Try to Reverse Engineer Krugman’s Threshold for Political Labeling
Here’s an excerpt from the latest Paul Krugman column:
Let me explain what I mean by saying that bad guys hacked the election. I’m not talking about some kind of wild conspiracy theory. I’m talking about the obvious effect of two factors on voting: the steady drumbeat of Russia-contrived leaks about Democrats, and only Democrats, and the dramatic, totally unjustified last-minute intervention by the F.B.I., which appears to have become a highly partisan institution, with distinct alt-right sympathies.
OK, so notice Krugman gives a hyperlink on the phrase “highly partisan” which itself is embedded in this longer phrase: “…the F.B.I., which appears to have become a highly partisan institution, with distinct alt-right sympathies.”
So, presumably whatever Krugman has hyperlinked, will show that the FBI (1) is highly partisan and (2) has distinct alt-right sympathies.
BEFORE YOU CLICK, I want you to draw a line in the sand. Figure out what you think would be sufficient evidence, justifying Krugman’s description of whatever you will eventually find, when you click that link.
For example, if an internal sting revealed that 96% of FBI agents had donated money to David Duke, then Krugman’s description would be totally fair.
So like I said, I encourage you to take a moment and think about what types of things could be lurking at that link, to justify Krugman’s claims.
Now go click the link and see what you find.
Let me get this straight
Under Barack Obama
Under Obama’s appointed FBI director
The FBI has been taken over by people who make J Edgar Hoover look progressive, whose politics aligns with 16 year old internet trolls who post rare Pepes from their parents’ basements
That’s what Krugman actually believes
I did the test as Bob asked. I thought about a line in the sand. Then I clicked the link. I was astounded. Even knowing how partisan Krugman is, even knowing Bob was setting me up, even knowing how nutso Krugman’s claim is, I was still astounded. Krugman has gone full Harold.
Politico. Done. No need to look further. See wikileaks for references.
Politico = Fake News
I never realized that Krugman himself had alt right sympathies.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/death-by-tweet/?_r=0
twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%3Apaulkrugman%20since%3A2016-11-08%20until%3A2016-11-10&src=typd
twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%3Apaulkrugman%20republicans&src=typd
Well done.
Funny thing is, since I’ve been following this blog for years, and listening to Contra Krugman for as long as it’s been a thing, I really thought I wouldn’t be surprised on this one. I was going into it thinking “aha, somebody outed like one FBI guy posting frog memes on Twitter, and Krugman’s running with it.” No. Not even THAT much.
To be fair, at least this time Krugman’s link didn’t say the exact opposite of what he claimed.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2014/01/does-income-inequality-increase.html
and again…
https://twitter.com/alerodri1976/status/810864520990224386
Not that Krugman isn’t a liar, fool and a clown. But has anyone noticed that the ENTIRE “progressive” cohort is completely unhinged? As I have endlessly repeated, the Keynesian “intellectuals” rigorously refuse to engage our positions. The non-intellectual Democrat voter base is even worse and the unhinged Democrat voter base is Krugman’s prime NYT audience. He’s often under attack by the MMTers for having the gall to suggest that there still might be scarcity in the world that cannot be overcome by Modern Monetary Theory in action. Any nuance in his writings could easily cause him to become a pariah with his audience.
Well, I have to admit, I was actually surprised that the link was to a past Krugman essay about the FBI being partisan.
I really do believe that Krugman is mentally ill.
That should have read “that the link wasn’t to a past Krugman essay”
Not tough to reverse-engineer: He’s a partisan hack with zero intellectual integrity. In his case, that’s not an ad hom or an insult, it’s an assessment of his behavior.
The left is insane.
Quick! Somebody get Paul Krugman a mirror! He will surely be shocked to discover that he himself has “become” a highly partisan alt-right sympathizer who “doesn’t reflect the nation.”
[reply broken into multiple parts due to something about a maximum allowed size.]
