Exemplary

Jan 24th, 2019 11:32 am | By

Trump is a role model for bad heads of state.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s increasingly autocratic leader, said Trump represents “permission” from “the highest position in the world.”

To Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, the U.S. president is a barrier-breaker — proof that incendiary comments about women or minorities and a history of trafficking in conspiracy theories don’t need to stand in the way of taking power.

When the Nigerian army opened fire on rock-throwing demonstrators last fall, killing as many as 40 people, it defended itself by citing Trump’s threats to do the same at the Mexican border.

When the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia criticized ruler Hun Sen for cracking down on the opposition and the media, the authoritarian leader pointed out that Trump had his back — not the diplomats’.

“Your policy has been changed, but the embassy in Phnom Penh has not changed it yet,” he said, appealing to Trump to rein his embassy in.

And when members of the U.N. Security Council visited Myanmar’s commander in chief in late April to demand explanations for the expulsion of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims, he used the phrase “fake news” — the only words he spoke in English — no less than a dozen times, according to people present.

He makes us proud.

That is not to say the United States has always had such an enviable record, as Trump himself is fond of pointing out. Napalm attacks on Vietnamese villages, torture at Abu Ghraib prison and coddling of friendly dictators are just a few examples that highlight the gap between American rhetoric and reality.

Not to mention genocide and slavery; very true; but Trump doesn’t get to point that out.

In the Philippines, local courts have proved incapable of mounting any serious challenge to the thousands of extrajudicial killings carried out as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

As a former American colony where respect and admiration for the United States still runs deep, the Philippines is particularly susceptible to Washington’s influence. Polls show that Filipinos trust the United States more than any other major country, and about 80 percent of the population believes the United States plays a positive role in the world.

But rather than rein Duterte in, Trump has seemed only to embolden him with his support. Trump has said he and Duterte have “a great relationship.” Duterte has called Trump “a good friend” who “speaks my language.”

“If a full-blown dictatorship is established in the Philippines, to a large degree, Donald Trump helped that,” said Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer and activist.

A guy needs friends.



Many thousands are in want of common necessaries

Jan 24th, 2019 10:50 am | By

Since Screechy Monkey and Pliny the In Between both quoted it, here is the full passage in A Christmas Carol:

They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

“Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”

“Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” Scrooge replied. “He died seven years ago, this very night.”

“We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,” said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word “liberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.”

“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Charles Dickens



A little bit of pain

Jan 24th, 2019 10:40 am | By

I’ll just strum the Wilbur Ross guitar for a few more minutes…



Wilbur Ross is disappointed

Jan 24th, 2019 8:08 am | By

More on Wilbur Ross and “why don’t they just take out a loan?”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday said he doesn’t understand why federal workers are visiting food banks during the partial government shutdown, saying they should instead seek low-interest loans from banks and credit unions to supplement their lost wages.

“I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why,” Ross said on CNBC when asked about federal workers going to food banks. Ross is a billionaire and a longtime friend of President Trump.

“The idea that it’s paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea,” he said. “There’s no reason why some institution wouldn’t be willing to lend.”

Wellllll I can think of a reason. It goes like this: banks don’t lend money to everyone who asks, because banks are in the business of making money. They ask if you will be able to pay it back, and they seek documentation of any affirmative reply, and if they can’t find the right kind of documentation, they decline to lend the money. That’s a reason some institution wouldn’t be willing to lend. I would think a commerce secretary would know that.

Ross leads one of the agencies that is directly affected by the shutdown that began Dec. 22, and many of his employees haven’t been paid for weeks.

But they’re all fine, because they can all get loans just for the asking. Probably.

The White House is working to quell a growing anger among the 800,000 federal workers who are scheduled to miss their second paychecks this week, as many have begun calling in sick or refusing to show up for work. The Trump administration has scrambled to try to deflect the shutdown’s effect on the economy, but they’ve done this in part by requiring thousands of unpaid federal employees to continue doing their jobs.

Many of those workers are beginning to revolt, either calling in sick or saying they can’t afford gasoline.

“It’s kind of disappointing that the air traffic controllers are calling in sick in pretty large number,” Ross said.

Oh yes, how rude and disappointing of them to stop showing up for work when they’re not being paid.

This sort of grin-and-bear-it line is similar to the position Trump has taken, saying he thinks federal workers will make “adjustments” during the shutdown.

Sure. Just get out the screwdriver and give it a little twist and everything will be awesome.



Thoughts not all that much dissected

Jan 24th, 2019 7:55 am | By
Thoughts not all that much dissected

Stupid on Twitter.

