Media, Oh Media, Wherefore Art Thou?

CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

The Senate secrecy over the Fuck You Care Plan is working, and like a dream. It’s not being covered, anywhere, by anyone. Granted, there’s not a whole lot of story there, but media has no business ignoring it to the point that it seems it’s not a reality. If anything, media should be pounding on this, hard. If there’s a case of the death of democracy, it’s right there.

The informal July 4 deadline Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has set for Senate Republicans to pass a health care bill that could strip coverage from 23 million Americans is rapidly approaching — but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the front page of major newspapers across the country on Monday.

National outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post featured no front-page coverage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), also known as Trumpcare, which is being secretly written by an all-male group of senators. The lack of attention being paid to the bill indicates McConnell’s strategy of avoiding publicity by drafting the bill behind closed doors, holding no hearings, and unveiling the bill’s text at the last possible minute is paying dividends.

[…]

People who consume their news online also didn’t see any coverage on major outlets’ homepages Monday morning.

Trumpcare has also been a blip on the TV news radar. According to an analysis by Media Matters looking at coverage from June 1 through June 14, the bill has received scant mention on broadcast and cable news, with Republican secrecy surrounding the bill barely even being mentioned.

There’s a reason Republicans want to Trumpcare on the down low — even Fox News is unable to spin the unpopularity of the bill, which is essentially a tax cut for the rich masquerading as health care reform.

[…]

Progressive senators are trying to make the media take notice. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to Republican committee chairs with jurisdiction over Trumpcare requesting that they “schedule hearings to discuss, debate and hear testimony about the health care bill you are currently drafting in secret.”

The letter, which goes on to list each of the 31 rooms where a hearing could be held, says the millions of American who would be negatively impacted by Trumpcare “deserve an open and public debate over the bill.”

“The American Health Care Act would fundamentally redefine health care in our country,” it concludes. “To draft it behind closed doors and pass it without even one hearing is nothing short of legislative malpractice and a repudiation of all the Senate stands for.”

So…how about it, media? Can we get a little bit of outrage over this travesty? A little bit of attention? Think Progress has the full story, along with many images showing the complete lack of coverage.

Not Dead Does Not Equal Healthy.

Jim Cooke.

Mike Huckabee is once again wearing his folksy, backwoods preacher coat in an attempt to defend the Tiny Tyrant. It’s one helluva bad attempt, I’ll say that much. “The Tiny Tyrant has kept America Alive!”

“Donald Trump is kind of like a doctor who sometimes has a rather gruff bedside manner,” Huckabee said. “Nobody’s going to argue that point.”

Oh, I could argue that point. I imagine lots of people could, and would argue that point. If you want a more accurate comparison, how about: Trump is kind of like that old dodderer of a small town doctor, stuck in the past, with no notion of how to treat people in a modern and effective manner? Personally, I think even that descriptor is too kind. The reality is more akin to ‘con man fakes being doctor, kills half the town before caught’.

“He can be crude and he can come across sometimes less than people think, but, by golly, the patient is alive and I’d rather have this president, who gets things done, than one who comes in, he’s nice and he’s polite and he smiles, but my family member dies in the hospital bed,” Huckabee added. “America needs to say two words to Donald Trump: Thank you.”

Gets things done? What, exactly, has the Tiny Tyrant done? Rolled back every regulation he could, ensuring mass pollution will once again take over. Making sure all working people are fucked into the ground. Destroyed the slight healthcare people had. Arresting and deporting citizens for no good reason. Being a stone cold killer when it comes to those seeking refuge. Screamed exhortations of bigotry, hate, guns, and violence, to the point that “America” is now a splintery mess, with mass shootings taking place every. single. day. People being attacked and murdered for no reason other than irrational bigotry every. single. day. Made sure to engorge his already bulging pockets. Spreading his filthy disease of corrupt criminality.

Thank you? I don’t fucking think so. All the Tiny Tyrant gets from me is: FUCK YOU, AND GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

Via Raw Story.

The Tiny Tyrant’s Vacancy Problem.

It seems that the Regime has a vacancy problem. A big one. Not only are appointments not being made, and many a key position left unfilled, it seems that all the qualified people don’t want to work for the Tiny Tyrant. Golly, I wonder why. Could it be people don’t want to be served up a shit sandwich at the Bates White House?

