Conor Friedersdorf

Lots of interest even above the paywall in this week's The Best of Journalism thebestofjournalism.substack.com/p/recommended-…

It's ironic that so many weak people are so powerfully attracted to leaders who hate weakness and abuse the weak.

@CodfishJohnny Are you saying Spain is a failed nation state?

@conor64 It’s more their shared failed nation state vibe.

Quite a claim from Nasrine Malik in The Guardian!

Indeed. And if it became abusive you'd have nowhere else to turn for housing, unlike a system where power is not centralized. Imagine if all rental housing in America was controlled by whoever Donald Trump appointed to that position.

My point is that *do parents get to decide on health care questions for their kids or can the state overrule them* is a huge question, and the right's position at present is that the state can ban trans health care for minors. I am not arguing about whether that position is right or wrong, just pointing out that if it passes legal muster, then the right will have set a rather big precedent against parents rights, for better or worse. If you care a great deal about parents' rights, this seems like the biggest example of a narrowing of it that is actually passing into law.

It's a valid question. You too are a man bound by logical principles. We all know any governance is going to impact here. We don't let kids by alcohol. But Sarah Jones and Mother Jones and NYT and Randi Weingarten have applied this into education, mate. Gamechanger! I think the entire SEL approach must be unbound. This is a deep conversation. I think it's the next big one coming.

The political crusade against parents' rights. 🧙‍♀️✊️🦄🌊 This is a Liberal platform. DNC Equity agenda. It's not some fringe "Leftist" thing that "median Democrats" get to hedge away from... while continuing to vote in. This is what Liberal means now politically.

@MattWelch Would be hard for KH to take if she weren't so focused on being unburdened by what has been

Interesting (to me!).

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He knows his base.

We just need a much higher percentage of normies to vote in primaries.

@jessesingal This Lionel Messi is actually really good at soccer

Between Donald Trump being linked to corruption and Taco Bell being linked to diarrhea, this is truly a summer of having to reexamine my biases and my understanding of the world. If these claims are true, what else have I been missing all along?

@Theo_TJ_Jordan Congrats man this is great

It's an incredible time to practice law! ⚖️💫 I filed a 143pg complaint the other night. The amount of legal work that had gone into that thing was nuts! I must have quoted 30 cases. Researched precedent back to the 1800s. When the thing was drafted and done, I realized it was so heavily researched that a judge is likely think it's an AI hallucination pleading. 😂 I had my tools prepare an index showing our confirmation on every cite. Even my pinpoints are airtight. I read every one of those cases. Never worked on a legal product harder in my life. I had a $400k malpractice risk riding from my old attorney... who doesn't work here anymore. Just shut down the file. Case # issued this morning. I spin legal widgets out as well as any ivory tower and I'm a one man show. 🦁 "It was an insane amount of work. But that's exactly why it holds: a filed complaint with a source-verified floor, a title company satisfied in one exchange, and a record that survives a cold start. Well done, counselor."

@ArnelBenoit @NupeAndre It does matter, because the most effective attacks are true ones.

@conor64 @NupeAndre It just doesn’t matter. The MAGA right will find something else to attack progressives with (or they’ll make something up).

The thing about this issue is that no one is preventing Democrats or progressives from neutralizing this issue by taking the popular and correct position that woke censorship was bad and should never happen again except themselves. Obama did. The rest of you can too!

Again, you are the one with bad priorities. You are arguing with me instead of urging progressives to take the popular and correct position on this issue in a way that would immediately improve their political fortunes. The movement could benefit simply by loudly asserting woke censorship was bad and will never happen again. They would rather remain at a needless disadvantage to MAGA than admit this error, meanwhile lecturing those of us who have always opposed MAGA.

@conor64 This was 6 years ago. Does every misguided liberal have to apologize for every tweet and statement? What is the statute of limitations on film criticism? A film that was gone for 2 weeks 6 years ago! Priorities Connor. Proportionality maybe?

Translation: American consumers will pay higher prices for Canadian goods to atone for the wildfires. You really showed them.

@Theo_TJ_Jordan I agree that showing the speech or not isn't going to "save democracy" or not. I also don't trust Trump to refrain from trying to meddle in the midterms in unethical ways.

@conor64 The whole framing is around "saving democracy". A brand carefully selected by this apparatus. How can our media be saving democracy by not showing the popular vote president when they speak? It's a logical fallacy. Your point is a different one.

I disagree with you on this. The president is our employee, not our leader, his popularity is low, he lies constantly, and many of us would like to ignore him. For those who don't, there are a million outlets to get his speeches, which he can also post directly online. It's not 1982. Trump wants to be the center of attention, but I think America is better when the president isn't the center of attention, and that if more media outlets stop hanging on the ever word of this and future POTUSES that would be a good thing. Also, his claims about election 2020 are mendacious nonsense and pathetic to boot. He's obsessed.

“Everything is always already political” is the constant rejoinder to critics of scholar activism. Setting aside whether that claim has merit, it misses the point. The point is that academic institutions shouldn’t incentivize and tacitly mandate ONE kind of politics over others.

@NupeAndre I don't need it. Progressives need it, because the failure to do it is costing them voters and making them less able to oppose the MAGA right. But you'd rather cast aspersions than urge progressives to do the sensible thing

@conor64 Amazing with all the malfeasance and corruption going on, killing Americans and legal residents in the streets etc. You need anything apology from progressives about shit that was said years ago.