Well, we knew shady, fanatical oligarchs perpetrated a global plan to stoke bigotry and sow fear to subvert democracy, but this illustrates the con in a visceral way:
SCOOP: In the final weeks of the 2016 elections, Google and Facebook worked with a dark money group to target anti-Muslim ads like this at swing voters. Docs obtained by @OpensecretsDC show Robert Mercer was the group's largest donor, giving $2 million https://t.co/tbboWNBXkC pic.twitter.com/S3BTeXhFtI
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) April 5, 2018
The Islamic States of America ad above was the last in a series of three ads the group ran in 2016. Here's the Islamic State of France, which shows the Mona Lisa wearing a burka, and the spires of the Notre Dame replaced with the domes of a mosque pic.twitter.com/XAm73mCNlB
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) April 5, 2018
In the Islamic State of Germany ad, visitors are invited to “celebrate the arranged marriages of future jihadi soldiers” at a pork- and alcohol-free Oktoberfest. “You can even sell your daughter or sister to be married.” pic.twitter.com/R2tPfoWcn2
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) April 5, 2018
All out of can’ts to even.
PS: You can read the OpenSecrets.org report here.
cleek
i’d like to see more fleshing-out of the “worked with” thing.
if they mean “used the platforms’ existing audience targeting tools”, or “did data mining similar to what Cambridge Analytica did” then meh. but it sounds like they’re trying to accuse FB and Google of scheming along with the Mercers to push racist xenophobic nonsense.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Truly the leaded gasoline of the 21st century.
Chyron HR
@cleek:
It was the algorithms! The algorithms are racist, not Facebook and Google!
Adam L Silverman
@Chyron HR: All equations matter!
ruemara
I absolutely hate these people.
@cleek: I think they mean worked with as in “worked with to teach us how to use our analytics to push a message of xenophobia and hatred largely counter to their public mission statements”. This was just money.
Mike in DC
Why, oh why, are economically anxious white people so susceptible to racially-coded messaging? It’s an enigmatic mystery that may never be solved.
Kelly
I started reading Ron Chernow’s Grant biography. It’s oddly comforting to read how petty and venal many of political and military leaders were knowing we eventually won anyway.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@cleek:
To me, morally, it makes little difference.
Lyrebird
@cleek: Good point, partly because if allowing dark-money groups to buy ad distribution isn’t legal, like because of campaign law violations, then why would those groups exist?
Full disclosure, I think those ads are obviously hate speech and should not be protected, but I A also N A L so I want some other legal eagles to take down these hate-mongering groups and do it right!
Lyrebird
@ruemara: Now we see why you’re so much further along on *your* novel… Meaning: thanks for saying something I was also trying to say, and faster and more clearly to boot!
Major Major Major Major
@cleek: I’m assuming it was either employees working as non-employee volunteers/consultants, which… can be said of most large corporations… or the same advertising support they offer to every advertiser.
Will now read.
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: not a fan of trolley problems?
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I’m repeating this from the thread I helped kill below:
My publisher, Inspired Quill, has created an online course in online marketing. It’s here:
https://sjslack.teachable.com/p/casual-to-committed
It ordinarily costs $147 but there are a limited number of slots for $47 if you use the code IQSCHOLAR.
As one of IQ’s authors, I took it for free. I thought it was pretty good.
Feel free to tell anyone you think might be interested.
Betty Cracker
@cleek: Sounds like they’re accusing Facebook and Google of at least running A/B tests to see which of the hate-mongering ads were more effective. I don’t know how much of that work is automated.
Kay
@Lyrebird:
This is from the Bloomberg piece at the link. I too think it’s a good question:
Google has a small business team who actually do “work with” advertisers, if “work with” means give you an individual person to help you target advertising, write it, etc. I assume it’s like that?
eric
I will dissent as to these ads only. Any person that is swayed in any fashion by these ads was never, ever, ever, ever going to vote for a democrat. These ads are so insanely bad that they look like SNL skits. I do not doubt that there was racist targeting, but it was more insidious than this tripe.
ruemara
@Mike in DC: Crocs & unseasoned dishes. Guessing.
@Lyrebird: My novels & screenplays beg to differ. But I preen at the compliment.
ruemara
@Kay: Wasn’t there a team like that embedded with the Trump campaign and working with CA? In fact, wasn’t there a table at CPAC? “Don’t be evil” used to be Google’s motto. I guess, “Embrace evil” is the new one.
