White House Labels Altered Photo of Arrested Minnesota Protester a 'Meme' (thehill.com) 160
The White House doubled down after posting a digitally altered photo of Minnesota protester Nekima Levy Armstrong, dismissing it as a "meme" despite objections from her attorney and comparisons to reality-distorting propaganda. "YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter," White House spokesperson Kaelan Dorr wrote in a post on X. The Hill reports: The statement came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo of Armstrong's arrest Thursday showing Armstrong with what appears to be a blank facial expression. However, the White House later posted an altered version of the same photo that shows Armstrong crying.
Armstrong's attorney Jordan Kushner said in an interview with CNN that an agent was recording Armstrong's arrest on their cellphone. "I've never seen anything like it. It's so unprofessional," Kushner said. "He was ordered to do it because the government was looking to make a spectacle of this case. I observed the whole thing. She was dignified, calm, rational the whole time." Kushner went on to call the move to alter the photo "a hallmark of a fascist regime where they actually alter reality."
Armstrong's attorney Jordan Kushner said in an interview with CNN that an agent was recording Armstrong's arrest on their cellphone. "I've never seen anything like it. It's so unprofessional," Kushner said. "He was ordered to do it because the government was looking to make a spectacle of this case. I observed the whole thing. She was dignified, calm, rational the whole time." Kushner went on to call the move to alter the photo "a hallmark of a fascist regime where they actually alter reality."
White House twitter account (Score:5, Insightful)
is fast becoming a meme in its own right: Dumb Shit Americans Say.
yow. this is getting dystopian... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of hyperbole (imo) about Trump and adjacent stuff.
But this one strikes me as particularly Orwellian / post-truth / straight out of Idiocracy etc
The government running public disinformation campaigns against individual defendants ... and modifying pictures... idk.
Too close to Soviet times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:yow. this is getting dystopian... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a "meme". This is an effort at public humiliation before sentencing.
One need not "reflexively defend perpetrators" in order to be interested in objective truth. Blurring out an image to protect identity is one thing. Outright altering it like this shows events that didn't happen. It's an outright lie.
Re:yow. this is getting dystopian... (Score:4, Insightful)
The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
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The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this?>
Performative intimidation. Doesn't have to stick, adherents will have forgotten about it and the pundits won't bring up a fail.
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The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
Furthermore, it makes one wonder why they're doing this. There's no legal or even legitimate reason. I don't know if this will actually hurt their case in court / before a judge, but it certainly can't help - at all. Trolling a defendant makes no sense, unless you've got no case and are planning on dropping the charges, or believe you're going to lose anyway, and this sort of childish act is all you really have. Which, ya, I know is par for the course with this administration. It's just dumb.
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Furthermore, it makes one wonder why they're doing this.
Because they're petty, vindictive, small-minded cunts who aren't qualified to hold the offices they do.
Duh.
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https://x.com/WhiteHouse/statu... [x.com]
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From that perspective everything Trump has been doing makes sense...
Hope he doesn't resort to starting global nuclear war just to bury the story.
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I don't think they care about the eventual disposition of the case.
It is more of a "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" kind of a deal. You can clearly see that punishment has already been delivered. A warning to any who step out of line.
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The administration is too dumb to realize that a competent judge could drop the charges over this? Like the guy who was acquitted at throwing a sandwich at ICE agents.
The judge didn't throw that one out, though. He should have, but the jury took care of it.
Sentencing (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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There's a lot of hyperbole (imo) about Trump and adjacent stuff.
On the contrary. They're doing so much evil that the media don't have the time to get most of them to the people.
Although possibly right now, that's intentional to move the news cycle on from the fact that they're not releasing the Epstein files, and the likely reason that Trump has raped trafficked kids.
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I'll just leave this right here. [wikipedia.org]
Go look up his posts about Renee Good (Score:3)
We are absolutely at the point where Trump is been increasing chocolate rations. Forget being creeped out we should be frightened. This is Soviet era grade crap. The kind of stuff Stalin did.
Speaking of Stalin he famously had his enemies committed to mental institutions. It's a big part of why Reagan shut down the institutions although in typical Reagan fa
Re:Go look up his posts about Renee Good (Score:5, Interesting)
What I dont get about this kinda propaganda op is just how fucking weird it is to be making propaganda to make one self seem *more* cruel.
Don't Trumps supporters just stop for a second and think "This isn't normal? Adults are not supposed to behave like this, and especially not politicians and bureaucrats"
Well, we have seem performative cruelty before in certain political movements, and it wasn't a very fun regime to live under.....
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So imagine for example that you're a dude and you've got three or four roommates and you're working 50 hours a week and driving Uber on the weekends to afford that. If you're older you're also hurting all the time because you're overworking yourself and you're getting older.
The right wing offers a chance to fix that. And that'
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It is just the natural progression from putting up easily falsified lies, then defending those lies as "alternative facts".
