Pretty much, though arguably that’s the argument for the half-empty side. It’s very difficult for the economy to do better than it has the last few years. We’re past due for a slowdown, so in the half-empty view the reaction to the announcement of a lower number should be, “get ready,” not “every day in every way, things are getting better and better.”
Honestly, no one should be trying to argue that the economy is bad. It’s not.
Of course, it wasn’t bad in 2016 either.
It expires the hypocrisy of people in 2016, like Trump, who said that the unemployment numbers were somehow “fake”, because they thought that the U6 were the “real” numbers.
Of course now they are fine with the u3 numbers.
The economy is good, but with stagnate wages and increased healthcare costs, the benefits aren’t being seen by many people.
And especially not benefitting your average Trump voter.
shithole president asking shithole party to abandon the rule of law?
Nope, here’s the take away (to which Nate Silver cogently replies)
PC run amok on college campuses! ohnoes! (handwringing, kids these days gonna ruin the country! abloobloobloo)
Those white supremacists? Nothing to see here.
https://twitter.com/SeanMcElwee/status/959151794378170369
Over the past 18 months, the New York Times has dedicated 21 columns and articles to the subject of conservatives’ free speech on campus, while only three covered the silencing of college liberals or leftists. A review of Times articles, columns, op-eds and reports shows a clear emphasis on documenting and condemning perceived suppression of conservative voices at American universities, while rarely mentioning harassment campaigns against leftist professors and/or the criminalization of leftist causes such as the pro-Palestinian BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement.
Not to keep repeating myself, but fuck the New York Times. I would applaud genuine attempts at being non-partisan, but the bothsidesism and whataboutism is pathetic and, frankly, infuriating. They are trying so hard for that Republican (NOT conservative) cred.
Lemme be honest i think NYT whattaboutism is not despite but because they’re so Atlantic coast urban professional. I think when the distance between subject and object becomes so great it wraps back around again to sympathy. We see this a lot with foreign reporting.
. . .
What.
He’s saying that if you really have no actual experience with the right wing, you might be tempted to have sympathy because you assume they can’t actually be horrific hypocritical monsters.
But if you are actually closer to them ideologically, it’s even easier to see what a mess they have become.
He’s saying it’s easy to step over the homeless dude on the subway and then decry the starving halfway across the globe.
Well that’s two possible interpretations. Can we get a ruling from the judges?
Both explanations above are exactly what i meant.
We are close to a time when a little $$$ can create believable video of any public figure doing anything you would like. This is already being used to create fake porn of celebrities to make money, but imagine the politics of the future. Every major candidate may have to deal with debunking multiple scandalous videos with faked sexual, criminal, or socially abhorrent actions.
“It already feels as though we are living in an alternative science-fiction universe where no one agrees on what it true. Just think how much worse it will be when fake news becomes fake video. Democracy assumes that its citizens share the same reality. We’re about to find out whether democracy can be preserved when this assumption no longer holds.”
Surely deepfakes could have been produced by Hollywood level SFX for years now? It seems pretty basic stuff
Remember when they faked Captain Freedom killing Ben Richards in the 80s? {cough}
Whiz Kid Harry Enten (WKHE) is leaving FiveThirtyEight for CNN.
Random aside; I’ve noticed lately that when CNN has a non-Trumpian on, they seem to go with null hypothesis statements;
CNN person: “So doesn’t this mean (obviously untrue statement)?”
interviewee: “Um, no. It means (reasonable statement).”
I mean, it’s nice they’re doing less “equal treatment” in terms of having a nutjob present one side and a sane person present the other, but it still seems like they feel the need for someone to shout out the garbage viewpoint.
Not directly related to the current administration, but might as well put it here:
Two of Newsweek’s top editors — editor in chief Bob Roe and executive editor Kenneth Li — were abruptly fired from the company on Monday, along with reporter Celeste Katz.
The decision caused chaos among the newsroom’s remaining employees, who first found out about the firings not from management, but through word of mouth. Two reporters at Newsweek and its sister publication, the International Business Times, have since resigned in protest.
Katz, Roe and Li were among a team of reporters and editors who were pursuing an investigative piece into the finances of Newsweek’s parent company, the Newsweek Media Group. The company publishes Newsweek, the International Business Times and a handful of other websites.
Newsweek Media Group declined to comment on “personnel matters,” but at least one person familiar with the matter said that internally, the pieces were easy to put together: “These reporters and editors had launched an investigation,” the person said, “and now they’re no longer there.”
Yeah, I have to say that “fired for investigating their own organization” is sadly one of the least surprising headlines these days; seems an all-too-familiar parallel
Is it actually news that mega corporations that own news outlets don’t let them investigate the owners?
The biggest news seems like some people working there actually thought this wouldn’t happen.