Capture



The obligations that they would undertake

Jan 24th, 2019 7:47 am | By

Ahhh yes, why don’t they just take out payday loans, the whiners.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Right? Right? Everybody has a few mill in the savings account for times like this, yeah? Why don’t they just use that money for now?

“I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why,” Ross said when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. “Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed.”

And all anybody has to do to borrow from a bank is just waltz in and demand a few thousand bucks. It’s that easy. Paying the interest is easy too. It’s all just one big piece of Easy Cake.



A list of 30 tweets

Jan 24th, 2019 7:19 am | By

James Kirkup on that chat with Inspector Plod:

This is a story about Harry Miller, a man who has lived a life that might be described as blameless and even admirable. He’s the director of a company that employs 70-odd people in one of the poorer bits of England, invests in its staff and community, and uses its financial and technical expertise to raise large sums of money and make life better for people who really need it in very poor parts of Nepal.

And yet he had that 34 minute conversation with a cop yesterday.

This is, of course, a story about Twitter, and transgenderism. Miller says he was interviewed by the police and warned about his ‘thinking’ because he had used his Twitter account to express opinions about transgenderism and the law as it applies to gender. On that account, Miller says things such as ‘trans women are not women’ and questions the school of thought that says someone born male who ‘identifies’ as female must be treated in exactly the same way as a person born with a female body.

Or rather, exactly the same way but more so because trans women are twice oppressed, unlike mere women. Trans women are women and trans, which is two kinds of oppressed, so they go to the head of the line.

Miller, it was suggested, might have been responsible for such a ‘hate incident’ by ‘promoting’ tweets that a complainant (unnamed) regarded as hateful or offensive. The officer allegedly had a list of 30 tweets Miller had sent, liked or retweeted, which he suggested had been cited by a person he referred to as ‘the victim’ of the supposed incident.

Miller says the officer went on to warn him that by ‘promoting’ such material, he might find himself in trouble with his company (the officer was evidently unaware that Miller actually owns the firm) because his tweeting might make transgender employees uncomfortable.

And of course we can assume that these non-existent trans employees are monitoring Miller’s tweets just as anxiously as the police are, in hopes of finding something to be “uncomfortable” about.

 spoke to Miller this morning about the call. He said he remains incredulous that a police officer would seek him out, via his business, and spend more than half an hour warning him about his ‘thinking’ and the fact that he had expressed opinions about social and political issues, in a way that does not in any way break the law.

Miller told me: ‘I kept asking him, why are you saying ‘victim’? If there’s not been a crime, how can there be a victim. He said that’s just the way it is.’

‘He said he would be passing my answers on to the complainant. I told him to tell that person I would gladly talk to them, that I’d like to take them out to dinner so we could have a conversation about this. I’d explain that I am a strong supporter of the 2010 Equality Act, and explain my concerns about possible reforms of the Gender Recognition Act and how that could affect legal rights for women. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me anything about the complainant, just that they were from ‘down south’.’

Well that narrows it down.

I also asked Humberside Police about Miller’s account of his conversation with their officer. They gave me this statement:

‘We take all reports of hate incident seriously and will always investigate and take proportionate action.’ [sic]

They didn’t say any more about what constitutes a ‘hate incident’, but English and Welsh police forces are subject to Home Office instructions on ‘crime reporting’ that appear to oblige them to record anything that a complainant perceives to be motivated by hatred of people because of a protected characteristic. That can mean race, age, disability or gender reassignment.

How about sex? In there at all?

What to make of this? I’ve written a lot about this subject, because I think it raises many disturbing questions about the way we conduct ourselves as a society and a democracy, about the way the political process registers and responds to different groups’ valid concerns and questions. I keep writing about it because I think that more people in positions of authority should take a closer (and more public) interest in numerous failures of policy and politics.

In the meantime, be careful of those limericks.



The wrong people are being arrested

Jan 24th, 2019 6:46 am | By

The discussion of How Bad Would It Be if the Shutdown Went On For Months continues.

Economists have told NBC News that an extended government shutdown could be catastrophic for the economy — as well as for the almost 40 million Americans who would lose food stamps, two million people who could lose rental assistance and the 800,000 federal workers and estimated 1.2 million contractors who aren’t getting paychecks.

Also for national security, federal law enforcement and investigations, environmental protections, food safety, disease control, and assorted minor problems of that kind. Other than that it will all be just fine!

