THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2024
Everything he said that night was just blatantly wrong: The Fox News Channel's Charlie Hurt seems like a genial person.
Also, he comes from excellent stock. In addition to what we showed you on Tuesday, the leading authority on his background and his career offers this overview:
Charles Hurt
Charles Hurt (born 1971) is an American journalist and political commentator. He is currently the opinion editor of The Washington Times, a Fox News contributor, a Breitbart News contributor, and a Drudge Report editor. Hurt's views have been considered to be Republican leaning.
[...]
Hurt was born in Chatham, Virginia. Hurt is the son of investigative journalist and former Reader's Digest editor Henry C. Hurt and his wife, Margaret Nolting Williams. His older brother, Robert Hurt, is a former United States congressman. Charles Hurt had been a possible congressional candidate before his brother's term ended in 2016.
He comes from excellent stock, and he seems like a genial person. On the down side, he's an employee of the Fox News Channel, an enterprise we would consider to be a cancer on the democracy, imperfect as it has been.
Journalistically, the work Hurt does on the Fox News Channel often seems to come from "a distant land." Subscribers to the New York Times aren't told about any of this.
Below, we'll continue Tuesday's report, in which we started to show you what Hurt said, in prime time, about Candidate Harris's recent interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. If we expect reports on "news channels" to align with the most obvious facts, the various things Hurt said that evening came to several million Americans from a far distant land.
People watching Fox News that night didn't know that they were being clownishly misinformed. If you read the New York Times, you will never be told about this ongoing process.
Below, we'll show you the rest of what Hurt said about that high-profile interview. First, we want to show you what was being said on Fox & Friend First quite early this very morning.
In response to Hurricane Melvin, Fox & Friend First came on the air one hour early today. Below, you see the list of players whose comments we will report:
Dramatis personae, 10/10/24
Todd Piro: Co-host (2020–present)
Carley Shimkus: Co-host (2021–present)
Kevin Corke: Fox News Channel correspondent
They were the players whose strutting and fretting we watched at 4:30 this morning. Sadly, though, we can't post a transcript of what they said at this point.
For reasons which strike fear in our hearts, the invaluable Internet Archive site is currently down. It was down for a time last evening, then it came back up again.
This morning, the site is down once again. If that invaluable site disappears, there goes with it the ability to report on a distant land.
Amazing! The Internet Archive site posts videotape for every hour of every day on every "cable news" channel. In a marker of the way our nation's imitation discourse works, we don't think we've ever seen anyone link to the Internet Archive or cite it as a source.
Under current arrangements, what happens on the Fox News Channel stays on the Fox News Channel—remains within that channel's silo. We think of a high-profile film from 2004, Eternal Silence of the Spotless Mind:
Through a type of eternal silence, those of us who live in Blue America are allowed to maintain our spotless minds. Through what is said on the Fox News Channel, friends and neighbors in Red America are allowed to stay clueless too.
Currently, that's the way it works within the siloed arrangements of our failing national discourse.
That said, we'll now move on from what was already being said at 4:30 this morning. Instead, we'll return you to what the Fox News Channel's Charlie Hurt said on the prime time "cable news" program, Gutfeld!, all the way back on Thursday evening, September 26.
As we noted on Tuesday, MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle had interviewed Candidate Harris one day before. Now, the Fox News Channel was pretending to tell several million viewers what Harris and Ruhle had said.
By our count, Ruhle had presented Harris with sixteen (16) questions that day. The vast majority of the questions dealt with serious policy questions.
In Tuesday's report, we showed you the text of the first five questions Ruhle asked. For the record, there was no mystery about any of this. MSNBC had published a full transcript of the interview. MSNBC had also posted a full videotape of the session.
Ruhle's questions were policy-based pretty much all the way down. Unless you were watching Charlie Hurt on an imitation of a "cable news" show, in which case you encountered a certain genial fellow who was instantly telling you this:
GUTFELD (9/26/24): Charlie, it seems to me that she didn't answer a single question. But would the campaign regard that as a success?