President Donald Trump’s volatile temperament, an intensifying investigation into his aides’ possible collusion with Russia, and his firing of FBI Director James Comey, have made it a challenge to recruit and fill top leadership posts across the government, according to the Washington Post.

The cloud of uncertainty hanging over the Trump administration has complicated what the Post described as an “already slow pace” in filling the government’s top ranks.

“Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous,” according to the Post, which interviewed 27 people — including federal officials, Republican party activists, lobbyists, as well as candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit — as part of its investigation.

The White House told the Post it doesn’t have a hiring problem, and blamed the slow pace on the vetting process that each candidate must undergo before being announced publicly. But data cited by the Post shows that compared to Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Trump is lagging in confirmed appointees to senior posts: Trump currently has 43 appointees, compared to the 151 appointees by Obama as of mid-June of his first term, and 130 appointees by Bush.

Oh right, the vetting process. So, in plainer parlance, you can’t find people willing to get on their knees and sell themselves lock, stock, and barrel to the Tiny Tyrant. I guess there aren’t many people left who haven’t said something critical about Trump. Time to lower your standards, I’d think, to at least somewhat match the compleat lack of standards present in Trump.

Some vacancies, including the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Navy secretary, became a diplomatic issue this weekend, as some criticized Trump’s delays for “leaving a communications vacuum” while the United States and Japan dealt with the collision of a container ship and a U.S. naval destroyer off the coast of Japan on Saturday.

Former Obama administration official Brandon Friedman told The Guardian that the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the Navy Secretary would have played key roles during the search, serving as communication links between the U.S. Navy and government officials from Japan and the United States.

“The USS Fitzgerald might sink off Japan and the US President can’t call our ambassador or our navy secretary because we have neither,” Friedman told The Guardian.

I expect the Tiny Tyrant cares about these veterans as much as all the others he has gone out of his way to disrespect and dismiss. The collapse of democracy might be slow, rather than explosive and showy, but it’s real, and the crushing weight of it is being felt by all of us.

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

“Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary [Clinton], you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”

“I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America,” Nugent said.

Ted Nugent, doucheweasel extraordinaire, has recently found a way to foist himself into the public eye again, by now claiming he’s oh so over all the hateful rhetoric, like that quoted above. Nothing about actually shaking up the ol’ brain cells and experiencing even fractional enlightenment, no. This is just a tone thing – “we must be civil!” Yeah. Anyone experienced in discussions, on or off line, knows that you can use all the ‘nice’ words, and be a hundred times more poisonous than someone who peppers their discussions with ‘fuck’ or ‘Jesus Christ!’. Claiming that Black people are intellectually inferior, you have [shoddy] evidence, and really, all you want is for someone to listen to you, and no, of course you aren’t a bigot, that’s no different from Nugent’s “subhuman mongrel”.  Just a difference in icing on a shit cake.

A day or two ago, Nugent noisily claimed to have seen the light, after republicans were shot at (boy, those gun fondlers, they love their guns, but are ever so shocked when they are used against people they happen to like), and that he would stop with hateful rhetoric, because … well, because he doesn’t want anymore republicans shot. When I first saw the headline, a skeptical eyebrow rose, nothing more. Of course, the washed up asshole simply can’t keep his mouth shut, now that he’s found a way to get peoples’ attention once again, no matter how briefly. Ted decided to show up on Fox and Friends, his pal Trump’s favourite show.

“Let me make it perfectly clear, I have never projected hate,” Nugent insisted. “When I said that about sucking on my machine gun, that was a direct response to the liberal Democrats — Obama and Clinton, et al — [trying] to ban certain types of firearms, violating their oath to the Constitution and the Second Amendment.”

“That was a metaphor and nobody is too stupid not to know that,” he continued. “The left is so dishonest that they misrepresented that, and make it perfectly clear with my Fox & Friends, I have never threatened anybody. I have never hinted at violence.”

Right. Never, ever even so much as hinted at violence. Calls to decapitate people in November (If Obama was re-elected), mentions of nooses, lynchings, guns, and more. Not at all hinting at violence. Well, on some planet anyway, not this one. It’s much too late to play saint, Ted.

“I am reaching out across the aisle, and I am saying we must unite to bring no violence, no harm to any of our fellow Americans,” he opined. “I have always been civil. Again, during the outrage of a rock and roll performance, machine gun references have been made but nobody could possibly think I want anybody’s lips near my machine gun.”

Nugent complained that there had been no signs of civility from “the left.”

Interesting notion of civility Ted has, it certainly wouldn’t meet my definition. Anyroad, surface civility is to no point when your head is still full bigoted, poisonous hate. As for his whole “hey, outrage!” defense, I’m rather reminded of the Twinkie defense. “Hey, I was all lost in the music man, I mistook the machine gun for my guitar!” Christ, cheap and contemptible, as always.

“They’re still going to burn down buildings if they disagree with your speech, and turn over cars and attack people if they don’t agree with you,” he remarked.

“I think that’s all something we needed to hear right now,” Fox News host Abby Huntsman concluded.

It is? Pretty sure I didn’t need to hear that, because it’s yet another clod of stupid, lobbed aimlessly into a crowd. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have not been getting so gosh darn worked up I’m out and about committing arson, tipping cars, or attacking people.

If you want it, there’s video at Raw Story.

Mr. Tweet: Witch Hunt! Witch Hunt! Witch Hunt!

Old drawing of the death of Giles Corey (Sept. 19, 1692) by being pressed with heavy stones for failing to enter a plea to the charge of being a witch during the Salem Witch Trials.

Mr. Tweet has been at it again, this time screaming WITCH HUNT in all caps.

Trump: “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people!”

Okay, let’s talk American witch hunts. While they never reached the same pitch and ferocity of those in other countries, the devastation was still tremendous, as it always is, when people are singled out for being different, or for various personal reasons, condemned, tortured, and executed. Lest we all forget, the Tiny Tyrant is highly favourable to singling out people for being different, or on the basis of personal bias. Trump is not the sort of person who would be persecuted, he’s the type who would be (and is) a persecutor. As always, wealth defines position, and power.

It’s infuriating when fucking idiots decided to screech “witch hunt!” over the slightest of criticisms, let alone over the consequences of their own actions. These things have absolutely no resemblance to a witch trial in any way, shape, or form. Even if you want to stick to ‘American political witch hunt’, as always, Donny is wrong. I’m pretty sure that the McCarthy hearings and the The House Un-American Activities Committee win that one. We can go farther back, too, but the bottom line here is that there is no terrible witch hunt, political or otherwise happening. Not that history would have any meaning to the Tiny Tyrant, why history didn’t include him! The whole crying witch hunt has always gotten stuck in my craw, especially now, because I saw that Christie’s will be auctioning off a rare deposition from the Salem witch trials, a deposition which helped to seal the fate of a poor, 76 year old widow. Margaret Scott was hanged, along with Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, Ann Pudeator, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Alice Parker, and Wilmot Redd. This was the last group to suffer and die at the hands of hysterical christians.

The deposition of Mary Daniel against Margaret Scott (August 4, 1692), sworn to on September 15, 1692 then introduced as evidence, with autograph endorsement signed by Stephen Sewall as clerk to the Salem court. Margaret Scott was one of the people executed during the Salem Witch Trials (courtesy the Eric C. Caren Collection/Christie’s).

It’s important to remember that people died, many of them in the worst and most gruesome ways, and it is not alright to decide that criticism or having to take responsibility for yourself is in any way a witch hunt.

You can see and read more about the deposition at Hyperallergic.

As for the not-a-witch-hunt investigation, Think Progress has the full run down.

Valley Fever and No Healthcare.

Dust storms spike with Valley fever cases. The largest number of dust storms from 1988 to 2011 are concentrated in the SW states reporting the highest numbers of fever cases.

The infection rate of Valley Fever in the Southwest United States has gone up a stunning 800 percent from 2000 to 2011, as dust storms have more than doubled.

New research directly links the rise in Valley Fever to the rise in dust storms, which in turn is driven by climate change. Valley Fever, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “a fungal lung infection that can be devastating,” is caused by inhaling soil-dwelling fungus. When the soil dries out and turns to dust, the wind can make the fungus airborne.

“Dust storms are found to better correlated with the disease than any other known controlling factor,“ a new study led by NOAA scientists concluded.

[…]

But the biggest concern about modern Dust-Bowlification is the tremendous challenge of “feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate.” This is why climate action is so urgent and vital.

This all goes along nicely with the rethuglican agenda of making sure a whole lot of people will die from a lack of good nutrition and healthcare. Until the day comes along they are personally threatened, there won’t be minds changing. Unfortunately, money makes a very nice cushion against what always hits the poorer people first. Speaking of the Fuck You Care Plan, the secrecy continues:

Senate Republicans plan to send their health care bill to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for analysis but don’t yet have a plan to release a draft of the bill for public scrutiny, according to Axios.

“We aren’t stupid,” an aide to a Senate Republican told Axios.

It’s perhaps understandable that Senate Republicans would want to shine as little light as possible on an unpopular bill that could cause millions of people to lose their health insurance.

The Senate is reportedly putting the final touches on a health care bill that looks very similar to the so-called American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed by the House. According to the CBO, the House version would cost 23 million Americans their health insurance while dramatically increasing costs for older Americans and people with pre-existing conditions, in part because of the bill’s $834 billion cut to Medicaid over the next decade.

[…]

“We have no idea what’s being proposed,” McCaskill said, addressing chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “There’s a group of guys in a back room somewhere that are making these decisions… Listen, this is hard to take.”

“You couldn’t have a more partisan exercise than what you’re engaged in right now,” she continued. “We’re not even gonna have a hearing on a bill that impacts one-sixth of our economy. We’re not going to have an opportunity to offer a single amendment. It is all being done with an eye to try to get it by with 50 votes and the vice president.”

[…]

McCaskill went on to blast McConnell for his hypocrisy. Before the 2014 election that returned control of the Senate to Republicans, McConnell “pledged to send bills through committees, even if it might upset members of his own conference,” as The Hill reported in May of that year. But last week, McConnell gave the health care bill “fast track” status, meaning it can skip the committee process altogether.

Republican hypocrisy was also evidence during the House process. Before the 2010 election that returned control of the House to Republicans, House Republican leaders unveiled their “Pledge to America.” The pledge contained a “Read the Bill” promise vowing, “We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives.” But a number of House Republicans admitted to not even reading the AHCA before they cast a vote for it.

Think Progress has the full stories: Valley Fever and What Healthcare?

As Hate and Bigotry Rise, Time to Slash…

Shoes confiscated from prisoners at Majdanek, on loan from the State Museum of Majdanek, Lublin, Poland. –US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

$3 Million Dollars from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yep. Whose fucking idiotic idea was this, you ask? The Tiny Tyrant’s, of course. Why?

According to the budget proposal, the cut “will assist in meeting the President’s budget objectives, while still providing adequate funds to cover pay increases and rising costs for current services for the Museum’s facilities and collections. The decrease is achieved by reductions in staff and selected non-pay areas.”

There has been, for once, a united backlash against this incredibly stupid move. That said, I have to wonder why it entered Donny’s little pea brain to cut funding from this specific museum. There are many museums to pick on, certainly there are many in Washington D.C., but Trump chose to single out the Holocaust Museum. With his history of refusing to speak out against domestic terrorism, and the sharp spike in hate crimes, along with his not-so-subtle embrace of white supremacists, I’m sure everyone has been shocked right out of their socks over this move. Apparently, having a Jewish daughter and son-in-law don’t count this time around, or they don’t much care, either. Personally, I think if the Fucking Idiot is so damn determined to fuel yet more monies into the military machine, he can start scooping out of his own capacious pockets.

The Hill has the full story.

Mr. Tweet: Ever Incoherent.

HYDE & GO TWEET, © Justin Erickson.

Once again, the Tiny Tyrant tweets incoherently, and it’s another instance which may well prove to be quite troublesome, as while Trump might be capable of keeping his mouth shut on the odd occasion, he has no control when it comes to tweeting out every idiotic thought.

Donald J. Trump: Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!

As pointed out on Think Progress, the Tiny Tyrant seems to want things both ways here, a dismissal of Comey and his testimony as lies, and a complete vindication as well. It doesn’t work like that, which wouldn’t be news to most people on the planet, but as usual, the unpresident seems utterly clueless to anything connected to reality. This rather unpleasant, obsessive attachment to leaking has grown terribly old and weary. How many more times are we to be subjected to the hoarse cry of “Leaker!” as the walls of Castle Trump come crumbling down?

There’s a danger in Trump’s position. He and his lawyer are accusing Comey of perjury while not under oath themselves. Will Trump stand by his version of events if he has to give a sworn account of his interactions with Comey? If he does, it’ll be the word of a meticulous memo-writer against the word of a man who began his presidency by declaring war on reality itself and has,by one count, told 623 lies during the first 137 days of his administration.

Think Progress has the full analysis of the latest incoherence.