MattF
The Mercers really seem to fit the ‘evil oligarch’ type. I feel nostalgia for the innocent time when ‘greed’ was the principal mortal sin. Now, that just feels naive.
eric
Let me add that there is a tricky issue at play: if Facebook/Google provides help to advertisers and political speech groups, it is a very dangerous proposition for them to choose which ones are “okay.” This insanity would likely get by as parody. As for the substance, I am not so sure that it can be stopped. Improper use of user data is a separate animal.
ETA: think non-union business screening union based or workers rights apocalyptic videos
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Some of these assholes need to go to jail. When the Democrats get into office, I don’t want to hear any shit about putting things behind us. People who think about doing this from here on out need to understand that if they pull this kind of shit, they’re going to end up in jail. I understand that Obama thought that maybe he could work with Republicans if he met them halfway and treated them like people working in good faith, but we should have learned our lesson about that by now. If we don’t stop these people, they’re only going to keep doing it. Why wouldn’t they? It’s worked for them so far.
Chyron HR
@eric:
And yet here we are.
Major Major Major Major
From my reading of the open secrets article, Facebook and google treated them content-neutrally like basically every other advertiser. (cc @Kay)
rikyrah
ALL coming out in the rinse.
No Drought No More
Admiral Poindexter is either laughing, or crying, his ass off theses days (wherever he is). Remember when he walked the plank? I’ll tell you one thing- the good admiral didn’t envision Facebook in the digital future he labored to effect.
cleek
@Betty Cracker:
i did some Google advertising, years ago. when i did it, Google’s back end was set up in a way that makes doing A/B comparisons trivial. you drop one ad into what they called a “campaign” (search terms to trigger on, max shows per hour, what to show, when, where, etc.) and then drop another ad into another campaign, let them run for a while. then you look at your dashboard and it will tell you how all your ads fared: how many showing, how many hits, which keywords were associated with the most visits, etc.. that way, you can tailor your ads to get the most bang for your buck.
Yarrow
I’ve been saying for ages that Robert Mercer is a traitor. Traitors will pay. Tick tock, motherfuckers.
cosima
@Kay: I remember when that piece first came out — there is a mention in there of the fact that Hillary’s campaign turned down their offer of embeds.
Lyrebird
@ruemara:
Glad the compliment came through – was meant as such!!
geg6
@Chyron HR:
And more than several of them had voted and will vote for Democrats. So…
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: @cleek: even if they did offer actual support, which the article seems to allege (though it’s buried so far down from the headline it makes me question it), it was the same kind of ‘support’ they ‘provided’ to the trump campaign—which was also offered to every other campaign and large advertiser, and which Hillary turned down. Even for small-ball advertisers you have a rep in the sales office, at least some years ago when I worked with their ads.
Ryan
So, do Islamicists speak English everywhere they go? Pretty sure the acronym for “Islamic state of” is not ISO in French.
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: Yet, that’s the problem. Would it fly if those ads targeted Jews or blacks? They should have more stringent guidelines for political content than “does it sell something”.
Fair Economist
@MattF:
Who would have thought another megabillionaire family was even worse than the Kochs?
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: We’re gonna need a bigger (regulatory) boat.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Amen
sherparick1
Apparently, not a big enough or fun enough story for the FNYT of Dean Baquet to cover, when they can either write more about Hillary’s emails or the send reporters out to Foxlandia for another story on the mysteries of Trump voters.
Trump is the symptom, the Right Wing Conservative Movement, funded by billionaires like the Mercer, Peter Thiel, Koch Brothers, John Menard, Foster Freiss, Sheldon Adelson, and super rich family groups such as the Mellon-Scaifes, DeVoss-Prince, Walton family and many a Texas and Oklahoma oil tycoon for the last 50 years. I am sure they have their disagreements (the Christianists want to establish a Theocractic oligarchy while Thiel and the Mercer probably just want and Ayn Rand Oligarchy – but Oligarchy all the same.
Kay
@ruemara:
They said they had one, yeah, I read that too.