HURT: Oh, I think without a doubt. I think that "First, do no harm" is definitely their motto here. But I mean— You know, Trump used to talk about making Biden take a drug test. He should start ordering a drug test for this woman.
[...]
HURT: And then she sits down, Stephanie Ruhle...sits down and does this interview with her, and the first question was about had you ever worked, actually, at McDonald's.
As we noted on Tuesday, Gutfeld himself had already said that Candidate Harris, the sitting vice president, seems like "a wine drunk." Hurt came along and said that President Biden should make Harris take a drug test
Hurt then he made the first of his several flagrant and clownish factual misstatements concerning what Harris and Ruhle had actually said.
No, Virginia—and North Carolina and Georgia and all the other swing states! Ruhle's first question had nothing to do with McDonald's, or with working at McDonald's, or with anything dimly related to that.
Anyone could see that from the published transcript. Anyone could see that from the videotape.
That said, our rapidly failing "national discourse" doesn't work in any such way at this dangerous point. Instead, spotless minds were now being fed a mystery meat by the genial man from Chatham, Virginia.
In fairness, Hurt may not have known that what he was saying was clownishly inaccurate. We wouldn't assume that he had actually taken the time to research what had been said.
Simply put, it doesn't work that way at Fox, our most heavily watched "cable news" channel (by far). To a very large degree, Fox is actually a propaganda channel—a channel devoted to advancing Approved Standard Corporate Storylines—and in accord with that corporate purpose, the genial fellow from Chatham, Virgina continued misstating this night.
With the Internet Archive down, we can't show you exactly what Charlie Hurt said as his presentation continued. That said, it's fairly easy to paraphrase what he said. As he and his comrades chuckled and laughed, the genial fellow said this:
The genial fellow told his disordered host that Harris broke in to answer that question before the word McDonald's had even been spoken! He said this made it clear that Harris had been told what the questions were going to be before she and Ruhle sat down!
According to Charlie, Harris broke in with her answer so quickly that she gave the game away! All the other defectives enjoyed what the genial fellow now said.
Now for the rest of the story:
In fact, Ruhle did ask Candidate Harris if she'd ever worked at McDonald's. That tiny part of Hurt's presentation was factually accurate. Everything else was invented.
There actually was such a question! But as anyone can see from the transcript or from the tape, this was the fourteenth question Ruhle asked that night, not the first.
Beyond that, Ruhle explained why she was asking the question. Also, it was obvious what she was asking about by the time Harris broke in with the start of her answer.
Here's the transcript of what was said. We're sorry that we can't show you the inexcusable pile of bullroar Charlie Hurt later said:
RUHLE (9/25/24): I want to just ask you about a little job and a big job. The first one, just a fact-check, because your opponent almost every day—
HARRIS: There is no little job. There is no such thing as a little job.
RUHLE: OK. Fair, fair.
(LAUGHTER)
RUHLE: Because your opponent, almost every day, seems to be talking about this. So I just want to ask you, yes or no:
At any point in your life, have you served two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions—
HARRIS (laughing): On a sesame seed bun?
RUHLE: —on a sesame seed bun, working at a McDonald’s? Yes or no? That’s it!
HARRIS: I have. But it was not a small job...
The exchange continued from there. Let's consider what Charlie Hurt said along with the mockery he directed at Harris and Ruhle:
For starters, this was the fourteenth question Ruhle asked (of sixteen). No, it wasn't the first.
Also, Ruhle explained why she was asking the question. She was asking the question because Candidate Trump had been parading about, saying that Harris never did work at McDonald's.
In a somewhat humorous moment, Ruhle was seeking a response. Also this:
It was perfectly obvious what Ruhle was asking about before Candidate Harris broke in. There was zero reason to think that Harris had somehow been told this question was coming in advance.
In fairness, all the defectives enjoyed Charlie Hurt's performance this night. It's even possible that he didn't know that what he was saying was utterly, clownishly bogus.
That said:
Journalistically, we citizens currently live in two different Americas. With respect to the "national discourse," some of us live in Red America and some of us live in Blue.
Journalistically, the Fox News Channel is a propaganda arm of certain political and corporate interests. Hurt's performance this night was factually clownish, but it extended the preferred Storylines of these powerful interests.