First of all, the phrase “sufficient evidence” begs the question “sufficient evidence for what purpose?” It would be foolish to imagine that I have any way of assessing for certain the exact extent to which various FBI members have alt-right sympathies and the extent to which those sympathies actually influence their policy while acting as representatives of the FBI. Ultimately, the best you are going to get is some probabilistic variables that you can plug into risk assessments if they are relevant. In many cases, it’s probably easier to determine the relevance of those probabilistic variables than to actually try to calculate them. For example: should we risk starting a nuclear war with Russia? Hopefully, one doesn’t need to try to estimate the FBI’s alt-rightness/partisanship to answer that question. Should we reform our voting system? Again, the FBI’s alt-rightness/partisanship is at best a minor variable. It’s not as if Russian-sponsored news didn’t warn us that a logic analyzer, an Allen wrench, and a screwdriver is all it takes to corrupt our voting machines.(1) Now, if a friend who works for the FBI, and is disturbed from witnessing or being asked to participate in activities which violate his internal moral code, were to seek advice on whether to quit/whistleblow/resist in other ways/continue acting normally/whatever, that would quite likely be a much longer and more interesting discussion.
That said, looking at that particular link, and based on Krugman’s interpretation of it, my guess is that Krugman (assuming he is stating his actual beliefs and not merely playing to a crowd — and if the latter, I guess this would apply to the crowd he is playing to) understands neither himself/his team nor his opponents.
“Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu(2)
Accusations that others are allegedly members of the alt-right based on, at best, flimsy evidence, most likely come from those who have never actually examined the beating heart of the alt-right, and hence do not know their opponents. The very term “alt-right” is something of a euphemism. If anyone would like to know what the beating heart of the alt-right actually looks like, and is prepared to cope with the psychological damage likely to result from doing so, feel free to go look at Stormfront. Should you desire to troll them, they have an “Opposing Views Forum: For all our opponents who want to argue with White Nationalists.”(3)
Now, on the front of knowing oneself/one’s own team, Krugman states here, “This shouldn’t come as a surprise. It has long been obvious — except, apparently, to the news media — that the modern G.O.P. is a radical institution that is ready to violate democratic norms in the pursuit of power. Why should the norm of not accepting foreign assistance be any different?”
Putting aside for the moment the question of how much meaningful change would likely result from replacing white nationalism (for some definition of white nationalism) with this nationalist obsession with not accepting “foreign assistance”, whatever gave Krugman (or, if he is not a true believer, then the audience he is playing to) the idea that “not accepting foreign assistance” was any sort of a “norm”?
So… accepting millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi regime and other gulf tyrannies… does that count as “not accepting foreign assistance”?(4)(5)
What exactly does Krugman claim Hillary stands for anyway? Ah, here we go. “But when she’s talking about women’s rights, or racial injustice, or support for families, her commitment, even passion, are obvious.”(6)
Is it really all that obvious? Let’s see… women’s rights… referring to a child who had filed a complaint about an alleged rape, Hillary Clinton (then Hillary Rodham) wrote, “I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing. I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”(7)(8)
Granted, that was decades ago, but what about the 2009 coup in Honduras and the involvement of Hillary and the US government in the aftermath of that?(9)(10)(11) Even if we are generous and chalk that up to incompetence rather than actual malice, that does not explain the Obama administration deporting or paying off Mexico to intercept and deport refugees trying to flee from Honduras and other Latin American countries, with Hillary’s explicit approval, “and it was very important to send a message to families in Central America, ‘do not let your children take this very dangerous journey.'”(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)
Closer to home, we have the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline protests, an issue close to the hearts of the Standing Rock Sioux and many other indigenous people (and a lot of other people too, but Krugman did mention “racial injustice”) — close enough that they are willing to risk tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, mace, arrest, etc.(18)(19)(20)(21) Hillary’s statement on this, when she finally gave one, was very vague, “need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest”.(22)(23)(24) Given Hillary’s past history on the related topic of shale gas, this isn’t terribly surprising.(25)
People who do not know themselves/their own team lose even when they think they are winning.
