Adam Johnson Profile picture
co-host @citationspod, writer at https://t.co/pKhO6hyJ5M
eDo Profile picture Σέρβος Αυστραλός Profile picture robertcurran3 Profile picture Hot jupiter stan acct 😍🪐 Profile picture Potato Of Reason Profile picture 9 subscribed
May 13 10 tweets 2 min read
My contribution to the “we still have to vote for Biden discourse” is this: I think the popular debate suffers from a flawed premise that this is some abstract trolly problem without political context. 🧵 That Trump “would be worse” is a reasonable position in the abstract ofc but it’s secondary to the CONTEXT of the debate which everyone keeps avoiding but I think it’s the far more interesting and urgent question. What function does the specter of massive vote withholding have?
May 11 5 tweets 2 min read
In 2002 Applebaum explicitly argued in favor of killing Palestinian journalists for the crime of making Israel look bad. If she’s going to opine on media and authoritarianism, can any of these high status media commentators ask her if she still believes this? I’d be good to know!


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For reference slate.com/news-and-polit…
Jan 22 5 tweets 2 min read
Truly the most evil and misleading thing Leonhardt has written and this is saying something. No mention of deaths caused by disease, birth complications or starvation. Also ignores limits of Gaza officials’ count since every hospital, and thus their capacity, has been destroyed Leonhardt is a craven partisan hatchet man and the genocide-lite narrative is the only one the White House can plausibly try and push and here he is carrying out his disagreeable task. Absolutely shameful, intellectually and morally dishonest
Jan 12 7 tweets 2 min read
No dipshit, the idea isn’t “US bad” the idea is pushing for a ceasefire is a much more efficient and humane way to deescalate rather than bombing, yet again, the poorest country in MENA to defend Israel’s inalienable right to turn Gaza into an even greater death zone Yes they have, it’s called reining in Israel’s unchecked destruction of Gaza which is clearly and quite explicitly the origin of Houthi attacks which do not exist without a geopolitical context
Jan 9 4 tweets 3 min read
Among the findings in Ali’s research is the selective use of emotive terms to describe killing—something reserved almost exclusively for Israeli deaths. It’s a sort of reverse humanization, horror only goes in one direction. The killing of Palestinians is seen as sterile/clinical
Image Coincidentally the CBC was asked last week by @TheBreachMedia’s @emmapaling about their own selective use of emotive terms and the answer they gave… made no sense breachmedia.ca/cbc-palestinia…


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Jan 4 6 tweets 2 min read
yeah clearly nuance is important but theres a whole genre of pop science writing about the pitfalls of binary moral thinking that increases in frequency when younger people coalesce around existential critiques of racism, inequality, or––of late––our govt backing ethnic cleansing Sometimes subjects are "complex" but sometimes they are are not, sometimes things are Just Bad and it's not "extremist" to say they are Just Bad in clear and certain terms.
Dec 27, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
losing my mind. UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (correctly) accuses Israel of working to expel civilian population of Gaza and CNN reports it as mere allegation without mentioning Netanyahu explicitly said this is his goal just yesterday. Image


Dec 12, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
Sanders position is confusing but I’ll try and spell it out

(1) he opposes a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power. Which is to say he opposes a ceasefire as it’s universally understood
(2) he’s repeatedly called for a nebulously humane regime change effort that Israel… (1/3) has zero interest in and is presumably accomplished with fairy dust
(3) he refuses to acknowledge the obvious: that Israel is axiomatically not waging a war on “Hamas” but on the whole of Gaza
(4) wants a “ceasefire” that allows Israel time to plan for his magical humane…(2/3)
Nov 28, 2023 9 tweets 3 min read
this isnt a good faith question but here we go anyway:

- call for Israel to stop bombing/sieging Gaza
- announce end to military assistance until bombing ends
- not deny death counts
- not refuse to have ANY red lines
- stop vetoing ceasefire resolutions at UN
- 600 other things to the extent to which Biden has pushed Israel to extend the ceasefire it's to secure more Israeli hostages. If Biden has a super secret plan for a longer term ceasefire––where Israel doesn't try to "eliminate Hamas"––at this point it's pure speculation.
Oct 24, 2023 6 tweets 1 min read
the nicest people on earth, and heretofore loyal Dems, are trying to politely explain that uniformly backing Israel will have political consequences, aside from moral issues, that it’ll wreck inroads with Muslim, Arab, young voters but Dem messaging only knows one response: scold 8yrs of muscle memory attacking mythical Bernie Bros it’s all cynical privilege discourse, extortion language, and feigned helplessness that doesn’t really work here. But it’s all they know. So people are accusing grieving and outraged Arab Americans of entitlement and petulance.
Apr 23, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
My brain is leaking out of my ears. What the fuck did I just read. This is not how laws, or policing, or morality, or epistemology, or “AI”, or anything works. ImageImage Serious question: are you six years old? Image
Apr 23, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
Expediting this and replacing the half a million lead pipes poisoning poor people in Chicago would save thousands of lives and garner absolutely zero media coverage. There are countless ways of combating violence without mindlessly pressing the “more cops” button “Chicago has an estimated 80% of homes with water connections made of lead, more than any other city in the nation…

