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George Orwell's '1984' Tops Amazon's Bestseller List (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sales of George Orwell's dystopian drama 1984 have soared after Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the reality-TV-star-turned-president, Donald Trump, used the phrase "alternative facts" in an interview. As of Tuesday, the book was the sixth best-selling book on Amazon. Comparisons were made with the term "newspeak" used in the 1949 novel, which was used to signal a fictional language that aims at eliminating personal thought and also "doublethink." In the book Orwell writes that it "means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." The connection was initially made on CNN's Reliable Sources. "Alternative facts is a George Orwell phrase," said Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty. Conway's use of the term was in reference to White House press secretary Sean Spicer's comments about last week's inauguration attracting "the largest audience ever". Her interview was widely criticized and she was sub-tweeted by Merriam-Webster dictionary with a definition of the word fact. In 1984, a superstate wields extreme control over the people and persecutes any form of independent thought. UPDATE 1/24/17 6:56PM PST: Orwell's dystopian novel is now the #1 Best Seller in Books on Amazon.
First we should make sure it's not the Trump administration buying these. They might be mistaken for operating manuals.
Seeing Sean Spicer claiming the biggest audience ever reminded me of the Iraqi Minister of Information.
Someone told the new administration to RTFM.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The right has now usurped what was once the sole domain of the left -- Relativism.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Amazon's hidden microphones aren't hidden.
Ironic really, since the USA is more like Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty Four
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Particularly for the part where people actually start calling dictionaries "political", and the definition of objectivity and facts "liberal"... I think we'll soon see a decree from the Orange one renaming the Mississippi "De-Nial".. No wait, that would make sense. :/
The current discourse is insanity, but it amply proves what happens when you make entertainment of history, no effort is ever made to teach people to think and the common man is treated by nothing but contempt. The great irony is that everyone wakes up now, because we've got an non-establishment monkey in the White House. But if we're honest, it's factually no different from what we've been treated to for years and years by other, established politicians and multinational corporations, the only difference is how obvious the lies are, and how fervently they are defended by the useful idiots. It's sad to see it would take something like this to get the media and people in general to finally take a stand against the shameless lies we're fed every day, but I suppose late shall the sinner awaken.
I can only hope Trump and his lickspittles serves as a general alarm clock for our society, so we all start to demand the truth from those who claim to "represent" us, or "lead" us, and stop accept being told the most outrageous and shameless lies, no matter who it might be who tell them. I'm not optimistic though, but as everyone knows, I've been wrong before. Let us pray I'm wrong this time too.
Signed
AC
Why do I get a bad feeling that masses of people will read that book and come to a wrong conclussion just to justify their own point of view? I guess I am glad that many people will read it though.
I really hope SJWs will realize their fight to purge the language of "bad words" is in fact persecution of thoughtcrime.
If you ban "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from schools "because it uses the 'n' word and that's offensive", you're doing precisely what 1984 warns about.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
We are way way past 1984 now that gang-stalkers have infiltrated the government spy fabric.
As the CNN megapixel graphic showed, the Trump crowd was larger than reported. This seems a silly thing to fight over, since Trump's supporters are less likely to attend an inauguration than a rally anyway.
The big point here however is that 1984 was a fraud written in response to a book written a dozen years earlier, Brave New World. In that saner view of humanity, it was our desire for Utopia that led us to a state like that in the movie Idiocracy: neutered, pointless people living in ugly cities, driven only by desires for pleasure, and so vapid that they would die out without medically-supervised, mandatory reproduction.
Alternative Right.
I saw a picture of the crowd from Trump's podium. From there the empty patches were not easily evident. From his angle it looked like there were people covering every patch of concrete if you didn't look carefully enough. And since it looks that way from where he way (literally) standing, the media must be lying - simple logic I guess.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Would 1984 be lawful to read in the 1984 world?
Watch that interview very carefully. There is no way she was talking about "other" facts that weren't being reported. She meant to say exactly what she said. The administration has "alternative facts" that better fit their agenda.
Look, I realize that there is this bitter rivalry in US society between liberals and conservatives. But try to put politics aside, and try to think as a sane human being.