From start to finish, he baldly misstated what had occurred during this high-profile interview. His initial statement was clownishly false. As he continued, things only got worse.
If the Fox News Channel was a journalistic enterprise, something like this might have happened:
Someone might have taken Hurt by the ear and escorted him to the door. He would then have been deposited on the sidewalk and told he should never return.
His gargoyle-adjacent host would have been next. Someone would have gone on the air the following night and corrected what these former employees had said.
Nothing like that is going to happen to this apparently genial man. On paper, he comes from the finest Virginia stock, but everything he said that night was baldly and flagrantly wrong.
The game is played this way at Fox. At the Times, a massive silence about this ongoing state of affairs keeps our blue minds spotless.
We stumble ahead in a type of sunshine. Our beloved tribunes have agreed not to tell us what is going on.
Meanwhile, pray for Rosemary's baby and for the Internet Archive. Of course, given the way our "discourse" works, we have never seen anyone cite its invaluable work as a source!
Tomorrow: Two recent profiles in the New York Times
"Today, the Democrats – the party of many of the working class until recent decades – are the technocrat party. It’s the party of HR directors, consultants, unionized teachers, lawyers, government bureaucrats, welfare bums, weirdos, climate fanatics and others who add only friction as opposed to value. They never build anything. They never make anything. They barely do anything except whine, complain, make up rules, and try to boss other people around”
ReplyDeleteKurt Schlichter, TownHall.
If you don’t agree there is some truth to this observation, you suffer from Woke Mind Virus. Get yourself treated.
"Today the Republicans are the dimwit party, the party of politician trolls and wackadoos, con men, grifters, liars and toy soldiers hoping to become men who add stupidity, confusion and mendacity to anything they touch. They barely do anything except whine, complain, break rules and try to overthrow the government.” - me
DeleteHurt said McDonald’s was the first question, but and it was actually the 14th!. And the New York Times failed to report this!! I am speechless.
ReplyDeleteHurt baldly misrepresented what took place in Harris's interview. He pretends to be a journalist on a news channel, a channel that traffics in bias and demogoguery on the regular. Actual news organizations never mention it even while the propagandists roll up the largest viewership among cable-based outlets.
DeleteThings always seem more ridiculous when you leave off context.
Somerby today rehashes the same post he’s posted multiple times in this week alone, causing some to (ill advisedly) question if he descends from good “stock”.
ReplyDeleteSomerby does make it clear that he thinks Hurt comes from good “stock” and is “genial”; this is surely an attempt to trigger others, in light of Trump’s recent racist “bad genes” rhetoric, echoing Nazis and other white supremacists.
Somerby has largely dropped the phrase democratization of media, but he curiously maintains that Fox News operating as a propaganda wing of the Republican Party (seemingly Somerby has taken a Time Machine from the 90s to present time) is being ignored, when in reality there is an entire industry of independent media that does little else.
Back in the day, Somerby gained a modicum of credibility and influence due to his criticism of the way corporate media operated primarily as a stenographer for Republican/right wing talking points; however, in recent times he has done a 180 and joined those voices, albeit with a slick and sly manner in order to obfuscate his real intent.
"his (Somerby's) criticism of the way corporate media operated primarily as a stenographer for Republican/right wing talking points; however, in recent times he has done a 180 and joined those voices, albeit with a slick and sly manner in order to obfuscate his real intent."
DeleteToday Bob said Fox News was a "cancer on the democracy. That is one slick and sly 180 degree turn!
You nailed it, dude! He can't con you!
Somerby is wasting everyone's time today.
DeleteHorrifying if true. Details are even worse than this brief summary.
ReplyDelete"RFK tells the true story of how Kamala started imprisoning parents in California whose kids missed school
The first woman she locked up was a black mother whose daughter had sickle cell anemia"
|https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1844195742178586683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1844195742178586683%7Ctwgr%5E2a9ba1458896b5f38209b3e5c0030166aded6b88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F677114%2F
"Horrifying if true." Idiotic and for suckers like DavidinCal if not."
