Week of March 22nd, 2020

Howdy. Sorry this is a day late.

The world's come to a stop. It's weird. Whatever. I have no comments you haven't heard already. I have been news obsessed at a detriment to my own sanity. I'm seeing folks talking about how much time they have now, but I couldn't feel more different. All my days are blending together, and I just can't stop reading COVID-19 studies like a maniac. I've been trying to get outside everyday, but with mixed success. I've put on a couple of quarantine pounds. My family has gotten stir-crazy. We're cleaning constantly, my mom has reorganized nearly every room, my dad is practicing guitar all day. My father, Ben, and I have all gotten buzz cuts, and we gave one of the dogs a haircut today since it's been so damn hot out. My brother takes on increasingly complicated hairstyles each day. Hopefully, you've found some satisfying way to keep yourself busy.

I'll try to keep this brief so that I don't suck myself into another wormhole of world news. I shared many things with you earlier this week since the threat that they posed was so immanent, but there's really nothing I can do but keep isolating and donate what money I can, so I'm trying to calm down. Plus, I think I adequately detailed my perspective last week.

I told you on Sunday about that awful medium article that kicked off the whole “hmm should we save human lives or my stock portfolio?”narrative we've seen all week. I don't have any new thoughts on that, except to say that fortunately, it hasn't had as big of an impact as I feared it might. The idiots are still saying the same shit, but, so far, they aren't really doing anything. I don't know how long that'll hold, but for now, we're okay. There has still been some really bad stuff. I'm particularly angry at Liberty University for opening up its campus and demanding students return. People will die because of that decision, and the State of Virginia ought to intervene. Very on-brand for Liberty, I guess. I want to remind you that my parents, knowing full well that I was secular, tried to convince me to attend that shithole. I think this situation has made many right-wing commentators whom I've held some respect for show their true colors. Yes, this is going to hurt the economy in an extreme way. We're going to have to recover together for years to come. Seeing 3.3 million file for unemployment in a week makes me want to cry. There will be people who, despite never getting sick, will still die due to this economic downturn.  And yes, public policy has to weigh costs and benefits that include human life. It's serious business. And I hope as much as I could possibly hope that the improved testing and production of necessary medical equipment which has been ramping up facilitate a more careful approach that allows the economy to reopen as quickly as possible. But these fucking vipers, man. All these pundits demanding the economy reopen right now to put dollars in their pockets while explicitly dismissing the tens of thousands of lives which will be lost. All these fuckers spreading scientifically-illiterate bullshit about "bell curves" and the assholes saying morally-bereft drivel about the productivity of the elderly can get the fuck out of human society right now. We need a new fucking Australia we can send these guys to where they can free-market all day until they all get sick and die. The sheer lack of empathy necessary to dismiss the lives of the immunocompromised and the elderly terrifies me. A great example is yet another medium article, this time from Bioengineer Stephen Quake. I can't link it since it's been deleted, but it got quite a bit of reach. Here's a good takedown of the piece by biologist Carl T. Bergstrom. Look, I could spend all day showing you examples of this shit, but just believe me that it's out there, because damn near have a stroke every time I see it, and I don't need that in my life right now.

Despite what these goons suggest, this is not actually a liberal (in the classical, right wing sense tips fedora) position. No, the liberal position is for the government to fulfill its role to protect the citizenry from externalities. The government's job is not to decide that some groups can be sacrificed to save the economy. It's not the government's job to save the economy at all. So these guys need to stop pretending they give a fuck about the founding principles of this country. If you're a libertarian, fine, call coronavirus a hoax like medical doctor and disaster libertarian Ron Paul. But to those who call themselves Conservatives, shut the fuck up. I'm looking at you, Dave Ramsey. In addition to this moral horror, I've seen a ton of right wing folks angry about jails releasing non-violent offenders (most of whom have not been convicted!) for their safety, preferring that inmates just fucking die like they're supposed to with justifications like “jail's not supposed to be fun.” I understand concerns about releasing criminals. Some of them are justified; some aren't. But Jesus Christ. The people who this disease is impacting are people. I think what I've seen in the last week will probably impact my politics forever. Again, sorry for the dearth of examples. (Also, it's not just the right. I'll never forget the Democrats holding up the relief bill so that they could add politically motivated BS to it, but I'm sure you've heard your fill about all that.)

Here's a hilarious video of an Airbnb dipshit ranting about being forced to shut down. To me, this man is the icon of the “but my stonks” reaction to COVID-19, and I hope his business dies in the way he apparently hopes that his tenants do.  And here's a video of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick telling Tucker Carlson that the elderly must be sacrificed to save the economy. I think this is a really good article about the phenomenon.