Contrast to Jill Stein, who got herself an arrest warrant for supporting the anti-DAPL protests with spray paint. In an interview afterwards, she stated, “At the same time, I felt that it would have been unconscionable for me not to stand up and support the indigenous leaders who are putting their lives on the line, who are under attack from vicious attack dogs, who are, um, having, uh, pepper spray sprayed in their faces and whose sacred burial grounds are being desecrated.” On twitter she stated, “I hope ND presses charges against the real vandals who bulldoze sacred burial sites,” and posted a graphic stating “The Dakota Access Pipeline is vandalism on steroids” along with a picture of her spray painting the construction equipment.(26)(27)(28) Jill Stein did not cease her participation in the fight against DAPL after losing the US election.(29)
1. “Hacking voting machines: Easier than ever imagined”. RT, November 6, 2012. https://www.rt.com/usa/voting-machine-election-hack-088/ (retrieved December 22, 2016).
2. Tzu, Sun. Translated by Giles, Lionel. “The Art of War”. The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html (retrieved December 22, 2016).
3. Not actually going to give you the link. It’s not as if it’s hard to find with your favorite search engine.
4. Greenwald, Glen. “Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation?” The Intercept_, August 25, 2016. https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-gulf-tyrannies-donate-millions-to-the-clinton-foundation/ (retrieved December 26, 2016).
5. Goodman, Amy et al.”Greenwald: ‘Why Did Saudi Regime & Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to Clinton Foundation?'” Democracy Now, August 29, 2016. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/29/greenwald_why_did_saudi_regime_other (retrieved December 26, 2016).
6. Krugman, Paul. “Why Hillary Wins”. The New York Times, October 21, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/why-hillary-wins.html (retrieved December 26, 2016).
7. Rodham, Hillary. “State of Arkansas V. Thomas Alfred Taylor”, page 34. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/doc/229667084/State-of-Arkansas-V-Thomas-Alfred-Taylor (retrieved December 26, 2016).
8. Goodman, Alana. “EXCLUSIVE: Child rape victim comes forward for the first time in 40 years to call Hillary Clinton a ‘liar’ who defended her rapist by smearing her, blocking evidence and callously laughing that she knew he was guilty”. Daily Mail, August 9, 2016. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3729466/Child-rape-victim-comes-forward-time-40-years-call-Hillary-Clinton-liar-defended-rapist-smearing-blocking-evidence-callously-laughing-knew-guilty.html (retrieved December 26, 2016).
9. González, Juan et al. “Hear Hillary Clinton Defend Her Role in Honduras Coup When Questioned by Juan González”. Democracy Now, April 13, 2016. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/13/hear_hillary_clinton_defend_her_role (retrieved December 26, 2016).
10. Attiah, Karen. “Hillary Clinton’s dodgy answers on Honduras coup”. The Washington Post, April 19, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/04/19/hillary-clintons-dodgy-answers-on-honduras-coup/ (retrieved December 26, 2016).
11. Weisbrot, Mark. “Hard choices: Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath”. Al Jazeera America, September 29, 2014. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html (retrieved December 27, 2016).
12. Nazario, Sonia. “The Refugees at Our Door”. The New York Times, October 10, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/the-refugees-at-our-door.html?_r=0 (retrieved December 26, 2016).
13. Planas, Roque. “Hillary Clinton Defends Call To Deport Child Migrants”. The Huffington Post, August 19, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-child-migrants_us_55d4a5c5e4b055a6dab24c2f (retrieved December 27, 2016).
14. “Nearly 9,000 Child Migrants Have Fled Honduras in 2015”. Telesur, July 25, 2015. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nearly-9000-Child-Migrants-Have-Fled-Honduras-in-2015-20150725-0002.html (retrieved December 27, 2016).
15. Brodzinsky, Sibylla and Pilkington, Ed. “US government deporting Central American migrants to their deaths”. The Guardian, October 12, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/obama-immigration-deportations-central-america (retrieved December 27, 2016).