DeleteAw, come on, treadscat! If you can't trust someone called "DC Draino" posting on X to quote RFKjr then who can you trust?
DeleteDickhead in Cal will be getting more and more bitchy the closer we get to election day.
DeleteQuaker -- there's no doubt about what RFK Jr. said. The video is at the link I provided.
DeleteAnd, there's no doubt that Harris was motivated the loss of money due truants, because the video includes a video of Harris saying so.
"there's no doubt that Harris was motivated (by) the loss of money due truants, because the video includes a video of Harris saying so."
DeleteAs usual, untrue.
In this slickly edited video, Harris says:
a) that truancy costs CA schools $ (because funding rises and falls with attendance), and
b) in a separate clip, Harris says, "I want money."
But we have no idea when or where or why she said b). It's a quote in complete isolation. She could have been talking about anything.
It would be an odd phrasing for her to use if she was justifying her truancy policies, since any increase in funds as a result of her policies would go to schools, not the DA's office. The DA is a part of SF City/County govt., completely separate from the school system.
David, I doubt you really care about truancy or how it is handled by the justice system. I suspect you're just giddy over finding another piece of anti-Harris news.
DeleteBut on the off-chance you really are interested, here are a couple of stories that supply fuller context:
The Human Costs Of Kamala Harris’ War On Truancy - Huffington Post
The Story Behind Kamala Harris' Truancy Program
I'd bet that David, as a conservative, is all in favor of the justice system holding parents accountable for the actions of their juvenile children. I'd further wager that he supports similar laws in other states that threaten parents with consequences when their children join gangs or commit petty crimes.
But not now!
Ms. Peoples wasn't first, nor was she "locked up." Was RFKjr savvy enough to imply these things without actually saying them?
DeleteDavid conveniently ignores the role of the Orange County district attorney's office in selecting Ms. Peoples for arrest. As usual, David is neglecting any part of the story that doesn't fit his personal bias.
RFKjr says on the tape "She sent the police to Cheree Peoples' house."
DeleteThat's false.
On a second viewing, this video is even more full of it than I thought because near the end it juxtaposes two statements of Harris in rapid succession, as if they contradict each other:
DeleteThe first is Harris saying the truancy program "didn't lock anybody up". In the second she says, "we did prosecute some cases."
Well, you can prosecute a case without the defendant going to jail. Mind-blowing, huh?
I can't believe anyone was stupid enough to think this video proved anything about anything.
In America, blue states are known as “giver” states, while red states are “taker” states; blue states are highly productive and successful, whereas red states suffer from poverty and various social ills like high violent crime rates and high rates of other destructive circumstances like domestic violence, suicide, drug addiction, child abuse, etc., therefore successful blue states generously offer their surplus to crumbling red states. Unfortunately red states are so poorly governed so that the helping hand from blue states is either mismanaged or embezzled through corrupt actors, primarily Republican politicians and operators. Many red states are further held back due to electoral corruption, such as gerrymandering and voter suppression, that disenfranchise blue voters who would turn those states around, although at the expense of those grifting Republicans.
ReplyDeleteOne of the bluest states is California, the fifth largest economy in the world (2nd by per capita), CA is the engine that props up America and is it’s most productive driver.
Unfortunately, CA has limited electoral significance due to outdated and poorly designed systems like the electoral college, even though CA is the most populous state.
Anonymouse 1:29pm, those pathologies are not flukes or untended consequences. They are the result of being dependent. Of being “takers”
DeleteCorrelation is not causation, Cecelia. That is the first thing freshmen learn when they take a stats class.
DeletePersonally, I think all those Republicans in the red states are takers AND have pathologies because they have bad genes, come from bad stock. Somerby probably agrees with me. So does Trump. He refers to his MAGA supporters as suckers, when he thinks they aren't listening. Somerby refers to them as rubes.
Anonymouse 4:28pm, there’s truth in that. If someone is raised by ne’er-do-wells, they are more likely to be that sort of person. This would affect their choices of partners as to intelligence and physical attributes and would impact the offspring from those unions. That’s not to say that silk purses can never come from sow’s ears.