President Trump tweeted the single most passive-aggressive tweet I have ever read regarding Mitt Romney. Now his fans are trying to play it off as though it wasn't sarcastic. It's indecent, but that's our President. May as well enjoy it.

That's all I got. I'll give you updates on buzz-cut related relationship drama when I have some.

Thanks,

Jacob Morris

Deception in Design

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

Lying is wrong. Intentionally or negligently deceiving people without their consent is wrong even when one avoids lying per se. So deceptive design is morally wrong. The severity of this offense scales with the potential to harm the person being deceived. So fibbing about the used car you're about to sell is worse than designing a “close door” elevator button that doesn't actually do anything, even if both are deceptive. This may seem overly broad, but we should be careful about how we define deception. It is possible to confuse the willful influence of perception with deception, but these are not the same thing. Consider the persuasive factor of the design of a jar of peanuts. Suppose that people are more inclined to purchase a tall jar of peanuts than a wide squat one due to the perception that the tall jar contains more peanuts, even though the jars hold the same quantity. Is this deception? It is not. This is a non-deceptive influence of perception. The tall jar does not suggest that it holds any more peanuts than it actually does. Its design simply does a better job at advertising and advocating for the product inside, a particular quantity of peanuts.

Alternatively, suppose a peanut jar was designed with a hollow cavity so that the jar appeared to hold more volume than it actually did. This would be deception. An objection to this reasoning may claim that this design does not suggest that there is no hollow cavity and is thus analogous to the tall jar. But this isn't true. This jar willfully invites customers to assume that its full volume is occupied by peanuts even if its labeling does not explicitly suggest that this is the case. The jar suggests that it holds more peanuts than it actually does. This is wrong.

We can apply this distinction pretty broadly with good results. Is it deception to describe a mediocre product as “great” in the labeling? No. This is an opinion and does not suggest anything factually false about the product explicitly or implicitly. This is an instance of benign influence of perception. Is it deception to cut an exciting trailer for a boring movie? No. This is another example of the perception of a product. Consumers, with the possible exception of young children, understand that advertising will portray a positive perception of a product to influence the consumer into considering that he, too, may experience that same perception. Is it deception to cut a movie trailer in a way to suggest that it has an entirely different plot and premise, possibly recording new scenes for the trailer with no intention of including them in the movie, to convince audiences that this is a movie they would like to see? Yes. This willfully suggests false facts about the product to its consumers.

Maybe some will still consider this perspective excessively strict. That's okay. Y'all can keep your useless elevator buttons for now.

Week of March 15th, 2020

Hello and happy quarantine! I've been on extended Spring break, and my classes restart in earnest next week, though I have gotten some (read: not enough) school work done this week. I do not intend to return to school. I've come to accept that at least for me, this situation won't stop feeling surreal until it's over. I'm just glad that I'm not sick or suddenly out of work. I wonder what your school is doing.

Allow me to do something that some have found difficult in the last week. Fuck the Chinese Communist Party. And fuck President Trump. This should be easy, but alas! The only folks I've seen distributing blame appropriately are the old #nevertrump folks I follow. I followed a ton of immunologists and virologists to get accurate information, but I've been mass-unfollowing them as they get in on the whole “blaming China is racist” routine. Everyone who says that knows that it's BS and says it anyway, and I have zero patience for it. Nobody is saying that this is the fault of the ethnically Chinese. I've actually seen more antisemitism than anti-Asian sentiment. Sarah Leah Whitson, former director of the “Human Rights” Watch and Quincy Institute “scholar,” literally lamented a dearth of Jewish blood. We're pissed that the Commies have this much power, and we want to rethink our relationship with evil regimes. These people are just regurgitating CCP propaganda. Part of me wants to link to all the evidence that China is at fault, but I'd start and never stop. Just never forget that these filthy fucking wet markets China has refused to shut down also caused SARS. President Nixon was wrong to let the party thrive. Read this statement from the CCP announcing that they are expelling all WSJ, NYT, and WaPo reporters from the country including Hong Kong while accusing the United States of suppressing freedom of the press. It's sick and unprecedented, and why the fuck are we trusting numbers from China again? Yeah, China says things are getting better. Do you believe them?