Hundreds of already frustrated and struggling federal workers demonstrated Wednesday in Washington, D.C., urging senators to stop sitting on the sidelines and get the government going again.

The workers held a silent protest in the Hart Senate Office Building for 33 minutes — one minute for every day they’ve gone without pay since the shutdown began. Many held paper plates with messages scrawled on them, like “hostage,” “federal workers are going hungry” and “please let us work.”

The protest then moved to the Russell Senate Office Building, where 12 demonstrators, including several union leaders, were arrested outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office.

Mitch McConnell is still getting paid.

The Kentucky Republican was also targeted by protesters in his home state. About three dozen workers demonstrated outside of his office in Lexington — and police were called on them when they tried unsuccessfully to present his office with letters describing the hardships the shutdown has forced them to endure.

The police were called when they tried to present letters to his office? Wtf? He’s not a private citizen, he’s the boss of the Senate, who is helping Trump to keep the government shut down – and his constituents don’t even have the right to deliver letters to his office? Why the hell not??



Trump asks if it will succeed in ruining everything

Jan 23rd, 2019 5:20 pm | By

Ok this is really scary – this is coup-material.

White House seeks list of programs that would be hurt if shutdown lasts into March.

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has pressed agency leaders to provide him with a list of the highest-impact programs that will be jeopardized if the shutdown continues into March and April, people familiar with the directive said.

Mulvaney wants the list no later than Friday, these people said, and it’s the firmest evidence to date that the White House is preparing for a lengthy funding lapse that could have snowballing consequences for the economy and government services.

Putin must be breaking out the very best champagne at this news – his little buddy is going to destroy the US altogether!



Not appearing before Congress was never an option

Jan 23rd, 2019 4:57 pm | By

Welp. Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff have said Trump is using textbook mob tactics and that he’s breaking the law. In an official statement.

Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement in response to a request received by Michael Cohen to postpone his upcoming testimony before Congress:

“We have received Mr. Cohen’s notice postponing his voluntary appearance in an open hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Reform.  We certainly understand the completely legitimate concerns for the safety and security of Mr. Cohen and his family members in light of the attacks last week by President Trump and again this past weekend by his attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

“As we stated previously with our colleague, Chairman Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are textbook mob tactics that we condemn in the strongest terms.  Our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.  The President should make no statement or take any action to obstruct Congress’ independent oversight and investigative efforts, including by seeking to discourage any witness from testifying in response to a duly authorized request from Congress.

He already has done that, and he did it on television. He’s committed crimes right in front of us.

“We understand that Mr. Cohen’s wife and other family members fear for their safety after these attacks, and we have repeatedly offered our assistance to work with law enforcement to enhance security measures for Mr. Cohen and his family.

“Nevertheless, when our Committees began discussions with Mr. Cohen’s attorney, not appearing before Congress was never an option.  We will not let the President’s tactics prevent Congress from fulfilling our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities.  This will not stop us from getting to the truth.  We expect Mr. Cohen to appear before both Committees, and we remain engaged with his counsel about his upcoming appearances.”

We get The Godfather and All the President’s Men in one movie.



PC from Humberside

Jan 23rd, 2019 3:00 pm | By

And then the police phoned.

Ah yes the “you liked it” crime. I remember that one so well – creepy people monitoring my Likes on Twitter and Facebook and even writing long screeds about them. It seemed stark raving mad to me then, and it doesn’t seem any saner now – and as for the police doing it, and deciding on the basis of doing it that the Person of Suspect Likes is unsafe to employ trans people – it’s just fucking batshit crazy.

Don’t we all just long to have a cop phone us up to tell us that “sometimes a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb and that is what transgender is”?

How can the cop possibly know he’s at risk of being fired for hate speech? Is the cop telling the company to fire him if he likes any more limericks on Twitter?

The world burns and this is what the UK police are busying themselves with.



That’s a no

Jan 23rd, 2019 2:23 pm | By

Nancy Pelosi has responded.



He put the frighteners on him

Jan 23rd, 2019 2:12 pm | By

That’s a good look.

Michael D. Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer for President Trump, has indefinitely postponed his congressional testimony, his lawyer said in a statement on Wednesday, citing Mr. Trump’s verbal attacks on Mr. Cohen’s family in the days since he scheduled his appearance on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Cohen was to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 7 at the invitation of Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland and the chairman of the committee, but backed out because of ongoing threats against his family, his lawyer Lanny Davis said in a statement.

President’s former lawyer puts hold on testimony to Congress because of president’s threats. Are we gangstered up enough yet?

