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The Biden Presidency

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Darat said:
It’s a difference between reporting and journalism, reporting today has been elevated because that is what gets you your click-bait headlines i.e “follow the money”.

Good short article about the difference from over 10 years ago - quite prescient given how reporting has come to dominate:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2009/dec/10/newspapers-pressandpublishing

“.... To illustrate his point he offers this straightforward comparison:

Reporting: A 747 aircraft crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean yesterday.

Journalism: A review of maintenance reports of the 747 aircraft that crashed last month revealed that the airplane had a faulty engine parts. Reports indicate that airline management ignored warnings that the parts were malfunctioning. ....”​
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You can't really judge from first-day reporting what an outlet would do a month later. Though the example above puts a first-day lede on a second-day story, which is not good. Unless the plane just now crashed, you need something besides saying it happened yesterday. Like, uh, the 400 people that were killed? Rescue efforts? Plane going from where to where?

I would even rewrite the second one to start with, "A jet that crashed last month, killing 400 people, had faulty engine parts, maintenance records show." Or if you really want to stretch the truth, "Faulty engine parts may have caused the crash" etc.

Then, as an editor, I would annoy reporters by asking ask for more context which I'm sure the "journalism" article went on to provide - how common are such faults - are many jets operating under similar conditions? That would be more of an investigative bent.

As a cynic, I would think ... "Good thing it was the Atlantic Ocean ... if it was the Indian Ocean nobody in the U.S. would have followed up at all."

I will check out the Guardian link.
 
dudalb said:
I could argue that MLK would be a better choice, but have nothing against Tubman being on the 20.
THis news has certainly triggered the Trumptards. Usual racist crap, plus some objections that are ostensibly not based on race and sex but obviously are.
My own favorite from the Trumpers: All the people on US Currency are ex Presidents, and that tradition should continue.
Guess they never looked at a Ten Dollar bill lately..or a 100 dollar bill for the matter.
Benjy and Alex say hi....
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Salmon P Chase, too, but that wasn’t exactly in common distribution.
 
//Slight hijack into the broader currency discussion//

Printing tech has advanced to the point that we could have more than one picture on a single currency.

Something along the lines of

1$ - Presidents
2$ - Civil Rights
5$ - Scientists

etc, etc.
 
Bob001 said:
It became one under Trump. With new leadership and new policies, the rank-and-file would likely do what they are told.
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To poke at this... I'm not convinced at all that this is true. I'll easily grant that things got much worse under Trump, but IIRC, there's been plenty of underlying problems since long before Trump.

Ahh... on a quick search, the ACLU weighed in on something very close to that a bit in 2018.

The Border Patrol Was Monstrous Under Obama. Imagine How Bad It Is Under Trump.
 
SezMe said:
From that link:


It's that sort of comment that causes GOPers to complain that the coastal elite snobs look down on them.
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Why?
That read to me like a poke at people who don't use cash much anymore, who are more likely to be younger.
 
Breyer is 82.

With a Democrat back in the white house and narrow control of the Senate, it's time for the drumbeat to get Justice Breyer to retire. Like RBG, he probably should have retired in 2013 when Obama would have had a chance to pick the replacement, but both decided to roll the dice.

SCOTUS usually ends the year by releasing decisions by July. Breyer should retire then and leave Biden plenty of time to appoint a replacement and deal with any Republican gamesmanship.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Breyer is 82.

With a Democrat back in the white house and narrow control of the Senate, it's time for the drumbeat to get Justice Breyer to retire. Like RBG, he probably should have retired in 2013 when Obama would have had a chance to pick the replacement, but both decided to roll the dice.

SCOTUS usually ends the year by releasing decisions by July. Breyer should retire then and leave Biden plenty of time to appoint a replacement and deal with any Republican gamesmanship.
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Absolutely.

I suggested as much when it became clear the Democrats won both Georgia seats:
Firestone said:
Stephen Breyer consulting his retirement planner right now!
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I slightly disagree about the timing, though. Why wait until the summer? With the 50-50 split, the Democratic control of the Senate is super-vulnerable to all kind of events (like, for example, a Democratic senator falling ill or dying).
 