Don't forget Spicer and Kellyanne Conway [wikipedia.org].
Yet, people fell for Trump again and gave him another term ...
Re:Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:5, Insightful)
1. There were no fakes, cheap or otherwise, posted by the Biden administration.
2. Unless you are saying that this woman was a top-ranking official in the Biden administration, then it is not "turnabout", it is orchestrated violence against someone who has not wronged you or been involved in any activity you believe (falsely, as it turns out) of having wronged you. Unless you are proposing that any time a Republican insults a Democrat governer, any innocent Republican can be arrested completely at random under a "turnabout seems fair" doctrine, then you don't believe turnabout is fair in the slightest.
Re: Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:4, Insightful)
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If memory serves, Biden kinda jumped in, but not that badly.
Either way- you can go find the transcript, what the guy said wasn't that bad at all, and he certainly did not draw an equivalence between neonazis, white supremacists, et al, and those who wanted the statue down
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Either way- you can go find the transcript, what the guy said wasn't that bad at all, and he certainly did not draw an equivalence between neonazis, white supremacists, et al, and those who wanted the statue down because they found it insensitive/insulting.
He very much did really. The problem may very well be the "good people on both sides" quote. There are a number of reasons it can be argued that was taken out of context and that he as saying that there were people on both sides of the protests who weren't violent, racist, etc. That is true. However, if you actually look at the broader context of what he said, he also kept drawing a moral equivalence between the essentially neo-nazi (not all strictly neo-nazis, more of a basket of deplorables) rally-goers a
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However, if you actually look at the broader context of what he said, he also kept drawing a moral equivalence between the essentially neo-nazi
No. That is an outright falsehood.
not all strictly neo-nazis, more of a basket of deplorables
Are we now saying every right winger is a neonazi?
rally-goers and the counterprotestors who, notably, did not murder anyone by ramming crowds with their cars.
Are we assigning group blame for teh actions of one piece of shit?
The fixation on the one sentence does create a problem for both sides of the debate. Ultimately, the entire context has to be considered, but that is ultimately pretty damning for Trump.
Oh I agree. But the problem is, if you remove that sentence, or put its surrounding context around it, it's quite clear that the only comparison he was making, was between people who wanted the statue up, and people who wanted it down.
Now, I'm more than happy to do my own generalizatio
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No. That is an outright falsehood.
It quite simply is not. Of course, ultimately it's stupid we have to argue over this. We're talking about Trump's words here. It's like arguing whether a cloud looks like a turkey eating a meat pie or a slightly puffy version of absolute moral truth. He should be babbling in an empty room alone by himself with no-one having to listen and interpret all the things he says that start on one concept and pass through several others before the end of the sentence.
In the case of the Unite the Right event, our inte
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OK. Technically true even without the tweed-clad professors and weepy George Baileys (or would they be Jefferson Smiths?). Not all were neo-Nazis. Klansmen aren't neo-Nazis. I mean, I suppose they can be both, but combining the uniforms is tough, so they probably stick to one or the other.
Well, no. You just really didn't. It was an event specifically organized by white nationalists for white nationalists. If there were non white nationalists there, they were either well camouflaged, or the others would have eaten them alive (figuratively, I think). However, we are giving Trump the benefit of the doubt that he's so incredibly stupid that he could believe this is true, or that he's just a massive liar (which would mean that he's not drawing a moral equivalence later, he's just continuing the lie).
I'm not going to do this with you.
I watched the imagery in horror just like everyone else.
There were shit-tons of fuckers there that weren't cosplying as little Nazi or Klan motherfuckers.
You tipped your hand where you described them as the "basket of deplorables".
Yes, you and I can absolutely refer to them as that. I think even the non-violent little chauvinist pricks are deplorable as fuck.
But the fact is, 50% of the country doesn't. You don't get to judge Trump's meaning based on your and my biase
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I'm not going to do this with you.
I watched the imagery in horror just like everyone else.
Not going to do what? Discuss it rationally? From the above about watching in horror, it sounds like we're on the same page about it basically being an impossibility that, _at the actual event_, there were fine people on both sides. From that, it logically follows that _if Trump was talking about the event itself_ then he is either A) Calling the deplorables there "fine people" or B) clueless about who was there, or C) Lying about who he thinks was there, or D) other (this is an option I haven't been able t
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This is a falsehood.
You're using, the fact that the event was planned by someone of those groups as evidence that only those kinds of people went to this event, which topped a week of protests over the removal of the statue.
It quite simply does not follow, and photographic evidence doesn't support it in the slightest.
I had assumed you had used "deplorables" in the Hilary Clinton sense, where 50%
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You are asserting that the only people at the event were Klansmen and Neonazis (ignoring counter-protestors)
This is a falsehood.