But yes, President Trump is also trash. He spent weeks ignoring his own health experts and pretending everything would be fine, and then he freaks out and just says a bunch of bullshit, which kinda is his M.O. The response from the federal government has been unacceptable. And again, I could start linking to everything, but I'd be here all day all over again! “We did a really good job in closing China early, then we celebrated by taking a break and doing virtually nothing for a while.” The coronavirus corpses could literally reanimate and eat everybody, and the President would still be talking about how he did such a good job closing the border. This is a President who's spent three years bullshitting, fostering excellent economic growth as he George Lewises through his White House duties—well-documented here in the New York Times—and now it's all falling apart for him, and I can't say I'm shocked. In sum, I'm upset. God bless Dr. Fauci, the only guy I'm really trusting right now. In this video, you can feel his pain when President Trump calls the State Department the “Deep State Department.”

Brooklyn, and not just Brooklyn, is rightfully concerned about COVID-19 infections in jails and prisons, and so has declared the fucking purge where they're just no longer arresting people. Some of the crimes they're no longer worried about shouldn't be crimes in the first place. Others, like burglary, are more distressing. Now's the perfect time to decriminalize looting. Maybe this pandemic will be the impetus we need to get petty laws off the books, make our jails safer, and do some long-overdue criminal justice reform, but probably not. L.A. County is releasing inmates onto the street. The Mayor of Baltimore has publicly begged residents to stop shooting each other so that hospital bed can be used for COVID-19 patients. “For those of you who want to continue to shoot and kill people of this city, we’re not going to tolerate it”

But there's nothing I can do about except stay home and order takeout like a real American hero. It's just like Normandy. Honestly, while I'm disappointed to say the least with the powers that be, I'm really proud of the people, who overall are doing a great job. It's easy to focus on the dumb-asses Spring Breaking and Disney World-ing, but most people, so far as I can tell, are taking the threat very seriously and trying to support people who need help right now. And there's been beautiful things to see. Everybody has seen people singing out of the windows in Italy. For my part, I'll add this wonderful video of New Yorkers watching a lesbian wedding happening in the street as the officiant yells from the fifth floor.

I just hope that people understand that we might be in for the long hall and not give up on this way of life in a week if it needs to continue. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote an excellent piece on the ethical mandate to follow social distancing guides. It's important that we “overreact” and remember the paradox of preparation. People are freaking out over San Francisco's perhaps nonnideally-implemented shelter-in-place order, but I'm not sure it's such a bad move. I did have the pleasure of hearing Mark Steyn, guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh, blame San Francisco's “overreaction” on the gays as my mom blasts EIB on the radio most days, though. I have faith that the testing situation will improve as private industry has been unleashed on the issue, as it should have been from the start. South Korea, which was far less restrictive on the private sector's response is now seeing open infection rates fall. There's been some meme-ing “everyone's a libertarian during a pandemic” to which my answer is “well, yeah, kinda.”

But that “kinda” is important. It's why I'm not actually a libertarian despite being “fiscally conservative, socially liberal,” whatever that means. We do need governments to combat these kinds of things. We need effective governments actually concerned with protecting the rights of the people and controlling externalities which threaten our liberty. Our coronavirus response is not a matter of individual choice. The choices of some impact the safety of others. This is a collective issue. This is, in theory, why government exists. And so this is the rare instance where I don't want the government to fuck off. I want it to do the one thing it's supposed to be good for. And the government should be enabling the private sector to solve these problems. But the solutions also involve externalities. Right now, people are being forbidden from participating in the market by the government. Their livelihoods have been taken from them by force. And even those of us who can still work are affected by what the government is rightfully doing by force. That's why I was thrilled to see Senator Romney propose a cash relief bill to which I will henceforth refer as “Romneybucks” that would give cash directly to the people.

This is so much better and so much more affordable than the routine bailouts of big industry, particularly after 2008. It's recognition from the right that the people are the real stakeholders in a free economy, not those who have enough centralized wealth to lobby Congress. There's been empty talk about “making people whole” in this crisis. Well, this is how it's done. And it looks like it's definitely going to happen, albeit not exactly how I'd hoped. $1000 per person. $500 for children. However, it appears that there will be means testing and that the poor will receive a phase-in plan (read: less money). It's bullshit. It's much more efficient not to means test. It minimizes the money that gets lost in bureaucracy and gives it directly to the people. That was the whole idea behind Andrew Yang's plan. It's more ethical not to means test since the government's restrictions are impacting everyone. Using numbers from 2018 to decide whether people are in need now is unreliable. Many were alright then and in crisis now. Money in the economy is better than money in the government. Nevertheless, I'm glad that this is happening.

But what a weird week for Andrew Yang. He dropped out in February to see cash distributions in March from Republicans. Despite the fact that I still don't actually agree with him on most issues, I'm glad that Yang ran his campaign because I'm not sure that this would be happening without him. Regardless of his involvement in the next administration, I think that this will cement Yang's relevance for some time.