Firestone said:
I slightly disagree about the timing, though. Why wait until the summer? With the 50-50 split, the Democratic control of the Senate is super-vulnerable to all kind of events (like, for example, a Democratic senator falling ill or dying).
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When it comes to the Senate... first, McConnell using a filibuster to save the filibuster, so he can do to Biden what he did to Obama, needs to be dealt with.
 
Firestone said:
Absolutely.

I suggested as much when it became clear the Democrats won both Georgia seats:


I slightly disagree about the timing, though. Why wait until the summer? With the 50-50 split, the Democratic control of the Senate is super-vulnerable to all kind of events (like, for example, a Democratic senator falling ill or dying).
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That's a fair point.

It should be pointed out that the situation now is more precarious than it was in during 2013-2015 Democratic Senate majority. There were 53 D votes then (2 independents that caucus with the D).

Now there is a 50-50 split, with VP Harris breaking a tie. That means any nominee can be held up by a single defector, like our conservative Democratic Senator Manchin.

Even if Breyer retires now, it's clear that the decision not to do so previously was a mistake.
 
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Minoosh said:
You can't really judge from first-day reporting what an outlet would do a month later. Though the example above puts a first-day lede on a second-day story, which is not good. Unless the plane just now crashed, you need something besides saying it happened yesterday. Like, uh, the 400 people that were killed? Rescue efforts? Plane going from where to where?
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I think it's a simple explanation of the difference between reporting and journalism. Journalism is more than "X happened" - it's talking to bunch of people, following leads, etc and putting together bunch of different pieces of information to make a clear picture.

There's nothing at all wrong with reporting; we all need reporting. There is of course, a spectrum between what is clearly just reporting and what is clearly journalism. On the one reporting end you have "A car crashed on main street, blocking the road for an hour, nobody was seriously injured" and on the journalism end you have the Spotlight column exposing a massive coverup of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
 
JoeMorgue said:
5$ - Scientists
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A friend of mine sent me this from Israel, which I framed:

26288865740_fa6dbbb8d3.jpg
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I see that that is not the case.

From Daniel Dale:

“This viral claim is wrong. The President's watch was a Christmas gift from the First Lady.

This is a trivial one - I hope it is my last watch-related fact check - but there's generally a lot of bad info going viral from unverified accounts with moderate followings.”

But the whole brouhaha is still idiotic. Only thing more idiotic is posting about it, so I’ll stop.
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That was my first thought. Hey, it's probably just a gift from his wife for, I don't know, maybe having won the presidential election.

Sinister it is....
 
The problem with Breyer retiring is the same one with RGB.

I don't think (most) Justices like being told what to do, especially if it is for purely political reasons.

The (old school) Justices either honestly believe (or want to project the image of if you want to be more cynical) being above all that.
 
JoeMorgue said:
The problem with Breyer retiring is the same one with RGB.

I don't think (most) Justices like being told what to do, especially if it is for purely political reasons.

The (old school) Justices either honestly believe (or want to project the image of if you want to be more cynical) being above all that.
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I don't think this is true. At least, the conservative Justices understand how the game is played. Kennedy retired strategically so that Trump can name a conservative replacement and is a peer with both RGB and Breyer.
 
Bob001 said:
It became one under Trump. With new leadership and new policies, the rank-and-file would likely do what they are told.
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ICE really needs to be broken up. Over 20 years ago when I was an officer of the INS, we talked about Removal and Detention being its own service. When DHS stood up there was discussion about R&D being pulled out but it was left in ICE. The **** shows of kids in cages and mass overcrowding are a partial result of the fact the leadership doesn't know how to run humane R&D operations. We've always had the problem of not noticing detention until something blows up in our face.
 
Tolls said:
Why?
That read to me like a poke at people who don't use cash much anymore, who are more likely to be younger.
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I read it as coming from somebody who's been around a lot of reporters. Probably for too long.
 
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