Category: twitter

Adam Kinzinger Is Losing It

I spent last night watching Adam Kinzinger lose it on twitter.

Here’s an in-depth post about what happened:

Adam Kinzinger ‘Drunk-Tweets’ His Way Into Total Embarrassment

The too long; didn’t read version is that Kinzinger accused Dan McLaughlin, who has been anti-Putin since before the Obama administration and who was regularly tweeting his support for Zelenskyy before Putin even invaded, of being pro-Putin because McLaughlin disagreed with a tweet in which Kinzinger accused pro-lifers of being pro-Putin.  (It makes even less sense if you read the tweets.  Put the beer down before you tweet next time, Adam.)  When McLaughlin and others pointed out how stupid this way, Kinzinger drunk-tweeted his way through it.  Eventually, he decided to search Kinzinger’s followers (and not the people who Kinzinger was following back) until he found some people who were pro-Putin.  As a political pundit, McLaughlin has 89,4000 people of all different ideologies following him on twitter.  I wonder who we would find if we searched everyone who just happened to follow Adam Kinzinger.

Normally, this would just be another night on twitter except for the fact that this is Adam Kinzinger, the man who never misses a chance to promote himself as being the conscience of the U.S. House and who has built his entire reputation on attacking Trump for engaging in the same type of behavior that he engaged in last night.  Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the January 6th Committee.  (He’s the one who cries for the camera.)  He’s angry at the Republicans who he feels have enabled Trump.  That’s fair, if simplistic.  However, he’s also mad because he’s losing his house seat because it was gerrymandered out of his existence by the Democrats who control the Illinois redistricting process.  Kinzinger often says that he’s losing his seat because he’s anti-Trump but the main reason he’s losing it is because he was dumb enough to run as a Republican in a blue state that’s run by one of the most ruthless political machines in the country.  As far as losing his seat his concerned, Adam is mad at the wrong people.

Oh, and Adam is also talking about running for President in 2024.  Of course, Liz Cheney has stolen his thunder with the Never Trumpers.  Maybe that’s why he’s so pissed off.

Congress has gone from Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, and John Quincy Adams to Adam Kinzinger, Eric Swalwell, and Matt Gaetz.  It’s often been said that most journalists would be better off if they didn’t get on twitter.  I think the same is true of most members of Congress.

The 24 Hour Rule

Someone drove a red SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin earlier today.  There’s a lot of speculation out there about who was driving the SUV and what their motives may have been.  In the wake of the Rittenhouse verdict, many people are being very quick to label this a terrorist attack.

I’m forcing myself not to speculate.  When I first heard the news, I did jump to a conclusion but I’m not going to post it.  One of the huge problem that we have in this country is that too many people jump to conclusions before they have all of the information.  We’re so quick to blame the other side that we forget that people are hurting right now and that people need help.  Being attacked by someone with no politics is just as dangerous as being attacked by an ideological zealot.

The 24 hour rule is a good one to observe.  Whatever or whoever you may think is responsible for what’s happened, keep it to yourself for 24 hours.  For now, just keep the victims in your thoughts and hope for the best.

Today’s Lesson: Never Tweet

Last night, on twitter, I came across a discussion about Chris Cuomo.

Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor who is also Andrew Cuomo’s kid brother, was diagnosed with COVID-19 at the end of March.  For the last few weeks, he’s been broadcasting from his basement and talking about how difficult the quarantine has been for him.  At one point, he said that he was so delirious with fever that he saw the ghost of his dead father.

Cuomo has also broken quarantine, to go visit a property that he owns.  (Apparently, a second home is being constructed at the property.)  This is not just a rumor.  Not only did many people see Cuomo at the site while he was claiming to be quarantining in his basement but Cuomo himself confirmed a story about getting an argument with a bicyclist who demanded to know why Cuomo was out of quarantine.  The bicyclist later came forward to confirm that he and Cuomo had the argument that Cuomo described.

Last night, on CNN, Cuomo very dramatically emerged from his basement and announced that he was now over COVID-19.  Despite the fact that Cuomo himself has admitted to breaking curfew, CNN reported the story as if this was his first moment to emerge from the basement.

I have to admit that, ever since he claimed to have seen the ghost of his dead father, I’ve felt that Cuomo’s been milking the situation for everything that it’s worth.  While I don’t doubt that he was sick and I agree that COVID-19 is not something to take lightly, I’ve always felt Chris Cuomo was laying it on a little thick.  Common sense says that if you’re so delirious that you’re seeing a ghost that you’re not then going to be in any shape to do a nightly TV show from your basement.  My suspicion has always been that Cuomo, not being in the age group that’s usually hit the hardest by the disease, had a mild case of COVID-19 and, because of the attention that he was receiving, he exaggerated his description of how sick he was.

That was the theory that I attempted to share last night on twitter.  Unfortunately, I said that I suspected Cuomo was “faking.”  Again, I don’t think he was faking being sick.  I think was faking the severity of his condition.  However, I didn’t make that clear and I immediately started to hear from people who apparently believe that every case of COVID-19 is fake.  Though it wasn’t a huge amount of people (and the majority of the replies I got did seem to understand what I was trying to say), there were still enough people in the “Coronavirus isn’t real!” crowd that it was an eye-opening experience to read their tweets.  It was a real trip down the rabbit hole.

So, for the record, I think COVID-19 is real.  I think people are getting sick and that they’re dying and that we’re fools if we pretend like it’s no big deal or that it’s not actually happening.  I also think Chis Cuomo should be ashamed of himself for breaking quarantine and CNN should be ashamed of themselves for pretending like he’s been down in the basement for the last two weeks as opposed to leaving the house and potentially exposing others to the coronavirus.

The main lesson that I’ve learned from all this?  Never tweet.  It’s just not worth the trouble.

Lockdown Journal: 4-9-20

The latest news out of the UK is that Boris Johnson is out of the ICU and that he’s recovering.  That’s good news, regardless of whether you voted Tory or Labour in the last general election.

Here in the States, there was briefly a flurry of excitement when it was reported that Colin Kaepernick, who has been a free agent since 2017, had been signed by the New York Jets.  It turned out that the story was based on a tweet that was put out by a parody twitter account.  What was interesting was witnessing the number of media figures — the same people who were told we should listen to in times of crisis — who fell for the tweet.  Those of us who have never particularly cared about whether or not Kaepernick was signed to an NFL team have often wondered who Kaepernick’s fans actually were.  Now, we have our answer.  They’re people who work for the cable news channels.

Myself, I never really cared whether or not Colin Kaepernick wanted to take a knee during the national anthem.  It was his right, as an American, to kneel.  At the same time, I also think the NFL had the right not to sign him.  Many people seemed to feel that an NFL team should have been forced to sign him but, even if that was constitutional, it just would have meant Kaepernick would have been spent the past three seasons sitting on the bench instead of appearing in Nike commercials.

Today has been a good day.  It’s been as close to a normal day as anyone could hope for during a pandemic lock-down.  Everything that has happened has really given me a new appreciation for normal days.