You know it's a wild week when it takes me this long to even mention state primaries and debates. But there were both this week. This week started with a two-man debate that nobody watched, neither at the isolated debate stage or at home. I, of course, watched.

I won't spend too long on the debate because it obviously doesn't matter, but damn did Joe Biden stink up the joint. He was really feisty and kept hitting Senator Sanders way harder than necessary with very weak points. He was so aggressive, it made me wish he could just be “Sleepy Joe” again. He also kept outright lying for no reason to which Senator Sanders responded with the line “Go to the YouTube,” which his campaign has embraced as a hashtag.

During the debate, this ad aired staring esteemed intellectual atheist Ron Reagan promoting freedom from religion. It's very funny.

Then, on Tuesday, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois voted while Ohio delayed its primary. Joe Biden swept. Senator Sanders is done. It appears Senator Sanders struggled to appeal to the urban, rural, and suburban parts of Florida.

 

 

I had predicted that Senator Sanders was going to run to the Convention, but the pandemic might change that plan. He hasn't officially dropped out, but his campaign has all but deactivated, and not just their in-person meetings. They've suspended all their Facebook ads, and at the moment, he's “assessing” his chances. It's a tragic end for his campaign, and even during this crisis the wailing has been palpable. Dipshit CNN correspondent Manu Raju prodded Senator Sanders with the big question trying to get a rise out of him. And a rise he got. Senator Sanders responded, “I'm dealing with a fucking global crisis... I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we don't have an economic meltdown and that people don't die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today.” Raju posted this on Twitter and thousands of liberals are cheering at this display of Senator Sanders grave incivility and poor temperament. Sorry, I don't like Senator Sanders's politics one bit, but I don't trust anyone who reads that quote and likes Senator Sanders less and not more.

The wailing was only amplified when at long last, Congresswoman Gabbard, my favorite political supervillain, suspended her campaign and endorsed Joe Robinette Biden. Of course, this is a reasonable move on it's face. Congresswoman Gabbard was on Senator Sanders's 2016 campaign, but she set out to shake things up this time, but promised to endorse the nominee, something she did not do in 2016. When, like Yang, she saw that Senator Sanders had no chance, she endorsed the presumptive nominee. But Congresswoman Gabbard just doesn't work like that. She isn't a rational person. She's a principled force of unbridled malevolence. And she hates Joe Biden. So this move is mind-melting. I don't want to say too much about it because I am confident that more information will arise soon. But, Senator Sanders, when Congresswoman Gabbard drops out and endorses Biden, your time has come.

Now for some miscellaneous garbage.

Mike Huckabee posted a shocking tweet recommending people stick corn on the cob up their assholes in lieu of toilet paper during the “shortage.” I am not joking.

In unrelated “fuck China” news, TikTok guidelines asked mods to suppress ugly, poor, or fat users.

MatPat of Game Theory (remember that?) posted a comically insensitive video targeted to children about which video game characters would die from COVID-19. He's gotten a ton of shit for it and has gone radio silent. Would Waluigi survive 9/11? Would Sonic survive Pearl Harbor?

I am fascinated by Kenneth Copeland, a televangelist worth 760 million dollars. He's the most interesting megachurch leader by far. Of course he's horrible. That's a given. It's his absolute supervillain demeanor that makes it. He radiates bad vibes. When I watch him spread disinformation about COVID-19 in this video, I can't get mad. I just get sucked in. I want to understand what it feels like to see him as anything other than evil. Reading the comments on this thing is frightening. I could watch this man all day long, and from time to time I have.

And that's all I got. I don't blame you if you didn't make it down here, but I hope you did, and I hope I hear from you. Social distancing is a bitch. Here's hoping that somehow things don't get even crazier next week.

 

Thanks,

Jacob Morris

Monster

I keep thinking my job is done, but she always comes back to me eventually. Oh, I know when she is coming for me. Yes, I have studied every footstep she makes in her little footed pajamas when she tip-toes into her safe green bedroom, past the dresser with the mirror, over the fluorescent-patterned space-themed rug, and sneaks ever so quietly, ever so carefully, underneath her twin sized bed. To me. I will know she's coming even before the door is all the way open. I get started when it opens slow, when her heels are lifted off the ground, when she twists the door handle so gentle as though if she were to treat it wrongly, even just a little, it might scream and clang and cause a real troublesome fuss. Yes, it's then when I start to pull my scaly lips over my scores of yellow, pointy teeth. It's then that I open wide all my eyes and pull out the crumbs with my stripey talons. And when she gets under the bed frame, I've got a big, monstrous grin on my face like I haven't got a care in the world.

