TWGB: Would You Buy a Watch from this Man?

 

So, obviously this thing where Trump is selling watches is a part of the "Trump campaign as business plan" ethos that the media doesn't quite know what to do with. It's at least as good as the NFT racket. It's better than the Trump DC Hotel racket, that Trump even found a new way to lose money at. 

We might not be able to really talk about things like the $10 million that flowed to Trump (allegedly) from Egypt in 2016, probably, or even fully investigate his business interests in China. But we could definitely ask why he's got the Mrs. out here pounding her book (which he hasn't read), her jewelry line, and fucking Chreestmas ornaments as a kind of Trump "lifestyle brand". 

Is this what serious people do? Like, if people can't afford bacon and eggs, is this really how you demonstrate solidarity with them? 

So, here's the thing--back in 2017, Trump trotted out a lawyer and like a pallet of blank paper in file folders to pretend he divested from his businesses, and LOL, no he did not do that. But dipstick MAGA  brainwashed cult members will tell you all about what he gave up to be president. That's right MAGA--he never did spend most of his time between Trump Tower, Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago. He wasn't still CEO of Trump Org when he was directing the payment of hush money from the White House. He didn't direct funds to his various properties from the US government whenever possible. 

TWGB: Live By the Fake News...

 

The "professional shitposter" who falsely claimed to be a juror's cousin and whose post MAGA has been running with to demand a mistrial just posted this. pic.twitter.com/ojiTEnepUS

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) June 7, 2024

TrumpWorld loves the idea of Fake News. They wanted to make the events of 1/6 about antifa, who weren't even there, after all. So why not try to invalidate Trump's very real guilty verdict on 34 charges with the word of a "shitposter"?

My God. How much has Trump himself benefitted from fake news and shitposting?  Is a rando keyboard wiseass going to be the reason Trump isn't seriously convicted with some white collar crime for laundering his hush money through his business to benefit his 2016 election and so on?

Judge Merchan is pro-actively addressing this particular arcane form of internet fuckery, I feel like this is about nipping the stupidity in the bud. After all, the convictions make a lot of sense to people who aren't idiot-pilled: there are two things in life Trump loves, and they are adultery and white-collar crime. Eventually, they were going to collide and blast Trump right in his orange-painted face. 

Fox News Does the Full Monty

It's always been just a little bit obvious that Fox News was more of a political advocacy outlet than a straight news organization, but if there was any doubt, popular Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro joined Rush Limbaugh in standing up for Trump and his party's candidates this evening (right before the midterm elections). They could maybe pretend they were just there to report from a very special vantage, but let's be really honest, that vantage was earned by being propagandists and useful to the party. This is what a wholly partisan effort would look like. They also derided other news outlets, laughably, as being "fake" while making this particular obvious show. 

I think people who really pay attention have some idea who the fakes are here. Pirro, Limbaugh, and Hannity might be popular, but they surely aren't honest, and what they do has never been about straight news. Limbaugh doesn't pretend to be an honest purveyor of the tea--he stresses from time to time that he is an entertainment figure (probably not to land his ass in trouble). But Hannity and Pirro?

While they are joke figures outside of the Fox milieu, among Fox news fans, the possibility that Hannity delivers real news is apparently some kind of open question, left open, deliberately, but Fox itself. (I think the same nebulous area exists for Pirro, to the extent that she is treated as being sober as a judge when both the "sober" and "judge" portions of that assessment appear to be way off.)

I may be off base for pointing out that while Brett Baier and Chris Wallace are probably kind of good, I'd really only consider Shep Smith actually wholly a journalist in the sense of not radiating bias. (That probably radiates bias in and of itself to some of Fox's conservative viewers, for a value of bias that reflects Steven Colbert's observation that reality has a liberal bias--and maybe it sort of does.) What Fox the tv channel was set up to do for people who care about these things was be a conservative and Republican-leaning outlet. 

Now, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, discuss the hack gap, broach the problem of right-wing epistemic closure, or even just point my English Lit degree-having white liberal finger at the tribe Morlock and curse their darkness while they eat my daywalking Eloi sibs. 

I just want to point out that Trump doesn't and never has had a problem in the world with fake news. He was best-buddies with the National Enquirer guy who kept hot shit-takes on Trump in a vault and is no stranger to just making shit up or repeating ridiculous conspiracy theories from the absolute underbelly of the fever-swamps--like birtherism. 

Trump loves fake news (like Alex Jones, even!) no matter what terrible things he says about the real news being terrible and fake. But you know what? That old devil "fake news"? When Trump surrounds himself with these Fox folk, he is soaking in it!

He just likes the news that magnifies him over the kind that tells bad stories about him. Only, there are plenty of bad, real stories about, and news isn't really about what Trump happens to like to hear. 

