Friday, August 8, 2014

Fun With Gregg Easterbrook's Twitter Account

I don't miss Gregg Easterbrook. He is coming back with a new TMQ this Tuesday, so the headaches revolving around reading TMQ will soon begin for me. Because I'm obviously forced to cover TMQ and have no say in the matter. It's my obligation as a human to read it every week and write about it here even though I don't like reading it. I stumbled upon Gregg the Misleader's Twitter account and realized he's not that different on Twitter. His handle is @EasterbrookG and I noticed that he plays a little loose with the facts and makes silly observations at times on there as well. So why not prepare for his return by highlighting a few of these Tweets? I do not follow Gregg on Twitter because I don't have the patience for that. Perhaps I should make fun of myself for the stupid things I Tweet, but I don't feel like I should show that much self-awareness.


Andy Dalton got $17 million guaranteed at the age of 26. Tony Romo got $44 million in new guaranteed money at the age of 32. This puts his total guaranteed money at $55 million for the length of the contract including the extension. Tom Brady got $32 million more in guaranteed money at the age of 35. This puts his total guaranteed money at $57 million for the length of the contract including the extension.

So both Dalton and Romo are younger than Brady and they got "bigger" contracts, but Dalton got less guaranteed money than Brady and Brady still has more guaranteed money over the lifetime of the contract (from when the extension was signed) than both Romo and Dalton. Plus, Tom Brady specifically took less money so the Patriots could put good players around him. I wish Gregg would look harder at contract numbers rather than see the amount of Dalton's deal and then start Tweeting. Dalton's deal really isn't that egregious for the Bengals in the long run. Of course somebody read this Tweet and then went out and repeated it to another person, thereby causing Gregg's statement that is slightly misleading to spread around the United States like the Ebola virus.


Incorrect. OJ Simpson was not found "guilty" of wrongful death because it was a civil trial. He was found "liable" for the wrongful death of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman though. Guilty/Liable, there's really no difference though, right? This from a guy who nitpicks writers of television shows every single time he writes a TMQ. Gregg has no reason to pay attention to details when he Tweets out information, just like he has no need to pay attention to details when writing TMQ. He does feel free to call others out for lack of attention to details.


While I understand where Gregg is coming from, the new Jaguars scoreboard is intended to help the city's profile when it comes to bidding for the college football playoffs. If the scoreboard does manage to raise their profile then the college football playoffs will bring more money in than $43 million. Obviously I would like for the schools to get money in Jacksonville, but the scoreboard is intended to bring in tax revenue to the city of Jacksonville. That's the plan.

And also, if Gregg would read the links he has provided then he would notice the schools in Jacksonville are struggling because they aren't providing the students a good education, not because they need more money. I understand that many people find money and a good public education to be intrinsically tied, but at no point in that column does the word "money" appear.


Gregg is tackling the important issues on his Twitter account. Notice the responses to that Tweet state that this does sometimes happen. I'm betting Gregg will criticize a movie for having characters (who are soldiers) point at their own eyes anyway, simply because he wants to.


I get it. Funny. This will end up in TMQ as well. I can't believe the television show about a city with a huge bubble surrounding it isn't based on 100% fact. What a shock to my system.


Thursday. This happened Thursday.


Again, this wasn't money just handed away or necessarily an example of corruption. "House of Cards" supposedly pumped $250 million into the economy based on the two seasons it was shot in Maryland. If Gregg would read the link he provided then he would see the main grants fund has stayed intact, but the money given to "House of Cards" was taken out of a special fund for non-profit organizations. This fund was to help arts organizations recover from the recession. So essentially Maryland lawmakers chose a profitable path over funding non-profits. I'm not sure that's corruption. 


Anthony Bennett. Anthony Davis. Just because Gregg can't do it doesn't mean that other people who love the NBA can't do this. Gregg seems to be one of those people who believe because he personally doesn't pay attention to something then that something has no relevance, as if attention from Gregg Easterbrook is what gives a sport like the NBA relevance.


It's still obvious you are typing "Redskins." Putting asterisks in place of vowels doesn't mean you aren't actually writing the word everyone knows you are writing you d*psh*t.


Can anyone name who won the NBA Finals last year? How about in 2012?

Gregg also consistently talks about the "MSM" on his Twitter account as if writing for ESPN, "Atlantic Monthly," plus he used to write for "Newsweek," and this doesn't make him a part of the mainstream media? Keep telling yourself that, guy.

Well, Gregg is back this Tuesday. It may take me three days to write TMQ after such a layoff, but I'll try to pretend to be excited about reading it again.
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 9, 2014 at 5:06 PM

    I love the implication that the #1 pick in the 2012 NBA draft is somehow irrelevant. Anthony Davis is so good and so young he might fetch more in a hypothetical trade market than Kevin Durant would. Either way, if there was an NBA fantasy draft, I'm positive Davis would go no lower than 3rd. But yeah, who can name that guy.

    What point is Gregg trying to make by combining Dalton and Romo's salaries to say they make more than Tom Brady? NFL QBs get paid a lot of money, and when you combine two starter salaries, you will probably get a higher total than just one. This proves...absolutely nothing.

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  2. AnonymousAugust 11, 2014 at 10:49 AM

    In regards to his hot take on the Jacksonville school system I can guarantee that if that 43 million had gone to the schools instead of the scoreboard then Gregg would again hold up that article he didn't read as evidence of greedy glory boy politicians throwing money at a problem instead of getting to the root of the issue. In an odd way he would be correct as we have clearly seen in the past throwing money at a problem rarely works if ever.

    Also another habit of Gregg's that ticks me off. He loves to complain about basically every little issue, be it sports, political, or social, yet very rarely does he ever offer any sort of solution to any of the problems he sees with the world. Don't get me wrong, I complain just as much as the next guy but at some point why don't you contribute to solving these problems as opposed to just whining about them?

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  3. BengoodfellaAugust 11, 2014 at 11:57 AM

    Anon, Gregg doesn't watch the NBA so he just assumes because he doesn't know the answer no one else does. Obviously Gregg's attention gives the NBA relevance, and so if he doesn't pay attention to the NBA then it lacks relevance.

    I don't know if Gregg even knows what his point is.

    Anon2, I complain a lot too, but you are right that Gregg prefers to just point out a problem and then not have any solutions. I guess Gregg would have preferred the money go to the schools, but in the column he linked there was no mention of funding being the problem with the schools.

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