Further establishing Republican detachment from principle and fact:
1. Documents obtained by The Guardian demonstrate that Facebook has used standard human editorial decision-making in its news feed (by the way, has anyone here ever paid attention to Facebook’s “Trending Topics”?) but, contrary to the hoopla stirred by Senator John Thune, provide no evidence of “liberal bias” and in fact show that Facebook editors included Fox News among their A-list of mainstream news sources and included conservative Redstate, Breitbart, the Drudge Report and the Daily Caller in a larger list of trusted sources, right along with Huffington Post, Men’s Health, and Glamour.
As I noted Tuesday, Thune’s bullying of Facebook over alleged and unsubstantiated bias undermines his own professed commitment to press freedom:
If it is “dangerous for Congress and federal regulators to wade into the public airwaves to determine … what kind of speech is ‘fair,’ ” as Thune rightly wrote, it is equally dangerous for Congress to wade into the presentation of news on social media [editorial, “Senator John Thune Bullies Facebook over Suggested Bias,” Denver Post, 2016.05.11].
As even the conservative Federalist writes, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s proper response to Senator Thune’s unjustified prying is “none of your freaking business.”
2. Attorney General Marty Jackley is just one of many politicians trying to make hay over the federal Department of Education’s Title IX guidance that schools allow transgender students to use the facilities that correspond to their gender identity. But the pretense of protecting little girls from sexual predators that anti-trans pols use to push discrimination is too much for even Fox News’s Megyn Kelly to take. Consider her interview with trans-panicky Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick:
When Patrick reached the point of talking about men dressing up as women to assault little girls in the bathroom, Kelly had clearly had enough.
“A lot of sex offenders are men who molest men, little boys,” She pointed out.”Why do they need to sneak into the girls room?”
Patrick immediately changed the subject, citing his 8-year-old granddaughter and how he doesn’t want a man sharing a bathroom with her, only to have Kelly cut him off again.
“But what if a man looks like a woman and she would never notice him?” she asked.
“Megyn, you’re missing the–,” Patrick parried only to have Kelly shut him down with, “No, I don’t think I’m missing anything” [Tom Boggioni, “Megyn Kelly Shuts Down Texas Lt. Gov. on the Myth of Trans Women Assaulting Little Girls,” Raw Story, 2016.05.14].
Communities that have allowed transgender people to use the facilities of their choice have experienced no incidents of sexual predators exploiting that choice to attack children or adults (read more evidence here, here, here, and here).
3. This willingness to delude is perfect for a Republican Party that is about to nominate for President a man who pretended to be other people to promote himself, then denies it when presented with the evidence. Covering the absurd farce of Donald Trump’s masquerade as his own publicist, Marc Fisher and Will Hobson quote Trump’s fact-free marketing philosophy:
“One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal,”his bestseller. “The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”
Trump did not describe using false identities to promote his brand, but he did write about why he strays from the strict truth: “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion” [Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag About Himself,” Washington Post, 2016.05.13].
See, John Thune, Marty Jackley? You Republicans have been Trumpists all along.
Daniel Scott Goeb Patrick is a real piece of work. Houston Chron spells it out: http://blog.chron.com/bigjolly/2014/05/allegations-of-coverup-deception-regarding-sen-dan-patricks-mental-health/
Fake issues to feed fake outrage appeal to fake audiences by fake statesmen. Loony Thune and Fake AG Jackley should kiss South Dakota’s dirt for being elected in a state where, contrary to Abe Lincoln’s observation, that you really can fool the people all the time.
Can you imagine if Tim Johnson or Tom Daschle or Stephanie Sandlin started their re-election with a full-throated repudiation of a non-issue like news trends on Facebook? They’d be laughed out of office. It’s a testimony to the gullibility of South Dakota voters and not John Thune’s strength that Thune would choose a totally fake issue as his election year quest.
ps. Dan Patrick can’t define transgender but he sure doesn’t want one near his 8 year old Granddaughter. He is willing to lose the sad state of Denial Texas billions of education funds because he wants to reject Obama’s trans-potty plans.
96 Tears beat me to it. But why mention DINO SHS? This is another distraction from the fact that Washington is not doing its job. And both parties are guilty. One more than the other but seriously do we need democrats that cater to finance (SHS), Israel, and corporations?
thune is concerned about what is fair? What is balanced? He could have started at any of these places years ago.
http://www.foxnews.com/trending/#opinion
http://kelo.com/shows/
http://ksoo.com/shows/monday/
He certainly picked a losing battle in this one.
Men’s Health and Glamour Mag are liberal biased? Maybe Marlboro Barbie spells bias- buy us- as in contribute to me or else. Someone needs to send all wingnuts a copy of the Guardian issue, even if most wingnuts can’t read. And be double damn sure you are registered to vote and then vote these swine out of office.
This isn’t about Thune’s re-election campaign, 96Tears. This is about Thune getting attention in his hopes to be Trump’s running mate.
The GOP party is fully based upon fear, anger and ignorance. It’s officeholders and candidates, with few exceptions, pander to the basest instincts of it’s uneducated aging white male base. The GOP party has reduced Presidential campaigning to arguments over dick size, outright racism and misogyny. To distract people from the fact they are not doing the jobs they were elected to do, they come up with BS like this Facebook issue. Now all of the dim bulb GOP party voters are going to see John Thune as the new culture warrior to run with the unfit dufus they want in charge of the nucular codes. Hopefully enough Americans aren’t that stupid in November.
Fortunately there is a bunch of honking big birds aptly named Trump Eater Swans that will save America before the election. White swans coming to a migration route near you and not a moment too soon. ps they are federally protected from gunslinging wingnuts,too. Sic em,birds.
Every election cycle there is always a shiny object republicans throw out to keep their base scared and interested, this year, unfortunately, the trans people of this country and muslims are this cycles shiny objects. Not sure how our empty suit senator’s war on Facebook fits in. lol
“Politics is the continual argument over who gets to do what to whom, for how long, and against what degree of dissent.” –Lewis Lapham, Managing editor of Harper’s, c. 1995.
I have never seen a better definition. The argument is largely confined to “who gets to to do what…,” and is confined by “against what degree of dissent.”
We’re now at the stage of “legal allowance of boys in the girls’ bathroom” when we’ve, for Yahweh knows how long, been in the stage of “how would we have known whether or not the person in the girls’ bathroom has a dong?”
Against what degree of dissent?
Fortunately, the girls have stalls with doors in their restrooms so nobody will see their dongs. Think of how traumatized men will be when a woman dressed like a man tries to use a urinal. All kinds of GOP men needing therapy!!!
Recall the good ol’ days when we all crapped in the same outhouse – and were glad to.
Geez’ rhinos, get a grip. You’re embarrassing your forebears.
Those outhouses were mostly two-holers and I never saw them disaggregated by gender.
Ladies used to wear dresses that reached the floor to hide their yuuuuuge thingies.
Tim- Don’t forget about Latinos as part of the fear equation.
I want an investigation of all those newspapers that carry columns by Thune, Noem, Rounds, and Dudley Daugaard. These columns are so slanted to the right retrograde side and the algorithm used by editors must be dreadfully biased.
Thune is a bad joke and national embarrassment to South Dakotans. He needs to sit in the corner of the closet Pressler hid in but with a dunce cap on his head.
SuperSweet- outhouses with crescent moons carved in the doors were for milady.
The ones with stars were for the gentlemen.