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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Regarding Jones: As much as he's become famous lately, he's mostly been an internet celebrity for much of his career. Which means a lot of people didn't even know who he was until pretty recently. Relative obscurity has protected him, but now his business is out there. (Also, it probably takes time for a lawyer to put a case together and for a parent to find a lawyer who will take the case.)
And Trump loves the media! When it's favoring him. He calls the media fake news any time he's criticized. Take note of his targets: MSNBC is the most likely to criticize him and gets a lot of shit as a result from him. Fox News gets the honor of hosting weird, hour long interviews in morning shows with him now. The man can't stand the idea that someone might not think he's the greatest thing ever.
Bolton pushing to eliminate White House cyber job
John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish new national security adviser, is leading the push to abolish the role of special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, currently held by the departing Rob Joyce, according to one current and two former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.
I guess with, say, David Icke and David Dees, they're more under the radar. Nobody really takes them seriously (or not as many people), so they avoid that kind of attention for the most part. Most people I've seen discussing Icke and his reptilians are making fun of him.
Jones has the President's attention and a comparatively bigger megaphone and fanbase. And John Oliver did a piece that publicized how Jones shamelessly uses his show to plug his products.
For someone so hawkish, Bolton seems awfully happy to leave cybersecurity unguarded. Wouldn't be surprised if he had Russian friends, too.
Trump's only reason for being a billionaire (aside from being given 200 million dollars by his father's death and 1 million at the start of his career) is the fact that he's been a conman who relies on the media. He embodies the "fake it until you make it" idea with his persona being a exaggerated soap opera version of a billionaire. Even his tacky tastelessness exists in a kind of Jungian Scrooge McDuck idea of a billionaire.
So people trust him with their money and he spends their money while hoarding his own like a very dumb Red Dragon.
So he's so media crazy because if he ever was exposed as NOT being a super-rich like a Wizard of Oz made of money, then he'd collapse as an empire. Trump doesn't mind being called a criminal, a misogynist, a racist, a guy with ties to the mafia, or even a murderer—all of that plays to his image as Michael Corleone crossed with Richie Rich. It's that being perceived as not super-wealthy or good at handling business that scares him senseless.
edited 9th May '18 11:27:17 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
That and NY real estate is usually a pretty sound and profitable investment. Trump embodies style over substance. All glitter, no soul.
Kicking out poor people and selling their homes to the rich is a pretty easy sale, yeah.
I made an argument once that Trump is responsible for the 2008 Housing Crisis as basically he's such an iconic figure of business that his crooked real estate practices were copied by literally everyone to the point they destroyed the economy.
edited 9th May '18 11:24:46 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.If it wasn't for The Apprentice and his habit of sticking his name everywhere, he probably wouldn't have the name recognition he does or his image as a businessman.
I mean, Trump even had a board game back then.
(And I can buy the Wizard of Oz comparison...but more like the Wizard from Wicked, who manipulates everybody and maintains power through lies, propaganda, and shameless xenophobia.)
edited 9th May '18 11:43:56 PM by Raptorslash
Re: Bolton wanting to nix that cybersecurity job: Anyone who wants to get rid of any job that will, in return, weaken our cybersecurity in this day and age is a fucking idiot and not operating in our nation's best interests.
Oh, and more proof that Bolton's a sociopath? "I wish we could reverse Obamacare as decisively as the president acted today on the Iran deal"
Fuck off.
Re: Gas prices: I can confirm that gas prices have already risen by about 15 cents/gallon in my area, and probably will continue to rise. I can't take any more winning!
edited 10th May '18 4:51:22 AM by speedyboris
Independent senator comes out against Haspel [1]
"The difficulty of these decisions is that I cannot vote for half a nominee. I cannot support Acting Director Haspel's decorated career with CIA without also condoning her involvement in the destruction of videotapes showing detainee interrogations," King said in a statement explaining his decision to oppose her nomination.
King's statement comes hours after Haspel testified before the Intelligence Committee, of which he is a member.
Democrats repeatedly pressed her during the hearing on her nomination to explain her role in the 2005 decision to destroy the tapes, which public reporting has widely indicated show the interrogations of two men but which Haspel said depict only one man's interrogation.
King noted on Wednesday that he's previously raised concerns about the tapes, including writing in 2014 that "those involved in the decision to destroy those records against the clear direction of senior U.S. officials should no longer be leading the Agency."
King's opposition to Haspel's nomination narrows the pool of potential Democratic "yes" votes for Haspel, who will need a simple majority to be confirmed.
Fifteen Democrats, including King, supported former Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to be CIA director. King and six Democrats voted for Pompeo late last month to lead the State Department.
With GOP Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) opposed to Haspel's nomination and Republican Sen. John Mc Cain (Ariz.) absent for cancer treatment, she will need to win over at least one Democratic senator to be confirmed.
