Tweets

19 entries. 6,392 words.

February, 2017

• Behind the Tweet: Possibility of New Election. 2017-02-16 2:04 AM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  It’s time for another episode of Behind The Tweet. This time, another “rogue” account: “GOP worried if they press Rus-Pres ties & impeach, possibility of new election could occur; smartest play for dems - promise no redo.” - @RogueSNRadvisor If you still held any lingering doubts about whether these rogue accounts were fake, this should seal it for you. Either it’s fake, or senior White House advisers are dumb as rocks, which would be even more alarming. 270 words.

April, 2017

• Behind The Tweet: Crucify Him. 2017-04-14 8:38 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Tonight, on a Very Special Episode of Behind The Tweet, we look into one of *my* tweets. I’m sure everyone’s heard about the Sean Spicer Incident of 4/11/2017, the one where the press secretary mistakenly tried to compare Syrian dictator Assad to Hitler. I listened to snippets of it, and it’s very clear to me what he was *trying* to say, it’s just that he got tongue-tied, because he was aware that he had suddenly stumbled onto dangerous ground, and his attempts to extricate himself came out really badly. (Seriously, who *wouldn’t* be alarmed if they accidentally started talking about Hitler?) He apologized and corrected his remarks immediately after the press conference, from what I understand. 1,662 words.

May, 2017

• Behind The Tweet: Constant Diet. 2017-05-25 11:19 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Here’s a sequence of tweets that caused me to snort with laughter: NEW: Source close to Gianforte campaign says it's raised $100K+ online in last 24 hours — most of it coming after reporter "body slam." — Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) May 25, 2017 This is what a constant diet of propaganda and conspiracy theories do, turn conservatives into the kind of people who cheer assault https://t.co/ixyBVR5BgE — Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) May 25, 2017 331 words.

June, 2017

• Behind The Tweet: Twitter Suspends RC Cola. 2017-06-02 8:01 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  I saw a retweet complaining: “Twitter suspended the RC Cola twitter account over this tweet yet racists and other Rubes can post anything!” It got my attention because, like the retweeter, I too thought that sounded awfully hypocritical. But *unlike* the retweeter, I decided to dig a little deeper to find out more, because it didn’t quite sound right. It didn’t pass the “smell test” so to speak. It doesn’t make sense that Twitter would shut down the account of a major brand just for mentioning covfefe. 262 words.

September, 2017

• Rush Limbaugh Versus The Hurricane. 2017-09-08 9:22 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  You know the liberal bubble is 100% airtight when people actually believe Rush Limbaugh said that a hurricane is a liberal hoax. Exclusive video of Rush Limbaugh fleeing Florida after calling Hurricane Irma a liberal hoax. pic.twitter.com/PZcloMao4n — Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) September 8, 2017 Rush Limbaugh - who called Irma coverage a liberal hoax - has decided to flee the liberal hoax. — Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 8, 2017 220 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Letter of Intent. 2017-09-09 11:48 AM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Yet another example of why you should never trust a tweet. Saw this on Twitter: BREAKING—In mere weeks we went from "no collusion with Russia" to "here's a Letter of Intent Trump signed with some Russians while running." pic.twitter.com/GcFmGRnpd8 — Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) September 9, 2017 Seth Abramson, a lawyer according to his bio (but mainly a pundit) said, and I quote, “here’s a Letter of Intent Trump signed with some Russians while running.” 230 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Outrage. 2017-09-12 11:14 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Saw this tweet come through Tweetdeck: UPDATE: To be clear, I don’t follow that account. It was retweeted. “Everyone should be outraged,” it said. About what? I hovered over the link and found the title of the story: “New Hampshire police refuse to discuss apparent lynching of biracial boy.” That is the correct way you should respond to questionable tweets in your feed. Note that at no time did I click any part of the tweet. I did not retweet it, I did not click the link. 498 words.
• Behind The Tweets: Sean Spicer at The Emmys. 2017-09-18 2:08 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  CNN’s Kaitlan Collins’s tweet is representative of the Twitter backlash against former White House press secretary Sean Spicer appearing at the Emmys last night: Is it supposed to be comical that the former White House spokesman is now tacitly admitting that he lied to the American people? — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 18, 2017 No, but it’s comical that the American people-and journalists, of all people-don’t understand that the literal job of the White House spokesman is to lie for the president. 263 words.
• Straw Man Tweets. 2017-09-20 10:24 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  It occurred to me while browsing through my Twitter timelines that there are a lot of tweets that have built-in straw man logical fallacies. They usually follow one of these forms, which I’ve made up: Them: Some ridiculous claim that doesn’t make sense. Us: That’s a ridiculous claim that doesn’t make sense! “The moon is made of green cheese.” That’s dumb! Everybody knows the moon is made of blue cheese! 427 words.

October, 2017

• Behind The Tweet: Literal Meaning. 2017-10-25 1:36 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Here’s a fun one: https://twitter.com/yonatanzunger/status/922202212457070592 That is correct. The meaning is straightforward and literal, and every time someone uses the word “Nazi” outside of a historical context, they disrespect the memory of everyone who died fighting *and defeating* Nazism in World War II. A “Nazi” literally belonged to the Nazi Party, which no longer exists. You can look that up. It’s a historical fact. The correct terms to use today are “neo-Nazi” and “white supremacist,” or if you really want to be precise, the name of the actual radical organization which applies (they do have names, you know). I might even accept Nazist, because it at least acknowledges the issue. But I will not take anyone who believes the word “Nazi” applies in a modern political context seriously, because they are obviously ignorant of history. Or even worse, they are propagandists. 141 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Libraries in the UK. 2017-10-25 11:34 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  I think public libraries are great, but I found this funny today. Funny in a “people are utterly incapable of putting basic statistics into context these days” kind of way. There’s this guy in the UK who doesn’t like public libraries. https://twitter.com/andrejpwalker/status/922174270347804672 https://twitter.com/andrejpwalker/status/922628584619085824 Then this happened: https://twitter.com/andrejpwalker/status/922928993564856322 People are retweeting his “surrender” and celebrating victory. By my calculations, what on Twitter seems to be an overwhelming outpouring of support by 110,000 people for public libraries in the UK is: 0.2% of the adult population of the UK. 389 words.