Mr. Trump denied that he was outright threatening his former lawyer, telling reporters in the White House that Mr. Cohen has “only been threatened by the truth.”

He wasn’t outright threatening, he was implicitly threatening. World of difference. Aren’t we all proud to be Americans today.

Mr. Cummings said that Mr. Cohen had “legitimate concerns” for his family’s safety. “Efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are textbook mob tactics that we condemn in the strongest terms,” he said in a joint statement with Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “Our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.”

And along with that, it’s kind of frowned on. It’s seen as not altogether respectable to make efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress, especially when the person making the efforts is the president. It doesn’t look good.

Mr. Cohen’s willingness to tell prosecutors and the public what he knows about any possible involvement by Mr. Trump in the crimes he has already admitted to has emerged as one of the biggest threats to the Trump presidency. Mr. Cohen has spent more than 70 hours with investigators for the Southern District of New York who prosecuted the campaign finance violations and for the special counsel investigating Russia’s election interference and possible ties to the Trump campaign.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested on Twitter that Mr. Cohen’s family members be investigated. In a recent interview with Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host and one of Mr. Trump’s preferred interviewers, he called for Mr. Cohen’s father-in-law to be investigated without citing details.

When Ms. Pirro pressed for the name of the father-in-law, Mr. Trump demurred but said, “You’ll look into it because nobody knows what’s going on over there.”

Abuse of power much?

That interview prompted a rare statement from House Democrats cautioning that any effort to discourage or influence witness testimony before Congress could be construed as a crime.

“The integrity of our process to serve as an independent check on the executive branch must be respected by everyone, including the president,” the Democrats said in the statement. “Our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.“

It should have been a statement from the entire Congress. We get more filthy every day.



You can’t tell me no

Jan 23rd, 2019 10:53 am | By

Trump has written a letter to Pelosi saying he’s going to give the State of the Union speech in the House (the one she’s the Speaker of) even though she told him he couldn’t. He’s not going to let any mere woman tell him what to do. Never mind that it’s her job and it’s also his job, he’s not going to do it, because women. He wouldn’t let her talk when she and Schumer met with him and he’s not going to let her tell him no.

Except he can’t do anything about it.



So perplexed

Jan 23rd, 2019 9:29 am | By

So I asked Doctor Google, and Snopes says the poster is real but the headline was intended as a joke, or at least as “somewhat” facetious.

This image was originally posted by the web site Louder with Crowder in August 2017 and was widely circulated on social media accompanied by derisive comments mocking the seemingly ever-expanding acronym used to refer to gender and sexual minorities. Some who saw the flyer were apparently so perplexed by the 15 letters at the top (which according to the flyer stands for Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual and Polyamorous) that they questioned whether or not the image was real.

Ooh, imagine that – but it wasn’t “real” in the sense of truly referring to a genuine acronym without any irony.

This is indeed a flyer used to publicize an ETFO-run inclusiveness training session. However, the acronym LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP was used somewhat facetiously in order to publicize the training. A representative for the Durham chapter of the ETFO told us:

Yes, the poster is genuine. The intent of the title was to draw workshop participants (teachers) by acknowledging that keeping track of diverse LGBTQ identities can be overwhelming, especially as our students are continuously identifying new ones. In our union, we use LGBTQ as an umbrella term for all marginalized sexual and gender identities.

Which is turning out to be a bad idea because it mashes together too many disparate concepts, some of which contradict others.



Inclusiveness training

Jan 23rd, 2019 9:14 am | By

Seen on Facebook:

No photo description available.

Now, in the wake of Smilingboygate one has to ask: is this real or is it satire?



Represent

Jan 23rd, 2019 7:47 am | By

Jo Bartosch asks one of those questions we’re not supposed to ask: Why did trans women lead the Women’s March?

If the ‘transracial’ Rachel Dolezal were to give a keynote speech at a Black Lives Matter event there would rightly be an outcry. And yet this year the ‘Women’s March’ in London was fronted by someone who has identified as a woman for less time than I’ve had the shoes I’m wearing. Munroe Bergdorf is a transgender model who was chosen to speak by the London chapter of the global Women’s March. In a baffling address Bergdorf offered insights into Brexit, austerity and womanhood. The crowd cheered as Bergdorf explained that laws preventing brothel-keeping were bad for women and that the British media is transphobic. There was an irony in Bergdorf’s amplified and male-sounding voice proclaiming that ‘all women must have a voice’.

“All women must have a voice, including men.” Way to prevent women from having a voice: start giving men who “identify as” women a voice instead of women. Do that enough and pretty soon there won’t be any women’s voices left.