Google has a group of people who sell to small business. They actually drive you crazy with their “helpfulness” – it’s like a self-service dashboard and then you can get a real person to help you if you need that. If you don’t call them they call you incessantly so it’s not as if you have a CHOICE :)
I imagine a multi-million dollar campaign would get personal service- a team of people. I don’t know- the whole thing was too complicated and exhausting for me so I didn’t follow up and they stopped calling. My sense was they were exaggerating the value of the advertising to me, my business- which is fine- all ad platforms do that, but it got on my nerves because they’re sort of annoyingly hip where radio ad salespeople are just..salespeople. They don’t pretend they’re reinventing commerce or whatever.
bystander
@Ryan:
Picky, picky. The target audience has suspended a whole range of disbelief permanently already.
rikyrah
@MattF:
And, they are Bannon’s Patrons…
NEVER EVER EVER forget that.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: my problem with the article is that it’s written to sound like they went out of their way to provide support specifically to conservatives. I have many problems with the way these companies are run and do their advertising (and even though Chyron was joking above, their algorithms are probably actually unintentionally racist). But I’m also interested in people having the language and facts to understand, debate, and regulate this properly.
Amir Khalid
@Mike in DC:
Maybe it’s not really the economy that they’re anxious about.
Ryan
@bystander: Good point. Though one does wonder if the authors were sloppy, lazy, or conserving resources.
Major Major Major Major
@Ryan: they’re clearly doing a stealth campaign against the International Organization for Standardization, which is what I think of when I see ISO.
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: True, on the language being misleading regarding a partisan bent. But I’m more focused on the problem that this type of content could pass muster with Facebook & Google as an appropriate ad. It’s almost devastating. And actually, to me, points out some inherent biases in whomever makes decisions if they thought this was ok.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mike in DC:
I have been assured that if the rich were not stoking racial resentment, poof, it would disappear and white people would vote in their own economic self-interest.
@MattF:
Never ascribe to greed what can be explained by malice. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. In this case, ‘malice’ fits.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@ruemara:
Yup. Being “neutral” in this instance is just like being a supporter of the content in effect.
piratedan
well, perhaps its that capitalistic model from hell…
WE (FB or Google) don’t really care that you’re weaponizing hate politically, as long as we get paid, its just a job for us… call it an academic endeavor to sell hate effectively…whocouldanoode that we’d end up in a proto fascist dictatorship because of it, at least the check cleared.
rikyrah
GOP lawmaker: voting against Trump’s wishes comparable to adultery
04/05/18 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
The Republicans’ Senate primary in Indiana is one of the most contentious in the country this year, but Rep. Todd Rokita (R) believes he knows how to win the GOP nomination: by celebrating his unyielding support for Donald Trump.
In his new television ad, the Indiana congressman literally puts on a red “Make America Great Again” cap and vows to “proudly stand with” the president – more than his primary rivals.
About a thousand miles to the west, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R), who’s taking on Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D), went a little further, telling a conservative radio host this week that he sees voting against Trump’s wishes as being comparable to adultery. CNN reported yesterday:
Kay
@ruemara:
When my kids were little we had a dog. They are ridiculous so they had this joke- they would say ” Jilley-what is your NAME? ” to the dog and she would just stare at them, which they found hysterical for some reason. The dog’s name was Jilley which makes it even more senseless. That’s me with the Google people. I’m the dog. Just a complete miss :)
rikyrah
White House lawyers question Bolton about potential ethics issues
Incoming National Security Adviser, John Bolton, faces questions from White House lawyers over the connections between his PAC and Super PAC and Cambridge Analytica.
Chip Daniels
The digital environment reminds me of the 19th century in a way, where people mastered the technology to do things, but had not yet understood its dangers.
In the 19th century they mastered the technology of mining, industrial scale manufacturing and refining materials and processes, but were as yet ignorant of the dangers posed by the toxic materials and pollution created. They solved their disposal problems by just dumping shit into the nearest river or lake or gully, and cities were foul cesspools of coal smoke and sometimes untreated sewage. It took decades to garner the political and social will to control industry, rather than just spur it on faster.
Right now we have mastered the technology of interconnectedness to allow us to shop bank and entertain ourselves online, but we haven’t yet enacted safeguards to avoid the dangers of bad actors and manipulation. I think the next few years will see a lot more effort into how to control the internet, rather than just making it more ubiquitous.