Donald Trump is the guy who insisted Barack Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the US. He is the guy who once claimed he owned the Empire State Building, which is false and was false at the time. He is the guy who said he has been on the Time magazine "more than anybody" which is false. He is the guy who so often claimed that he never said something he just said a few days earlier. His Trump University has been trialed for fraud. One of his advisers is a guy who owns a right-wing conspiracy theory website that is specialized on the spreading of fake news.
Try to think about this rationally.
Donald Trump is either a serial liar or simply delusional. You can look all of his insanity up. If you believe him and his administration more than established, international media networks such as CNN, you have to face the fact that you have decided to stop being a rational thinking person.
Nice to see public awareness of this book in the mainstream! Very nice! An informed public is a public inoculated against tyranny.
...RTFM?
Boy, has this place changed.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Best buy a paper copy...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...
Donald Trump is the guy who insisted Barack Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the US. He is the guy who once claimed he owned the Empire State Building, which is false and was false at the time. He is the guy who said he has been on the Time magazine "more than anybody" which is false. He is the guy who so often claimed that he never said something he just said a few days earlier. His Trump University has been trialed for fraud.
he kind of reminds me of Lafayette Ron Hubbard. and Assange. people who spin self-aggrandizing bullshit and almost dare you to call them on it.
captcha: immodest
It's much simpler than that.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath.
A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal.
They are lying cause they are liars and sociopaths. Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Conway was talking about facts that weren't being reported (i.e., other things Spicer said), not promoting some form of doublethink.
You're either a) brainwashed, b) a giant apologist, or c) just plain stupid. One thing you are certainly not is rational.
For one... "Brave New World" supports birth control.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yes, Trump exaggerates, but he isn't alone in doing so. The bulk of the press was in the bag for Hillary, despise Trump, and the reporting shows it. What they report as fact is just as often opinion and deceitful framing as Trump is braggadocious.
And let's not forget that rational, intelligent people can disagree on matters of import, the significance of facts, and so forth without ceasing to be rational.
I saw that picture too, one of Trumps supporters tweeted a picture. But you could see the empty patches just the same, only with perspective making them smaller. He tweet/screamed "Stop lying", but it was clear he was really trying to fool himself rather than fool others. Both pictures matched, even the way the cloud slanted across the empty field.
It was kinda sad. A lot of Trump supporters have bought into this liar, and they have to tell themselves lies to keep their choice to be the right choice in their head.
I see now Trump has started his "I really won the popular vote, there was verifiable voter fraud" claim again. He knows he's a squatter in the Whitehouse, you can see how he's trying to gain control of a government more loyal to the winner of the vote than the winner of the electoral college.
Silly question perhaps, but how can it show as #1 Bestseller in "Books", but #2 on the Sci-Fi sub-category ?
Your comment does a lot to convince me... that sabbedde is right. Merely calling names and proclaiming the other person is wrong suggests that you have no defensible point -- that you've resorted to pounding the table, because neither facts nor law are on your side.
I'm assuming those buying copies of 1984 are under the age of 30, maybe 35, since I can't imagine anyone older than that hasn't already read this at least once, seen the movie, is familiar with the overall theme from the book being discussed at least here in America almost constantly as far back as I can remember (the early 80s). I also expect the majority of these new potential readers also tend to lean left. I hope what they come away with is an understanding of what an Orwellian society would actually look like and realize how ridiculous they sound to the rest of us when they compare that to now. Maybe while they are at it they can pick up a copy of Anne Frank's diary and gain some perspective on what Nazism was about as well since their comparison of American politics to Nazism is not only ignorant but insulting and rather disgusting.
Only Trump supports mass surveillance and warrantless wiretapping. In fact, he's the first candidate to ever push for this.
That's why it's so perfect to read 1984 now, because trump is totally Big Brother, am I right folks?
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
They're finally doing it.
Glad you're seeing the lies - now. Too bad you weren't seeing them when Obama was president.
Numerous times Obama lied, on television, in print, and the fawning press never called him on it.
Suddenly they realized they have a purpose. A little too late though - decades after handing over power to the president.
Watch and learn as it's your turn to get fucked.
Chuck Todd wasn't particularly hostile, but Kellyanne Conway went off the rails and became very defensive when she didn't need to. It's the job of the press to ask the tough questions of elected officials, which is what happened. The point that crowd size doesn't matter was reasonable, but so was questioning why the press secretary lied.
I did watch the interview, by the way. https://youtu.be/IcBblq-QOo4
Am I noticing a trend here?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Then you're retarded too, because you apparently think you have to have a "defensible point" when you deal with serial liars. You don't. You just shut them down, on the grounds that they are liars. You can argue with them no more than you could argue with old Adolf. There simply is no discourse, no debate, because they don't want any.
They tell their toxic lies, and meanwhile you spend time and effort tangling out the deliberate mess they made, and explain why what they just said is a blatant lie, they've told twenty new lies. It's a losing battle - not because you don't have "a defensible position" or the facts or the law on your side, but because it's quick and easy to tell lies, while it's slow and complicated to put things right again. That's why known liars are instantly disqualified in any kind of discussion. Donald Trump and his lickspittles are well known liars. Trying to relativise or zooming in on microscopic details in order to change the picture doesn't change anything, it just makes you too a rampantly dishonest asshole.
I am certain that Obama has said things that were not true, 100% certain. As has any serving president, sometimes knowingly, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unknowingly most of the time.
Yet this is nowhere near the incredible and outlandish, and frankly, sometimes outrageous claims that Donald Trump makes on a regular basis. If you are willing to put in the effort to provide me a list of Obamas "lies" while he was campaigning for president, I am willing to put in the effort to provide you with five Trump lies while he was campaigning for president - with references - for every Obama lie. It's a non-contest.
The Obama administration never lied about anything? Or perhaps now it's Trump people are actually checking and reporting it.
And let's not forget that rational, intelligent people can disagree on matters of import, the significance of facts, and so forth without ceasing to be rational.
Are you sure you're not talking about opinions? Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable, unambiguous truth? Such as the fact that Obama is christian and was born in the United States? If you are trying to soften up facts and put them up to debate, you are already by your knees in that Orwellian universe the White House would like to have us.
Not one iota, not a smidgen of lying in Obama's administration....
Obama: The attack on Benghazi was because of a YouTube video...
Press: Ok, sure, we believe it.
Trump: Lots of people saw my inauguration.
Press: LIAR!!!!
Could have not put it better.
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
Cynical as he was, Mencken still had too much faith in the American people to believe the moron they eventually elected would also be a sociopathic, foreign-owned racist with a taste for sexual assault.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Amazing that people are willing to buy this from Amazon, even the SlashDot crowd seem to have forgotten this incident:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
....*does* read rather like a Obama/Hillary training manual. I suspect the folks buying it now are using it to read up on what kinds of fake news are likely to be tossed their way.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Idiocracy.
What is Orwellian is the political correctness and all that shit. Trump is the exact oposite
Thankyou Trump and lol SJWs, turns out demonizing the average person isn't a winning strategy.
But look at the bright side. You still have your victimhood and sense of persecution.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Or perhaps now it's Trump people are actually checking and reporting it.
Yeah, that's gotta be it.
A fact is not unambiguous truth. I can give you many, many facts and be lying through my teeth. It's called lies of omission. You give facts that support your claim, while burying facts that oppose it. You've said nothing "false", but what you've stated isn't the truth. You should be familiar with this. The people who try to deny the holocaust use this method frequently. Granted the media also uses it frequently. The one that annoys me the most is the lefts debate on gun control. They paint it in such a way that "obviously gun control works and is just common sense" but if you actually dig in to it you see a sea of cherry picked information supporting their case while doing everything they can to come up with reasons dissenting information is invalid.
BTW... Who said anything about administration?
For one... There is no such thing as "Trump administration" yet. And clearly, there won't be one for quite some time.
Which is what happens when you hire a lazy, lying, incompetent bum prone to litigation to work for you.
And no one said it was "the administration" that's being a "liar and a sociopath" - it's Trump and the people he is picking who are liars, sociopaths and idiots.
Here, again, for those with reading issues.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath.
A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal.
They are lying cause they are liars and sociopaths. Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
Also, tu quoque is a fallacy - not an argument.
Particularly when you reply to a "He's a lying sociopath and so are the people he's picking" carpet bombing with a fizzling firecracker like "Well... like the previous administration NEVER lied".
Not only are you neck deep in the fallacy septic tank, you're diving deeper by emphasizing your own attempt at false equivalence.
Which is pathetic, I know, but what CAN you do?
You can't just pick ANY random statement by ANY previous president and say "See? That's a lie." - at least 50% of those won't be lies.
Unlike with Trump, with whom telling truth happens to be more of a statistical error than accident.
Just get over it already. Trump won. Enjoy!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yes, I agree with what you say and cherry picking facts is a very serious concern. This is also frequently used by climate change deniers. What do you mean it's getting warmer? I have all the data right here from that one weather station in Alaska proving that temperatures have actually dropped in the last 60 years!
But yes, this is something that all sides of a political spectrum are always guilty of. That's why, in my opinion, it's very important to get your sources not just from one, or a select few news outlets. Especially not if they share the political alignment. Watch and read conservative news, and liberal ones. Diversify. Then think about it and form your own educated opinions. Research if you must. The truth is almost always somewhere in between.
But I truly think that regarding Trump, we are well beyond cherry picking facts. This man seems to make up reality as he goes.
Get we get an impeachment now, please?
And let's not forget that rational, intelligent people can disagree on matters of import, the significance of facts, and so forth without ceasing to be rational.
Are you sure you're not talking about opinions? Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable, unambiguous truth? Such as the fact that Obama is christian and was born in the United States? If you are trying to soften up facts and put them up to debate, you are already by your knees in that Orwellian universe the White House would like to have us.
I think I see the problem here. You are taking as fact something you simply have faith in. Do you personally witness Obama's private religious activities? Were you there to watch his birth? I cannot claim direct observation of any of these things. They may or may not be facts. I am left with nothing but second hand reports and rationality to decide for myself.
The easy way is to simply agree with the first "fact" you are presented with and oppose all others. Human brains are pretty good at that by default.
It's hard to break subconscious thought patterns, similar to bad habits such as smoking.
Anyway, after a quick initial preponderance of the evidence regarding Obama's birth and religion, my scientific conclusion is "I don't give a shit, will never give a shit, and will ignore it either way". When you look into politics, beyond the propaganda and conditioning, it's pretty much all like that. As "the little people" we have no say and no control. Get on with life. If it really bothers you enough go get your pitchfork already. Until then, stop whining and complaining and trying to convince me which side of Red vs Blue is better. They are both objectively poor choices.
Awesome to hear more people are reading English classic literature. They should read Animal Farm next.
Libya was a wealth socially advanced North African nation that offered full protected rights to WOMEN and RELIGIOUS MINORITIES. Hillary Clinton, in partnership with the zionists of Israel and the wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, utterly destroyed Libya- turning the ruins into an extremist islamic hellhole. Trump hating neo-liberals and neo-cons say "this is a GOOD thing", and so do all the SJW dribblers who love the mass murdering Clinton.
Indeed the neo-liberals (=100% of the mainstream media and Soros controlled FAKE 'indy' media) have supported every war on SECULAR Muslim autocracies, advancing the Israeli/Saudi agenda of extremist islam and wahhabi rule. Of course, the USA NEVER EVER attacks the extremist muslim nations in Saudi Arabia's sphere of control (and remember the sheeple are told that almost all the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens).
1984 states that those who WRITE 'history' CONTROL history. During the HOLOCAUST of Libya, the BBC constantly published FAKE reports claiming the people of Libya wanted their country destroyed- culminating in a supposed video of Libyians celebrating the NATO bombing of their nation- a video that turned out to be Indians celebrating some unconnected festival in India that the BBC hoped their viewers would be too stupid to recognise. ITV published footage from a video game (passed off as 'real) claiming it was prove the Libyan leader attacked British troops.
