6475

What little kids?

6476

Doesn’t Junior pimp his little girl on social media to remind us there is no depth too low for him?

6477

Barron is 11. By 14-16 you’d expect a kid to have a conscience to rebel against his parents though.

6478

If Ronan Farrow turned out all right, there’s hope for Barron.

6479
6480

Well obviously the artist got that second image wrong, should have been the same:

image

6481

A Russian troll writing under the pseudonym “Alice Donovan” managed to convince a number of American editors to publish their work for the past two years, a new Washington Post report detailed on Monday. In February 2016, the individual reportedly wrote an email to the left-leaning publication CounterPunch with a simple message: “Hello, my name is Alice Donovan and I’m a beginner freelance journalist.” Initially, the troll’s articles published in CounterPunch and some 10 or more other online publications didn’t have much to do with domestic politics. But as the 2016 election intensified, Donovan began to target Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the FBI tracked Donovan’s work—part of a bureau counterintelligence operation with the codename “NorthernNight.” More than a year after the FBI identified the troll, her work was still being published in CounterPunch, often critical of American policy in the Middle East. Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch’s editor, later tried to get more information out of the troll to verify their identify but received no such substantive information.

6482

Oliver didn’t invent whataboutism, the term has been around for decades and it was coined in response to Soviet Cold War propaganda.

6483

Has anyone coined “whataboutheremailsism?”

6484

I hate that the media calls them “Russian trolls”, like they’re just a bunch of pranksters trying to get a rise out of people for fun. They’re employed by a foreign intelligence service to spread disinformation in an attack on Western democracies. They’re not “trolling”, for fuck sake.

6485

This what I thought as well.

6486

Yeah, agreed. They are GRU employees.

6487
6488

In late November, The Post informed Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch’s editor, that the FBI suspects that Donovan is a Russian government persona. St. Clair said in an interview that Donovan’s submissions didn’t stand out among the 75 or so pitches he receives each day.

If Russian propaganda is indistinguishable from what you would print anyway, maybe you’re doing something wrong? But I’m gonna take a wild guess and say this guy isn’t about to do any soul searching and ask himself if he’s any better than Breitbart.

6489

The rapidity with which a major political party and its base has fallen into the authoritarian hole is as breathtaking as it is depressing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/francis-rooney-calls-for-fbi-purge-2017-12

  • GOP Rep. Francis Rooney said on Tuesday that he wants to see the FBI and Justice Department purge agents with perceivable political biases who he believes are working for the “deep state.”
  • Rooney is the latest GOP lawmaker to criticize the FBI over what President Donald Trump’s allies see as a tainted investigation into his campaign being carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller.
  • Another Florida congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz, has alleged that Mueller and his team are staging a “coup d’etat” against Trump.
6490

WTF? There are a lot of people who vote for Democrats. Does this mean they are not suitable for government work? I guess Republicans are just fine.

This all started with Trump being so awful and the voters refusing to reject him. Now the GOP thinks they can get away with anything, including dismantling the parts of our democracy which impede them.

6491

If such things were said during Obama’s administration, folks like Malathor would freak out, and rightfully so.

6492

And the fact that it’s being said now will not stop the inevitable Republican freak out over the smallest shit next time.

6493

Right. Look at all the things Trump said before he was elected that he himself is doing now, and there’s no blowback from the conservatives over it. Obama plays golf? He’s evil. Obama goes on a vacation at taxpayer expense? He’s evil. Trump plays more golf? Thank god Trump is President! Every vacation Trump goes on costs the taxpayers? He’s working hard! He’s needs some time off!

6494

We keep recognizing hypocrisy and acting like it matters. It doesn’t. It’s only relevant if you have principles, but the GOP is driven by a desire to hold power and shared hatred of brown people and liberals. In service of those sad substitutes for principles, anything goes.

‘Anything’ includes everything we thought were democratic norms or simple human decency.