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
If you shrug and look the other way at your business being used to promote blatant, over-the-top racism, you are actively supporting conservatives. Both Twitter and FB are thoroughly guilty of this ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ conservatism. It’s not like they were ignorant.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara: Have you checked the tech boards, the vitriol against immigrants, especially Indians on H1-Bs is something else. And some of those same H1-Bs have a strong anti-Muslim bias.
Human beings suck. We hate therefore we are. Well some of us any way.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Oh, that’s nice. I’m proud of the teachers. I saw the restrictions on Florida teachers striking yesterday. Wow. It’s draconian. They can lose their license and a share of their salary. Brutal.
kindness
We’ve long since passed the ‘Git a rope!’ stage for our own Oligarchs here in the US of A. I no longer think the French were completely out of line as to how they carried about their revolution. In all honesty, it might be in order from time to time. So much for my liberal self for thinking such things.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker:
Yeppers!
Anyone here know who does the best research on violent media & impact on grownups? Dr. Doug is the one to call re: children, but I’m really out of the loop on research outside of child development circles.
Litlebritdifrnt
My sister keeps insisting that I need to get a hair cut. Today I see (on facebook) that my niece (who is training to be a hairdresser) is advertising haircuts. I sense a stitch up here :)
mad citizen
@Chip Daniels: This is an excellent comparison, Chip!
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker:
Almost certainly! Which is why I’m always in these threads trying to clarify things. Regulatory pushes should be informed. I’m not trying to shield anybody.
Kay
@kindness:
I wonder about that too, how far they can push it. The greed is what gets me. Meals on Wheels? That’s just WAY too generous for them? They want everything.
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: That is also true. And having failed multiple times at my bid to even be interviewed at tech firms… they’re not as open minded as they believe.
JR
@MattF: was there ever a time that rich folks didn’t try to buy power and influence. I mean this goes back to Crassus and beyond.
Kay
@kindness:
And I know people love Donors Choose but is that really what we want to teach kids? That paper for their school is a charitable act? We’re turning them into beggars instead of citizens.
Jeffro
@Kay: They can lose their teaching license…for striking? Someone ought to take that to court, there’s no way that would stand. Teachers – hell, even students in a teaching program – have a material interest in that license (or program) and it should only be able to be taken away after a criminal conviction, not exercising their constitutional rights.
Ambulance chasers, you hearin’ me? Free money available in Florida.
rikyrah
Former acting US Attorney gives first interview since leaving SDNY
Joon Kim, former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, talks to Rachel about the firing of US Attorneys in March 2017 and procedures in the Mueller investigation.
Origuy
@cleek: Facebook does much the same thing. I’ve posted ads for some of my club’s events. Once you allocate money to “boost” the ad and specify the target audience, they run a check, which I’m sure is automated, for certain things, probably guns, etc. Once you pass the check and people start responding to the ad, you get all sorts of analytics about who is responding. I’m spending less than $100 on each ad, so I doubt any human at Facebook reviews them. Big spenders doubtless get more attention.
rikyrah
Flint Rep. upset with Pruitt using Safe Drinking Water Act money to pay staffers
Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan talks to Rachel about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt using funds from the Safe Drinking Water Act to give staffers raises and bring in lobbyists.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I don’t know- there are weird restrictions that are permissible with public employees who are “essential”. The West Virginia strike was a wildcat strike- illegal. People assume labor laws were intended to protect workers or unions but really at the beginning they were intended to bring unions within a legal structure- make them manageable and predictable.
No Drought No More
Mark Sumner/Daily Kos: “..Even though there were still 40,000 US troops in Iraq and the US had spent over $1 trillion on direct military costs in the country, George Nader brokered a deal to send billions from Iraq to the Russian military. Four years later, money may have come from Russia, possibly funneled through the NRA, to land in Trump’s campaign”.
That would be BILLIONS OF U.S. TAXPAYER DOLLARS that was funneled to the Russian military (you don’t think the Iraqis paid for it, do you?). Come to think of it, maybe that’s what happened to the ten billion dollar pallet of cold, hard, newly minted cash (as profiled on 60 Minutes) that disappeared down the Bush-Cheney (et.al.) sink of corruption. Lest Americans Forget: those people remain defiantly proud of having plotted and then launched that war.
rikyrah
Texans owner Bob McNair isn’t sorry for comparing NFL players to “inmates running the prison.” McNair says, “The main thing I regret is apologizing.” ?https://t.co/636C9dahrM pic.twitter.com/3J7gfO81AX
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 5, 2018
Joe Falco
@rikyrah: Wow, this cult of personality thing with Trump is cool and totally not some backward slide into despotism. /s
Fair Economist
@Kay:
Fundamentally that’s what the law is always about, or at least should be. Desperate people do desperate things. Law and democracy create a situation where everybody has a way to push for what they want and need inside the framework of the system.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
God damn right. Unions should support each other. I was under the impression they usually do.