No I am not asserting that. You are the one promoting a falsehood with that claim. Note:
...neo-nazi (not all strictly neo-nazis, more of a basket of deplorables) rally-goers...
neo nazis, white supremacists and their ilk
...not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me...”
OK. Technically true even without the tweed-clad professors and weepy George Baileys (or would they be Jefferson Smiths?).
I am saying that the collection of characters attending as members of the rally were not all neo-nazis, but were all part of a basket of deplorable like the Ku Klux Klan, the three percenters, various other white supremacist groups, neo-nazi adjacent groups that have drifted far enough to still be an abomination, but not really nazis per se any more, etc.
The "deplorables" in question are the neo-nazis, klansmen, etc. at the rally.
You yourself said:
You tipped your hand where you described them as the "basket of deplorables".
Yes, you and I can absolutely refer to them as that. I think even the non-violent little chauvinist pricks are deplorable as fuck.
So, how does any of that fit with; "You are asserting that the only people at the event were Klansmen and Neonazis (ignoring counter-protestors)"? Unless you don't know what expressions like "etc.", "and their ilk", mean, then you're either hallucinating what I actually said, or you are just lying.
You're using, the fact that the event was planned by someone of those groups as evidence that only those kinds of people went to this event, which topped a week of protests over the removal of the statue.
It quite simply does not follow, and photographic evidence doesn't support it in the slightest.
Before I directly address this, you have already said:
Yes, you and I can absolutely refer to them as that. I think even the non-violent little chauvinist pricks are deplorable as fuck.
Well, why not actually answer a question and take an
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You are now trying to redefine deplorable as Clinton said it lol.
Clinton's exact definition:
They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.
Yes, half of the country does not define people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic as deplorable.
Those are subjective viewpoints.
You're trying to get yourself caught up on the number 2. That's silly. 2 was merely the number of specific groups you defined in your basket of deplorables. What you did claim, is that everyone there
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You really are a gaslighting piece of shit, aren't you.
I. Am. Not. Gaslighting!
I am also not lying, and I am not making up "falsehoods". If you can't stand that someone has a different take on a situation than you, then it's too bad for you. But I know what was said, and I know what the situation was and I have lied about nothing, and I am not distorting reality in any way. You are the one who, when I spend a great deal of effort to lay things out so that we can reach a common understanding of what the other means, simply ignores what I write and won't answer q
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You're as bad as the fucking dumbshits that vote for Trump. [snopes.com]
You really are. Let that sink in. You're just as fucking incapable of carrying a coherent thought through to completion as they are.
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Get fucked, dipshit.
Yes. That level of discourse seems more like your intellectual speed. Congratulations on realizing it.
You're as bad as the fucking dumbshits that vote for Trump. [snopes.com]
Jebus, first line of the article:
However, the accuracy of what Trump did claim – that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the 2017 Unite the Right debacle – is in question.
I have realized something though. It is possible that, with your terrible reading comprehension, you missed some critical things like the "et al." from the excerpt from your post that I quoted in my first response to you on this thread. Maybe that was where you lost the thread? Anyway, not really relevant now since you've decided that throwing a temper tantrum is a better u
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You asserted:
However, if you actually look at the broader context of what he said, he also kept drawing a moral equivalence between the essentially neo-nazi (not all strictly neo-nazis, more of a basket of deplorables) rally-goers and the counterprotestors who, notably, did not murder anyone by ramming crowds with their cars.
No, he didn't.
The fact that the actual pieces of shit were a large proportion of the people there is just Trump being a moron. But he very clearly discounted those kinds of people from his moral equivalence calculation. Explicitly and clearly.
Nobody ever once debated the competence of Trump. He has 14 brain cells that fire just slightly off of random. That he said something that is dubious is not in question, as I said, "very fine people" is entirely fucki
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Quit trying to move the goalposts.
Sigh, is this the only way you can discuss anything? Continously coming up with excuses for how the other person is supposedly not acting in good faith. I am not moving the goal posts. My position has not changed since the start of this thread.
No, he didn't.
The fact that the actual pieces of shit were a large proportion of the people there is just Trump being a moron. But he very clearly discounted those kinds of people from his moral equivalence calculation. The first is from the 12th itself, there he talks about an "...egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence — on many sides, on many sides". Then on the 14th, he reads a prepared speech woodenly from a teleprompter, presumably because his people are trying to do damage control after the first speech. Then the "very fine people, on both sides" speech on the 15th.
So, right at the start, you talked about Trump's squirrel brained responses, suggesting all three speeches, but we have mainly focused on the "fine people" one. If we start at the first one, we initially have the "many, many sides". He says some other generic stuff like "Above all else, we must remember this truth, no matter our color creed, religion or political party -- we are all Americans first." Then there's a question: "Mr. President, how do you respond to white nationalists who say they are participating in Charlottesville because they support you?" to which there is no answer. Same for a few more questions about Charlottesville. So that sort of sets the tone for the moral equivalence argument. It was on many, many sides, and it's everyone's responsibility to heal wounds, etc. Ultimately not much real said though.
