Old enough to remember when this guy was denouncing the Rwanda deportation plan. Apparently, sending people to East Africa is over the line, but sending everyone to Southern Europe is just fine.
Also, thrilled to find something Keir Starmer has decided to spend money on, despite his insistence that the country is too broke to do anything nice for anybody.
You need to pretend you live in a democracy or the administrators will take away the illusion.
He will be exempt. The areas that he lives in and the things that he does will not be tagged as "criminal" on the data system that he has the contract to administer.
That's always how these systems work. You don't worry about getting dragged into the Saudi Consulate and bonesawed to death by intelligence officers when you're MBS, because you're the boss and the guy getting bonesawed is your employee.
For the same reason, you don't worry about getting spied on when you're the one who owns and operates the big surveillance infrastructure because it exists for your benefit.
Obviously, the crime wasn't owning the gun. It was committing a Wrongthink while owning the gun.
If school house rock was composed by a sociopath.
But Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine
I have mixed feelings about the Fairness Doctrine, because the practical consequence of the rule only ever seemed to give you a narrow "moderate liberal says X, moderate conservative says Y" corporately approved view. Hard to look at the modern media landscape and think to myself "Damn, if only we had more episodes of Crossfire to fix this".
But yes, after the Fairness Doctrine, you saw an absolute flood of Rush-tier content that could blast uncontested bullshit all over the airwaves endlessly. The FCC went limp and allowed this to roll over the country.
I might also throw in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which started a Katamari-esque consolidation of local radio and tv networks into the modern Clear Channel and Sinclair Media mega-monopolies. A big reason why Rush was a household name by the late '00s stemmed from all these local stations being force-fed his syndicated content, which was blasted practically 24/7 in rotation with a handful of other right-wing talking heads. This guy was cranking out three hours of content a day five days a week, and the shows would play back-to-back on a loop morning, noon, and night.
what if they’re a CEO?
the nature of their labor
WTYP. The most famous CEOs don't work. They just exploit the work of others.
turning on the big Consent Manufacturing Machine
"You can GET RICH QUICK! with this ONE NEAT TRICK! if you're willing to coughdo a huge bit of gray market work in a high risk industry for a very long timecough and then YOU'LL BE SET FOR cougha very shortcough LIFE!"
Friendly reminder that Drug Dealers Mostly Live With Their Moms and the average camgirls don't do much better. This is a high risk, low reward industry operating in an informal economy with no labor protections that needs an enormous marketing budget in order to keep people engaged with it.
the police can’t really just let him get on a train
If they had, three people would have avoided bullet wounds and one of them wouldn't be in the ER right now.
it’s not that crazy to taser a guy who just got onto a train
If you've ever ridden the subway in NYC, particularly during rush hour, the idea of firing a taser into a train full of people is absolutely crazy.
In both cases, it wasn't the original message that kicked off the firestorm, it was a deliberate strategy put forward by billion-dollar presidential campaigns.
Nobody knew about the "eating my neighbor's cat" post even after the debate. It took weeks to track down what Laura Loomer had whispered into Trump's ear. Nobody considered the "Hillbilly Elegy had a chapter where Vance fucks a couch" tweet important until celebrities and politicians began retweeting it as a means of disgracing a weird conservative sex pest.
If there's a rumor started by a smear campaign run out of an office in Moscow (and they're even halfway competent in their execution) you're likely only going to hear about it once it becomes the focus of some rhetorical exchange-of-fire on a top tier domestic social media celebrity or in a Senatorial debate. Even then, you won't get to hear where it originated from until the polls have long since closed, in much the same way nobody got the details on the Comey indictment of Hilary or the Georgia election-steal attempt by Trump until it was too late.
It isn't "one person" starting a rumor. Its an industry that feeds on rumors and is constantly regurgitating them to get your attention.
When aiming into a crowd of people? You'd have to be an exceptional marksman to hit your target. Of course, there's the question of why you're firing into a crowd to begin with.
Was very confused, because I thought this was Rod Sterling from Mad Men for a minute.