@Lyrebird:
I don’t know.
Is like saying ‘It is also important to consider the elephant in the room’ and then never mentioning the elephant again.
Doug Gardner
@eric: I agree with your point, but it occurs to me that perhaps the truly brain-challenged who *do* take this stuff seriously are essentially vectors for infecting others with suggestions about the scary stuff they saw. It is staggering to me that people can believe this shit, but my ex in-laws apparently took the bait last week regarding the Pope’s alleged dismissal of Hell as a “thing”.
trollhattan
Why are You People afraid of documentaries showing the Truff? Wake up, this is important and stuff!
Major Major Major Major
@Doug Gardner: there’s a guy at work who always regurgitates shallow headlines like “pope says hell isnt real”. He’s… amusingly wrong to overhear, but it’s troubling that he’s involved in processing my pay.
ruemara
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I believe we need to consider a death sentence. This was treason. Full on treason.
Wapiti
@Kelly: I’ve gotten through the Civil War portion of the Grant book (spoiler: Lincoln dies).
When I read about the Civil War and the South, just like when I read about Nazi Germany, I need to periodically stop and take a break from reading about hateful racist people.
Tarragon
@kindness:
Well, the poster’s name checks out.
Gelfling 545
@Kay: It’s illegal to strike here in NY for teachers. Besides the pay loss we are fined. They can’t revoke your credential for it though afaik. I was on strike twice in my career. It’s a sacrifice so it only happens for very serious causes. And our union president was jailed.
RSA
@Major Major Major Major:
On regulation, this part in the article jumped out at me:
Sunlight would help. I think it would be reasonable to tell advertisers that their ads will be seen by their desired audience (subject to reasonable restrictions) but that it will also be visible to other people–anyone who cares to look.
Gelfling 545
@Frankensteinbeck: Here other unions do respect picket lines, walk the line with others, etc. Personally, I would never cross a picket line for fear that my father would reach out from beyond the grave & smack me upside the head.
NorthLeft12
How stupid must you be to take that US ad seriously?
That is a serious question. It is so laughably produced and photoshopped, and ridiculous in its point of view that I suspect you have to be a completely ignorant and cowardly bed wetter to even begin to believe the premise.
I guess I thought that people [in general] were more intelligent than this.
Perhaps I am too naive?
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: inflammatory content can certainly inspire the already-converted to vote.
Also, some ad-buyers are dumb.
trollhattan
@NorthLeft12:
Uhh, have you met us?
Unpersuasive to anybody not predisposed to what’s presented, they’re intended to reinforce and harden audience prejudices. Suspension of disbelief comes easily to the right people. “I’m-a get off my ass and vote this time.”
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
Slowly and tentively raises a hand.
As bad as the Kocksucker Bros are, there have been and will continue to be humans who are far worse. And the Kocksuckers are horrible. The Mercers don’t want to just steal everything, they want to make you suffer before they watch you die.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major:
And I just about guarantee that that guy thinks he’s very smart and well-informed because, after all, he follows The News. And that he has friends who consider him their smart friend who always knows what’s going on. SMH
FlipYrWhig
@NorthLeft12: @trollhattan: You’re talking about people who think it’s entirely plausible that Emma Gonzalez would make a graphic of herself tearing up the Constitution.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ryan: État/République Islamique de France (ÉIdF/RIdF)
Deutscher Islamische Staat/Republik (DIS/DIR). -or maybe.Islamischer Staat/Republik Deutschlands (ISD/IRD)..
Quelles cons!
bemused
And I, a liberal, keep being told by rightwing boneheads that I am unamerican and unpatriotic.
Lyrebird
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree with you here in general:
… but I wouldn’t put that label on writing a whole book about the elephant.
Just sticking up for someone who I think has worked very hard to consider all the elephants in a pretty controversy-filled room.
Okay at least only metaphors were harmed in this reply, no real elephants!