DeleteThere’s nothing novel in this and it can certainly be exacerbated by public policies.
@4:28 did not say any of the things you said @5:12. Clearly you did not understand what @4:28 meant.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:21pm, oh, I got it that she was trying to kick Bob in the shin, while nipping me. I understood what she sarcastically said, I straight-up, no sarcasm, agreed with it.
DeleteNo, the comment took issue with the cause you were asserting. You are too uneducated to get that.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:27pm, the correlation is not causation is not difficult to ascertain and people usually understand the concept before they have ever heard that expression. They would certainly ascertain the fatuousness and pretentiousness you’ve employed in order to merely zing Bob.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:59pm, anonymices are a deluxe education In fatuousness, pretentiousness, and the reasoning abilities of a piqued fire ant.
Deletename calling -- any moron can do it
DeleteHeather Cox Richardson recently advised not feeding the trolls, since it only enables their worst traits.
ReplyDeleteLet’s try to hold to that principle.
Does Digby know she has competition for High Priestess?
DeleteMarist poll of Ohio says Kamala is down 11 points among Blacks compared to Biden in 2020. Trump is up 10 points among Blacks versus 2020. Dem elites thought switching in Kamala would automatically excite Black voters but most signs point to her underperforming Biden.
DeleteHeather Cox Richardson? The Civil War historian?
DeleteWhich one would dethrone Digby, if Corby wasn’t watching? Heather Cox Richardson or Marcy Wheeler?.
DeleteWhy are we allowed only one? All three are great!
DeleteAnonymouse 4:16pm, we both know that neither Corby nor Marcy would stand for that.
Delete@5:01 illustrates why Cecelia and others here demand that commenters use nyms. Corby was here years ago but not any time recently yet Cecelia is still using that name to attack commenters. It can make no sense to anyone commenting now. Why? Because right wingers think that intimidating people is the way to convince voters to support Trump and other fascist assholes. Left wing bloggers like Marcy and Digby and Heather (with her substack essays) do a lot of good, and are way more sensible, current and effective than Somerby. She is probably right about not feeding trolls, but ignoring people like Cecelia doesn't make her go away. And she is vicious. I think it is important to call out what the day-to-day right wing is like in places like this blog, where Cecelia is still obsessing over someone who went away a long time ago, and would surely be as ugly and mean-spirited toward anyone here who revealed anything personal about themselves, including their nym.
DeleteHmm. I had never given much credence to the chat that "Cecelia" is a man. However, this idea that three intelligent women can't coexist in the arena of political commentary without scratching and hair-pulling for supremacy makes me wonder if the rumors aren't true.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:19pm, you’re so absurd. What has happened to liberal women that they must go into victim mode whenever they hear an utterance they don’t appreciate. It doesn’t hurt Wheeler, Cox, or Digby, if I speculate on which of these women is your coven’s queen. It doesn’t hurt the character who went by the name of Corby if I suspect she’s still a part of whatever Soros troll farm that has put you here. It doesn’t hurt you to get a nym, other than making you more accountable for consistency.
DeleteYou are not threatened or endangered in the slightest and no one wants you to reveal anything personal, in the first place.
QiB, Biden doesn’t like sharing his crown either.
DeleteDon’t be silly. Biden doesn’t care. He mostly wants to get things done.
DeleteI don’t like your coven remarks. It denigrates someone else’s religion and you intend it as namecalling. There is nothing original about calling women witches or bitches. It’s just ugly misogyny. I don’t recall Corby being female. Leave Corby alone and maybe others will trust you with their nyms.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:25pm, it is a coven. If you don’t like reading that and you feel triggered, threatened, uncomfortable, etc, here’s a remedy: my nym is in green because it is verified. Whenever you see my nym (in green) you know that it is me and you should feel absolutely free to skip over the comment below it.
DeleteYou can do this because I have accommodated you in that.
You’re welcome.
This is who Somerby welcomes here.
DeleteAnonymices issue personal insults at Bob with every blog he writes, to the point of calling him a traitor to his country. But they’re surprised he lets me stay…
DeletePlease explain why it was not traitorous when Trump gave those covid testing machines to Putin instead of to the hospitals requesting them within the USA.
