To be fair, Jesse does say “sometimes Rufo is right” in this episode. Twice even!
But the way they focus much more on Rufo’s misdemeanor exaggeration rather than felony butthole zap chat is annoying. And how they a different level of scrutiny and credulousness to claims that support Rufo’s position (the gangbang is just hearsay!) vs. clai…
To be fair, Jesse does say “sometimes Rufo is right” in this episode. Twice even!
But the way they focus much more on Rufo’s misdemeanor exaggeration rather than felony butthole zap chat is annoying. And how they a different level of scrutiny and credulousness to claims that support Rufo’s position (the gangbang is just hearsay!) vs. claims that refute it (oh well somebody claims in the past no one was ever fired for these kind of inappropriate chats, let’s take that as gospel that this was widely considered acceptable behavior so it’s totally unfair to fire them).
J & K are journalists. They're right to demand evidence. They're right to call out hearsay.
I remember when Rufo first burst onto the national scene. Jesse had a lot of time for his ideas, initially. Then Rufo revealed himself to be a propagandist.
Katie had reasons to doubt Rufo's integrity going back to his Seattle days. She would have welcomed a heterodox voice on council, as she states in this episode. Rufo shredded her initial openness to his views.
But when you only do it to one side, it’s an isolated demand for rigor. They are happy to accept the hearsay and speculation when it supports their preferred position (that this was normal behavior and the trans users got unfairly singled out for harsh punishment). And they are doing it because of their personal opinions about Rufo, not because of the actual evidence on the story. That’s my issue.
Also when Katie was setting up this whole heel turn for Rufo, where he really showed his true colors as to her before anyone else… I guess I was expecting a bit more than just “exaggerated the severity of the online harassment his wife was getting”. Harm inflation seems to be basically table stakes in Seattle.
EDIT to add - the gangbang quote is also such a trivial thing for J+K to fixate on. It’s not particularly relevant to the actual story, the rest of quotes were bad enough that I don’t see that as something that should swing opinion one way or the other. It’s mostly only relevant to whether J+K can rip on Rufo for exaggerating. On the other hand, whether this was common and openly accepted behavior on the system is very important! But they don’t really dig into this. Or even what the server *is* - they admit their ignorance on that, but brush it aside. Once they’ve got a version of the story that makes Rufo and Trump look bad, they run with it, even though there’s no better evidence than for the “gangbang” chat.
J&K spend way more time going after the left than the right. So the isolated demand for rigor argument is pretty off base here. As they say there are plenty of people going after trump, and hardly Anyone with good faith going after the worst lefties.
Also IDFR is the number one argument in support of gender affirming care so be careful with that one.
On this particular topic, it’s definitely an isolated demand for rigor, and that’s the limit of the extent to which I’m making that claim.
I realize J+K mostly go after left wing targets. That doesn’t automatically make their approach to covering Rufo and Musk objective and balanced. Indeed I suspect the opposite - Jesse in particular seems so obsessed with avoiding “audience capture” that he gets a little too excited to let his Lefty Twitter flag fly whenever a right winger gets in the sights of B&R, I guess to prove his “I’m still a liberal” bonafides.
Your edit is implicitly admitting that Rufo lied in that particular instance. If he lied about something so easily checked in reference to the logs he published, then why are you saying they are being unfair to Rufo in doubting/questioning his other claims?
“Gangbang” is not in the logs that have been publicized. However, an “NSA source” claims that they remember being disgusted by conversations about “gangbangs”. That’s the supposed “hearsay”.
So if someone is lying/exaggerating/misremembering, it’s the source, not Rufo, unless you are asserting that Rufo is inventing this source whole cloth.
The point of my edit is that what is directly verifiable is bad enough. If Rufo is lying or exaggerating about “gangbangs”, that reflects badly on Rufo but it doesn’t make this all okay. But J+K are much more interested in nitpicking Rufo than actually digging into more relevant details of the story.
Actually, is “no hearsay” *really* a journalistic standard? I see stuff like “so and so said X, according to a source that was present at the meeting” all the time! Which is exactly what we have here, a source from NSA, who would have been in a position to see such a chat, claiming they saw one discussing a “gangbang”. I feel like this is an “unconfirmed” statement, but not an “inadmissible” one.
I’m also not sure whether this would be “legally” hearsay - how does that handle electronic communication or public posts? This isn’t a witness saying “I overheard Bob say this” when Bob can’t be cross examined, this is a witness saying “I was reading a post online, and the post included this”.