I love those nights. Sometimes she smiles back, and we have great fun together and play cards or tell stories. Sometimes she just sits with me for a while before she goes to bed. Sometimes she wants a hug. It's my joy to be exactly what she needs me to be, but those aren't my favorite nights. On my favorite nights, the door flies open and before she has two steps into the room, she leaps like an Olympian onto the bed with a booming thud, and I cover my head with a few of my arms to brace for impact. And when she sleeps so easily, I feel like I can sleep, too. That maybe soon, I won't be needed anymore, and I can just leave my spiky teeth hidden and the crumbs in my eyes and roll over and just sleep forever. I guess I'm a lucky beast. One way or another, I smile every night.

But tonight, I have a new thought, as my six-fingered paw smooths out my unkempt mane for her. I think maybe I'll never get to rest. Because tonight is different. Tonight, the noisemakers are silent. No one is yelling or screaming or cursing, and no one is crying. But her gait is unmistakable. Has it been months since last time? Has it been years yet? Maybe when she is long free of them, still, on some nights she will hear them, and still on those nights she will need a monster to sit by. Maybe this isn't the kind of thing that ends. And I'll be there, even when she is old, watching the door, waiting to pounce on any foul invader and protect her little green room. But already, I am so tired. I don't want to go away. I want her to need me. I want her not to need me. I want to go away.

And sure enough, she crawls under the bed. She's older. I am smiling.

Week of March 9th, 2020

It was good to see you this week. And what a week it has been. I will not do what I have started to fall into and give a news recap for the week since there is simply too much news, and everyone’s aware of it, so I’m sure you already know this. I’m going to try to keep this brief. We shall see if I succeed.

For me, I feel like I’ve been in a dreamlike state for the past few days. The current situation feels surreal and strange, and I don’t know how I’m going to get back in the groove of schoolwork next week as I stay here. At this point, I have no plans of returning to school until possibly the summer. It’s weird being home for an extended time again. It feels like a time warp. It’s like High School all over again. Hopefully jumping into a routine will put me back at ease.

Here’s CNN praising President Woodrow Fucking Wilson, literally claiming that God chose him to be President. Those who reject that media has a political bias are being willfully ignorant.

Alex Jones got a DWI.

Before President Trump’s shitstorm of an address in which he got virtually all information about his own policy wrong, he was being broadcast on CSPAN without his knowledge. Here’s a recording of that. He was also caught on video after the presentation, which was fairly funny.

OJ Simpson tweeted a joke about running away from police.

Remember that the only reason people ever thought Senator Sanders was viable was his ability to win Michigan in the primary in 2016. Well, we confirmed this week that Biden won every single county in Michigan, Missouri, and Mississippi. There are still so many “Bernie could still win, guys” people on Twitter, and I honestly feel bad for them. “This is like Obama vs Clinton in ’08.” Really it’s just sad to see.

Here’s something I cannot believe isn’t satire. A website LITERALLY CALLED Above the Law, posted a podcast with the title “Yup, Constitutional Diehards Are A Cult” because fuck democratic lawmaking, I guess. The podcast is described as follows:

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges, women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wears when delivering dissents from the bench.

I cannot believe that I am not making this up.

Forgive me for sharing a video posted by Andrew Kaczynski, but this must be seen. Any other week this would have been a story, but not this one. The Masked Singer, if you don’t know, is a show in which celebrities compete in a singing competition without revealing their identity to the judges or the audience. Well at the end of this week’s episode, the singer was revealed to be Sarah Palin who then immediately started singing “Baby Got Back.” Again, I am not fucking joking.

HOLY SHIT THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS. EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED THIS WHOLE WEEK AND THEN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS ARE FAKE. To be clear, this story isn’t about all the scrolls. The ones in Israel are OK, which is most of them. But you may remember that in the early ‘00s, the Museum of the Bible in D.C. bought a bunch. All of them are fake. All sixteen of them. And approximately 70 around the world. This is huge news that also missed the cycle this week. The story from National Geographic is fascinating.

Finally, French mayor defends holding massive Smurf rally despite Coronavirus, saying “We must not stop living.”

And here is a video sent to you without context.

Thanks,
Jacob Morris

Week of March 1st, 2020

Hello and happy March, I guess. I’m actually writing this from Asheville. I’m back in town this week for Spring Break. I don’t remember when you said your spring break was, but I hope you have enjoyed, will enjoy, or are enjoying it whatever the case may be. I’m trying to lie somewhat low this week, but I have some projects to work on and a movie to edit, so they’re keeping me on my toes. But I have time today, so this one is probably going to be ridiculous in length.