I'd like to hope this moment had any bearing on whether future news-watchers bothered with the Fox brand in the future, but, no. I doubt it. I believe they watch for reasons wholly unrelated to veracity. 

(UPDATE: It is possibly also objectionable if Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders do these things because of the Hatch act, but really? Are we going to expect the White House to actually be the paragons of virtue, here?)

UPDATE 2: See what I mean, Vern? Does saying it's not an endorsement really "disclaimer" it?

Cast in the Image of the President

The Presidential challenge coin of Donald J. Trump breaks with tradition in a few ways--for one thing, it is not round. Coins are usually round, but Trump's has a banner with his name at the bottom. The name "Donald J. Trump" is also at the top. His signature is also on it. And the Presidential Seal and the motto "E Pluribus Unum" are gone, but his motto: "Make America Great Again", is on it. 

I would say it breaks tradition because Donald Trump doesn't consider himself a part of preceding tradition. Could a nation that bears a motto "Out of many, one" be the same that tolerates Trump's appalling ideas about who the many actually are? This is not a challenge coin, so much as a struggle coin. He struggles to believe he is President.  It is the insecure emblazoning of a name all over an office he has little business being in. As with Trump's whinges about fraudulent votes being responsible for his loss in the popular vote, his touting of his electoral numbers, and his flunkies' lies about his inaugural crowd size, he seems like a person desperate to prove his legitimacy, and would do everything except the one thing that might prove it--act presidential, even a little!

Eh. Is this coin as tacky as the Presidential medal swag?  I do wonder if people receiving one will be quite as impressed. And coins do exist that have Trump's likeness on them, which have quite a bit of value, of the only sort I would have believed Trump to actually understand. 

He can not help being so personally cheap, but it is sad to see everything he touches becoming cheap as well.

Jimmy O'Keefe Gets Paid For What, Exactly?

So, I get that Project Veritas alleges that they are trying to entrap the lamestream media in the midst of their biases by means of dildo boats and whatnot, and that there was an actual minute when they thought that the Washington Post might actually pay 1000$ to them for dirt on Roy Moore because biasssed! But since this actually totally fell through for them, just like all the other fails, I have to ask--why are they fundraising off of a fuck up?  See, I think this is so that James O Keefe III gets paid a six figure salary for self-promoting, propaganda, and pretending to be a journalist, but that doesn't seem like an investment I'd be totally thrilled with if the whole entirety of things O'Keefe ever did was kill ACORN, and be an embarrassment to three generations of O'Keefes. That doesn't even sound like a real job. That right there, is wingnut welfare. 

Why are the conservatives giving this poor manchild a handout hammock? You are stunting his productivity by rewarding him for limited output. I think this is a crying shame, and maybe a little austerity might help clarify his purpose. 

Also, trying to malign people who come forward in a sexual harassment or assault matter by promoting the idea that accusers are liars is really gross, and not unsurprising from this corner of the fake-news-producing world. 

President Trump's "Fake News" Weak Sauce

There's something really stupid about President Trump' latest iteration of the "fake news" war cry--he's not actually the straightest shooter in the rifle cabinet. Just take a look at the two Time magazine covers in the above pic. The one on the right is an authentic Time cover, which depicts an orange-hued cartoon Trump with his yawp barbarically open in the process of a "meltdown". The one on the left, however, is a mock-up featuring an air-brushy Trump photo and snippets of The Apprentice television show puffery, which was copied, framed and hung at several of Trump's golf resorts. The melty Trump is the real news version. The puffery is fake, and yet, it is the version of Trump that he wants people to see. So, fake or not, it's the one he (or the toadies and yes-entities under him) run with.

This is par, to use an apt metaphor, for Trump's particular course. Trump is no stranger to using fake news and celebrity to self-promote for gain. He really has used fake news considerably to advance himself--I mean, he made his mark with the "birther" nonsense, right? And promoted the sick idea that Ted Cruz's dad helped assassinate President Kennedy. He's been entirely open about his admiration for The National Enquirer and Infowars, which are not, strictly speaking truly great and reliable news sources, and is literally a political entity today in large part because of the efforts of Breitbart and Fox News. 

His war against the media has been duly noted, but it should be also noted that there have been outlets that have been extraordinarily solicitous of him. Among some of Trump's followers, though (and I don't mind calling them followers--there are supporters, who are just regular conservatives or Republicans who hope he does ok, and then there's the cultists for whom Daddy can do no wrong), the war on "fake news" includes violence ideation on mainstream media whilst actually being a consumer of literal fake news.