Delete"Anonymices issue personal insults at Bob with every blog he writes, to the point of calling him a traitor to his country."
DeleteAlthough this is a quote from Cecelia, for a change, this one isn't a bald-faced lie.
Anonymouses really have called Bob Somerby a Right-winger.
DiC - CPI 2.4% YoY. Boring, right? Remember six to eight months ago when your hair was on fire about inflation?
ReplyDeleteOverall, this report showed that inflation was not cooling as much as expected. A closely watched “core” price index came in at 3.3 percent, which was more than the 3.2 percent that economists had anticipated.
DeleteWe're going in the right direction, aren't we Dickhead?
DeleteDG, is *your* hair not on fire *right now* about inflation? It's about to be one of the reasons Democrats lose the presidential election to Donald Trump.
DeleteNo offense but the cluelessness of Democratic Party advocates at your level is simply unbelievable.
Somerby is, as usual, absolutely right. Many Democratic Party advocates live in a silo, believing that everything they see and hear within it is the absolute truth. They reason and view the world through that narrow lens, rarely stepping outside it. What's worse, they assume others share this same fractured set of pseudo-realities and pseudo-facts. It’s astounding.
DeleteDG, don’t be surprised when Harris loses. Remember, you heard it here first. It won’t be a shocking event, though everyone in your silo will see it that way. The surprise will come only because of the limitations of living, thinking, and reasoning within such a confined space.
There's a vast group of people who don't think or reason the same way as those inside the small media bubble you inhabit. The bubble you inhabit is not reality.
Look how desperate the right is becoming. Harris is going to win bigly, as they say in Trump's house.
DeleteJust watch the rally Trump gave in Detroit today. He is talking gibberish and the dead silence of his crowd shows that the attendees knew it and were confused (and perhaps upset) because he wasn't making any sense at all. Even a MAGA shouldn't vote for someone like that, so I expect Trump to lose even his formerly loyal base, after today's performance.
Maligning Democrats will change nothing about Trump's dementia and the fact that voters are abandoning him, and that will only get worse as the election nears.
Thank God Harris is going to win bigly in 3 and half weeks. Then we can finally move on from Trump. She has my vote. Thanks Not a Rodent. I'll remember I heard it from you first. ☮️
DeleteIt's a fools game to underestimate the outright bigotry of American citizens Remember, this is a country built on slave labor, and that its one of the only industrialized nations without Universal Healthcare, due to so many citizens not wanting a penny of their taxes going to assist a black person.
DeleteIt's no wonder they make immigration so hard to navigate.
As it gets closer to election day, the Republicans are becoming more desperate to find some way to pull ahead. Complaining about enforcing truancy laws, as if Kamala Harris personally went to the doors of parents of kids missing school, is ridiculous. So is wondering whether she ever worked at McDonald's, when Trump is lying about having visited Gaza. This stuff is too stupid to discuss.
ReplyDeleteIt does bother me that Somerby is talking about coming from good stock when Trump is earning headlines for using white supremacist eugenicist language to talk about crime. Does Somerby think this is a stupid issue or is he supporting Trump's ideas about good genes? He doesn't say directly, so I guess he is hoping to evade responsibility for his own ideas again. If someone tells me they come from good stock, I know they are a bigot, whether they say genes or use language referring to cattle. But I already knew Somerby was a bigot because of the way he talks about actual racial issues.
He may think he is being cute, but he isn't fooling anyone.
Anonymouse 4:25pm, so Bob mentions someone being from “good stock” (he mentions people in occupations involving public service) after Trump has talked about bad genes. Therefore, Trump must be the inspiration for Bob’s remarks which an anonymouse say are classist too.
DeleteDidn’t I just read on another board something about this illogical thinking?
Oh, my bad.. It…uh…correlates…to THIS very board.
DeleteNot classist. Eugenicist, like Hitler.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:57pm, this is choice :
Delete“Does Somerby think this is a stupid issue or is he supporting Trump's ideas about good genes? He doesn't say directly, so I guess he is hoping to evade responsibility for his own ideas again.”