November, 2017

• Where Do I Sign Up?. 2017-11-18 3:44 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  I had perhaps a slightly different reaction when I read this tweet: When I was a PhD student, my stipend was just $18,000 and my waived tuition was $55,000. Taxing someone who only receives $18,000 the same amount as someone who earns $73,000 in order to give billionaires a huge cut is the height of Republican insanity.https://t.co/zkTt5cQ7oG — Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) November 16, 2017 Where do I sign up to get an $18,000 stipend and a $55,000 waived tuition, and then a Masters degree at the end of it?? 166 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Dear Right-Wingers. 2017-11-23 12:06 AM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  These are the kinds of tweets flying around that drive my crazy: Dear right-wingers, If #NetNeutrality was reversed, George Soros (😧) could buy a controlling interest in AT&T, Verizon, & Time Warner Cable and COMPLETELY BLOCK access to Fox News, Breitbart, etc. for 99% of the country. Let that sink in. This isn’t a partisan issue. — William LeGate (ig: @legate) (@williamlegate) November 21, 2017 I agree it shouldn’t be a partisan issue, because net neutrality is a technical concept, but since nobody understands computers, least of all politicians, both sides have defined it as a partisan issue, and here we are with dumb tweets like this. 247 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Who Do We Believe?. 2017-11-25 3:41 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Hmmmm. Who do we believe? The publication that's been doing good journalism for almost 100 years or the man who invented the term "fake news" as a way to deflect his own horribleness? 🤔🤔🤔 — pranas t. naujokaitis (@pranas) November 25, 2017 I imagine that more-then-100-year-old journalists would have a fair amount of dementia by now. Zing! No, you idiot, it’s not the same people all 100 years! Oh, then you’ve made my point for me. 169 words.

December, 2017

• Behind the Tweet: Unwind It All. 2017-12-01 11:30 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Grumpy post incoming. Unwind it all. The entire Trump Presidency is a criminal enterprise that’s compromised by Russia. Everything Trump did gets thrown out. Gorsuch needs to be removed from the Supreme Court & America gets a new and fair election. On paper ballots. No fruit of a poison tree. — Gerry Duggan (@GerryDuggan) December 1, 2017 Lulz. Oh look, somebody else on Twitter who would fail a basic civics class, and people retweeting it as if it’s wisdom. 283 words.
• Behind The Tweet: Rage and Frustration. 2017-12-07 5:03 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Saw this tweet today: https://twitter.com/ezlusztig/status/938470343487844352 I like Al Franken, I’ve always liked Al Franken, I have a lot of respect for the work he did to transition from a comedian to a knowledgeable elected official (no small feat), and I think it’s a shame he has to resign. But this is a political no-brainer. Franken resigning is the Democratic side fighting. Fighting to at least bring back some shred of integrity to the current American government. They won’t have a moral leg, foot, or tiny pinky toe to stand on if they don’t clean house of anything and everything that even remotely hints of corruption right now. They simply cannot use integrity (“we are the Not-As-Bad-As-Trump Party”) as a voting issue in 2018, 2020, or ever, if they don’t deal with this quickly. 342 words.
• Behind the Tweet: Representation. 2017-12-11 12:02 AM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Another person on the Internet who needs to go back to Civics class (or is a Russian operative sowing dissent): Who here on twitter feels like they are not being represented in Congress and are still paying their taxes?#TaxationWithoutRepresentation I never ask for retweets but I am this one time. Retweet if you are not represented!#TheResistance — Rogue Wulf (@Wulfkat) December 10, 2017 Just because you don’t “feel like” you’re represented, doesn’t mean you’re not represented. “Representation” in this context has a very specific meaning that has nothing to do with your “feelings.” 203 words.
• Behind the Tweet: Cancer. 2017-12-12 7:42 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Saw this retweeted: in modern capitalism, a business that merely brings in a steady profit is considered a failure, success is defined by continual unchecked growth in biology, we have a word for continual unchecked growth: cancer — Squidlarkin 🦑 System (@squidlarkin) December 10, 2017 This is an amusing analogy, but it breaks down because it’s not “modern capitalism” that defines a business’s success, it’s the modern investors, who vote with their dollars on a daily or hourly or even minute-by-minute basis. 82 words.
• Behind the Tweet: Number of Senators. 2017-12-13 12:39 PM.
  • Politics
  • swampip.com
  
  Bracing for a lot of tweets like this today: https://twitter.com/leedrutman/status/940755313145339907 Soooooo. Yeah. There’s this thing, you know, called a Constitution? It describes this thing, you know, called a Senate? But wait for it, there’s this other thing, you know, called, like, a House of Representatives! They represent people in a way you might like. Perhaps you should read up on it. Suggesting that the Senate also be apportioned by population is literally advocating mob rule. Maybe you like the mob this morning, but you might not like it twenty or thirty years from now when your kids and grandkids start voting. Smart people already figured this out. 207 words.