 

This week started with us making a stupid deal with the Taliban that appeals to all the “stop endless wars” people on both sides who do not know anything. Yes, Twitter, please call me a neocon again. I’m so sorry that I think the United States should maintain stability across the world. Nah we should just keep to ourselves and wait for the sequel to 9/11. This is truly a “both sides” problem, and it’s just going to get worse as populism gets a stronger grip on our culture. The week got stupider from here.

 

As we both know, Joe Biden had a remarkable Tuesday, and I revel in the cries of Senator Sanders's base and the accuracy of my prediction. That being said, he exceeded even my expectations, and I'm very, very happy for it. We are watching the Democratic Party crumble even as it appears to unite, and it is so deserved. While a Trump versus Sanders debate would certainly be more entertaining, I am thrilled that we are keeping a socialist populist who is a literal anti-charity activist away from the White House. A right-wing populist has been bad enough. President Trump will mop the floor with Biden on the debate stage. I have not wavered in my opinion since around June of last year. Biden will secure the nomination and lose to President Trump.

Many long campaigns (and one ill-conceived short one) met their bitter end this week. Steyer, Buttigieg, Senator Klobuchar, Bloomberg, Senator Warren, and weirdly not Congresswoman Gabbard, whom I will get to soon, saw their hopes of being Commander in Chief shatter. These, of course, came in two waves: pre- and post-Super Tuesday. For the pre-Tuesday gang, Buttigieg and Senator Klobuchar dropped suddenly and endorsed Biden leading to what Shoe0nHead calls the assembly of “Neoliberal Voltron.” Both Buttigieg's and Klobuchar's withdrawals were remarkably abrupt with some evidence that neither candidate intended to leave the race just hours before he or she endorsed Biden. Biden then almost immediately said that he wants Buttigieg and possibly Senator Klobuchar in his administration, something which Buttigieg—the savviest of the Democrats—needs if he wants any hope of remaining relevant. This has led many to throw the word “conspiracy” around. President Trump used language he's a bit more familiar with, calling the successive suspensions a “quid pro quo.” So, was there a backroom deal here? Well you're not stupid. Obviously there was a backroom deal, and there's nothing unusual, illegal, or unethical about such an agreement. It's utterly moot. In addition to the two leading Democratic “moderates,” Biden also secured the coveted James Comey endorsement, which a Biden campaign PR staffer literally asked to be returned. He was also endorsed by Robert “Beto” “Hell yes we're going to take your AR-15” O'Rourke, and promised that O'Rourke would lead on guns in a Biden administration to which Congressman Buck did the whole “come and take it” routine leading many to lose their fucking minds because they don't understand the legal definition of a threat. Yuck. Fuck 2020 for making me vote for this dude.

Bloomberg joined Neoliberal Voltron after Super Tuesday, taking one final Boomer jab at the President on Twitter, though not before this legend destroyed him on gun control at a Fox News Town Hall. I won't spend too long roasting Bloomberg because everybody has already done it. The guy threw six hundred twenty million of his personal dollars into the trash can in order to win American Samoa. He has now retroactively made Jeb!'s 2016 campaign look reasonable, which is an act of heroism in itself. But rather than continue to bash his face into the pavement, I'll leave you with MSNBC saying that the Bloomberg campaign could have given every American a million dollars.

Nevertheless, she desisted. It's strange yet satisfying to watch the former front-runner become an also-ran. Senator Warren made a grave miscalculation. She'd rightly predicted that Biden would be the more durable candidate, so she ran in Senator Sanders's lane, making his positions a bit more digestible. But she didn't stick the course. She saw Biden falling off and Senator Sanders gaining speed, and she pivoted so quick it was more of a swerve while trying to position herself as a possible Sanders Running mate. This is the shit that happens to people like Senators Harris and Warren who don't actually believe in anything. And on Super Tuesday she crashed. Senator Sanders' base feel as though she stole votes from their king, and they hate her now. Even the President has gotten in on it. Really, 2020 was not Senator Warren's time, 2016 was. It goes to show, you can wait for a Clinton, but the world won't wait for you. Good riddance. President Trump hit the nail on the head in a hilarious SELF-DEPRECATING statement that Twitter libs are pretending not to understand. Like, just admit the President is funny. You'll be okay.

