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We don’t tend to do location work on this show, but when a major news event happens in the city where one of our hosts live, we get a up-close and personal view. And when that host is James Lileks and Minneapolis, the amount of detail, insight, and thoughtfulness could fill a dozen podcasts. James describes what the last few days have been like, and where he thinks his city is heading. But that’s not all we’ve got for you. We’ve got the NYT’s Bari Weiss on Joe Rogan, podcasting, and why our medium in now a major media platform (it’s very meta conversation). Then, obscure law professor and fast food aficionado John Yoo stops by to school us on platforms versus publishers (guess what Ricochet is?), that pesky section 230, and why Twitter probably should not be fact checking the President.
Music from this week’s show: My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen
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I think the snarky point of the meme is we were being told by the extended lockdown supporters that any crowds at all for anything, anywhere, whether it’s a school graduation party, people at a reopened bar or restaurant, or just close contact in an office building, was going to cause a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. That’s why people like the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis were so slow to allow reopenings.
With as many people from divergent areas that have been in the Twin Cities’ riot zones over the past two nights, it shouldn’t matter if the specific neighborhoods the riots are in haven’t had coronavirus spikes. Going by what the lockdown fanatics have claimed, the crowds congregating for the riots should be incubators of a new surge by mid-June.
More precisely, they’ve never thought about the part of governing they’re currently facing, because they thought they were on the same side of the struggle and #Resistance as the rioters, and that they would never go this far with them in office. AG Keith Ellison still thinks he and the rioters are BFFs, and it’s akin to Michael Moore a few days after 9/11 wondering why the terrorists attacked New York and the Washington D.C. areas, when they voted for Gore in the 2000 election.
It’s possible it might open a few politicians’ eyes in Minneapolis-St. Paul and elsewhere. Odds are better they’ll resolve their cognitive dissonance by blaming the riots on Trump, since he’s the nearest Republican in power (and the same deal goes for the riots in Louisville, Detroit and Oakland — Kiesha Bottoms in Atlanta at least has a GOP governor she can blame first, though she was pretty tough verbally on her mob of rioters and looters Friday night. So we may just have to wait for Stacey Abrams to blame Governor Kemp for the riot….)
I found the legal discussion of the podcast to be a mess. The entire question on the table is the application of a rule (sect 230) with respect to liability immunity. However, it was conflated with the idea of new legislation. Those things are so different that I am now skeptical of everything John Yoo has ever said.
This also seems to be the kind of thing the guys do more generally, and when pointed out, we’re told – sometimes by BlueYeti – that they’re sorry about not kowtowing to Trump and his fanbois, but if we’re patient maybe they can do better next time.
Heck, I might be anti-Trump too if I was as wrong as these guys often are about what he does.
And let’s face it, regular old phone service – also known as POTS or Plain Old Telephone Service – is a lot simpler than any kind of video, even before you start having multiple people in one session, etc.
My favorite bit of the first Avengers movie is probably when Nick Fury bets Steve Rogers (Captain America) $10 that he can surprise him. After the “helicarrier” begins to fly, Rogers nonchalantly walks over to Fury and hands him a $10.
Yes, its a pro-business/anti-lawsuit regulation. So, some Republicans have just chosen the Democrat position, largely because the businesses are perceived to be liberal. Maybe that’s a better way for her to say it.
More specifically, Trump is holding a pro-business regulation hostage to try to get a private company to do what he wants. In reality, having a clown like Trump threaten Section 230 almost guarantees it’ll never be touched. Now, even the Democrats will be anti-lawsuits.
Is expecting a business that benefits from a federal shield to be content-neutral, really a bad thing just because Trump wants that too? Even if you want to paint that as just being “selfish” on his part? Is George Clooney only being “selfish” if he doesn’t want the National Enquirer to be able to publish outright lies about him or his wife etc, when it also wouldn’t be able to publish outright lies about other people/celebrities too?
Generally, yes. I don’t have a problem with businesses catering to their customer base. On Twitter, thats liberal. Extorting them to not be liberal with a regulation thats fundamental to the health of their industry is wrong imo. Shades of the fairness doctrine. Presumably, Trump can’t do this with TV networks, because FOX would be impacted.
It’s not about bias, it’s about honesty! Or, in the case of the MSM — dishonesty! If the NYTs and CNN want to be believed, they need to start telling the truth. Simple.
As to Bari Weiss, my complaint is the lack of push-back from the hosts about her fact-free assertion that Trump/Republicans are now arguing for more regulation. Is there no one among the hosts who is able to exercise neutrality about Trump enough to argue the other side of this? If not, maybe you need a pro-Trump host to balance out the equation.
I tuned in to hear James’s take on the Minneapolis riots (tragic; condolences) and found myself yelling at the radio over the blithe acceptance of Weiss’s misinformation. You can do better, Ricochet.
And the customer base of the National Enquirer is, what, scandal-mongers? Does that then mean they should have government protection if they make up stories about celebrities or anyone else, just because they’re “scandalous” stories that “cater to their customer base?”
Your right this regulation is the only thing that prevents those business’s from operating. I mean thats why here in Canada, and others in Europe cant get access to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, cause we dont have this regulation in our countries.
Oh wait the complete opposite of that.
Why can’t they just sue the person who made the scandalous story? Why is Twitter on the hook for it?
Nonsense on all counts.
