Ok, so I’ve knocked Stan Rosenberg for his unnecessarily pissing off the house by unsuccessful calls for rule changes.
As we all know the house rules. The house runs the agenda. Tells the other boys and girls governor and senate) what games they re going to play and when. Always been that way and always will be.
With four times as many members as the senate the speaker has to run a tight ship to kept boat on course. (Like not bringing a transgender bill to the floor until he felt he had enough votes to override a veto).
This is why George Keverian failed. His kumbaya approach resulted in everyone making noise while nothing got done.
Anyway Stan has become the liberal with the bully pulpit and I think it’s great. We need this on a state level and the position of senate president maybe best fitted for it.
Contrary to the narrative Bulger gave his committee chairs much discretion and power. Just don’t cross him. But he did use his position to advocate for policies like charter schools that were years away from reality.
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Okay folks, so Hulk Hogan is the named plaintiff in a suit against Gawker because it published a video of him having sex with a woman.
Forget about all the details and the he-said-she-said.
For the sake of argument let’s assume it wasn’t crazy Hulk Hogan but another celebrity, Betty White. Betty having a go with the pool boy. Good for her.
Let’s assume that someone filmed the event without her knowledge then put in Gawker’s hands and they published it.
Is this an invasion of privacy? Because it is a celebrity should this be an exception? Does the public have the right to know? The right to see for themselves?
Dan Kennedy does. He and the many other media hypocrites want to twist the facts declare the Gawker an attack on free speech.
Not only that they have a red herring to play. A third party bank rolled the lawsuit because he hates Gawker. “OH MY GOD!” They shout. “That’s Un American”
You know, like the ACLU, NAACP, Urban League, Anti-Defamation League and many other non-profit social justice organizations finance lawsuits. Who paid for Mr. Brown’s lawsuit when he went up against the board of education? Ms. Parks’ defense attorneys? Capiche?
Yet our boy Dan believes Gawker was in its rights to publish the video and third parties should not be able to finance lawsuits against media interests.
Good to see Dan’s watching out for the readers’ interests.
See what I mean folks? You can’t even talk to these people. They’re a fucking cult for crissakes. Donald Trump like. Everyone is wrong and they are the only source of truth regardless of its untruthfulness.
Yes, I agree. Of course third parties should be able to finance lawsuits. And Gawker was wrong to out Peter Thiel in the first place.
But the First Amendment should carry the day. no? Taste is a secondary consideration, privacy … well, funny privacy doesn’t get much weight these days.
What’s the difference between Peter Thiel who’s financing a third party suit for his own desired outcomes (which could be considered separate — perhaps even at odds with — the stated aims of the judicial system) and the Koch Brother who’re financing candidates and campaigns fortheir own desired outcomes….??
They are both, it appears, vendetta capitalists who would game the system for their own ends… If you don’t think the Kochs should fund elections than, it seems to me, you should think that Thiel can fund court cases.
Peter Thiel was openly gay before Gawker said anything. I don’t think this is about being outed by Gawker. I think this is just Thiel thinking he’s smarter and better than everybody else.
When you’re out and open to dozens or hundreds of people around an entire region, you’re not in the closet, and the media shouldn’t pretend that people are straight until they actually say they’re gay — when they’re out running around having dates right out in the open and when any number of dozens or hundreds of people know that person is gay.
Think Anderson Cooper. *Everyone* knew he was gay, and yet the media pretended as if he wasn’t.
Jeff Bezos’s recent comments on Peter Thiel were spot on — he needs to grow a thicker skin. And anyone who doesn’t see just how crazy dangerous what Peter Theil is doing — bankrolling suits to put media companies out of business — as crazy dangerous is out of their minds, or not thinking things through enough.
What happens when the Herald wants to report something unsavory about the Red Sox? Are they going to have to worry about John Henry suing them to oblivion — bankrolling anyone who doesn’t like the Herald for any reason, and bringing those suits all the way to the bloody end (instead of having suits end in settlements to keep costs down, as probably would have happened in Hogan’s case were it not for Theil bankrolling that case and god knows how many others to the end).
I don’t think anyone should be suing Gawker over this. What they did is tasteless, but it is true, and truth is supposed to be an absolute defense.
But as to who funds it, that’s a secondary question that we can’t control and probably shouldn’t.
The first amendment is a very powerful tool in controlling it.
And when very, very rich people try to sue media organizations they don’t like, or other organizations they don’t like, to oblivion, we should shine a very large light on it and call them out loudly and clearly until they stop.
A lot of America’s best uniquely good aspects democracy depend on the country’s good behavior in using them, or they can become very, very bad. Allowing people to help fund legal defense funds, etc., is a very good thing for democracy… until it becomes grossly abused as a way for rich people to destroy what they don’t want. And that’s precisely why many countries around the world don’t allow it.
I think it’s a great thing in the net… but we need to ensure that it stays that way by being aggressively public in our disdain for people who would use their wealth to abuse that power.
…apologist for the cancer called the Bulger Brothers…
Bulger gave his committee chairs much discretion and power. Just don’t cross him.
Ernie loves to comfort the powerful. He’s an old-time hack who is trying to reinvent himself as a truth-teller.
That’s the real question.