Now that we've finally narrowed to a two-man race in the Democratic Party, many have started asking, “Wait, why is Tulsi Gabbard still here?” That's a wonderful question, and my only answer is that she's a disruptor who wants to burn everything down. I think the only person who fully understands Congresswoman Gabbard is Congresswoman Gabbard, but it's obvious she's out for blood, constantly going on Fox News to tell DNC chair Tom Perez to resign. She hates the Democratic establishment with a fervent passion and never ever holds back. During this campaign she has sued both Hillary Clinton and Google out of what I can only interpret as pure spite. Neither lawsuit is really based in any law, but I guess Congresswoman Gabbard thought pure rage might persuade the court. Congresswoman Gabbard is pretty good at pure rage. This week, Judge Wilson dismissed her lawsuit against Google with palpable contempt. He absolutely dragged her for her nonsensical lawsuit. The dismissal is very much worth reading. For all these reasons, Super Tuesday made me very excited. After Bloomberg, Congresswoman Gabbard won second place in American Samoa, netting two pledged delegates. As a delegate-holder, per DNC rules, which had been loosened to allow Bloomberg to debate, she qualified for the debate next Sunday. I was thrilled. She's a genuine loon who makes everything so much more interesting. But the DNC she hates so much just fucked her over. They changed the rules just to exclude her, and she is rightfully pissed. The Democratic Party needs to be burned to the ground, and I hope Congresswoman Gabbard pulls it off.

Joe Biden got attacked by vegans at an event. That dementia patient is in desperate need of Secret Service right about now. His badass wife literally had to put hands on one of them when they were storming the stage. This is a rare kind of photo in American politics.

In a flash, or perhaps habit, of insanity, Senator Schumer literally threatened Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and was rightly rebuked by Chief Justice Roberts. I can't believe a Senator would even try this shit.

Here's Glenn Beck being racist!

Here Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says religious liberty is invoked only for bigotry!

You remember former Congresswoman Katie Hill. She was a young, attractive, bisexual feminist who turned a long-red Californian seat blue. As she campaigned, the breathless praise was really sickening. There was a feature length HBO documentary about her campaign that positioned her as some kind of feminist hero (you know the kind that says you're sexist if you don't vote for a woman). Of course, then there was the scandal. Her nudes leaked (all of which I have avoided looking at) and showed that she had an iron cross tattoo above her vulva and was fucking a female junior member of her campaign staff. And then she was secretly dating the journalist who defended her. So she got into Congress, and got right back out. There were many other weird details and I could write about this story all day if I let myself, but it feels like the plot of a bad erotica novel and not, you know, real life. At the time, I was extremely concerned for Hill's well-being, since she wrote this graphic NYT piece about almost killing herself. She since founded HER Time, a PAC that only promotes female candidates, as well as an organization which supports victims of revenge porn.

I found the messaging around the situation very strange. It seemed all the conversation was about revenge porn and how Hill was a victim held to a higher standard when the conversation should have been about how you're not supposed to fuck your employees whether it's creepy old-man sex or hot lesbian sex. People who sell their labor to you cannot freely choose to have sex with you just for funzies. Welp, New York Magazine did a piece on her this week that got me thinking about this all over again. It tried so damn hard to make her the hero and it failed so spectacularly. That being said, there were a lot of people who surely read the tweet and not a word of the article going “haha yaaass my bisexual kweeen” who can fuck right off. In the interview portion of the piece, Hill explicitly declares her intent to lie about multiple things. There was a remarkably non-credible backstory for the Iron Cross tattoo taken at face value. She uses her mental health as a tool by which to strong-arm the journalist.

But when the narrative shifted from the story she wanted to tell, so did her tone. After letting her know in person that a detail she’d omitted came up in my reporting, she sent me a series of increasingly agitated texts. On the phone, she choked up and yelled, saying that unless I promise her it won’t be included, anxiety would hang over her. “So you should know that,” she said. A week later, even though I told her I couldn’t promise not to include it, she texted to apologize for getting so emotional.

But worst of all was this damning quote:

During her campaign, Hill often tweeted about Me Too issues of harassment and abuse. As the candidate, she was unarguably at the top rung of her campaign team. Yet she said she didn’t feel like she was in charge, not when she was barely 30 and most staffers were in their 20s. “We joked about this a lot. Morgan was way more my boss than I was hers,” said Hill, “because she got me to places on time. So yes, I recognize that I had power, but also it just wasn’t like that at the time … I was a fucking person that was a few years older than her, and we got wrapped up in this movement of trying to do something, and I happened to be the face of it. But to me, she was just as responsible for it, you know?”

No! If the staffer was that essential to her campaign, why was she never promoted from Junior staffer? Hill said Morgan eventually broke up with Heslep but remained on the campaign team in California. “It’s not like I could fire Morgan,” Hill said. “That’s part of why it’s problematic, right? You can’t promote somebody without it being a problem. You can’t give them a raise. You can’t fire them.” 