Second speech, really just generic boilerplate, let's all get along stuff, but with a condemnation of racism tacked on. Ultimately it's painfully obvious that this is a mediocre speechwriter using Trump as a ventriloquist dummy.
Third speech. A reporter says: "You're putting what you call the Alt Left and white supremacists on the same moral plane. To which Trump answers. "I'm not putting anyone on a moral plane. What I'm saying is this, you had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious, and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch, but there is another side there was a group on this side - you can call them the left, you've just called them the left - that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is"
So, just from that segment, as I said earlier when I conceded that he wasn't actually calling them morally equivalent, what he is actually doing is pushing more blame onto the "left".
Then "I think there's blame on both sides. You look at both sides, I think there's blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it,and you don't have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say."
"and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group -excuse me, excuse me- I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group who were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. "
"George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So, will George Washington now lose his status, are we gonna take down -excuse me- are we gonna take down, are we gonna take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson, you like him? OK, good. Are we gonna take down the statue - because he was a major slave owner - now we gonna take down his statue? So, you know what, it's fine, you're changing history, you're changing culture and you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned, totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group, also, you had some fine people. but you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats, you got a lot of bad, you had a lot of bad people in the other group too."
Then there's a bit more about there being two sides to the story. Also a lie about the Unite the Right rally goers having a permit but the counter-protestors not having one.Then he goes on to the infrastructure bill.
Anyway, I am assuming that, no matter what, you are not going to see it the same way, but what I heard in that was basically Trump saying: two sides to a story, Trying to say that the "other group" was basically just as bad, and even implying that they are worse and implying that they were the chief instigators of violence. I heard what I heard, and I stand by my opinion of how Trump characterized things.
Also, I should note that, where he "very clearly discounted those kinds of people from his moral equivalence calculation. Explicitly and clearly." he actually only specifically named neo-nazis and white supremacists. Why does he get a pass when you, over and over kept claiming falsely that I was "asserting that the only people at the event were Klansmen and Neonazis" when I actually named many groups and made it clear each time that I was not referring to only those specific groups? Trump can only discount two groups and everyone left can be "very fine people", but apparently, even when I am clear that I am including a whole basket of groups, some not explicitly named, I'm some sort of big liar?
No, Trump was making a moral comparison between the groups and concluding basically that the "left" were worse. Even discounting the "neo-nazis and white supremacists" as he did, the remainder were still people standing shoulder to shoulder with the "neo-nazis and white supremacists". No "very fine people" do that.
Nobody ever once debated the competence of Trump. He has 14 brain cells that fire just slightly off of random. That he said something that is dubious is not in question, as I said, "very fine people" is entirely fucking subjective.
If you admit it's subjective, then why is defending one specific interpretation of it your hill to die on?
But the fact is- he was not referring to the fucking Tiki brigade, and attempts- very clear attempts- at portraying his words as exactly that- are what that snopes article is about. And you'll notice it isn't a "half true", a "mixed". It's a flat out "false."
What does that have to do with me? My position on this is not dependent on Trump referring to the "Tiki brigade". I've said it over and over. How are we a freaking novel into this thread, and you're still misrepresenting my position?
Go, way, way back to my entrance into this thread and to you saying "...he certainly did not draw an equivalence between neonazis, white supremacists, et al." to which I responded: "He very much did actually." That et al. is important there, as I pointed out. Then there's also the fact that, he didn't do the discounting of the neo-nazis and white nationalists until well after he'd already started on the equivalence of the two groups. He certainly didn't clarify that his exception about those two groups actually applied to his earlier statements. Finally, it was quite simply not the case that there was anyone at the rally who was only there about the statue and neutral or opposed to the overwhelming proportion of deplorable (just going to go back to that word, because frankly it works pretty well do describe hate groups.
Trump's, and I'm going to quote myself here- "squirrel-brained dumbshit responses to the Charlottesville tragedy"- are orthogonal to the fact that people tried to twist the words of an idiot into some kind of declaration that the white supremacists were on the same moral ground as the counterprotesters, and that is an outright falsehood.
There just isn't any twisting of the words required for there to be an issue with "very fine people on both sides" There simply were no "very fine people" on the Unite the Right rally side to start with
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Re:Nah, its post 2016 turnabout (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll await all the links you're not going to post.
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You made the claim. Now you need to back it up.
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You made the claim. Now you need to back it up.
It did not make a claim, I stated an old fact.
I don't carry around old links to the moon landing.
I don't carry around old links to the earth being round.
I don't carry around old links to vaccines helping at risk people during covid.
I don't carry around old links transcripts of Trump.
Step outside your information silo, step away from your willful ignorance, you can google as well as me.
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1. Wrong place.
2. No, he didn't.
3. If you're going to equate remark with a deliberately forged image, then you're arguing there's no difference between calling something monopoly money and actually paying employees wages with actual monopoly money. Y'know, I don't think too many judges would accept that argument. But if you want to try it, to prove your point, I'll happily admit I'm wrong if you can win in court.
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2. No, he didn't.
Full transcripts I read back in the day prove otherwise.
3. If you're going to equate remark with a deliberately forged image, ...
A deliberately forged image is no different than a deliberately forged narrative.
Again, you lower the bar, you create a new normal, then expecting turnabout from the other side should be expected. Its why you don't engage in this childish stupidity, why you don't lower the bar.
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Yet you can't provide these transcripts, nor evidence that they were genuine or, indeed, existed at all. Interesting.
A forged image is VERY VERY different from a difference in interpretation. If you can't see the difference, then I'll assume that you have no actual objection to falsified images and that you will offer no criticism of ANY such image posted by ANY side for ANY reason or purpose. Only, we both know that that won't happen. You'll criticise those you fantasise as enemies and hold triumphant thos
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Yet you can't provide these transcripts, nor evidence that they were genuine or, indeed, existed at all. Interesting.
You can google as well as I can. But you seem to prefer willful ignorance.
A forged image is VERY VERY different from a difference in interpretation ...
Not what I said, a a false image and a false narrative. Both do the same thing, manufacture a false perception in the mind.
You have no interest in truth, only tribes.
LOL. Say the person who refuses to google and read, who doesn't understand both images and verbal narratives product false perceptions.
Please continue demonstrating the methods of dismissal that permits your willful ignorance of things outside your information silo.
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Actually it's straight out of the cheap fakes we've been bombarded with since 2016. Turnabout seems fair. Admittedly childish, but fair nonetheless.
What?
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But this one strikes me as particularly Orwellian / post-truth / straight out of Idiocracy etc
Actually it's straight out of the cheap fakes we've been bombarded with since 2016. Turnabout seems fair. Admittedly childish, but fair nonetheless.
If activists and commentators are doing this kind of thing... or putting it on campaign posters then MAYBE (but still not editing a picture and passing it off as real).
But "the government" AS the state has to show some damn restraint. As optics this level of punching down by high officials is demeaning: it's literally "ha ha ha, look we made her cry!" i mean ... come on!
But even more this is in a situation where they're literally wielding the state monopoly on force against citizens. It's a right/d
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Your alternative solution for dealing with people suspected of crimes who are also running for political office? Please lay out what framework you think would work?
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Your alternative solution for dealing with people suspected of crimes who are also running for political office?
You fairly investigate. You don't create new and novel and logically twisted theories of a crime. You don't treat folks differently based on whether they are your party or an opposition party. You prosecute the office seeker exactly as you would any other citizen.
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You fairly investigate. You don't create new and novel and logically twisted theories of a crime.
That's the normal process, yes. That also appears to be what was done. I know there's a certain echo chamber out there where whatever Trump claims about an investigation into himself is a given, but you've failed to actually demonstrate to any reasonable level of satisfaction that any of what you're claiming is true. About all you seem to have is that individuals running for high office should be immune to investigation or prosecution. As for prosecuting the office seeker differently than other citizens, th
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You fairly investigate. You don't create new and novel and logically twisted theories of a crime. You don't treat folks differently based on whether they are your party or an opposition party. You prosecute the office seeker exactly as you would any other citizen.
That's the normal process, yes. That also appears to be what was done.
Not at all. The prosecutions of Trump were quite creative. The investigations bootstrapped with known unreliable info. Time after time norms were abandoned because it was Trump.
I know there's a certain echo chamber out there where whatever Trump claims ...
That is an awfully bad guess on your part. Trump claims don't count as evidence to me.
... about an investigation into himself is a given, but you've failed to actually demonstrate to any reasonable level of satisfaction that any of what you're claiming is true. About all you seem to have is that individuals running for high office should be immune to investigation or prosecution.
That's a quite ignorant statement give what I wrote above.
As for prosecuting the office seeker differently than other citizens, that was certainly true for Trump, ...
And Hillary and Biden
So, enlighten us, what were the abberations in the way his cases were handled that were not in his favor? How was he so unfairly treated?
As I said, novel theories of the crime. Plus unreliable evidence, Russian dossiers to Mira Lago valuation estimates. From charges to evidence, it was all manufactured to
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Not at all. The prosecutions of Trump were quite creative. The investigations bootstrapped with known unreliable info.
I will note that there are no details at all there, just very vague accusations. That, of course, flies in low info MAGA circles, but not in the real world.
Time after time norms were abandoned because it was Trump.
Yes, norms about how the indicted and convicted felons are normally treated were indeed abandoned because it was Trump, as I noted (didn't stop him from claiming to be "tortured" during the five minutes or so when he was being processed). The norms that were abandoned were all abandoned in his favor though. Once again, if you want to argue that, don't wa
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Seriously, you bad guess know no end. I am not MAGA. I'm an independent that reads from left and right info silos and independent sources.