One in 20 tap water tests performed for thousands of Chicago residents found lead, a neurotoxic metal, at or above US government limits” theguardian.com/us-news/2022/s…
Apr 20, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
most media outlets are a mixed bag and I’ve had my beefs w/ Insider and Buzzfeed but this weird thing where multimillionaire guy gloats over low level media workers getting indiscriminately fired to own the libs is without ideology or moral utility, just vindictive score settling Image Glenn’s general thesis, repeated ad nauseam, is the market hates the Woke Liberal media (which is presumably artificially jammed down people’s throats?) and this free market is rushing to choose rightwing media platforms—their own astroturfed financing models notwithstanding
Apr 18, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
we really have to stop taking these "labor shortage" arguments at face value. The number of unemployed persons per job opening in Iowa is unchanged since prior to covid. These laws are designed to

1) combat increase union activity
2) make legal child labor they're ALREADY doing ImageImage These child labor laws will have little-to-no impact on “the labor shortage” when those pushing for them are already engaged in widespread child labor violations. All it does is lend full legal sanction for a workforce that’s already being exploited below board
Apr 17, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
NYTimes editorial notes large corporations routinely use child labor then assures its readers that these corporations are on the case, investigating themselves and will "try" to stop doing it, then moves on. Well, that's good enough for me! nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opi… Image The lawbreaking corporations, who knowingly use “subcontractors” who have been fined for years over and over again for child labor violations, are dutifully on the case to investigate themselves and the companies they paid millions to.
Apr 17, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Finally an interview with Crow, still no one asking him the obvious question of, “why does your Garden of Evil have zero fascists/nazis in it?” Some may claim that it’s a logistical issue? There are very few surviving Nazi statutes. Ok, but there are tons of Franco statues. There are countless surviving Mussolini statues. So what up with that? Why is it only communists (and Mubarak?) are labeled “evil”?
Apr 2, 2023 11 tweets 3 min read
what some fail to appreciate is how being a charter school hatchet man basically guarantees a constant, massive stream of campaign donations. This is why Vallas can get hired over and over despite failing, because he’s not failing based on the logic of education privatization The goal is to gut public coffers, undermine confidence in public education, financialize the sticky public institution of education, punish and discipline teachers as a political bloc, carry out the disagreeable tasks of racist austerity politics and move on.
Apr 2, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
hate this smarmy bullshit. You got piled on because you drew an equivalency between Vallas mismanaging and fleecing millions from public coffers w/ an unpaid (since paid!) *water bill* from Johnson and people rightfully called this out as a parody of tedious Both Sides reporting Just say this was the best 11th hour dirt the rightwing blogs could come up with and your editors insisted it be covered because it had become a meta controversy with little underlying substance or objectively scandalous or relevant news value and move on!
Apr 1, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
I’ve read this three times and I’m now convinced this is the most American story ever. This article is now the lyrics to our national anthem. latimes.com/california/sto… The two biggest holiest of the holies in our society is property contract enforcement and teaching children gratuitous cruel lessons in “the real world”. this story has an extremely cartoonish version of both!
Mar 30, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
my favorite 1990s episodic TV thing is when a guest character would be introduced after like 6 seasons as a main character’s best and most important friend, but we never saw them before and would never hear from them again after they were killed or kidnapped or arrested or w/e Walker Texas Ranger did this all the time. It would be like Walker’s god son Carlos who Walker helped raise from birth and you’d be like, ‘wait, who?’ He’d be attacked by a gang and be in the hospital and Walker would swear revenge for this random kid we’d never seen before
Mar 21, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
I see we're doing Tipping Discourse again on here so here's my two cents.

The US tipping model system is irrational and cruel. It's logic is one of employee monitoring with its roots in Jim Crow racial disciplining and humiliation. It's designed to pit workers against each other If a waiter complains about not getting 20% I beg you not to scold the waiter, or even the consumer. This is text book mutual antagonism. This is the facile, shallow discourse the assholes who set up this system want you to have. neither is the one transgressing in a systemic way