Several other GOP senators remain on the fence.
edited 10th May '18 7:23:07 AM by megaeliz
If you look at Trump's debt position versus his assets, it's entirely possible he's got negative net worth. But he has access to lots of cash to live his preferred, lavish lifestyle, and it may well turn out, as Mueller rolls through his investigation, that a lot of that cash was illegally obtained.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"This is big
Facebook ads show Russian effort to stoke political division
Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and gun rights, among other issues. A large number of them attempt to stoke racial divisions by mentioning police brutality or disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement. Some promote President Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, who ran against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Few, if any, support Clinton.
The intelligence committee Democrats released a sampling of the ads purchased by Russia's Internet Research Agency last year, but they are now releasing the full cache of ads that Facebook officials turned over to the panel after acknowledging in September they had discovered the Russian efforts. The release of ads from early 2015 through mid-2017 does not include 80,000 posts that the agency also shared. Some of the ads are partially redacted, part of an effort by Facebook and the committee to protect unsuspecting people whose names or faces were used.
An Associated Press review of the thousands of ads and their data shows how precisely — and sometimes randomly — the agency targeted them.
Some ads designed to appeal to critics of immigration were targeted to users who liked specific Fox News hosts, Wiki Leaks founder Julian Assange, "Old Glory" and the United States Constitution, among other words.
Others were more narrowly targeted. Facebook users within 12 miles of Buffalo, New York, were directed to an event supporting justice for a black woman who died in a county jail. Another ad criticizing a Texas school teacher who lost her job after making racist remarks was aimed at adults living in Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri.
One ad that targeted African-Americans concerned about discrimination was only to be shown to users accessing Facebook on Wi-Fi, rather than cellular. There was no explanation as to why that was.
Sometimes the targeting appeared to work — after a try or two. A January 2016 ad that promised news on "bad" refugees got five clicks when targeted at those interested in immigration or conservatism. But the same ad got 163 clicks when targeted at those interested in Syria, the Republican Party or politics.
Others got many more clicks. A pro-patriotism ad created on June 23, 2015 featuring a stylized drawing of a bald eagle was viewed nearly 530,000 times and was clicked on 72,000 times.
As the Russians attempted to pose as Americans, their language sometimes hinted at their origin. One ad railed against immigrants who "should prove that they are deserved to stay in the United States." Another read: "Your life matter. My life matter. Black matters."
Facebook revealed in September that it had discovered the divisive ads, which were paid for in rubles. Ads were still running in July and August of 2017, weeks before Facebook made the effort public.
In February, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, charging several people associated with the Internet Research Agency with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Trump defeat Clinton. The indictment was part of Mueller's larger investigation into Russian intervention in the election and whether Trump's campaign was involved. There has been no evidence that Trump's campaign was in any way associated with the social media effort.
The trove of ads released Thursday appears to back the assertion that the Russians wanted to hurt Clinton. Some spread rumors about her husband, former president Bill Clinton, or promote lies about her. Several depict Clinton behind bars.
Hundreds of the ads ran after the election, continuing the effort to sow discord. A series of ads posted two days after Trump was elected urge his supporters to show up at Trump Tower in Manhattan to respond to the "massive crowds of libtards" who protested him. It targets people within 50 miles of New York City and provides the street address.
That was one of many ads that attempted to set up events — sometimes on opposing sides of an issue.
In May 2017, the fake group "United Muslims of America" ran seven ads promoting two June 3 protests against the war in Syria — one at Trump Tower, the other at the White House. One of those ads targeted people with interests in peace, human rights, feminism and pacifism and those who were "likely to engage with political content (liberal)."
Facebook has said that more than 10 million people in the United States saw the ads, more than half of which ran after the election. Under fire from Congress, the social media giant has pledged improvements to its ad policies and enforcement. Facebook has made it easier to see the origins of ads, is forcing buyers to be more transparent about who they are and has worked to find more fake accounts, among other changes.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, said he was releasing the ads so it doesn't happen again.
"The only way we can begin to inoculate ourselves against a future attack is to see firsthand the types of messages, themes and imagery the Russians used to divide us," he said.
The documents can be downloaded here
.
And here's a preview of a few of them
edited 10th May '18 8:38:31 AM by megaeliz
From Maddowblog: "What Trump doesn’t seem to understand about military raises"
Trump has made the claim that his 2018 budget gave our troops pay raises for the first time in ten years. This is completely false. How he came to this idea is just... well, we know where he gets his ideas, but it's yet another example of his complete, narcissistic detachment from reality.
edited 10th May '18 8:55:54 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Anyone else getting really fucking sick of CNN's Op-Ed section as of late? Its a wave of right-wing garbage and Trump wanking (sorry for that image) that wouldn't be out of place on Fox a few years ago.
Liberal media my ass...
edited 10th May '18 9:11:29 AM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

So here's a breakdown on how the special Senate election in Mississippi could be interesting, potentially be another Alabama situation.
They're going to have a jungle primary meaning that all candidates are in the running, and if no one gets 50% right off the bat in November, the two highest will go on to a special election.
For a brief summation of each candidate: