Friday Evening Semi-Respite Open Thread: Just Another Jeebus-Humpin’ Repub…

by 5:49 pm. It has 78 Comments.

… You understand, I have this horrible condition. I have had it for years. I am incapable of seeing women as people. It used to be possible to get by in political life in this country with this condition. You would just move around a smoky room, speaking only to men, and you could have a nice career. But now, oh, these things, these things are everywhere. Holding elected office, performing jobs, playing soccer! You must understand my agony when I behold this. So much good meat, delicious meat, wonderful meat —

It is with difficulty that I shamble into the company of people every day. It is with difficulty that I convince people that I am, after all, a human being, not a wild animal, the mad, helpless victim of an uncontrollable lust. I cannot, I dare not — oh, it is with difficulty that I write these words now, knowing a woman may read them. The mere thought of my words moving before her unprotected eyes sends me into a frenzy. Ffffffft rrrrrrrrr graaarrrfll rrrrrr…

Do not let me out of the house! Or if I am so honored to be elected by you the people, the governor’s mansion!

But. Seriously. Petri’s Washington Post colleague, Alyssa Rosenberg:

… Foster’s quickness to condemn the discussion of his decision as a communist plot to bring down America lends the merest hint that his intentions here were less about preserving the sanctity of his marriage and more about ginning up the sort of culture war controversy that could be a boon to his campaign fundraising…

Part of what made Foster’s request to Campbell seem disingenuous is that it would be somewhat unusual for any candidate to be alone with any reporter under any circumstances, much less a whole day that includes a long ride… Fortunately for Foster, he has a male campaign director, Colton Robison, who would presumably be going on this day-long trip anyway to keep an eye on things…

And yet I’ll bet there are internet mischief-lovers already scouring Foster’s browser history for… clues. Two wetsuits and a dildo? Farm animal abuse? Murphy the Trickster God is the patron of Rule 34…





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Friday Morning Open Thread: Fighting the Good Fight(s)

by 6:30 am. It has 102 Comments.





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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Congratulations, USWNT

by 6:11 am. It has 131 Comments.

CBS New York, “USWNT World Cup Parade: NYC Readies To Celebrate U.S. Women’s National Team”:

Ticker-Tape Parade Planned For USWNT World Cup Champions Wednesday, July 10, at 9:30 a.m. (EDT)

Roaring crowds of enthusiastic fans are expected to pack Lower Manhattan Wednesday morning to celebrate the World Cup champion U.S. Women’s National Team.

The U.S. woman will be passing through the Canyon of Heroes.

The sidewalk along Broadway is decorated with names of the United States’ greatest athletes.

Fans will gather to celebrate the American women capturing their record fourth World Cup championship with Sunday’s 2-0 win over The Netherlands…

But it’s not all about celebrating for the women on the team. It’s about delivering a message as they fight for equal pay.

“I think that this win changes the conversation [from] ‘do we deserve it’ to OK, how are we actually going to get the action? What are we going to see from FIFA, from U.S. soccer, from the sponsors?” midfielder Kelley O’Hara said.

According to Nielsen ratings and other streaming services, here in the United States, Sunday’s match ranked as one of the highest-rated soccer telecasts in history. It drew bigger ratings than the 2018 men’s World Cup final…

Team co-captain Megan Rapinoe, who won the Golden Ball as best player of the tournament and the Golden Boot as top scorer, spoke out on Good Morning America on Tuesday.

“Go watch your team. Watch the national team. Watch your local club teams. I think that there’s a part in this for everybody to do,” she said…

If you click on the link, there’s instructions on how to livestream the event, “Free access – no sign up.”





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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Good Take / Really, Really Bad Take

by 2:59 am. It has 24 Comments.

***********
Surely not even the most hardcore Talibangelicals could defend a serial child trafficker, you would would think.

Not so!, says Erick ‘Studying to Be A Pastor’ Erickson…

Hey, when you look at it right, *anything* can be an opportunity…


Watching the Disinformation Being Made and Transmitted: Jeffrey Epstein Edition

by 4:00 pm. It has 117 Comments.

Shortly after it was announced on Saturday that Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested and was facing indictment for the sex trafficking of minors, the disinformation machine kicked into gear in order to protect the President. I want to make it very clear right now that there is no evidence that the President is implicated in Epstein’s crimes. The DOJ is not alleging that in its indictment of Epstein, and neither am I. All we know at this time is that the President had a long standing personal relationship with Epstein and, at one point, commented that Epstein likes women who are on the younger side. 

That stipulated to, here’s what was quickly put up by a poster with ID: NKrYzbHL at 10:35 PM on 4Chan’s /pol/ board:

COLLECTED COUNTER POINTS FOR MOCKINGBIRD SPIN

Can Anons add smth & help backing up with sauce, please?

– Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Golf Club and banned him for life, when he found out, Epstein was hooking up with the 14 Year old daughter of an employer

-Trump is NOT in the flight log to Lolita Island, not even once. He “hitched a ride” back from Daytona Beach TO NYC with Epstein’s son one time…and I have little doubt they tried like holy hell to get Trump to Lolita Island. Epstein assaulted a young girl at Mara Largo and Trump had him banned for life.

-At Epstein’s first arrest Trump went voluntarily to the police to give a statement and at the time the Police commented “He could not have been MORE forthcoming”.

-Trump knew what Epstein was up to “he’s a fun guy, likes his girls young, really really young”. People held that against him as if it were some form of agreement when in fact, in typical Trump fashion he slapped Epstein publicly..iron fist in velvet glove. He was NOT a politician and he had to do business with these people and he still managed to say something about what he knew was going on.

https://pagesix.com/2017/07/08/trump-was-the-boring-guy-at-studio-54/

You will not be surprised to find out that the link to the Page Six article does not mention Epstein, the President’s relationship to Epstein, the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago! It is solely about the book written by Studio 54’s former owner and the only references to the President in it outside of his name in the title of the write up and listing in the categories and tags are:

The former owner of infamous Manhattan club Studio 54 is releasing a tell-all book dishing on the wild cocaine parties and the antics of stars including John Belushi, Robin Williams — and even a “boring” Donald Trump.

Trump was another club regular, but “he never touched drink or drugs. He liked looking at beautiful women, even though he was married to Ivana.

Trump wasn’t a lot of fun — when you’re in a crowd drinking and drugging and one person isn’t, that person seems boring.”

In fact I have been unable to find any references to the President kicking Epstein out of and rescinding his membership to Mar-a-Lago, nor that he gave evidence to the Palm Beach Police. There is a December 2018 YouTube video interview of one of the victim’s attorneys where he states that in 2009, the President was helpful when he was trying to serve subpoenas in his civil suit. Not that he went down and gave testimony to the Palm Beach Police, not that he assisted prosecutors in Florida in their case, but that he was helpful in regard to getting subpoenas served. That’s it. We can all agree that was important help the President provided, but it is not giving testimony or assisting prosecutors, which is what is being alleged.

It is unclear if this was the first or even original post as screengrabs have been tweeted with a 1900 hours time stamp from what appears to be a different board, most likely either 8Chan or one of the subreddits. These are in response to other’s tweets about Epstein and, in some cases, his relationship with the President.

Here’s one from a Twitter thread by Ellen Barkin:

It was also posted, as an explainer about centralized talking points being organized for pushback, in this Brian Stelter thread.

And here is another 4Channer, ID OBJzFf63, posting a copy of the screenshot at /pol/ with the statement that “THEY’RE CATCHING ON TO US”.

These responses are now being tweeted, with no reference to the original point at 4Chan, to push back on allegations being made about the President’s involvement and relationship with Epstein. The tweets below are responses to a tweet responding to Maggie Haberman’s tweet about some of the incriminating information in the Epstein indictment, specifically that he maintained a safe full of incriminating pictures and CDs and he labeled both.

From here it will continue to be pushed through the alt-right, QAnnon, Pizzagate conspiracy theory portions of social media, then get picked up by Russian trolls and bots and amplified. From there it will move into the fringe right/conservative digital news platforms, where it will once again be amplified by the Russian trolls and bots, and from there it will get picked up by first conservative news like Fox and conservative talk radio and then more mainstream news outlets like CNN because its news, so it should be reported. This is the usual trajectory for these disinformation influence operations. One of the Tyler Durdens has been pushing variants of some of this stuff since early this morning at Zero Hedge, including barbering a quote from the video interview posted above and presenting it out of context from the question that was asked and suggesting that the President aided prosecutors, which, again, is not substantiated by the interview.

And that is how the disinformation is made and transmitted.

Open thread!





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