Oh shit! So the staffer was underpaid because she was in a sexual relationship with her boss! Anyone who can read that shit and not see that it's fucked up has a major problem, and yet so, so many are defending her online. I can't wrap my head around it. Just imagine if an old Republican man was caught fucking a junior staffer with an Iron Cross on his dick. He'd be stoned in the public square. I recommend you read the NYMag article. It's heavily biased in her favor, but it's incredible and very revealing.

Apologies that this upload is presented as a Curb Your Enthusiasm meme, but the upload I’d saved got deleted, and honestly if the meme isn’t appropriate here, it’s not appropriate anywhere. A woman in Halifax County, Virginia lost her sister and her house in a fire. In a local news embarrassment which I pray is not soon forgotten, ABC News 13 made their top story the act of giving this woman a single umbrella “for a rainy day.” It’s baffling and horrifying to watch with indigence after indigence (“Twirl the umbrella. Come on, twirl the umbrella.”), and it is painfully real.

 

The fallout was also amusing as ABC News 13 tried to defend itself on Twitter. It turns out that the story and the tweet neglected to mention that this woman emailed ABC News 13 asking for a new umbrella since her mother lost hers in the fire.

 

Now that's what I call a fucking trap. This woman's mom is about as big of a fan of local newsman George Flickinger as could possibly exist, has been through some real shit, and specifically asked for him to hand deliver the fucking thing. He can't say no, and as a newsman, this must be a story. The fact that I can easily see every single part of the thought process in this flabbergasting video really enhances the cringe comedy for me.

 

Well, that's all. I'll see you Monday.

 

Thanks,

Jacob Morris

Newspapers Without a Government

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.

—Thomas Jefferson, to Edward Carrington

Thomas Jefferson's vision of a constitutional republic insulated from the whims and passions of the public but ultimately checked by an informed, armed, and thoughtful people is an essential part of the canon of American liberalism and an aspirational one even centuries later. His preference for a free and accessible press over a strong, controlling government was, and in some contexts still is, radical and is necessitous to that vision. As connectivity has made the distribution of information and ideas increasingly free and frictionless, we've faced new problems and have watched old ones grow. Today, we face issues of truth in media and informational division at unprecedented scopes which appear to reveal “newspapers without a government” as a chaotic, divided dystopia. But I argue that this is a narrow view.

First, communication over new channels has enabled a tremendous amount of positive change, some of which has been mischaracterized as negative. Free-flowing communication has, to some extent, kept powerful people in check in unprecedented ways. This is both by informational means, such as distributing data those in power would prefer stay hidden, and by cultural means, such as the #metoo movement. The say of the public has gotten more sway. It has also facilitated the galvanization of people separated by great distances to political and social causes representing voices which might otherwise go unheard or even unspoken. So many movements for good have found their roots online and have had their spread expedited by social media. That's not to say by any means that every movement made possible by the open internet has been positive, only that this way of organizing can promote the protection of people's rights.

Second, much of the hellish racket attributed to the politics of the internet reflects deep-seated issues not unique to the digital discourse. On many issues, the division on the surface long predates the furious tweeting observed. Instead, these disagreements are being expressed and discussed. And though in a hectic online life where non-experts argue incessantly with their kin discussion may seem unproductive or counterproductive, in reality, a messy, involved conversation offers a hope of future understanding that little to no conversation never could. Although it may be unpleasant to witness the rancor in our politics bubble to the surface, it's not the curse it may appear to be.

Third, many of the problems in our “freer papers” are circumstantial in nature. Our world has shifted faster than our culture has been able to adjust, and the platforms we use often present us with bad models of the nature of discourse they enable, sometimes innocently and sometimes irresponsibly. Social media in an appeal to accessibility has made public speech feel weightless and unserious. We're presented with social media that conflates friendship with agreement and quality with palalatability. The act of publishing something to the entire world is made to feel like chatting with friends, and so complicated and heated discourse feels like an attack. These issues are undoubtedly huge. But with time and effort, I believe that we can strengthen our culture and the platforms that we use and that we can understand a world in which everyone is a reader and a publisher.

But imagine the alternative. Computing has given people awesome power over media. What if computing had somehow done the opposite and made it easier for governments to control and limit information. What if we had instead moved closer to a government without newspapers? Would that be preferable to what we have today? No. Tyranny would flourish in the very peace and quiet which gained. And a billion screaming voices would be replaced by a single whisper at the other end of a stick. No. Despite the struggles of the day, Jefferson's views are as warranted today as when he marked them down. We should celebrate our freedom of the press and exercise it with thoughtfulness and sobriety. We should celebrate our right to privacy and protect it together. We should remember Jefferson's words, that the opinion of the people is the basis for our governments. And critically, we must not forget that our newspapers are more important than even liberal government to protect our rights.