Thursday, April 13, 2023

Professional Left Podcast Episode #709


"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

 

 
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4 comments:

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

Currently going through the podcast. Your complaint about "Person X DESTROYS Person Y" in the media reminded me of this clip from Jon Stewart back in Ye Olden Times...

https://www.cc.com/video/a9sb7r/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-blogs-must-be-crazy

Even a quick jab at C&L for using such language.

Best to you and your loved ones.

Jon Sitzman said...

Greetings and salutations BG and DG! Happy Friday!

Thank you for the cast, as always. I had not watched the Hassan/Taibbi interview until today.

I used to work with police officers in one of my jobs. I've also trained with officers in martial arts schools, and discussion inevitably ensued.

Some LEOs will tell you they're human lie detectors. To my thinking, this is conceit. As far as I'm aware, human lie detectors don't exist outside fiction. What is possible is to pick up on cues in body language, facial expressions, gestures, speaking cadence (etc., etc.) that indicate a person is nervous. Mr. Taibbi displayed many such "tics" in this interview.

He also leaned very hard into indignation. I can understand some of that; going from being generally respected to being roundly roasted can't feel good. However, there was a distinct undercurrent of something I feel like we often see from media personalities - indignation that they can be questioned or second-guessed at all. It's a sense of, "Never forget that I am your better." And IMO it's disgusting. The use of indignation here seemed very intentional; it was deployed to make the argument an emotional rather than a logical/factual one.

Obviously I share the general sentiment that Mr. Taibbi looked underprepared (unprepared?) and tried to obfuscate/change the subject rather than address direct questions. I was less than pleased that Mr. Hassan didn't push back on the repeated "Russia lies" line from Mr. Taibbi. I think that was probably to avoid being dragged into a rabbit-hole in which Mr. Taibbi made noise about Russia to avoid talking about his own issues and how problematic were the Twitter Files themselves. Perhaps it's just the annoyance of an old man, but I'd still have liked to hear at least a little solid pushback.

The other thing I notice is that Taibbi's argumentation style has become very similar to Republican politicians, in that he'll raise his voice and interrupt when the discussion is going someplace he doesn't like. I can see some degree of this being reasonable in debate, if an interviewer asks a question with clearly false assumptions (complex question fallacy). To my eyes, Mr. Taibbi was using the tactic to try and dodge incoming fire, not to shortstop a complex question fallacy.

In any case, however regrettable this is, the RW networks will (or have) carefully edit this interview to make it look like Mr. Taibbi mopped the floor with Mr. Hassan. MSNBC's airing makes it look like exactly the opposite happened. Net result - no one in either media bubble will likely change their minds.

Thanks again. Stay safe.

Robt said...

Justice Thomas (and his wife) poor behavior since his conformation to the bench,. Why Roberts was selected for his legal assistance to the SCOTUS on Bush V Gore. Kavanaugh's rise working for Starr on impeaching Clinton. Gorsuch and Barrett are the Federalist Society's lab experiments dependent on their creator to make ruling. Alito was choice to nix out Justice Stevens betrayal to the right.

We all know most of the unethical immoral basis of these justices.
They all lied over established law in their confirmations.
They wasted no time overturning Roe. They all cited their personal held religious views when they did it. Disregarding the first Amendment that states government shall not establish religion. Which they did when they used their religious views to overturn Roe.
If wasn't their religion then why did each and everyone after striking Roe down. Go out on the religious organizations accolades trail. Attending and receiving their golden Calf award by religious leaders. Hell, Alito flew to Italy, where he attended the Vatican to accept applause and praise by the church.

So tell me how they did not establish religion by the government?

Not to stop there, they have to rely on billionaires that have cases before them for the high life style of living for them and their families. That their children will be groomed into say, law and get all the best schools, highest grades m money can by, the effluence of wealth and power every step of the way and one day fund the GOP enough that they will use their majority to place that groomed kid of a justice to the court. So they can look after the wealthy's interest for the future.

What the court right wingers caused in all the GOP controlled sates now. It is hate with religion gone wild to punish those not like you.
My only conclusion would be to add at least two new justices on the SCOTUS. Dems have Senate majority. Biden is president. Republican senators can not veto or filibuster judges. A simple majority is what McConnell set for the SCOTUS.

Right now they can add judges to the high court. I think they should and ot wait in hope the conservatives on the bench will self correct. Moderate? Stop taking the billionaires money and making up laws in their favor. Stop discussing with them over dinner what exactly kind of ruling they want.

SCOTUS already broke their ideals of state rights into pieces when they took the Bush v Gore case and majority of conservatives ruled that the State of Florida stop counting the votes. Counting the votes the Florida state Supreme court ruled they count all votes. And then SCOTUS conservatives (surprise) rule to pick the conservative (Bush) to be president. A SVOTUS majority selected a president for America and I am not over that , not sure if I ever will be.
Add more justices to break the corruption, to break the extremism.

Oh, Delayed reaction to SCI-Fy theater.

About those robots.

There is one in particular that fascinated me.

In " the Day the Earth Stood Still"

Alien beings create a powerful robot that maintains peace and also serves their creators in many ways. From enforcing , Medical care, defense.

But it still had final authority on preventing things, such as war and extinction level stuff.

That alien comes to Earth with his robot who serves him as well as supersedes him on certain issues.

He leaves Earth with his robot and exists in harmony.


dinthebeast said...

The endless "reporting" on everything Fergus does or might do and how and why is fully exhausting. Yesterday I read some moron speculating that we might not be rid of him after another election loss because he might choose to run again in 2028.
The child marriage story is even worse than your garden variety "marry your daughters off before they're old enough to cause any trouble even if they're not even 12 yet." The incident he was describing was actually a 12 year old boy who impregnated an 11 year old girl, who then carried the pregnancy to term and later married the boy. Even in a whole host of best case scenarios, that is some sick shit to be trying to celebrate.
I find J.B. Pritzker to be an order of magnitude less annoying than my governor, Gavin Reptile.
Thank you again for the podcast. Sara got back to me and acknowledged that she had seen the text I sent her about the dog, so hopefully she saw the one about the cat also. She's been going through some rough times down in fucking Alabama, and could probably really use some cheery news.

-Doug in Sugar Pine