All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[Mister Mets]

Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein wrote a piece for the Atlantic, mainly about the internal disputes over the decision to publish an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-times/677546/

It shows ideological conformity among the staff.

There was one example that was dismissed by left-wing critics as unrealistic, when he says he was called out during an orientation for saying his favorite sandwich is from Chic-fil-A.



Except the story is backed up by people who were there at the time, and heard him discuss it contemporaneously.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...uite-real.html

Jonathan Chait considers what this means about the people who were wrong about the culture of the New York Times, and how media figures on the left try to delegitimize criticism.

In social media, various left-wing journalists asserted immediately this episode was a fabrication. “Never happened,” wrote New York Times Magazine writer and journalism professor Nikole Hannah-Jones. “Is anyone going to contact the Atlantic to ask them about the process behind publishing this egregiously fake anecdote,” pleaded left-wing podcaster Michael Hobbes.

Various reporters have in fact taken up this challenge and contacted the Atlantic. Jesse Singal reached out to the magazine and was told the entire story was fact-checked and the details of the anecdote in question were “confirmed by New York Times employees who had contemporaneous knowledge of the incident in question.”

Numerous acquaintances of Rubenstein (one of whom communicated with me) have affirmed that he told this story contemporaneously. Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple reports, “According to several sources, Rubenstein’s encounter with the HR official itself became an HR issue in the weeks following the incident. Rubenstein told some colleagues about it, including longtime columnist David Brooks, who was his supervisor.”

It’s not irresponsible to question the veracity of a factual claim in the media, even one in a fact-checked publication like the Atlantic. Sometimes fact-checkers get fooled. What’s striking about this episode is that professional journalists stated without qualification that the incident was not merely dubious but definitively and obviously untrue.

This raises the question of why these critics expressed such confident skepticism. The only possible answer is that they believed the anecdote was so outrageous it couldn’t possibly have happened.

I did believe the chicken-sandwich story because I find cringy behavior like that in elite institutions a not-uncommon phenomenon. But imagine Rubenstein had written something different — say, that he had brought to his Times editors evidence that President Biden had committed serious crimes and they told him they wouldn’t publish it because it would hurt the Democratic Party. I would react with skepticism toward an anecdote like this because I don’t believe that’s how the Times operates.

But if the anecdote was proved true, I would have to concede that I had been wrong — not just about the episode but in my larger assumptions about the subject matter of the story. If the Times was shown to do something I thought was totally at odds with its culture, then I would rethink my view of the Times culture. I would hope the skeptics who insisted that the chicken-sandwich story was so outlandish it couldn’t possibly have happened will concede not only that it did but that their assumptions about the culture of the Times were wrong.

There is a lively strain of left-wing media criticism that almost monotonously attacks any mainstream organ that publishes any story that creates discomfort for the political left. Hobbes has attracted an influential following by leveling these critiques. He insisted Jamie Reed’s whistleblower account of her work at a youth gender clinic in St. Louis was the fabricated claims of a front-desk staffer, when Reed’s main claims (including her involvement in patient care) were later confirmed by a Times reporter. He scolded reporters for writing about public concern about President Biden’s age, insisting, “If people have a meritless concern, journalists’ job is to tell them it’s meritless.”

There is a ravenous appetite for a strain of media criticism that relentlessly dumps on any reporting that casts the left in a negative light. Of course, some of those criticisms are valid — I’ve made many of them myself. But the criticism has been a tactic so common it has a name, “working the refs.” Many of these critics take advantage of the high standards of truth aspired to by mainstream media to nitpick their reporting. But episodes like chicken-sandwich-gate clarify what’s actually going on. These critics don’t care what’s true. They only care about what’s useful.

This does not appear to be an organization with a right-wing work culture.

[zinderel]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...tory-historian

Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether.

Browning, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, specializes in the origins and operation of Nazi genocide. His 1992 book Ordinary Men, a close examination of how an otherwise unremarkable German police battalion evolved into an instrument of mass slaughter, is widely seen as one of the defining works on how typical Germans became complicit in Nazi atrocities.