But please, project yourself onto others some more. It explains your silo'd perspective.
Not that I necessarily believe that you're not MAGA, but there's no point in disbelieving it anyway. The whole pretending to be "independent" but really being highly partisan thing has been done to death. It's especially popular among those who fancy themselves libertarians. If you want to not have a label though, by all means, don't have a label. I totally get it. I certainly am not a Democrat, for example, they have plenty of problems and plenty of ways they don't align with me politically. I am not dumb
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In other words you don't want to have to abandon your straw men and ad hominem fallacies.
What the hell are you talking about? What I wrote boils down to "call yourself whatever you want, I can't be bothered to believe you or disbelieve you.". How would that be a straw man argument? Or even an argument, for that matter. It's conceding that it doesn't even really matter.
Thank you for outing yourself. Not buying the Democratic Party line is evidence of "highly partisan" in your mind, not suffering from TDS is "highly partisan" in your mind.
No, but using the term TDS for Trump Derangement Syndrone certainly does seem highly partisan. It's a nonsense made up condition invented by Republicans originally as Bush Derangement Syndrone, and then later adapted by Trump supp
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Of course you can't, it would challenge the doctrine of your religion, its heresy. The faithful must avoid such evil. The world is binary, Resistance or MAGA, there can no other option.
Sooo, not taking a stance based on belief is somehow the "doctrine of [my] religion"? Do you read your comments to yourself in your head as you write? Possibly after? You really should.
Nope. Independents notice it all the time.
Notice what? That people don't like Trump? That's not some sort of revelation. It's also not a mental illness. It's a simple formula, people who are rude, vulgar, accused of multiple rapes of both adult women and children with at least strong circumstantial evidence (and one civil case with the conclusion that, in colloquial
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Of course you can't, it would challenge the doctrine of your religion, its heresy. The faithful must avoid such evil. The world is binary, Resistance or MAGA, there can no other option.
Sooo, not taking a stance based on belief is somehow the "doctrine of [my] religion"? Do you read your comments to yourself in your head as you write? Possibly after? You really should.
No, it's your binary nature that indicates a "religious" sort of attitude. It's either accept my beliefs or you must be part of the other side.
Politics is not binary. Trump is not binary. Rejecting one side is not an endorsement of the other. Both are often full of shit.
Nope. Independents notice it all the time.
Notice what?
That the world is not binary. That rejecting one side is not endorsing the other. That both are often full of shit. Hence, independent.
For crying out loud, I'm an independent. Why should I let you speak for me?
I am not speaking for you, I am correcting your bad guesses and mistakes.
Once again, I provide a specific example...
You provide party line misrepres
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No, it's your binary nature that indicates a "religious" sort of attitude. It's either accept my beliefs or you must be part of the other side.
That's just in your head though. Quite aside from being base hypocrisy. I've already said I can accept that it's possible you don't consider yourself MAGA. In other words, I am clearly not adopting a binary position. My position though, is that you clearly are parroting almost exclusively MAGA talking points. I stand by that, because it is quite obvious.
Politics is not binary.
No duh. I have never claimed that it is. You're the one hypocritically insisting that I am tethered to some false dichotomy paradigm.
Trump is not binary.
I am not 100% sure what
When the evidence doesn't support you... (Score:1)
You're supposed to pound the table, not make shit up.
Don't tread on me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the don't tread on me crowd silent now? This is what you've been warning us about all along. Masked and armed federal agents are taking people away without warrants or due process. You certainly talk a big game about your numerous firearms and readiness. Wait, what's that you say? Being tread on gives you a boner?
It's obvious really. (Score:2)
Why is the don't tread on me crowd silent now?
"Don't tread on me" is literally about themselves and their tribes, not people in general. They are the ones that want to be the boot.
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Re:Don't tread on me! (Score:5, Informative)
ICE has documentation saying they're allowed to enter homes without warrants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Posting this before it's deleted. https://constitution.congress.... [congress.gov]
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Re:Don't tread on me! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Would you like me to list the people who were taken away by the Republican junta without warrants or due process? The list is rather long and I don't know if Slashdot has the disk capacity for it.
2. Deliberate perversion of evidence for the explicit purpose of damaging a defendent is denying them due process. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. That is what due process is.
\o/ (Score:1)
Has anyone tested the water pipes at the white house for some kind of hallucinogenic mold?
That's not the only dumbfuckery (Score:1)
It seems the official White House account also thinks there are penguins in the Arctic. [instagram.com]
Honestly, what saves the world from the fascist Trump regime is the staggering stupidity and incompetence of the clowns running it.
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There are certainly penguins in the Arctic. And they are high-performance penguins, too!
