumented" if your intent is to be racist.  Sounds like he may have been trying to be ironic and criticizing ICE for rounding everybody up.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Bad enough that people who say shit like this get jobs in this administration, also bad that they don't have someone combing their social media for shit like this:

 

Yes it's from over a decade ago.  

We'll have to see how he responds to this. Some people say that it's still up is proof he believes this still, but maybe he's grown and forgot about the tweet? I'm curious to see. 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

‘Groveling’ Ted Cruz Mocked After Extremely Awkward Tucker Carlson Interview
The Texas senator went on Fox News to seek forgiveness for offending the host.

They scared the shyte out of him on 1/6/21 and They're still scaring the shyte out of him a year later.

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Is any of this surprising at all?  They proudly said they would put newspapers out of business then proceeded to...replicate the business model that was putting newspapers out of business.  While I've never been a subscriber (about a month ago my brother noticed a killer deal and we almost signed up, now I know why), I have nothing but respect for the site and the work they do -- I often get disappointed when I find out a link is paywalled on Athletic.  And yes, it's great they hire tons of journalists, provide beat writers/coverage for everything, and let the journalists produce what they want.  But it's also rather obvious that that wasn't going to be sustainable based only on subscribers.

If anything I think selling to the Times is their best option.  They are the least likely place to simply gut the site.  Or, more accurately, they are the most likely to gut it the least.  Frankly I'm more confused why they spent so much money on it.  When's the last time the NYT had much of a sports page at all?  Do they all of a sudden care about prestige sports reporting?

No, I'm not surprised either. I knew the business model was impossible - I only spent the full subscription price for one of the four years I've had it, and the other three I found deals for less than $15 for the whole year. Having such a wealth of excellent journalists pumping out great content daily, with no ads, has been such a joy, albeit one I knew couldn't last. 

The Times is probably a good place for it to end up over somewhere that would jettison their top journalists, or loads of their beat columnists, or both. It's regrettable that there is an enormous backlash over politics (hence why I posted this here and not in an Entertainment thread). The Athletic already was not afraid to tackle social and political issues as they came into contact with the sports world, and I don't expect a scary Times executive to threaten some hockey reporter to be more woke in her articles. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that there were more than a thousand angry responses in a few hours, and so many focused on the Times being progressive rather than the inevitable restructuring of the website.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that there were more than a thousand angry responses in a few hours, and so many focused on the Times being progressive rather than the inevitable restructuring of the website.

Heh, fair enough.  Briefly took a look at the comments, wasn't surprised to see a lot of Joe Rogan-esque "Independents" promoting a false equivalence between the Times and the likes of Tucker Carlson.

[Kalbear]

We live in the Veepiest timeline

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Is there any context to this?  It's pretty weird to use the term "undocumented" if your intent is to be racist.  Sounds like he may have been trying to be ironic and criticizing ICE for rounding everybody up.

That's what I thought at first too but then I saw another one where he used the term "illegals".  

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

That's what I thought at first too but then I saw another one where he used the term "illegals".  

I saw that he weirdly posted it twice, albeit both times he said undocumented:

I dunno, if he worded it differently - like, for instance, the last sentence was something like "surprised ICE hasn't picked them up yet" - I would've thought he was clearly joking.  But why you'd double down on a badly worded joke (that's also a pretty bad joke even if it was well-articulated) is also really strange.  Anyway, here's his response, sounds like he's going with the joke excuse:

Quote

Sometimes I have been sarcastic, unclear, or just plainly missed the mark. I sincerely apologize for offending those who care as much as I do about making America the best, multi-ethnic, diverse democracy it can be.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

14 minutes ago, DMC said:

I saw that he weirdly posted it twice, albeit both times he said undocumented:

I dunno, if he worded it differently - like, for instance, the last sentence was something like "surprised ICE hasn't picked them up yet" - I would've thought he was clearly joking.  But why you'd double down on a badly worded joke (that's also a pretty bad joke even if it was well-articulated) is also really strange.  Anyway, here's his response, sounds like he's going with the joke excuse:

 

 

I saw the "illegals" one (separate tweet) this morning.  He's since apologized, but even that was qualified as saying that he never meant for "Dreamers" to be deported.  Which is different. 

 

Eta: Could give him the benefit of the doubt that there was less stigma at the time.  The apology just seems weird with the emphasis on dreamers instead of undocumented.

Also there was one from last year that seems to be saying waterboarding is ok even if it's illegal as long as it's to protect the nation,and that's why. Ish wasn't impeached for it.  Didn't dig into the context beyond that, so maybe there's a reason for that framing.  Still, you'd think given the job that someone might have given his social media a quick once over at the very least.

Or maybe, given the way immigration has been handled so far, no one though this was anything to be concerned about.

[DMC]

22 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Also there was one from last year that seems to be saying waterboarding is ok even if it's illegal as long as it's to protect the nation,and that's why. Ish wasn't impeached for it. 

Yeah I saw that - it was in the context of why Bush wasn't impeached but Trump was - because Bush was trying to protect the nation and "intent matters."  Still pretty sure torture is an impeachable offense, but whatever.  Anyway, after digging further on the original tweet, I found this - which suggests he wasn't really joking but rather marveling at people going on television and admitting they're undocumented:

His surprise at this is very...dumb, but I'm not really offended by it.  Overall, my strongest opinion is I've spent way too much time on this.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

What a clown.  He quit the NY Times to run for governor of Oregon. But he doesn't know the territory!

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/kristof-faces-residency-questions-in-oregon-governors-race/
 

 

Guy is from the territory originally (seems like he wants to make a positive impact, based on his background), but residency for electoral purposes is a little vague and he didn’t have his ducks in a row.  We’ll see how serious he is if he does another go-round, and lives and votes at his OR home.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/01/06/elections-officials-determine-democrat-nicholas-kristof-doesnt-meet-residency-requirements/

[Larry of the Lawn]

@dmc It's less about being offended than just another example of this administration failing to do anything right.  Seriously, how is someone not combing through tweets for high-level positions?  For a comms position.  And that's before the anemic / confusing apology.  This board could have come up with a better apology over a half a page of posts.  There are templates for this shit.  A Google cut and paste boiler apology would have been better.

The fact we're even talking about this means someone fucked up, although, to be fair, I doubt that many people really even for a shit.  

"I doubt that many people give a shit" may as well become the Dems motto at this point.  

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

@dmc It's less about being offended than just another example of this administration failing to do anything right.  Seriously, how is someone not combing through tweets for high-level positions? 

I guess I'm just not clear what you'd expect them to do even if they were aware?  Try to cover them up?  That seems stupid even if it could work.  "Get out in front of it" and address them themselves?  That just draws attention to it when clearly the response is "it's no big deal."  Which, frankly, I don't think they are.  Unless you think he shouldn't have been hired because of those tweets?  If so, I simply disagree.  

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I guess I'm just not clear what you'd expect them to do even if they were aware?  Try to cover them up?  That seems stupid even if it could work.  "Get out in front of it" and address them themselves?  That just draws attention to it when clearly the response is "it's no big deal."  Which, frankly, I don't think they are.  Unless you think he shouldn't have been hired because of those tweets?  If so, I simply disagree.  

I think they should have deleted them before he was announced.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

I think they should have deleted them before he was announced.

But then what if it's later found out they were deleting tweets before hiring people?  Which, btw, is entirely plausible, if not likely.  Then the story becomes "it's not about the tweets inasmuch as the administration trying to cover them up."  I dunno, if you really don't think it's a big deal, then you don't do something like delete them which strongly suggests you think it's a big deal.