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
Once I learned the term “Gish gallop” it opened my eyes to just how commonly it’s used. If it ain’t emails it’s chemtrails and on and on and on…. TV interviewers tend to back away and let them roll on, rather than intervene, to all our disadvantage.
Uncle Cosmo
@Betty Cracker:
FTFY! Only make it a Heavy Lift Falcon & blast ’em off to orbit the orange morbidly-obese gaseous planet Trumpsanus…
(ETA 4 Thai Pose)
Frankensteinbeck
@Lyrebird:
He doesn’t address short vs long term effects in this page at all. I’m glad to know he does in the book!
ruemara
@Uncle Cosmo: Nah. Make it huge. Make it leaky. Pilot it remotely over the Marianas Trench.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep. Exactly right.
Lyrebird
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah. For anyone interested, there’s an interview-style article with a bunch of different researchers, including some of the folks who’ve found perceptual benefits from action video games… it jumps around between kids and adults, but it’s a little more thorough than that faq, even though they could still be a little more clear when they are talking about weeks, months, or years.
Ramiah Ariya
@schrodingers_cat: People on H1B are not immigrants. It is a work visa. There are Americans here in the complex I live, in India. We do not go around calling them immigrants. This clumping of any brown skinned person as an immigrant irrespective of whether they are tourists or workers is a big problem in the US. Trump’s language is not problematic just because he attacks “immigrants”. He talks as if every foreign visitor of the wrong color coming into the US is a disease-spreading criminal. Most of the ills he cites (such as drug smuggling or crime) would also apply to business visitors, tourists and workers. The counter to this Trumpism is NOT appealing to some generous nature in the culture of America, but pointing out that if every foreign visitor avoided the USA, the US economy would tank.
LAO
WOW:
I hope his life is ruined forever.
Matt
@rikyrah:
The followup to Rep Cramer should’ve been: “what about if you vote against Trump but pay him $130k to not tell anyone you did? Is it still bad?”
Yutsano
@Uncle Cosmo: It would be Repubik. Staat refers more to an actual state like Bayern rather than a country.
I am also having massive HTML fail today.
LAO
@LAO: white nationalist twitter (don’t ask) is a fucking joy to read today.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramiah Ariya: H1B is a dual intent visa, its a temporary work visa and its provisions also let you apply for a permanent residency if your employer (and you) so desire. So at least some people on H1-B are immigrants.
ETA: People on H1-Bs whose initial intent to immigrate petition has been approved but are waiting for the GC (because the #s are limited by quotas) can keep renewing their H1Bs till they get their permanent residency.
schrodingers_cat
@LAO: I’ll bite, why?
TenguPhule
@MattF:
Greed solely for just a shitload of money.
They crave human flesh now.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
This is what happens when bad companies force workers to train their own cheaper replacements by withholding paychecks if they don’t.
H1-Bs are going to be a radioactive subject for a long time in the long overdue immigration debate.
schrodingers_cat
Speaking of Google, YouTube is definitely a vector and as culpable for spreading BS as Facebork.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Going to take odds that Cramer is going to be the under.
FlipYrWhig
@Ramiah Ariya:
Not only that, he talks as if every brown person already in the US, regardless of how many generations it’s been, is a disease-spreading criminal. I really don’t think he knows, or cares to know, the difference between the various kinds of people who speak Spanish in public, and what their legal statuses might be, or how long they’ve been here. As far as he’s concerned, they’re just all bad, or about to be bad, or at the very least _capable_ of being bad, and there are too many of them. It’s mud people all the way down. It’s a disgusting vision and he doesn’t get nearly enough criticism for it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Yutsano: Then again the old unlamented “sogennante DDR” was the Deutsche Democratische Republik – but the Stasi was the Staatssicherheitsdienst.
Es scheint mir ein Bisschen mehrdeutic…
LAO
@schrodingers_cat: Ricky Vaughn was doxed today by Paul Nehlen.
schrodingers_cat
@FlipYrWhig: Its good for the ratings and clicks, say our media betters.
Ladyraxterinok
Just saw that the complete NBC production of Jesus Christ Superstar with John Legend is now on youtube!
I think some here were lamenting they were not able to watch it on Easter.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I have never set foot in North Dakota, but I would guess trump’s trade war would give her a big opening, and if she has good writers, somebody could riff off that pretty good.
