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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Mar 16, 2021

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1371967012302327811

Okay as long as we're 100% clear on the fact that New Hampshire is *not* a "GOP-leaning state" and has been pretty reliably blue for a while

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1371967012302327811

(PS) Folks, Kyle was talking about national politics and national elections and as a Granite Stater I correctly pointed out that he was wrong. He, and anyone else, can suddenly switch to talking about state politics and I will probably agree at the state level we lean right here.

(PS2) I suspect many commenting here aren't New Englanders. Vermont has a GOP governor and is a blue state in national elections. Massachusetts has GOP governor and is a blue state in national elections. New Hampshire has a GOP governor and is a blue state in national elections.

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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Mar 16, 2021

(🎶) This 50-year-old song sounds ~54 years old. I didn't think about its lyrics until today. Now I think it's about a British dandy—*super* high—heckling a street performer who, given organ-grinding's history, may well be an impoverished recent immigrant.

PS/ For those who don't know, I was briefly a radio DJ back in the 90s and played exclusively psychedelic music from the US and UK released between 1966 and 1971. So sometimes I'll get one of those songs stuck in my head—and realize I hear it differently now than I did in my 20s.

PS2/ I also find that posting the sort of music I really truly like here on the feed underscores better than anything else possibly could how little I actually think about trying to accrue followers. My taste in music is... very particular—and doesn't exactly bring the crowds in.

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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Mar 16, 2021

Just heard Juliette Kayyam say on CNN that so far the Capitol conspiracy cases have been weak, involved 1 to 3 people, and established only that some people conspired to meet "at the Trump rally."

Uh, no.

WSJ reports that 30 to 40 Oath Keepers plotted to murder all of Congress.

I think CNN doesn't understand how many hours of research one has to put into the events of January 6 to speak competently about them on-air. Kayyem is very smart and also very qualified. Those facts have nothing to do with whether she knows much about the January 6 insurrection.

One of the many problems we have with cable news today is that analysts are selected for their credentials and their general expertise rather than their research and their specific expertise.

So we end up with very smart people saying very stupid things on very important topics.

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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Feb 22, 2021

The Steele dossier remains one of the most lied-about items of the whole Trump presidency. Republicans lie about Steele's background, motivations, knowledge, funders and claims. They lie about the dossier timeline and they lie about its provenance and they lie about its accuracy.

We must also understand that it's no surprise that Republicans lie about the dossier. When the author of a dossier tells you in advance that 30% of it is likely inaccurate, as long as you lie about him telling you that and claim he didn't you can spend years pointing out the 30%.

Steele is an honorable man who had been a valuable FBI partner for years when *Republicans* approached him to try to keep Donald Trump from the presidency. When the GOP folded and accepted Trump as its Lord and Savior, a law firm hired Steele to continue his overseas work.

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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Sep 18, 2020

Folks, after *two-plus years* of hundreds of you—literally—pleading with Rachel Maddow's MSNBC program to have me on (thank you for tagging me in these kind requests), I want you to know that the staff at the show have finally *heard you* loud and clear and unfollowed this feed

PS/ The above tweet, while 100% true, is intended to be funny—as I don't sweat it one way or another whether MSNBC invites me on again (12 invitations/12 cancellations was enough for me, as I told Macmillan). But I thought folks would like to know you can stop petitioning Rachel.

PS2/ I really do appreciate the effort you all made to get the Proof series noticed by Rachel. She's a metajournalist on TV and I'm a metajournalist in print, so it made sense for there to be a synergy (and her program Twitter feed following mine for years made it seem possible).

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Seth Abramson

@SethAbramson

Sep 18, 2020

So great to be back on the BBC tonight! Felt like no time had passed at all...though in fact, I'd written a 1,000-page book since I was last on, and as I think more about that I... OK, yeah, time has passed. Writing each of the Proof books was a grueling, disorienting experience.

I remember back in August 2018, when I was working with S&S on how to create a metajournalistic epic, and it was like—I'm serious—a math problem. How do you write a book with 75+ metanarratives, 250+ narratives, 400 characters.... and no scenes, dialogue, or character exposition?

I always hoped I'd have a chance to talk to another journalist about the process of creating the Proof series, because it really did feel like trying to invent a new subgenre of nonfiction. Folks who read the Proof series don't realize how it was constructed: from the inside out.

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