16. Goodman, Amy et al. “Outsourcing a Refugee Crisis: U.S. Paid Mexico Millions to Target Central Americans Fleeing Violence”. Democracy Now!, October 13, 2015. https://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/13/outsourcing_a_refugee_crisis_us_paid (retrieved December 27, 2016).
17. Bochenek, Michael et al. “Closed Doors”. Human Rights Watch, March 31, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/03/31/closed-doors/mexicos-failure-protect-central-american-refugee-and-migrant-children (retrieved December 27, 2016).
18. “400 DAPL protesters ‘trapped on bridge’ as police fire tear gas, water cannon (VIDEO)”. RT, November 21, 2016. https://www.rt.com/usa/367592-dapl-protest-bridge-teargas/ (retrieved December 27, 2016).
19. “Police shoot rubber bullets at Dakota Access Pipeline protesters”. RT, November 2, 2016. https://www.rt.com/usa/365133-dakota-access-pipeline-standoff/ (retrieved December 27, 2016).
20. Mullen, Mike. “Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies use batons on Dakota Access Pipeline protesters; 141 arrested [VIDEO]”. City Pages, October 28, 2016. http://www.citypages.com/news/hennepin-county-sheriffs-deputies-use-batons-on-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters-141-arrested-video/399029131 (retrieved December 27, 2016).
21. Goodman, Amy et al. “Standing Rock Special: Unlicensed #DAPL Guards Attacked Water Protectors with Dogs & Pepper Spray”. Democracy Now!, November 24, 2016. https://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/24/standing_rock_special_unlicensed_dapl_guards (retrieved December 27, 2016).
22. Syrmopoulos, Jay. “Hillary Turns Her Back on Standing Rock Sioux: ‘Path Forward Must Serve Broadest Public Interest’”. TheFreeThoughProject.com, October 29, 2016. http://thefreethoughtproject.com/hillary-turns-back-standing-rock-sioux-path-forward-must-serve-broadest-public-interest/
23. McCauley, Lauren. “‘What a Crock’: Clinton Breaks DAPL Silence With Statement That Says ‘Literally Nothing'”. Common Dreams, October 28, 2016. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/10/28/what-crock-clinton-breaks-dapl-silence-statement-says-literally-nothing (retrieved December 27, 2016).
24. “You Won’t Believe Hillary Clinton’s Response to the Dakota Pipeline Protests”. Telesur, October 28, 2016. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/You-Wont-Believe-Hillary-Clintons-Response-to-DAPL-Protests-20161028-0001.html (retrieved December 27, 2016).
25. Qiu, Linda. “Does Hillary Clinton support fracking?” Politifact, April 13, 2016. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/13/bernie-s/does-hillary-clinton-support-fracking/ (retrieved December 27, 2016).
26. Nagy, Liz. “Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein to speak on arrest warrant”. ABC Inc., WLS-TV Chicago, September 9, 2016. http://abc7chicago.com/politics/green-party-presidential-candidate-to-speak-on-arrest-warrant/1504713/
27. Stein, Jill. “I hope ND presses charges against the real vandals who bulldoze sacred burial sites.” Twitter, September 7, 2016. https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/773645480030969856 (retrieved December 27, 2016).
28. “Warrant out for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s arrest in ND.” CBS News, September 7, 2016. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/warrant-out-for-green-party-candidate-jill-steins-arrest-in-north-dakota/ (retrieved December 27, 2016).
29. Stein, Jill. “Call to action to stand with Standing Rock!” Facebook, November 21, 2016. https://www.facebook.com/drjillstein/videos/1371206352919551/ (retrieved December 27, 2016).
I just realized something – 100% of Krugrman article authors (to my knowledge) are white male. He’s 150% as pro-Trump partisan as the FBI!!!
On the other hand, 100% of FBI agents are federal government employees, and I think a very high percentage hold a professional degree, typically in law or accounting. Don’t those demographics swing left?