So when Browning makes comparisons between the rise of Hitler and our current historical period, this isn’t some keyboard warrior spouting off. It is one of the most knowledgeable people on Nazism alive using his expertise to sound the alarm as to what he sees as an existential threat to American democracy.

https://newrepublic.com/post/177275/...i-sympathizers

Leaders of the Texas Republican Party rejected a resolution to ban party members from associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers, just two months after a prominent state conservative activist was seen meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion...publican-party

Republican governors and legislators would be the first to tell you that what they are doing is not the same as what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 and during the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, more than 400 decrees were promulgated that restricted all aspects of public and private Jewish lives in Nazi Germany.

The United States is not Nazi Germany. Select Republican governors and legislatures are not doing anything that vaguely resembles what the Nazis did to control the personal lives of their citizens. Of course, some states have passed laws that could confuse someone trying to distinguish legislation enacted by the Nazis targeting Jews and legislation in the United States targeting those with different sexual orientation from the legislators enacting the laws in the United States.

In Ohio, legislation has been passed that bans gender-affirming care for youth who have gender dysphoria and bans Ohio residents from going to another state for abortions. In Montana, a law was just signed that bans transgender care for minors and prohibits transitional hormone treatments and surgeries for transgender people under the age of 18. Idaho has just passed a law that criminalizes gender-affirming health care for youth who have gender dysphoria and bans puberty blockers and hormones for people under age 18. Since the first of the year more than a dozen states have passed legislation affecting the medical rights of their citizens. There are other areas in which apparent similarities are in fact not similarities.

https://www.thenation.com/article/po...onalism/tnamp/

Even as his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee circles the drain, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can take pride in the fact that he is almost keeping pace with his chief rival in having embarrassing Nazi scandals. Earlier this week, in response to continuing lackluster polling, DeSantis fired 38 staffers. Axios noted that one of those staffers was Nate Hochman, a speechwriter who “secretly created and shared a pro-DeSantis video that featured the candidate at the center of a Sonnenrad, an ancient symbol appropriated by the Nazis and still used by some white supremacists.” Earlier, Hochman and other staffers stirred controversy by sharing a bizarre homophobic and transphobic pro-DeSantis ad (presented as a fan creation, even though evidence points to its being another in-house production). This follows hot on the heels of a June scandal when it turned out that Pedro Gonzalez, a pro-DeSantis influencer whose social media voice was being promoted by the Florida governor’s staff, had a record of anti-Semitic, racist, and fascist private direct messages.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...itler-00132427

“Trump’s opening himself up to the Hitler comparison,” Godwin said in an interview. And in his view, Trump is actively seeking to evoke the parallel.

Trump made almost identical comments in an interview with the far-right website The National Pulse in November, around the same time Trump also called his political opponents “vermin” — all rhetoric that Hitler used to disparage Jews.

“You could say the ‘vermin’ remark or the ‘poisoning the blood’ remark, maybe one of them would be a coincidence,” Godwin said. “But both of them pretty much make it clear that there’s something thematic going on, and I can’t believe it’s accidental.”

https://washdiplomat.com/american-de...1920s-germany/

The similarities between Germany’s political crisis 100 years ago and the current threats to democracy in the United States are striking, say three experts who spoke at an Oct. 20 panel hosted by American University’s Center for Israel Studies.

“Of course, Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. Nobody is Hitler,” suggested Chris Edelson, an assistant professor of government at AU’s School of Public Affairs. “But that can actually help someone who’s an authoritarian, because he can always say ‘I’m not Hitler.’ The central point is that people like Trump do not have to be Hitler to be dangerous. They can still destroy democracy. The warning signs are chilling indeed.”

https://fpif.org/its-time-to-take-th...ons-seriously/

While no two events are the same, there are lessons and events in history that can be used to shine a light on the present. Those lights, if we choose to follow them, can guide us to avoid the tragic errors of the past.
The presidency of Donald J. Trump, hoisted on the shoulders of white supremacists, is a glaringly dangerous period for our country. It’s important to recognize this dangerous mix of moral turpitude, dereliction of duty, and incompetence before we fall deeper into fascism and moral tragedy.

And, finally:

[Tami]

My local supermarket recently started selling some kind of Chick-a-fil sauce in plastic bottle, much like ketchup or BBQ sauce I guess. I won't stop shopping there, but I also wouldn't touch that sauce with a ten foot pole even if they were giving it out for free.

[thwhtGuardian]

One issue with looking at things as a matter of punching down is its hard to codify that. It's something that mainly works if people in charge follow a particular norm.

I didn't.