It's no wonder, then, that Trump's insistence on rejecting stories that don't flatter him with the cry of "fake news" entered Tuesday's press briefing, with some vociferous pushback from Brian Karem (May his Twitter followers increase and his reputation grow from this day on!) But what is uniquely galling about the briefing was that, after calling out "fake news", Sarah Huckabee Sanders invited people to check out Project Veritas' (James O'Keefe's) latest thing to try and debunk all of CNN. An edited taped talk with a CNN health producer who doesn't cover politics.

I don't know how you decry fake news with one breath, then advertise James O'Keefe with the next, but this is a pretty special administration, and they do special things. I do know that O'Keefe's relationship with CNN is probably weird.  Also, yeah. O'Keefe.

This president has been trying to play fast and loose with the idea of what "real" is. He's been trying it out with his "leaks are real, news is fake" line, by which he implies that leaks of inside information should be stopped (by plumbers, one wonders?) and yet, somehow, once this inside true info is filtered to the various news outlets, it somehow becomes made-up--I still aver one can not have this both ways: it's either made-up, or a leak!

But what I think what Trump and his folks have done is create a lot of smoke to try and obscure real news, and if there wasn't already hints of fire, this smoke is quite alarming.  But if Trump wants to use"fake news" to wave away the Russia investigation, it remains that two congressional investigations, an FBI probe, a special prosecutor, and the consensus of the US intelligence community are not about the news media or ratings, and are completely real. And even if one story here or there needs to be retracted for sourcing reasons, this does not invalidate all that has come before--in fact, what CNN has done by owning up to an error and accepting the resignations of three journalists is called accountability--and wouldn't I just love to see Trump and Co held to the same standard of "tell the truth or leave" as the media, the much maligned media, just displayed?

Trump's whinge, now filtered through his press office and the surrogates talking him up on Fox News, about biased fake media, aren't anything new. But they are far off the mark, and maybe transparently so. It pains me to see well-respected people like Brit Hume and Sean Hannity undermine their credibility in his dubious service (I am half-kidding, but I leave to my reader to determine the extent of my jest).

Bob Dole! Boeing! Carrier! Flynn Jr!

It seems like we can sort of clear up whether the Trump "congratulations" call from the Taiwanese government was a faux pas or pre-panned, now--it had been prepared months in advance with the assistance of paid lobbyist, former Senator Bob Dole, which does contradict the surprised "They called me!" Tweet PEOTUS Trump had made.

This seems like a case of poor communications--was the incoming Trump foreign policy transition team unaware that this would probably be found out? (After all, transient team members are being held to some fairly strict guidelines that includes a non-disclosure agreement--as well as a ban on lobbying, so they might not have realized this would become transparent via a document trail.) But this may actually be a trend--

Take a recent Tweet made by Trump regarding the cost of Boeing's Air Force One contract, which had an effect on Boeing stock. It wasn't actually accurate, and lead to speculation that the Tweet was in response to criticism regarding free trade that Boeing's CEO had made. It's a concern that one Tweet could have that kind of effect on stock prices--and be inaccurate. People need a president who understands that his or her communication can no longer be deemed "casual" and doesn't play games.

I've pointed out that the Carrier deal seems to have been over-hyped, and that the media needs to really investigate claims made by Team Trump. United Steelworkers leader, Chuck Jones, put it a bit more bluntly than I did, accusing Trump of "lying his ass off", which resulted in Trump responding, via Twitter, in kind, resulting in the union leader receiving threats. Trump's original Carrier claims wre inaccurate, and Jones' comments represent a difference of opinion--but Trump's reckless communications regarding a single citizen could have dire effects. (But this is of a piece with Trump's previous response to criticism, for example, from journalists.  And journalists who have run afoul of Trump have received death threats.)

We've seen just recently that inaccurate or outright fake information can have potentially disastrous consequences, with the shooting that took place in a DC-area restaurant.  A member of the Trump transition team actually had been responsible for furthering that nasty, lurid bit of conspiracy theory. However, VP-elect Mike Pence, when questioned about this, responded as if Michael Flynn, Jr. never had been part of the team (he was fired, but certainly had been part of the transition).  This type of deception is anything but innocent--when people in authority regularly lie, people might begin to get the idea that our institutions simply aren't to be trusted, but without some kind of trust in our institutions, their efficacy is sorely diminished.

Donald Trump represented himself as a straight-shooter, but this hardly seems to be the case. If he is to govern effectively, though, he needs to show greater respect for the truth, even if it comes at the expense of the narrative he wants to feed the public.

Believing Absurdities

There is a price to pay for bullshit. Voltaire is quoted as saying: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities". So my mind doesn't exactly boggle when a person who self-selected for bullshit came away with an absurd notion that resulted in arming himself and entering an innocent business to "investigate" or ...to shoot people.

The fake news piece is lurid and unsubstantiated. And people with a surprising amount of responsibility have been sucked in because they, too, have self-selected for bullshit. Threats have been made towards the business in question, businesses in the neighborhood and journalists who have tried to point out that the whole thing is bullshit because this bullshit is so awful that they prefer to believe it.