The response of course is “Wull trans women are women. It’s only because you think trans women are men that you see this as a problem.” It gets tedious after a few years trying to explain why that is such a crock, but the fact remains that words don’t magically change material reality, and men don’t turn into women by uttering the mystic phrase “I identify as.” Yes, we “think” trans women are men, because they are, by definition.

One of the most insidious battles women face is against the social pressure to be ‘nice’. We police each other and are judged far more harshly if we put ourselves and our interests first. It is clear that the organisers of the Women’s March have broken under this burden. They have published an incoherent list of ‘Values and Principles’ comprised of 1,479 inclusive-sounding words that mean nothing. Far from being about the liberation of women from patriarchy, it seems the Women’s March wants to tackle everything from the economy to police brutality. As it has long been noted, women are the only group who are not allowed to centre themselves in their own liberation.

And why is that? Partly the above-mentioned social pressure to be nice, partly the social belief that women are “nice” and thus easy to push around, partly the deeply ingrained habit of pushing women around, partly the belief that it’s women’s job to take care of everyone else, partly misogyny, partly because it’s so easy…and so on. It’s a big package, the package of rules about women, and it takes too long to list them all. But make no mistake: that’s what is going on here. Trans “activism” has become a gift for men who love to bully and threaten and shun and try to destroy women and for women who feel compelled to help them do it. (How to explain those women I don’t know. The same thing but inverted? I don’t know.)

Interestingly, transgender men have not achieved the same prominence as trans women. There have been no transgender ‘men of the year’, trans-men members of the Savile gentlemen’s club in Mayfair, or complaints that the Cerne Abbas Giant is exclusionary. A cynic might suggest that this is because, regardless of how someone identifies, how they are brought up, as either boys or girls during childhood, shapes their behaviour as adults. As the ‘wokewash’ Gillette advert made clear, aggression and dominance in men and boys is encouraged and these gendered cultural norms run deep.

Plus everybody knows that trans men are just boring dreary ol’ women and who cares about them?



We are all conditioned to react

Jan 22nd, 2019 5:24 pm | By

Oh gee, whaddya know, the Twitter account that got the Covington thing going appears to have been one of those disrupter types.

Twitter suspended an account on Monday afternoon that helped spread a controversial encounter between a Native American elder and a group of high school students wearing Make America Great Again hats.

The account claimed to belong to a California schoolteacher. Its profile photo was not of a schoolteacher, but of a blogger based in Brazil, CNN Business found. Twitter suspended the account soon after CNN Business asked about it.

The account, with the username @2020fight, was set up in December 2016 and appeared to be the tweets of a woman named Talia living in California. “Teacher & Advocate. Fighting for 2020,” its Twitter bio read. Since the beginning of this year, the account had tweeted on average 130 times a day and had more than 40,000 followers.

130 times a day –  that’s doing it for pay, because that’s a full-time job.

Late on Friday, the account posted a minute-long video showing the now-iconic familiar confrontation between a Native American elder and the high school students, with the caption, “This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March.”

That version of the video was viewed at least 2.5 million times and was retweeted at least 14,400 times, according to a cached version of the tweet seen by CNN Business.


Rob McDonagh, an assistant editor at Storyful, a service that vets content online, was monitoring Twitter activity on Saturday morning and said the @2020fight video was the main version of the incident being shared on social media.

In one indicator of the @2020fight’s video’s virality, multiple newsrooms, including some national American outlets, reached out to the user asking them directly about the video.

McDonagh said he found the account suspicious due to its “high follower count, highly polarized and yet inconsistent political messaging, the unusually high rate of tweets, and the use of someone else’s image in the profile photo.”

Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher who saw the tweet and shared it herself on Saturday, said she later realized that a network of anonymous accounts were working to amplify the video.

Speaking about the nature of fake accounts on social media, McKew told CNN Business, “This is the new landscape: where bad actors monitor us and appropriate content that fits their needs. They know how to get it where they need to go so it amplifies naturally. And at this point, we are all conditioned to react and engage or deny in specific ways. And we all did.”

So there’s that.



Why are you smiling?

Jan 22nd, 2019 4:14 pm | By

This has been doing the rounds:

Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, text

Note the ND after the first one. (I missed it at first.) The N is for naturopathic. NOT A REAL DOCTOR.

By the way there’s a measles outbreak here in Washington state, mostly via unvaccinated kids.



But we DID that

Jan 22nd, 2019 3:34 pm | By

This again. Farking birtherism.