We did it folks, we generated a non-ironic use of the phrase "balloon gap"
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Jeet Heer
@HeerJeet
1. Writer, The Nation thenation.com/authors/jeet-h… 2. email: jeetheer1967 at gmail dot com 3. Twitter essayist 4. Drawn by Joe Ollmann *e4dccb3d
thenation.comJoined June 2012
Jeet Heer’s Tweets
I dunno, I feel like it's possible to argue for tighter lab security without floating a theory that is "probably wrong." The key debate is about whether lab leak is right or not. Currently, the scholarly consensus is that it's not right.
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In my understanding, the lab leak theory is 1) probably wrong, but 2) nevertheless not an especially harmful bit of misinformation since heightening scrutiny of virological labs' security systems and gain-of-function research could help prevent future catastrophes twitter.com/IfBooksPod/sta…
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Does agree with French that "sexual revolutionaries" who pushed marriage equality are now "indulging the troubled fantasies of a tiny, disturbed population of transgendered, or 'genderqueer,' Americans"? He's blocked me so I can't ask.
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In this thread Chait attacks for being too critical of Jesse Singal's writings on trans issues, saying it raises legitimate issues. Chait starts by approvingly citing French, who writes of "the troubled fantasies of a tiny, disturbed population" of trans peo[le
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This is not a serious nation.
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Assume Chinese spy balloon dead (finally!!)
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There were three such balloon flights in the Trump presidency, the main difference being Trump didn't shoot them down (which was perhaps the more prudent action or non-action)
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The catastrophic Chinese Spy Balloon spectacle clearly threatened American families from Alaska to my home community in South Carolina and confirms President Biden and Vice President Harris should resign. (1/5)
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QAnon and some variants of Russiagate are also examples.
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many of the strange behaviors we see in society today - conservatives thinking they can shoot down a balloon that's 11 miles in the air, true crime women keeping scrapbooks out of fear they will be murdered - stem from a condition that i call "thinks movies are real brain"
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One of the few sensible statements out of Washington on the balloon business
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I hope everyone understands the performative unseriousness of Shoot the Balloon Down twitter.
It’s not real. It’s all theater.
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There could be another balloon someday so costs could go down to as low as $33.5 billion per balloon.
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The F-22 program cost $67b and now it has shot down its first aircraft. Worth it.
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One of the most deranged maps I've ever seen.
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Has the New York Times ever had a reckoning with its coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case which led to the Kafka-esque persecution of a scientist?
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Jeff Gerth, who brought us Whitewater and Wen Ho Lee, has opinions on #Russiagate
nationalmemo.com/whitewater?sha
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Sorry we can't give yo the money we owe you we spent it all on, uh, um, colonization.
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It's also weakness to stop at this one balloon. How do we know that all other balloons aren't ChiCom weapons? National security demands we go to birthday parties and pop all the balloons.
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Why the hell would we let a Chinese spy balloon fly all over the country? And why wouldn’t a Republican governor just shoot it down when it’s in that state’s airspace? This is unacceptable weakness.
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This is great thread about the detective thrills that you occasionally get from archival work, when a mystery gets solved & you find much more than you were hoping for.
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This is going to be a very long and niche gay history thread, so I apologize in advance. But something incredible happened and I have to share it.
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We're in some really prime Cold War level paranoia here people
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The GOP governor of a US state went on national TV and said this based on an unconfirmed video. Fox News reported it. But the videos appears to be bunk. twitter.com/nikkimcr/statu…
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Two balloons! Oh no!
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Another balloon sighting.
“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America," @PentagonPresSec says in statement. "We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”
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The balloonatics have taken over the asylum.
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The Chinese Communist balloons could be trial runs for low visibility deliver of devastating EMP weapons. Read Bill Forstchen’s One Second After for a vivid, accurate demonstration of how devastating these balloons could be. This is madness.
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This guy is such a gift.
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SCOOP: George Santos told some potential donors he was a producer on the Broadway Spider-Man Musical. Turns out, that wasn't the case.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/
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2. Some thoughts on how phoney the whole GOP as worker's party pitch is:
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1. There's been a lot of talk about GOP becoming more worker friendly but in policy terms it always goes back to stuff like this.
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"Matt Gaetz is trying to convince his fellow Republicans to demand new work requirements for Medicaid as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling"
More good reporting from @josephzeballos
semafor.com/article/02/03/
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It's this type of complacency that is going to let the Chinese spy balloons to take over.
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Digging real real deep to try to get myself to care about the Chinese spy balloon and coming up empty.
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To be fair, this problem isn't confined to Effective Altruism but can be seen in other philosophy subcultures (for reasons David explains in thread).
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Oh look it's the most predictable development in the history of the universe. time.com/6252617/effect
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Is this a joke?
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We asked #PoliSciTwitter to tell us which SCOTUS cases they think are the worst of all times. These were the results, in order of most to least mentioned: twitter.com/JustinLawGuy/s…
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Can the GOP become a working class party? That's the pitch of Josh Hawley & others. I register some skepticism
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Gramsci was a liberal???? I'd say Greenwald was more of a liberal than the great Sardinian.
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When you have liberals constantly churning out dehumanizing rhetoric like this 
, they're putting a target on the foreheads of their enemies. It's predictable that those hearing this will be inspired to violence. That's the standard liberals now impose:
greenwald.substack.com/p/the-demented
, they're putting a target on the foreheads of their enemies. It's predictable that those hearing this will be inspired to violence. That's the standard liberals now impose:
greenwald.substack.com/p/the-dementedShow this thread
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Not even Jerome Powell could kill the Biden boom.
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Unemployment rate for Blacks falls to 5.4 percent, lowest on record, for Black women down to 4.7 percent, also a record low
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Wait, two (potential) balloons. How will we survive.
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Canada’s defense ministry says it is tracking a second potential spy balloon.
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Gotta admit, the possibility of Dreher's blogging igniting a second war in Europe is, one one level at least, hilarious.
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rod dreher causing an international incident by sucking up too hard to viktor orban is the most rod dreher-esque thing to ever happen. thebulwark.com/how-rod-dreher
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This is genuinely a great troll. Congress is just posting now.
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During House floor debate on GOP's anti-socialism reso, Rep. @BradSherman accuses Republicans of equating "some of the greatest leaders of Israel" to "some of the greatest mass murderers of history."
Puts up poster of Ben Gurion, Golda Meir & Shimon Peres who were socialists.
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Very thoughtful critique of what can be called a faux peace movement. twitter.com/CarlBeijer/sta
This Tweet is unavailable.
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The chutzpah to tweet this out now.
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Since last fall, we’ve been piloting #APAfricanAmericanStudies in 60 schools across the U.S. Thank you to the brilliant scholars & teachers who developed this rich & inspiring course. We're proud to celebrate the official course framework today. #CelebrateAPAfricanAmericanStudies
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