Think about that. Debunking becomes a nefarious cover-up to a true believer. Trying to unravel lies becomes heresy. And people who believe this kind of nonsense are in the circle of the PEOTUS.

This thing I was saying about how facts matter? This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Triumph of the Swill

Is it possible that fake news sites had a hand in deciding the election? It sounds sort of freakish, doesn't it? Could it really be that fake news sites like "abcnews.com.co", which spoofs the address of ABC News, actually were taken as the real deal?

In a word--maybe! Per an analysis by Buzzfeed, in the final months of the election, fake news dissemination on social media eclipsed news from legitimate news organizations. From the graphic above, which is a screen-cap from Eric Trump's Twitter, you can see he Tweeted a link to a fake story--and so did Corey Lewandowski and Trump superfan Ann Coulter.  It's a little puzzling to me to say whether they were actually duped by what seemed like favorable news to the Trump campaign ("if something seems too good to be true..." is the beginning of a well-known adage) or whether they knew it was bull but ran with it anyway.  See, voter suppression of known liberal demographic + mobilizing the anger of conservative voters seems to have been the strategy of the Trump Campaign, itself. And what would do that better than casting the Clinton campaign in a dodgy light?

And the creation of fake news and propaganda wasn't solely for the benefit of the Trump campaign--folks in, for example, Macedonia, made bank on it. (Although I do wonder--who did the paying?) To take it a step further, it seems that automated bot accounts on social media spread pro-Trump propaganda--who made them?

Regardless of which pro-Trump supporter(s) unleashed the digital flying monkeys, I think this activity probably did have an impact on last-minute and first-time voters, whose impact was greater this year than in 2012. That article make reference also to the FBI Director Comey's October surprise letter regarding Clinton's emails. There's reason to believe this too, had a strong last-minute impact. (The possibility that Comey reached out to Lewandowski, who does not seem, CNN notwithstanding, to have ever left the Trump campaign, is really odd, is it not?)

But what kind of actually galls me is that some of the fake news on which probably well-meaning people made their decisions was based on sheer cynicism. This interview with the writer of the fake paid protester story is sort of face-palmingly awful: the guy made things up for Trump fans just because he knew they would pass on anything, and admits that no one really needs to get paid to protest Trump. (Examine this interesting reflection by a site called True Pundit. Possible NSA pick Gen. Flynn spread one of their fake stories. I suppose one might meditate a moment on how likely it is that a) Democratic ops would go out of their way to spread negative disinfo about Dem candidates, even if fake, and b) whether it is probably more accurately said that, regardless of the source, one is responsible for one's own beclowning if passing on unsubstantiated bullcrap.)

This isn't even to go into whether the impact that the possible hack by Russian agents of the DNC as "leaked" by Wikipedia (and whether any of that was spoofed or altered in any way) had any especial effect--although I agreed with Senators Graham and McCain that the hack itself is worrisome and should be investigated.  It's to say that social media sites and we "internetizens" need to do a better job of weeding out and not passing on utter fabrications. (It appears that Facebook may have an algorithm that guards against fake news--but didn't deploy it because it disproportionately effected conservative-leaning sites--they have been burned by claims of bias before.)

Anyway, you might recognize my blog title is a play on Leni Reifenstahl's movie Triumph of the Will, which is acknowledged to be a masterpiece of propaganda. The "swill" is that practically anyone can, faithlessly, throw any crap against a Facebook wall, and see if it sticks. And some of it does. A crap-based politics is not good for democracy, though.

The Trump Problem 6: Dan Hominy

Trump source in room tells me Trump made a gen elex map pitch to the group. Mentioned NJ ("right, Chris?!"), CA, PA, MD as in play.

— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) June 9, 2016

I think the Republicans have an interesting problem with Donald Trump in that they want him to be someone he pretty much isn't. They think he is growing and learning.  He will stop being a textbook racist asshat any day now.  Basically, they believe that they can decry the things said by Donald Trump, and still support "Dan Hominy".

"Dan Hominy" is my private name for "The Nominee"--a salt-of the earth independent small government businessman who pleases the evangelical contingent while being strictly acceptable to the Chamber of Commerce folks, and who, when he's up for it, shows a solid grasp of national defense priorities. You know, a "Generic Republican", who, if things were anything but what they are right now, would be just the three-legged-stool sitting SOB to eke out an electoral college win over Hillary Clinton. A guy with no major negatives, a reputation for honesty, and a basic general competence.  I think, despite Donald Trump actually being the person who won the GOP primaries, a lot of Republicans want to mainstream their guy as being this "Dan Hominy"--slogan? "He's got grits!"