The Geophysical Institute launched Chinook in 2016 as an energy-efficient Linux cluster purchased from Penguin Computing Inc. [uaf.edu]
Although maybe that is not quite what the dumb asses at the White House meant.
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What's weird there is that Trump and the penguin have basically the same footprints with the same gait and everything. Trump would have to be hobbling around with his feet angled heavily outward. Usually a sign of injury or degradation in the hips or joints.
Reality TV (Score:3)
Donald J. Trump isn't a complete idiot. He successfully ran The Apprentice. The man is turning real life into an absurd reality TV production-- a show the world cannot ignore. This altered photo is red meat for his crude, gullible audience who feel zero shame in acting on their authoritarian tendencies.
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He successfully ran The Apprentice.
Did he? I could have sworn it was run by the actual showrunners. Also that he barely even actually appeared in it in terms of screen time. He certainly didn't have much of a clue of what was actually going on in the episodes and my understanding is that not just his appearances, but the actual details of contestant's performances had to be heavily edited to stop him looking like an idiot with no clue.
Donald Trump: Supervillian Against America (Score:3)
Hannah Arendt (Score:2)
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
Hannah Arendt
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Biden administration did this to a Jan 6th rioter I'll bet you'd be mortified.
But you're a fascist. Fairness, truth and morality arn't things you consider important anymore.
Feeding trolls (Score:2)
Masked fascists are "brave", even in AC mask. Still not worth feeding or worth propagating their vacuous Subjects.
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And a Jan 6 rioter is, you know, a rioter. We all saw the video. Whereas 99% of the violence we've seen at Minnesota protests was ICE instigated, the bulk of the protests being completely non-violent.
Thing with these fascists is they don't care. As far as they're concerned, they have the right to mete out violence, and nobody else has the right to complain about it. It's an evil, horrific, mentality, and it's going to take decades to fix America so it can't happen again - if that's even possible.
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... Goverment is corrupt
So you're celebrating a protestor being arrested for protesting and then her photo being digitally altered to shame her by the goverment.
Of course the arguement "Ooh goverments are all corrupt so you shouldn't take sides" means nothing to you. You don't really belive that, you belive nothing. You have no values, just like most trump supporters. You argue in bad faith because there is no good faith for you anymore.
Protesting in a church can be legal (Score:1)
Forcing a protest inside of a church without permission to be on the property violates the FACE Act, as well as it may violate trespassing laws and disorderly conduct statutes.
Protesting outside of a church is legal under the First Amendment when conducted on public property outside the church building.
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You appear to be thinking of:
by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship
Simply having a protest doesn't seem to invoke the FACE act. Laws on trespassing and disorderly conduct may apply, but the FACE act would only seem to come into play for vandalism, etc. Depends on exactly what actions the protestors actually take. As a semi-public place, even though it is private properties, an explicit ban or trespassing notice normally applies. A prominent "members only" sign and a membership approval process could automatically make entering if not a member i
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A quote from Treebeard seems appropriate here:
"I am not altogether on anybodyâ(TM)s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me...[but] there are some things, of course, whose side I am altogether not on."
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You choose your politicians. If you vote for a lizard to prevent the wrong lizard getting in, then you are part of the precipitate, not the solution.
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I think you are somewhat over interpreting an entertaining line from a book there.
Politicians are largely speaking chosen by party politics, not elections. If you just give up or opt for the greater evil at election time, then you are opting for the greater evil. That makes you way more part of the problem.
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So your options are to vote for a lizard or the wrong lizard might get in.
You haven't considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you don't need to vote for a lizard, that you can vote for someone who is intelligent, rational, and NOT corrupt.
If you cannot imagine voting for anything other than party-picked lizards, then you will never be anything more than a fly.
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So your options are to vote for a lizard or the wrong lizard might get in.
If two lizards get onto the ballot and you're in the first past the post system, then yes.
You haven't considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe
Don't be a cockwomble.
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You choose your politicians. If you vote for a lizard to prevent the wrong lizard getting in, then you are part of the precipitate, not the solution.
The problem there is that it assumes a functional election system. Most elections in the US use a completely broken simple plurality system that effectively forces a two party system via the spoiler effect. They literally call political parties in the US "third parties" as if it's the most natural thing in the world, but it is incredibly broken. In a functional democracy, people can vote their conscience without inadvertently "splitting the vote" and electing the candidate they would least like. The thing i
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You are ignoring recall votes. If you cross the threshold, a senator or representative must stand for a fresh election. This can be weaponised very very easily. You simply need enough repeated recall elections to exhaust either the voters or the candidates (or the corporations, who have to provide time off for voting). At which point, they'll either have to scrap recall votes or you reach a point where a minority party can gain the seat.