I don't think Bob is really referring to Hurt's genetic stock. I think Bob was just pointing out Hurt's successful family members in a humorous way.
DeleteSome of the reasoning errors in the above comment: (there are 47 in total)
Delete- Hasty Generalization: concludes that Somerby is a bigot based on the phrase "good stock".
- Straw Man Fallacy: misrepresents the argument by suggesting people think Kamala Harris personally enforces truancy laws.
- Ad Hominem Attack: attacks Somerby's character by calling him a bigot, diverting attention from his argument.
- Guilt by Association: links use of the phrase "good stock" with Trump's eugenicist language.
- Mind Reading: assumes Somerby is evading responsibility for his ideas, despite no evidence.
- False Equivalence: equates wondering whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald’s with Trump lying about visiting Gaza.
- Emotional Bias: emotionally charged statements instead of objective reasoning.
- Loaded Language: words like "ridiculous" and "too stupid" detract from rational discussion.
- Poisoning the Well: discredits Somerby by associating his phrase ("good stock") with white supremacist ideas, attempting to undermine anything else he says.
- False Dilemma: presents two extreme options (either Somerby supports Trump’s eugenics or is evading responsibility).
- Confirmation Bias: interprets Somerby’s words to fit their preconceived belief that he is a bigot.
- Non Sequitur: the conclusion that Somerby is a bigot doesn’t logically follow from the evidence (his use of the phrase "good stock"). There’s a missing logical connection between the premise and conclusion.
- Slippery Slope: implies that using the phrase "good stock" inevitably leads to supporting extreme white supremacist views.
Anonymouse 8:30pm, now ask these scholars if they care.
DeleteThey should be proud. It shows it's great trolling. And that we respond shows it's effective. 😩
DeleteAnonymouse 8:38pm, that we respond shows it’s a comment board.
DeleteYes it does! That too.
Delete1. Somerby is a bigot because of the many bigoted things he has says over the years. This latest nonsense about "coming from good stock" is just the latest example.
Delete2. Someone claimed this here, so it was not my imagination that this was said.
3. Guilt by association does not apply to words. The idea that people are like breeding animals where the lineage predicts quality IS part of eugenicist thinking, based on their own writings, not just that Trump said it. There is a long line of Nazis and racists who use this terminology to talk about human beings.
4. We have been explaining how Somerby uses language to evade responsibility for years, with plenty of examples.
5. Trump's provably manufactured liu is stated as much worse and thus nothing like the accusation against Kamala Harris and it show hypocrisy, not equivalence.
6. Emotion is appropriate when ridiculous and stupid accusations are flung against an innocent person. AIs feel no emotion, so of course they cannot appreciate its value. This is not a formal logical proof but a complaint, so non-emotional language would suggest a lack of importance and that is not true in this situation.
7. No extension beyond the accusation of being a closet white supremacist was offered.
8. This is incorrect because there was no either/or but both accusations were made and I believe they are both true.
9. Again, the AI fails to consider the prior evidence offered in support of today's example. Somerby has said bigoted things for a long time now.
10. Nothing was said about inevitability. I wouldn't object if a farmer said his current sheep were good stock. But there is a long history and literature of white supremacist uses of phrases like "coming from good stock" (the coming from implies genetics). Trump didn't invent this usage when he talked about good genes, nor did Somerby invent his version used to today.
These AI critiques are bogus. They are limited only to the excerpt provided, despite the reference to past Somerby essays. The user is too lazy to look up other things Somerby has said on the topic (or that I've said, for that matter) ignoring that this is part of an ongoing discussion, not an isolated statement. The AI also confuses normal human conversation with formal logic, as indicated by the list of supposed fallacies, most of which are irrelevant in human conversations. This AI trolling takes up a lot of space but leaves a specious impression that there is some valid criticism contained, while it is mainly being aimed at someone in a hostile attack.
Re: AI
DeleteGarbage In, Garbage Out.
"Emotion is appropriate when ridiculous and stupid accusations are flung against an innocent person."
DeleteHAHAHAHA Brilliant.