US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

saucy!

Try to keep up, sleeve. Juicy is the new saucy.

:)

fwiw I was referring to Wolff's snappy comeback there, it's about goddamn time people started taking off the gloves

I don't even know how they are alleging Clinton colluded with the Russians. To what end?

Conspiracy counterpoint: Clinton worked with the Russians to *lose* the election just to make Trump look bad by letting him win so that he could lose at a later date ... OF HER CHOOSING!!!

The Trump narrative (or at least the narrative that someone has thought up for Trump) is that the Russia stuff in the Steele dossier was paid for / directed by Democrats and that Steele's sources were all reporting back to the Kremlin, so any information he collated was given with Russian-government sign-off. Clinton knew this and accepted the help anyway in order to damage Trump. The culmination of the plot was giving the dossier to the NSA, etc, who would take action, publicising / affirming the conspiracy in the days prior to the election - which obviously didn't happen. The softer version is that collating the dossier in the first place constituted illegal assistance from foreign sources.

To counter that, there has been a lot of weight placed on the claim that Steele's sources weren't paid and that the official investigation into Trump was triggered by the Australian diplomat who spoke to Papadopoulos, rather than the Steele folder.

The narrative doesn't hold any weight but Marcy Wheeler has some good stuff on how some of the moral / legal grey areas / overenthusiasm on the part of Steele's benefactors blunted the effectiveness of the dossier prior to the election.

the manchild who cried "wolff"

ShariVari, that's perhaps an overly-nuanced explication of Trump's prepubescent 'no, YOU'RE the puppet!' retorts.

ahem ahem epub format

mark it was more "Bannon... sent him to the Internet to learn about and to try to draft the EO"

you can't learn about an EO you haven't drafted yet, but even if you could that's a terrible sentence

it is, tho to be honest i'd put this on the sub editor (if any): it's the kind of thing everyone ends up writing in a hurry

Rings true

It's being written as Bannon/Trump feud but in reality Trump aides used the last few pieces quoting Bannon to force Trump to do what he always refused to, which is strongly stand up to Bannon https://t.co/6o415ZMJBp

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 5, 2018

Trump has not changed at all, despite insistence otherwise - he's the same person now he's been for years. But he's in a new and stressful situation. https://t.co/1Fo6TFO7Wq

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 5, 2018

Thinking about he's all bluster but hates real confrontation/firings, etc. etc. At some point over the last couple of days it also has to have vaguely sunk in that a favored tactic -- threaten a lawsuit and someone goes away -- didn't work at all, and more to the point, didn't work even when he was the President of the US.

kind of amazing that a man whose only actual talent is drawing media attention to himself is now at a point where he's getting covered and scrutinized more than any person in history and it's directly leading to his undoing and the permanent tarnishing of his legacy

would make a better Black Mirror episode than screaming keychains or w/e

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!
9:32 AM - Jan 5, 2018
18,845 18,845 Replies 9,850 9,850 Retweets 39,871 39,871 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
― Newb Sybok (Doctor Casino), Friday, January 5, 2018 9:35 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark

assuming the semi-coherent ones are being written by scavino

I assume that most of the ones that don't read like he just mashed his palm on the keypad and hit 'send' are either dictated or ghostwritten.

it's directly leading to his undoing

is it though

bannon wants to be his werner herzog is my guess still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O18ql2iX2Fk

Even if Trump's undoing only occurs on the cellular level, I'll take it.

It would be rad if the stress reduced him to a burbling, protoplasmic mass by the end of his term.

the tommy to sloppy steve's greg sestero / tom bissell

assume that most of the ones that don't read like he just mashed his palm on the keypad and hit 'send' are either dictated or ghostwritten.

― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Friday, January 5, 2018 3:57 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

trump's insane capitalization method is also a tell

The Trump narrative (or at least the narrative that someone has thought up for Trump) is that the Russia stuff in the Steele dossier was paid for / directed by Democrats and that Steele's sources were all reporting back to the Kremlin, so any information he collated was given with Russian-government sign-off. Clinton knew this and accepted the help anyway in order to damage Trump. The culmination of the plot was giving the dossier to the NSA, etc, who would take action, publicising / affirming the conspiracy in the days prior to the election - which obviously didn't happen. The softer version is that collating the dossier in the first place constituted illegal assistance from foreign sources.

There's also an angle where the dossier was apparently being used as evidence for the FISA warrant on Carter Page, which is blended into Trump's "They were TAPPING me!" / omg the unmasking

This article is another in the you-think-you-know-but-you-have-no-idea genre, but it's worth it for just how much time this guy spent documenting one-to-one relationships between Fox & Friends programming and Trump tweets.

