All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Tero]

It's OK to rip up the Constitution. But a speech! That's different!

[Tero]

Trump makes another campaign speech
At prayer breakfast

Later Thursday after the breakfast, Pelosi called Trump's remark about faith as justification for doing something wrong "completely inappropriate" and "particularly without class."
"This morning the President said when people use faith as an excuse to do ... bad things ... was just so completely inappropriate, especially at a prayer breakfast," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference.
"I don't know what the President understands about prayer or people who do pray, but we do pray for the United States of America," she said. "I pray hard for him because he's so off the track of the Constitution, our values, our country."

[Brian Peacock]

That Google news algorithm sure working overtime there Tero. Step away from the Google, stop clicking - it's fattening you up in exactly the same way it feeds the Trumpians.

[Tero]

2C49B0AD-AD10-4F61-B979-E313F3B8B63C.jpeg (57.22 KiB) Viewed 1250 times

Yeah but memes-are-us!

[Tero]

[Seabass]

The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ar/605530/

One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.

The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

full article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ar/605530/

[Tero]

Trump Wall

THE EXPANSION OF the border wall under Trump has been made possible, in part, by a post-9/11 piece of legislation known as the Real ID Act, which grants DHS sweeping authority to waive existing laws in order to construct border barriers. The Trump administration has used the act to waive dozens of laws — from the Environmental Protection Act to the Endangered Species Act — in order to push through new border wall construction projects.

In Arizona, the administration’s efforts have been bolstered by the fact that federal lands, rather than private property, comprise much of the border. Following his visit to Organ Pipe last month, Grijalva, sent a letter to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, expressing “serious concerns” that the department was “not respecting tribal lands and sacred sites as they proceed with border wall plans and construction.”

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/bor ... rgan-pipe/

[pErvinalia]

At least Mexico is paying for it.

[Tero]

https://twitter.com/P_Lepinkainen/statu ... 5554270208
Very true Mr President, they will have nothing to do but fix healthcare after November. When you lose. But since you like crowds, I think you should buy an Atlantic City casino now. You can do a good 4 years of stand up there starting 2021.

I put a gif in it. It's like the previous but not as good as the smocking gun.

smocking gun.gif (2.9 MiB) Viewed 1201 times

[Sean Hayden]

The smocking gun is perfect.

[Seabass]

Purple heart recipient Alexander Vindman did the right thing and told the truth about Trump's corrupt behavior, and now he's paying the price.

White House Weighs Ouster of Aide Who Testified Against Trump

The White House is weighing a plan to dismiss Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council after he testified in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, preparing to position the move as part of a broader effort to shrink the foreign policy bureaucracy, two people familiar with the matter said.

Any moves would come after the Senate on Wednesday acquitted Trump on a near party-line vote at the conclusion of the two-week impeachment trial. The White House intends to portray any house-cleaning as part of a downsizing of the NSC staff, not retaliation, according to the people.

more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... inst-trump

[Cunt]

The smocking gun is perfect.

Shouldn't it be painted nude or something?

[Tero]

Can Ukraine last another Trump term?
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... ssion=true

[JimC]

Can Ukraine last another Trump term?
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... ssion=true

A quiet word to Putin: "I'll look the other way if you want to invade that nasty country..."

[Cunt]

Is Trump responsible for the Kiev massacre?