The open borders thing got brought up by others, who started with the claim that it is outrageous to suggest that people who support open borders are in good standing in the Democratic party, and seem to have shifted to a new claim that obviously good and decent people can support open borders, which I haven't disputed.

It's a motte and bailey.

He's the same guy he always was.

I voted for Biden, and will likely do so again in November is Trump is the main alternative, although I'm not going to pretend my views (broadly Republican, anti-Trump) are common among the electorate.

It's more relevant who people are willing to vote for now. If someone's a straight-ticket Democrat at the moment, that's a reflection of their political beliefs while they're posting on the forum.

People may have different reasons for being straight-ticket Democrats, but discussions among them are still going to fall into traps of blind spots, groupthink and some intolerance of different views.

So I'm anti-worker, because I think if someone loses their livelihood, they should be able to expect an explanation?

My sense of it is that employers use opaqueness in ways that benefit themselves more than employees, covering up their own misdeeds and hiding information that would allow employees to negotiate.

The workers do get an explanation though. Exit interviews are conducted exactly as I laid out previously. I've never heard of an exit interview that played out with any opaqueness, it's never, "'You're fired!'--'Why?' --'Because I feel like it.'" It's always laid out step by step, with the documentation of the specific warnings(usually signed and dated by the employee at the time of documentation) re-presented in chronological order leading up to the tier of termination and there is nothing to suggest that wasn't the case with Gina.

Again, you sound like someone who has literally no idea how actual work places function.

[Adam Allen]

Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein wrote a piece for the Atlantic, mainly about the internal disputes over the decision to publish an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-times/677546/

It shows ideological conformity among the staff.

There was one example that was dismissed by left-wing critics as unrealistic, when he says he was called out during an orientation for saying his favorite sandwich is from Chic-fil-A.



Except the story is backed up by people who were there at the time, and heard him discuss it contemporaneously.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...uite-real.html

Jonathan Chait considers what this means about the people who were wrong about the culture of the New York Times, and how media figures on the left try to delegitimize criticism.



This does not appear to be an organization with a right-wing work culture.

Is Jamie Reed a whistleblower in your opinion, Mets?

Despite having not met even the generous standards and interpretation you have granted -- what makes her a whistleblower?

I can find more gifs, you know.

[Tami]

AIPAC uncorks $100 million war chest to sink progressive candidates

A California Democrat running for Rep. Katie Porter’s seat suddenly became the target of an unexpected barrage of negative ads from the nation’s premier pro-Israel group this year. So he emailed a former Michigan representative, Andy Levin, for advice.

Levin was ousted from his House seat in 2022, after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent $4 million against him. Levin was one of a handful of Democrats targeted by AIPAC last cycle, when the group went after a range of progressive candidates in mostly open House primaries over their criticism of Israel.

He told Dave Min, who has not called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza but has privately criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to reach out to progressive Jewish groups for help. That’s what Levin had done.

But, he acknowledged, “we were simply swamped” by outside spending in his own primary, and Dave Min might face a similar fate.

“Most” candidates won’t be able to survive that spending barrage, Levin said in an interview with POLITICO, and “I’m afraid that they can be quite successful in wiping them out.”

The strategy has taken on new urgency this election season from donors animated by the Israel-Hamas war. AIPAC’s biggest targets are members of the so-called Squad of progressive House Democrats who have been openly pressuring the administration to call for a cease-fire. But AIPAC’s ambitions are broader. United Democracy Project, the group’s super PAC, is monitoring 15 to 20 House races and polling in many of those districts, according to a person directly familiar with UDP’s strategy and granted anonymity to discuss the approach.

After the Oct. 7 attack, when about 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas, the “pro-Israel donor base became activated, engaged and concerned at a level that is unprecedented,” said Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, another super PAC that often also backs AIPAC-endorsed candidates.

So far this cycle, AIPAC has bundled at least $19 million for House and Senate campaigns, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings. Top recipients include high-ranking members such as House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California, as well as stalwart Israel supporters such as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas).

“AIPAC and their Republican mega donors are targeting Black and brown Democratic incumbents with the same right-wing playbook across the country,” Bush said in a statement.

They also see it as a long-term public relations battle they can win with Democratic voters, as long as they “[understand] that AIPAC is the arm of the Republican Party,” said Ben-Ami.

“[AIPAC] is doing the dirty work of the [Republican National Committee] when it drives a wedge in the Democratic Party,” he continued. “The strategy is to ensure that the mainstream of the Democratic Party understands exactly how extreme and toxic AIPAC has become.”