After comparing the president’s tweets with Fox's coverage every day since October, I can tell you that the Fox-Trump feedback loop is happening far more often than you think. There is no strategy to Trump’s Twitter feed; he is not trying to distract the media. He is being distracted. He darts with quark-like speed from topic to topic in his tweets because that’s how cable news works.

Here’s what’s also shocking: A man with unparalleled access to the world’s most powerful information-gathering machine, with an intelligence budget estimated at $73 billion last year, prefers to rely on conservative cable news hosts to understand current events.

I might use the word 'alarming' in place of 'shocking'. I don't think anyone is shocked by that fact anymore.

terrifying comes to mind

we have met the enemy, and he has a TV head

I had no idea this existed but of course it exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaIGAMzKH8A

somewhat stunned by the reach of the Wolff book. saw tons of my art school friends (otherwise completely disengaged from following politics every day, never read books like this, wouldn't be aware of them, don't read the nyt or wapo or anything but twitter) have already bought the book and are posting excerpts on instagram. man, wolff made out like a bandit with this one, good for him. i hope i get my copy before monday.

So this happened last night...

Wow, this extract from Wolff’s book is a shocking insight into Trump’s mind: pic.twitter.com/1ZecclggSa

— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018

...and now it's come to this.

THE WHITE HOUSE STAFF MADE A MAKESHIFT GORILLA CHANNEL FOR TRUMP TO WATCH AS MUCH AS 17 TIMES A DAY.#GorillaChannel pic.twitter.com/8BU4Ch9oiD

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) January 5, 2018

lmao

The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018

There is no strategy to Trump’s Twitter feed; he is not trying to distract the media. He is being distracted.

A smart person would create distractions. Trump is not a smart person. Most people analyzing Trump are smart people, so it's hard for them to put themselves in the mindframe of a dolt. Also hard to believe that someone as """"successful"""" as Trump is really and truly dumb. "He sure knows how to play the media!" "Well you have to give him credit for creating and selling his brand". Right cause Duck Dynasty dudes are savvy postmodern media/biz whizzes.

Trump clearly has severe cognitive issues that make him dangerously incapable of functioning as president, so if the past's anything to go by Republicans will soon be calling for him to be put on Mount Rushmore

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) January 5, 2018

haha garland even fucked up the information in the fake excerpt

pic.twitter.com/Fi7capnaax

— andy levy (@andylevy) January 5, 2018

the stupidity is nesting

The only thing better than believing in gorilla channel is knowing it's fake, but was actually planted in the Wolff book to discredit it pic.twitter.com/WYJzkBhbgr

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 5, 2018

lol at "known as Sloppy Steve Bannon." He's not "known" as that, you just invented it with your clever brain two hours ago.

vladimir: whether you win or lose, i win, and you lose
donald: make it stop!

his nickname doesn't exactly belie the part in the Wolff book which states "When he got on the phone after dinner, he’d speculate on the flaws and weaknesses of each member of his staff. Bannon was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit)."

First response to that Andy Levy tweet just literally killed me.

After a tiff of this magnitude, you know the Trump/Bannon make-up sex is going to be epic. Not to mention Sloppy.

Eric Garland, momentarily:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hNIX7V21pU

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSy8g5BXUAEDPRF.jpg

The Wollf book doesn't say anything you don't know if you've read the Times and the Post for the last 18 months. Get over yourselves.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) January 5, 2018

I’m sorry I have a question

Is the gorilla channel thing real or fake?

I thought it was clearly fake but people are talking as if it’s real and I don’t know who’s mistaken.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about don’t look it up because it might be fake.

— Farhad Manjoo (feat. Drake) (@fmanjoo) January 5, 2018

Manjoo has written about new media,[6] politics,[7] and controversies in journalism.[8]

He is the author of the book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.[9][10][1

This will not end until Sarah Sanders is asked about it and even then her answer will make it seem like it's real.

Poor effort, 2 out of 10.

Dammit guys, I got totally punked on the Gorilla Channel thing - but when you've already gotten to "eating KFC in bed," I mean, we're through the looking glass.

Thanks to all who called me out. We keep it clean and Deza-free at Game Theory HQ. 😀

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) January 5, 2018

Also good god.

Don’t tweet screenshots of fake text (of book excerpts, court transcripts, etc) even as a joke.

You’re making things worse.

The jokes just don’t work in a partisan-echo-chamber-feed world where everything is divorced from context and authorship.

Also they’re not funny

— Farhad Manjoo (feat. Drake) (@fmanjoo) January 5, 2018

u mad doggie

however his opinion of pixelated boat is the correct one

disagree