And I am rooting for Heidi fucking Heitkamp.
schrodingers_cat
@LAO: I did see your earlier link. I had no idea about the RW Twitter troll (besides the one in the WH)
cynthia ackerman
I don’t know which is scariest — that Mercer actually believes he can be compelled to take three more wives, grow a beard, and slaughter Jews in between praying five times a day, or that he cynically thinks his lesser compatriots can be manipulated by internalizing that fear.
Or, E), all of the above.
gvg
@TenguPhule: Yes but why is it so hard for people to notice it’s the bosses and stockholders who did the deed, not the other guys wanting a paycheck and a better life.
TenguPhule
/Wapo
Ahem.
Fuck your feelings, Davis. And fuck the rest of you farmers just like Davis.
May Big Agri companies foreclose on your land and make all you assholes modern day peons forced to work for them to survive.
You wanted a feudal system, congratulations you got one.
TenguPhule
@gvg:
They blame both, but the other guy is closer and that guy is the one replacing them.
Its like how workers reserve most of their hate for their robot replacements instead of the actual culprit.
Easier to hate what’s real and right there in front of you.
TenguPhule
I’ve found their economic anxiety.
Fuck em.
gvg
@FlipYrWhig: he isn’t the only one.
I hope some people with a public voice start calling these fear bigots cowards and saying things like how can you be such a public scaredy cat and you sound silly…I watched the towers fall and was upset and sad but I never understood why so many people just lost it. I thought Cheney sounded like a coward and wondered why no other politician or journalist said so. I am not that brave either, I just don’t understand. there were real concerns that we obviously needed to do things about but why the years long fear of dumb unlikely things I just don’t get.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Of course you are. We aren’t going to get an ultra-liberal Democrat elected in a state like North Dakota. As infuriating as Senators like Heitkamp and Manchin are, they’re still miles ahead of their plausible Republican replacements.
Jay
@No Drought No More:
Russian arms were purchased for Iraq, because of the long familiarity of the Iraqi Military, with their operation and maintenence,
Because of they low cost, and low levels of technology per given platform,
And they wern’t just bought from Russia, they were also bought from ex-Warsaw Pact stockpiles in Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.
As an example, MIL helicopters, including Hind’s were purchased and also refurbished, ( Israel got one contract), starting in 2006, while at the same time, programs were started to get Iraq, reconditioned Blackhawk and Bell heliocopters from US Military inventories. The “Russian” heliocopters arrived in 2008, started service in 2009, did the vast amount of airial “grunt work”, including rescuing the Yardzi’s trapped on Mt. Sinjar, against ISIS, and despite thousands of hours and the loss of aircraft and air crew, are still in service. The Blackhawks and Bell’s have yet to arrived.
Now, the Iraqi money, the CPA, the Bush Appointed Junior Republican’s blew through $22 billion of the Iraqi’s money, in less than a year, with zero accounting of where it went. That cash cow continued for years.
Spanky
@TenguPhule:
Hey now, hold on there, young’un.
It’ll be Big Banks that foreclose on the farms. Then they’ll sell it to Big Agri for pennies on the dollar. Laughs and back slaps all around!
Otherwise, I’ve got no issues with your sentiments.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: One day Bret Davis may decide he likes eating and breathing more than he hates black people, foreigners, and Hillary Clinton. But I’m not confident that day is anytime soon.
MoxieM
Holy Crap! (pun) I’d say the “German” one tops the American one for stupid just because it has an English narrator with a crappy German accent.
But, they sure tell you a lot about the target audience, and how ill-informed, gullible, uneducated, and welp, stoopid they are. (As if we didn’t already know that.) Scary.
Ruckus
@gvg:
A scared public is a malable public.
That was the republicn game plan 50-60 yrs ago, now a lot of repiublicans in and out of office think that’s the real world.
Shorter, the propaganda worked.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@NorthLeft12: WRT to your last sentence, Yes. Ask some First Nations people about things your fellow Canadians are willing to believe about them sometimes.
Ksmiami
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): no quarter- the GOP and it’s henchmen is a threat to America and the world. No moving on. Heads need to roll
Tehanu
@Ksmiami: I used to joke a lot about starting a business specializing in tumbrels, tar, feathers, ropes, pikes, lampposts, and knitting needles. Not joking now.