Let’s be clear. Senator Ted Cruz, who actually knows a thing or two about constitutional law and who has demonstrated competence repeatedly in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, laid out the same choice in an open Senate hearing over a year ago that AG Barr has now spelled out in his crafting of the executive order which President Trump signed. It takes a particular strain of obtuseness not to get that Congress enabled a new industry under a clear bargain: you get protection from being treated as a publisher just so long as you act like a public forum, a common carrier. You can choose by your actions to be a publisher, in which case you get to assume the liabilities of a publisher. You don’t get to be the New York Times and claim you have no legal responsibility for what appears on your pages.
Evidently, either their legal systems don’t favor frivolous lawsuits as much as the US’s…..or those platforms are already scrubbing the slander stories pretty well, despite the immunity.
Trump’s only going to be president for another 6 months. I’d be leery about taking any rash policy positions right now that don’t have a prayer of going anywhere.
In the case of something like Enquirer, they do that too. But the reality is that individual writers for them aren’t likely to be able to cover any damages awarded.
The other issue with something like Trump vs Twitter, is that Twitter is acting as something of an “author” themselves by what they decided to edit or remove, what they say about it in the process…
Four years, eight months.
He obviously is ignorant of the PIT.
Last fall I sold my St Paul home in the Highland Park neighborhood and moved to an inner ring suburb.
The tax more, expect less mentality was too much after 28 years. The last leadership in the Democratically run town was more interested in the takeover of garbage collection than fixing the streets or public safety.
Oh, did we find that out in the last few days.
what a bunch of crap. What do Blacks have to complain about that is not their own fault? If Karen calls the police on them isn’t that because she has been rightly scared in the past by other Blacks? When Blacks have trouble with the police it is frequently because they or others do not comply with police instructions. The guy killed in Georgia was a violent person.
Discrimination complaints? No one is prevented from studying and being attentive in school. From showing up to work on time, doing a good job. How to explain the many successful Black individuals and families if racism is so prevalent and harmful?
I agree with this. Despite Biden being a total disaster. Trump has given up on the virus. And now, having deliberately been a divisive president, he has nothing good to offer in terms of calming a riot torn nation. And, one of the groups Trump has been unwilling to be critical and honest about is Blacks. So Trump will not speak truth to power and call BS on the claim that Blacks are victims.
Seven months and 21 days.
Lame duck period for a one term president is largely irrelevant. Attitudes will start shifting the minute he’s officially lost. May be shifting already. Ann Coulter cussing him out. Twitter now censoring him. They see whats coming.
It is a good thing that the officer who kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck is being charged with 3rd degree murder.* Then everyone can know that their are consequences for such depraved acts without regard for human life.
(* It’s also good that they didn’t use a more severe charge that would have required proving intent to murder, which could have jeopardized getting a conviction. cf. article discussing the risk of setting the burden of proof bar too high)
It would be better if the other officers present were also charged with a suitable crime regarding their complicity in allowing this to happen. Then everyone can know that there are consequences when an officer of the law stands by while allowing someone else to commit a crime (or even worse supports the crime by their actions). This went on at least for nearly 9 minutes. For the last nearly 3 minutes Floyd was unresponsive and still it went on and on without any of them acting to intervene, despite the appeals of the crowd.
It would be best if the scrutiny for potential prosecution or other consequences is extended all the way up the chain of authority to see whether there were any decision making individuals who could have and should have acted earlier to remove officers from the streets who should not be entrusted with that role. Everyone should know with confidence that there are consequences for serious failure in one’s duties to manage those entrusted with lethal force.
None of that will bring George Floyd back, but if justice is clearly done without bias or protecting the guilty, the imposition of consequences will mean that responsible people will be strongly motivated to make changes. (Chicago has already begun retraining as a result.) That house cleaning will help others in the future and George Floyd’s death will not have been in vain.
When evil kills an innocent man, God has been known to draw good out of even that.
Perhaps there could be a show in the near future with the regular contributors that are police officers. They could be asked for their suggestions on how things could be improved in this country. I’d especially like to hear their opinions on abolishing qualified immunity, maybe it’s utopian but I’d like to talk about abolishing police unions and making police subject to serving at the will of the mayor like in the old days, any other structural or organizational changes they thought would help.
That seems to be inviting corruption when you have mayors and whole city governments worried about what Jesse Jackson et al might do. And it would likely bring things back to “the old days” in other ways, where the police could do whatever they wanted to the mayor’s enemies.
Are you sure those are actually bad for Trump?
Did Rob Long refer to Ahmed Aubery as a “jogger” unironically? Wow. Talk about being behind the times on that story.
There is a meme based on Calvin and Hobbes that shows someone telling him – when you are powerful I push for free speech because that is according to your principles, when I am powerful I push to control speech because that is according to my principles. The guesT was just doing their part to remind conservatives they need to make sure to take their traditional doormat position and blather on about “free markets” while companies that have been shown to be able to flip elections grow increasingly partisan. Will we still be clamoring for “Free markets” when googles algorithm is worth 10% of an election outcome?
Stop being slaves to a principle like you enemies hope and embrace regulation to keep the digital playing field fair. The reality of the first mover and dominant market positions means it is almost impossible in the short term to unseat Twitter, Facebook, and Google. How many elections should we let them influence before, in the long run, a competitor defeats them. Will it be too late and then we will be living according to “their rules” of power?
Free markets are not a suicide pact, they are an ideal that we support when it is best for society. They are not the highest good – tradition and community and religion also have to be weighed.
wow, that would be terrible. What with ballot harvesting the democrat political class has a lock on electoral office. Meaning, one of the only checks on their power is an independent police force. What right does the mayor have to order the police to not protect an individual or store from being attacked by the mob?