Friday Stuff (updates)

I honestly try not to pay a lot of attention to Candace Owens because I think she’s a walking, talking train wreck, and generally speaking, her takes are hot garbage, but I feel like I need to include this clip from Farron Cousins because he pretty much treats Owens in the manner she deserves concerning the latest wingnut contretemps, which has to do with Big Bird of Sesame Street encouraging children to get the COVID vaccine...



...and I know I’m a little behind the news cycle on this one, but here it is anyway – Rachel Maddow brings us a report on Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who apparently is going to be the surgeon general for the state of FLA...her report calls into question his alleged bona fides with UCLA, as well as his association with this ultra-scammy outfit called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” including that nutty Caribbean woman – who was taken out of the video for some odd reason – and this “telemedicine” grift..and “Freedom has a home here (in FLA),” huh? I guess you mean the “freedom” to die an awful death with a machine forcing you to breathe...

...and Mehdi Hasan interview journalist Jonathan Freedman and U of P professor Andrea Kane on the commonwealth of Virginia trying to ban books...yep, CRT was just the tip of the metaphorical spear when it comes to utterly quashing any dissent from right-wing orthodoxy, particularly in education (good point unfortunately about us taking our eye off the ball, as it were, when it comes to complaining about individual speakers on college campuses, and meanwhile this backlash against the imaginary issue of CRT sprung up)...



...and it seems that this Johnny Harris person recently made waves with a New York Times video about how blue states (California in particular) have a housing problem (here)...and hey, if he’s saying that lefties/libs are as guilty of NIMBYism as those on the right side of the political spectrum – well, I’m forced to acknowledge that point. I will say, though, that as long as he’s gone to the trouble to explain this issue and how it impacts blue states, I’ll now await a report from him on how it also impacts red ones (and I’m sure I’ll keep waiting).

And no, I didn’t watch his entire clip on the subject, but I’ll try to later (again, I’m not taking issue with the points he’s making, but only that I don’t think he’s presenting the whole story).

But with this in mind, I decided to read up on this guy a bit. And it turns out that he has what I would call a little bit too cozy of a relationship with the World Economic Forum (as Tom Nicholas discusses in this video). And I’m not saying Harris did anything overtly unethical with the WEF, but I also think he danced along that razor’s edge between journalism and propaganda (in the way Nicholas discusses – interesting take here IMO on the difference between inserting ads in a video vs. presenting wholly sponsored content).

And hey, run ads or promotional spots on your site to drive up traffic and/or increase monetization? Sure, why not? Nothing wrong with trying to make a buck (unless you’re talking about this site, which is a separate discussion).

Turn over your entire platform to some shadowy entity with questionable intent no questions asked, while presenting yourself as an objective journalist? I would argue that that’s a wholly other matter (and I wish Nicholas would speak up a little because it's hard to hear him!)...



Update 11/13/21: OK, in the interest of fairness, I finally watched the New York Times video with Harris and Binyamin Appelbaum (and I’ll admit that maybe I should have done this earlier, but again, I didn’t think that was germane to the Harris/WEF thing anyway), and I have some observations as an admitted non-expert on housing:

Harris and Appelbaum are aware that there has been an overall slowdown on new housing construction partly because of COVID-related labor and materials issues (here) and also because of unaffordability nationwide, right?

You can talk about “not enough housing and too many people trying to get it” all over the country (I’m pretty sure that’s a reasonably accurate observation).

You can also discuss the price of housing units going through the roof partly because they’re being bought up by hedge funds (here).

At about 2:40, Harris blames liberals for the way zoning maps are laid out in California and says that’s part of the reason for the lack of high density housing in Palo Alto. I have no information on that to argue with him. However, I wonder if Harris cares to mention this article, which talks about high density housing plans in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philly, Chicago, and Louisville, Kentucky (to be fair)?

Also, here’s a personal observation. We visited Vermont about a month ago (a state which, of course, has a Democratic U.S. Senator and an independent who caucuses with Dems, along with a pretty middle-of-the-road Republican governor, as well as a high COVID vax rate), and we dined out at a fairly upscale restaurant in Manchester. We spoke with one of the owners who apologized for not having enough wait staff, and we told her it definitely wasn’t an issue related to our food or service, both of which were excellent. She told us that one of the reasons why she couldn’t get enough workers was because people from New York bought up a lot of the properties and charged pretty exorbitant rents, and the kids couldn’t afford the rent, so they didn’t come to the area to work (couldn’t really). I’m not saying that necessarily to trash New Yorkers (and I don’t have an answer to that issue I’ll admit), but I’m only saying this to point out that the issue of high-density housing is one that cuts across political and ideological lines, and I think it’s a little disingenuous at a minimum for Harris to pretend that only liberals are at fault here.

Update 11/14/21: Here is more from the New York Times on this subject.

Update 1/29/22: Gee, I wonder if Harris is going to blame "liberals" for this?

Update 2/8/22: A related item is here.

...and Emma, Matt Lech and Brandon Sutton discuss Tulsi Gabbard’s remarks about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, which has turned into a complete circus because of that utterly bonkers judge (and yeah, I think Rittenhouse will beat the biggest charges unfortunately, though he’ll get a slap on the wrist over the lesser ones)...for whatever my take on this is worth, I think Gabbard’s grift towards liberals/progressives has now been pretty thoroughly exposed, so now she’s trying a feint back to the right in search of some centrist, moderate take on this to burnish more imaginary bona fides to try and remain visible in the court of public opinion...not sure what was up with Matt Binder – was he baked or something?...

...and here’s something I thought I would never say – kudos to Gene Simmons for this recent quote (hope he doesn’t go back on it).