[Gray Lensman]

Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein wrote a piece for the Atlantic, mainly about the internal disputes over the decision to publish an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-times/677546/

It shows ideological conformity among the staff.

There was one example that was dismissed by left-wing critics as unrealistic, when he says he was called out during an orientation for saying his favorite sandwich is from Chic-fil-A.



Except the story is backed up by people who were there at the time, and heard him discuss it contemporaneously.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...uite-real.html

Jonathan Chait considers what this means about the people who were wrong about the culture of the New York Times, and how media figures on the left try to delegitimize criticism.



This does not appear to be an organization with a right-wing work culture.

Just because someone is on the left for many things, doesn't mean they are there for all things. In addition, one of the criticisms I have repeatedly seen leveled at the Times is that they lean too hard into trying to appear impartial.

[Tendrin]

What we're actuailly seeing here is the impact of decades of right-wing attacks on the media having had their intended result, and when left-wingers complain about it, it's automatically discarded. The 'liberal media' hasn't been for a very long time, if it ever truly was.

Also, that story sounds *hella* fake.

[Tami]

Nikki Haley gets first 2024 win in the Washington, D.C., GOP primary

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won her first GOP presidential nominating contest Sunday, notching a victory in the Washington, D.C., primary, NBC News projects — a win her campaign hopes will spark some momentum ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday contests.

Haley, who won the district primary over former President Donald Trump, has for weeks pledged to stay in the race through Super Tuesday, when 15 states and American Samoa will hold nominating contests. Trump is dominating in nearly all of those states in most public polling and is expected to extend his commanding delegate lead.

[CaptainEurope]

Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein wrote a piece for the Atlantic, mainly about the internal disputes over the decision to publish an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-times/677546/

It shows ideological conformity among the staff.

There was one example that was dismissed by left-wing critics as unrealistic, when he says he was called out during an orientation for saying his favorite sandwich is from Chic-fil-A.



Except the story is backed up by people who were there at the time, and heard him discuss it contemporaneously.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...uite-real.html

Jonathan Chait considers what this means about the people who were wrong about the culture of the New York Times, and how media figures on the left try to delegitimize criticism.



This does not appear to be an organization with a right-wing work culture.

That's not true. It was not backed up by people who were "there at the time". People say he told them a story like that back then.
It's a stupid lie he's been telling for years, and now he wrote it down. It's a completely unbelievable caricature of liberals, and the fact that you believe this really happened the way he's been describing it says a lot about the way you see us.

[CaptainEurope]

Nikki Haley gets first 2024 win in the Washington, D.C., GOP primary

It's a closed primary, so no Democrats casting their votes for her. And she still CRUSHED the Donald. 63% to 33% currently, she got almost twice as many votes as he. Ron DeSantis got just under 2% even though he is no longer running. That's a lot more that David Stuckenberg, who is still running and whose platform is "I'd look so damn presidential if I could only get a suit that fits."

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Nikki Haley gets first 2024 win in the Washington, D.C., GOP primary

How much you wanna bet Trump will come out today and say he lost D.C. on purpose? For Haley, her win was nothing more than a dead cat bounce, anyone who thinks she'll do anything on Super Tuesday is delusional. The only reason she hasn't already conceded is because she's hoping Trump's legal troubles will catch up to him with a vengeance, but SCOTUS' decision to hear his claim his immunity claim for 1/6 pretty much sunk that slim hope.

[Tendrin]

That's not true. It was not backed up by people who were "there at the time". People say he told them a story like that back then.
It's a stupid lie he's been telling for years, and now he wrote it down. It's a completely unbelievable caricature of liberals, and the fact that you believe this really happened the way he's been describing it says a lot about the way you see us.

I'm shocked. Totally.

[CaptainEurope]

I'm shocked. Totally.

If I told my mom back in 1982 that I have a friend called Harvey who is a 7 ft tall bunny and now write an op-ed about it, how big is the risk that Harvey eats Mets?

[zinderel]

If I told my mom back in 1982 that I have a friend called Harvey who is a 7 ft tall bunny and now write an op-ed about it, how big is the risk that Harvey eats Mets?

Depends.

Is he wearing a shirt that, as a sample size of one, can be used to condemn all Democrats as somethingsomething ‘leftist extremists’ something?

Then the risk might be high.