The Invocation of Senate Rule 14.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, accompanied by Senate Republican leaders, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

While all eyes are on Comey right now, the ever oily ophidian Mitch McConnell is busy making sure that millions upon millions of American citizens will be thoroughly deprived of healthcare. This is the perfect time for sly and sleazy tricks, with all the scandals breaking like so many rotten eggs; and it is summertime, with all its enticing distractions, offering respite from the constant anxieties of American life. It would be so much easier, and nicer, to go off on my new bicycle for a rideabout, than to report on yet more of the machinations of the regime.

Senate Speaker Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he is striving to get a vote on the Republican health care bill by July 4, before Congress leaves for August recess. As ludicrous as this deadline seems, the Senate could pull it off — but it will be done without much public scrutiny.

Sen. McConnell implemented Senate “Rule 14” Wednesday to fast-track the GOP House health bill. This rule allows the Senate to skip the committee process (goodbye full senate committee debate) and instead “fast-tracks” the bill by moving it on the senate calendar so it can be brought to a vote.

Republicans need to pass a health care bill immediately. And they need to pass a bill that reconciles the needs of both the House and Senate, by September 30th in order to use reconciliation. Reconciliation is a 1974 act that expedites the senate’s consideration of bills that pertain to the budget. While Washington watches James Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Republicans leaders and the health care working group will still be meeting for a working luncheon to continue negotiations.

[…]

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Health and Human Services 2018 budget request on Thursday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) vocalized her frustration with the senate leader invoking rule 14. She asked the chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), if there is going to be a public hearing on the Senate’s secret health bill. A befuddled Hatch said he did not know. “But we have no idea what’s being proposed,” McCaskill exclaimed.

McCaskill makes a valid point. Georgetown University congressional expert Josh Huder says what’s truly remarkable is the Senate will replicate what the House did: push this bill forward with little transparency.

It’s not transparent, but it’s a good way to get health care legislation passed. The Senate is using reconciliation to get this done, which prevents a Democrat filibuster. “This bill will not get 60 votes anywhere. If you want to the bill to pass, this is the only way to do it,” said Huder.

Think Progress has the full story.

Trump Morality.

CREDIT: Eric Trump steps off Air Force One as he arrives Sunday, April 16, 2017, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. President Donald Trump and family are returning from his Mar-a-Largo resort in Florida. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

After Eric Trump spent some time with Sean Hannity, spitting bitterness and claiming that democrats aren’t even people to him, as he opined over the complete lack of morality these days (the fault of liberals, natch),  a report from Forbes has revealed an instance of what passes for morality in the Trump Klan.

On Tuesday, Forbes reported that Eric Trump has diverted more than $1 million donations to his kids-cancer charity to Trump golf courses. These costs were incurred during the Eric Trump Foundation’s annual golf fundraiser. But according to charity experts, “the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.”

The golf fundraiser was marketed as an opportunity for donors to have nearly their entire gift go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, since the golf and other services were provided free of charge.

A former employee of the club, however, told Forbes that beginning in 2011, the charity was charged for the use of course and other services. Ian Gillule, membership and marketing director at Trump National Westchester, said the club began billing Eric Trump’s foundation after Donald Trump “had a cow.”

“I don’t care if it’s my son or not — everybody gets billed,” Donald Trump said, according to Gillule.

The payments by the charity to the Trump Organization for its one-day tournament were also confirmed by a former member of the Eric Trump Foundation board. And the payments increased dramatically over time — from $46,000 in 2011 to $322,000 in 2015.

Eric Trump appears to have gone to significant lengths to cover up these payments. Last year, he told Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold that none of the money actually went to the Trump Organization. Rather, Eric Trump insisted, the money was simply passed from the Trump Organization to “to cover the cost of outside vendors.”

In July, Eric Trump excoriated Fahrenthold for even suggesting otherwise:

Eric Trump also criticized The Post for a recent blog post — and recent Twitter messages by this reporter — about a payment made by the Eric Trump Foundation to one of Donald Trump’s golf courses.

“It’s disgusting. It is so disgusting what’s happening,” Eric Trump said. “I’m saving dying children. We do tremendous good for people. And you’re sitting there tearing us apart.”

“I save dying children! I do! There’s nothing wrong with profiting from that! This speaks to one of the worst things about the Trump Criminal Organization – the insistence that they are prime signifiers of morality; of being truly good and decent people. Ivana Jr. wants to profit by pretending to identify with working women. The elder sons slaughter animals for fun, are up to their necks in sleazy business, and now do whatever they must to protect their sire, lying and spreading bullshit by the fucktonne.