To be fair, Jesse does say “sometimes Rufo is right” in this episode. Twice even!
But the way they focus much more on Rufo’s misdemeanor exaggeration rather than felony butthole zap chat is annoying. And how they a different level of scrutiny and credulousness to claims that support Rufo’s position (the gangbang is just hearsay!) vs. claims that refute it (oh well somebody claims in the past no one was ever fired for these kind of inappropriate chats, let’s take that as gospel that this was widely considered acceptable behavior so it’s totally unfair to fire them).
J & K are journalists. They're right to demand evidence. They're right to call out hearsay.
I remember when Rufo first burst onto the national scene. Jesse had a lot of time for his ideas, initially. Then Rufo revealed himself to be a propagandist.
Katie had reasons to doubt Rufo's integrity going back to his Seattle days. She would have welcomed a heterodox voice on council, as she states in this episode. Rufo shredded her initial openness to his views.
But when you only do it to one side, it’s an isolated demand for rigor. They are happy to accept the hearsay and speculation when it supports their preferred position (that this was normal behavior and the trans users got unfairly singled out for harsh punishment). And they are doing it because of their personal opinions about Rufo, not because of the actual evidence on the story. That’s my issue.
Also when Katie was setting up this whole heel turn for Rufo, where he really showed his true colors as to her before anyone else… I guess I was expecting a bit more than just “exaggerated the severity of the online harassment his wife was getting”. Harm inflation seems to be basically table stakes in Seattle.
EDIT to add - the gangbang quote is also such a trivial thing for J+K to fixate on. It’s not particularly relevant to the actual story, the rest of quotes were bad enough that I don’t see that as something that should swing opinion one way or the other. It’s mostly only relevant to whether J+K can rip on Rufo for exaggerating. On the other hand, whether this was common and openly accepted behavior on the system is very important! But they don’t really dig into this. Or even what the server *is* - they admit their ignorance on that, but brush it aside. Once they’ve got a version of the story that makes Rufo and Trump look bad, they run with it, even though there’s no better evidence than for the “gangbang” chat.
J&K spend way more time going after the left than the right. So the isolated demand for rigor argument is pretty off base here. As they say there are plenty of people going after trump, and hardly Anyone with good faith going after the worst lefties.
Also IDFR is the number one argument in support of gender affirming care so be careful with that one.
On this particular topic, it’s definitely an isolated demand for rigor, and that’s the limit of the extent to which I’m making that claim.
I realize J+K mostly go after left wing targets. That doesn’t automatically make their approach to covering Rufo and Musk objective and balanced. Indeed I suspect the opposite - Jesse in particular seems so obsessed with avoiding “audience capture” that he gets a little too excited to let his Lefty Twitter flag fly whenever a right winger gets in the sights of B&R, I guess to prove his “I’m still a liberal” bonafides.
Your edit is implicitly admitting that Rufo lied in that particular instance. If he lied about something so easily checked in reference to the logs he published, then why are you saying they are being unfair to Rufo in doubting/questioning his other claims?
“Gangbang” is not in the logs that have been publicized. However, an “NSA source” claims that they remember being disgusted by conversations about “gangbangs”. That’s the supposed “hearsay”.
So if someone is lying/exaggerating/misremembering, it’s the source, not Rufo, unless you are asserting that Rufo is inventing this source whole cloth.
The point of my edit is that what is directly verifiable is bad enough. If Rufo is lying or exaggerating about “gangbangs”, that reflects badly on Rufo but it doesn’t make this all okay. But J+K are much more interested in nitpicking Rufo than actually digging into more relevant details of the story.
Actually, is “no hearsay” *really* a journalistic standard? I see stuff like “so and so said X, according to a source that was present at the meeting” all the time! Which is exactly what we have here, a source from NSA, who would have been in a position to see such a chat, claiming they saw one discussing a “gangbang”. I feel like this is an “unconfirmed” statement, but not an “inadmissible” one.
I’m also not sure whether this would be “legally” hearsay - how does that handle electronic communication or public posts? This isn’t a witness saying “I overheard Bob say this” when Bob can’t be cross examined, this is a witness saying “I was reading a post online, and the post included this”.
Yeah but he also said Aella is “interesting.”
S it actually a felony?
Just using “felony” and “misdemeanor” to indicate my assessment of the level of severity. I don’t think either is an actual crime.