The system was designed specifically to permit the lizards to abuse pro
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I'm not ignoring recall votes, they just were not relevant to the argument. They are not a significant issue to US Democracy, nor are they the cause of the two-party system that I can see. They don't even exist at the federal level and every state has their own rules on them, with a bunch of states requiring a specific grievance and a court process to be held before such a vote can even take place. Plus the petition requirements are pretty hefty, often requiring something like 25% of the voters from the las
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Informative)
Your Government, BOTH SIDES, is corrupt, contaminated, and being repurposed to end your life as slowly, and as profitably, as possible.
This outright lying about people arrested by ICE, the colluding with despots to send people to Argentina for torture, and lying to the courts about it, the co-opting of the justice department to attack us citizens who protest, the kleptocracy, hiding the Epstein files in violation of the law passed by the congress, hiding of Jack Smith's report on the classified documents case, the sending of masked troops into US cities to intimidate, harass, beat and murder US citizens. The support of Russia's invasion, the threats of invading NATO allies, the ignoring of orders of the courts.
These things are not on both sides. This is Trump and his republicans.
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your Government, BOTH SIDES, is corrupt, contaminated, and being repurposed to end your life as slowly, and as profitably, as possible.
These things are not on both sides. This is Trump and his republicans.
There are two key strategies that many autocrats utilize to control the masses. The first is to divide the people by demonizing a party or demographic. The second is to claim that there are no sides, arguing that whatever evil is done by the autocrat is the same as what is done by the opposition.
Re:AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:4, Insightful)
On top of covering up the classified documents report, the Epstein files, losing every honest employee of the justice department by requiring them to pursue false charges against trump's enemies or immigrants or simply to lie to the courts, a continuation of the kleptocracy of his first term, and collecting the immunity of a king to the Whitehouse.
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and collecting the immunity of a king to the Whitehouse.
It's weird. I do have a King, and in theory He is above the law, or rather He is the law. Yet I'm not aware of any laws he has broken. His mother, the Queen did do things like not licensing her dogs, cars or Herself when it came to a drivers license, pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and as far as I'm aware, it has been similar since at least the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and maybe the Tudors (Bloody Mary). Might have been some gay stuff at some point when it was illegal, along with adultery.
Shit
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The second is to claim that there are no sides, arguing that whatever evil is done by the autocrat is the same as what is done by the opposition.
The Democrats just approved billions of dollars for immigration enforcement. You say the Democrats are the opposition? I guess what is happening is what should be happening since there is agreement with the opposition.
What a rube.
Argentina? (Score:2)
I doubt you mean there, which has a healthy, democratic government. Want to try again?
Re: AWWWWWWWWWW.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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What do you think ICE will start doing once they run out of people to kidnap? It's coming down to a MAGA purity test. Do you back cheeto 100%? Oh you disagree on a particular point? Uh oh here comes meal team six.
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Re:It WAS a meme (Score:5, Informative)
Memes are alway modified version of images.
Not even mostly, in by experience. They're generally unaltered photos that portray an emotion or environment that are applied to various situations by text or context.
Or are they not only when Trump does it?
This isn't a meme. It's propaganda. It is further to the harassment of people exercising their first amendment rights to protest, in an effort to make first amendment rights harder to exercise. Much like the abductions, beatings, property damage, and murder of protesters that has been going on in recent weeks.
Al together, TDS sufferers: "WAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
Being concerned about the removal of first amendment rights isn't "Trump" derangement. Citizens would be very concerned, no matter who was doing it.
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You're delusional.
Is there any particular point in that post to which you're replying that you think is a delusion?
Or are you merely trying to reduce the conversation to an exchange of ad hominems because that way you can avoid people discussing the facts? To support what you might have been obejcting to: Many memes that I recognise are unaltered ph [imgflip.com]o.tos [bbci.co.uk].
Even if many aren't I don't think it would be a perception rather than a delusion to think that they are. In any case, you're claim that they always are is not not rig
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Is that from an actual post by christoban? It would have been best to post a link to the actual post. In any case, if they really believe they are "shadow banned" on Slashdot, I would love to see their evidence about other posters not being able to "upvote" their comments? Do they have direct evidence, for example, from trying to use a sock puppet to mod their own comments? If so, I suspect that's not likely to be "shadow banning" just prevention of moderation abuse.
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Errr who makes the modified image has nothing to do with whether it is a meme or not. Simply declaring one as such doesn't make it so either regardless of who makes the declaration.
Do you even know what a meme is? Why is it that the people who label others with "TDS" also make the dumbest posts.
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I almost want to weep over a bunch of posters arguing back and forth over exactly what kind of picture on the Internet a meme is without anyone seeming to even realize that the word "meme" never originally meant that. A meme, as originally defined, not really all that long ago, means a sociological idea that spreads throughout a civilization. Essentially the genes of human civilization that propagate and go through a form of selection pressure. They could be anything from an earworm to the notion of god, to
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Memes are alway modified version of images.
What's really scary is how quickly the meaning of the word "meme" to be changed so that, by and large, what the parent said in the above quote is regarded as true by most people.