Trump’s “Very Fine People” Redux
For some reason, this is a hot topic again. (It partly has to do with Scott Adams on Twitter. I think it’s because somebody tried to edit the Wikipedia article to merely add actual quotations from Trump–and then had them taken down within minutes–and he passed along the story to Scott Adams. But, for all I know the reason the guy did that, was that Scott Adams had first talked about it again.)
(UPDATE: It might be a hot topic again because of this article, talking about an exchange where CNN’s Erin Burnett hilariously says some guy’s defense of Trump was something he made up on the spot. Awwwkward.)
Anyway, even though I knew from Day One that Trump was NOT praising neo-Nazis, I never watched the full context of the discussion to see how OBVIOUSLY NOT. So just take a deep breath, and watch the first three minutes and 25 seconds of this video. Even if you think “I already know this Bob, the media lied,” I encourage you to watch it. As you’ll see, not only is Trump crystal clear, but a reporter (in confusion) asks him specifically if he was talking about the white nationalists, and he says emphatically no.
So again, just watch this from the beginning through the 3:25 mark:
Pretty clear, right? Now contrast that video of what actually happened, with Paul Krugman’s casual statement (and I just grabbed this as an example, he said this more than once):
I wanted to use a screenshot to capture the font of a Krugman column, but if you want the link here is the “news” story from the NYT to “document” that Trump called neo-Nazis very fine people. As you will see, the article by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman not only fails to mention the times when Trump explicitly said he was NOT praising neo-Nazis, but the title of their piece says his support of white supremacists was “unambiguous.”
What’s amazing about this, is that when Russ Roberts (of EconTalk fame) today tweeted this out, saying he hadn’t realized the media had misled him about what Trump said, half the people in the comments were like, “Yeah Russ, what’s your point? Trump loves neo-Nazis and hates black people, and that’s what the media reported?”
Jordan Page on the Persecution of Schaeffer Cox
The latest episode of the Bob Murphy Show.
Murphy vs. Krugman
==> I think this is a case of Krugman stretching the facts more than I can recall him ever doing (in a case where he’s demonstrably wrong, I mean).
==> Tom and I take on Krugman’s whining about all the rage-filled right-wingers.
Potpourri
==> An old one I keep forgetting to post: Glenn Greenwald documents some amazing examples of media botching stories.
==> Tom finally gives me some respect.
==> Not sure if I posted this yet, but Tom and I talk about Krugman on Warren on the family & the State.
Potpourri
==> This guy Scott Alexander is very very clever and creative. And along those lines, check out this one.
==> Oh man I had to lay the smack-down.
==> I am included in this collection from FEE.
==> I really liked this Caitlin Johnstone article on narrative.
==> Perhaps I already linked to this, but if not: This Jacobin article from a Marxist (I think?) on MMT is the single best one I’ve seen.
The God of Social Media Demands Sacrifice, Not Mercy
This is about as gossipy as you are ever going to get me. Just to be clear, Sarwark’s latest shenanigans wouldn’t have made me do an episode. But it was being stuck in an airport reading what happened to Scott Alexander, the day after Sarwark’s shenanigans, that pushed me over the edge. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Why Rothbardian Institutions Would Become Nonviolent
Set aside 90 minutes and listen to this one, folks.
This Is Setting Off My BS-Pattern Detector
This is a really smart guy; my son and I read (a lot of) his book Our Mathematical Universe. But around 14:15 when he starts asking questions, instead of saying, “Nothing,” I can think of a different one-word answer that’s far more accurate.
I think the most obviously wrong step he takes, is to say that equations describing how matter behaves, are the same thing as matter itself. This would obviously be a bogus move anywhere else in science, so why allow it when trying to explain the origin of our physical reality?
(E.g. if you’re holding a map of France, that’s not the same as holding France. If you write out Newton’s laws describing the path of a baseball, that’s not the same thing as a baseball in flight.)
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