Think Progress has the full story.

BOTulism.

Twitter Audit.

Bots have always been a problem. They are now a much bigger problem, on Twitter in particular. Too many people are gullible, and far too many people simply do not take minutes out to fact check things. Fact checking can be tedious, but it’s part and parcel of being informed these days. Twitter bots have gotten a bit more sophisticated, not much, but enough to fool people, and that’s really all they need to do. This makes it much more difficult to refute all the fakery and Trakery™ out there. Bots can also outperform people, so there’s much more nonsense than valid information on the loose.

A bot will write on Twitter in clunky English, reciting paragraphs of propaganda or fake news in compartmentalized tweets, often featuring rudimentary linguistics and nondescript profiles. Unlike computer programs, frustrated citizens and real people online engage with the context of specific posts, respond to counterpoints and typically use profiles that reflect human personalities. “They’re yelling fools,” Philip N. Howard, a sociologist at the Oxford Internet Institute, told the New York Times, “and a lot of what they pass around is false news.”

But bots—including those designed to support the Trump presidency—are continuing to invade social media and create chatter at such a rapid speed, that the differences are becoming blurred for many users attempting to keep a grasp on reality in 2017.

[…]

But as of recently, many of those bots appear to have one common and undeniable goal: to protect and defend the 45th president of the United States.

[…]

The Trump bots are active virtually 24/7, and especially during times when the president is furiously tweeting.

“A bot army can be utilized for a number of dishonest purposes, chief amongst them, misrepresenting public sentiment about whichever topics the controller has interest in,” Brad Hayes, fellow at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab’s Interactive Robotics Group, told NY Daily News Saturday. “If 3 million people started tweeting in favor of or against a particular topic, would it shift public perception? What if those same 3 million people targeted every source you use for information? It’s fair to say that this kind of written ‘show of force’ can certainly alter perceptions.”

There’s much more at Raw Story.

“Trump is an embarrassment to America,”

“Trump is an embarrassment to America,” Farron said. “In the wake of the recent terrorist attack, two of which killed people on the streets of London, Donald Trump decides to use his time in the Oval Office to attack the Mayor of London on Twitter.”

“Theresa May absolutely must withdraw the state visit,” he added. “This is a man insulting our national values at a time of introspection and mourning.”

“We need a special relationship not a supine relationship,” the statement concluded.

I couldn’t agree more. The Tiny Tyrant wants to bully and showboat, and I do not think anyone in London is remotely interested in the Narrenkaiser show, or talk of how guns, guns, guns, would solve all their problems. Trump’s repeated smears of Sadiq Khan should not be countenanced in any way. I don’t want him here either, but that should not be an excuse to foist him off on anyone else.

Via Raw Story.

Facebook, Oh Facebook XVII.

Clay Higgins. © Facebook.

We open with republican congressman Clay Higgins, who seems to be a tad fuckin’ bloodlusty.

In a Facebook post, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a viral YouTube star who was elected to Congress last November, argued that Christendom “is at war with Islamic horror.”

“Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down,” Higgins wrote. “Hunt them, identity them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”

Oh, but it’s ever so bad that some of those people you so demonize feel exactly the same way, right? That makes them evil, but being an indiscriminate bloodthirsty killer is okey dokey if you’re white and at least nominally christian. Got it. Don’t go speaking like you represent America, either, because you sure as hell don’t represent me.

“Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter,” Higgins said in the post.

Oh stuff it, you obnoxious blowhard. This isn’t pirate land, and no one is after your “treasure”. What other nations do isn’t any of your business, Clay. Many of them are setting a fine example of how to be an excellent nation, and how to focus on integration, love, and empathy, rather than how to be a self righteous psychopath. Every single person who elected this fucking idiot? You should be godsdamned ashamed of yourselves.

Via The Hill.

Then there’s Harvard students…

Harvard College rescinded admissions offers to at least ten prospective members of the Class of 2021 after the students traded sexually explicit memes and messages that sometimes targeted minority groups in a private Facebook group chat.

A handful of admitted students formed the messaging group—titled, at one point, “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens”—on Facebook in late December, according to two incoming freshmen.

In the group, students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child “piñata time.”

After discovering the existence and contents of the chat, Harvard administrators revoked admissions offers to at least ten participants in mid-April, according to several members of the group.

The Harvard Crimson has the full story.