The filth that runs Slashdot targets the 50% of total dribblers that voted for Clinton- knowing that said dribblers ignore every proof that their world view is completely WRONG, and want any fact that demonstrates the utter evil of the neo-liberals censored out of existence. And I post as a SOCIALIST who would naturally be on the opposite side to Trump, but cares to see the USA as it actual is- and thus understands the danger to Humanity posed by the neo-con and neo-liberal 'alliance'.
Did the Washington Post actually just invent an Orwell quote?
"Facts" appears about 10 times. "Alternative" - never. Not even once. So, in what sense is "alternative facts" an Orwell phrase? Where did Orwell write it?
Will the liberals actually listen to what the book is saying and start thinking for themselves for a change or will they continue blindly trusting the lies told to them by CNN, NYTimes, et al?
It's been sad watching the lies spread throughout the Democratic party, nothing but sheep being led around by a femi-nazi leadership.
The pall of National Socialism dropping over the US.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Just as it's a fact that an American Ambassador was murdered under Hillary Clinton's watch.
People only seem to be catching up... 5 years too late.
I cannot yet figure out if the current administration is using "1984" or "The Handmaids Tale" for it's guidebook.
It seems to be both; Trump/Bannon use "1984" (and a healthy dose of "Mein Kampf") for their guidebook and Mike Pence uses "The Handmaids Tale".
Neither are conducive to the continued existence of the Democratic Republic called "America".
After all, we have always been at war with "EastAsia"........
You don't seem to know the difference between "FACTS" and "OPINION" (nor do you care as your only goal is to "win the argument".)
That is what suckers do for their masters.
Just as it's a fact that an American Ambassador was murdered under Hillary Clinton's watch.
And 2000 Americans where murdered in the WTC under George W. Bush's watch. What's your point?
Are you working for Trump? You seem to have picked up all the standard tactics used by his supporters:
- Claim that we misunderstood the statement
- Ad hominem the interviewer
- Blame the Democrats
- Allege conspiracy
- Claim everyone else is just as bad as Trump anyway
- Conflate opinion and fact
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Ironically we can now also track each of these purchases of the book "1984" to their purchasers and their addresses. And if the Amazon ebook version, then can also know exactly which page they are on at any moment and which pages they spend the most time lingering on.
You're s'posed to read the book first, then vote...
Watch that interview very carefully. There is no way she was talking about "other" facts that weren't being reported. She meant to say exactly what she said. The administration has "alternative facts" that better fit their agenda.
Look, I realize that there is this bitter rivalry in US society between liberals and conservatives. But try to put politics aside, and try to think as a sane human being.
Donald Trump is the guy who insisted Barack Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the US. He is the guy who once claimed he owned the Empire State Building, which is false and was false at the time. He is the guy who said he has been on the Time magazine "more than anybody" which is false. He is the guy who so often claimed that he never said something he just said a few days earlier. His Trump University has been trialed for fraud. One of his advisers is a guy who owns a right-wing conspiracy theory website that is specialized on the spreading of fake news.
Try to think about this rationally.
Donald Trump is either a serial liar or simply delusional. You can look all of his insanity up. If you believe him and his administration more than established, international media networks such as CNN, you have to face the fact that you have decided to stop being a rational thinking person.
Why be rational? Maybe it's time for revenge? Let's have some fun and be totally irrational! Trump was and is a birther, he denied that Obama was born in the US and thinks Obama is a crypto-muslim. Well let's start our own 'birther' movement, something in the spirit of JJ Angleton, like claiming that Trump is an FSB asset, a Russian mole. We can call it the 'moler movement'. It shouldn't be that hard, just point to how Trump seems to have a massive man-crush on Putin, how Trump appoints Putin friendly people in key positions, how Trump seems intent on dismantling NATO which is Putin's wet dream, how Trump married two women who are secretly members of the GRU, ... , the list goes on, let your imagination run riot, get in touch with your inner alt-right drone. Of course all of this stuff will be freely invented nonsense but that does not matter, we are post truth here! We believe all this is true and that makes it fact! Rex Tillerson is a Russian born sleeper agent sent to the US by the KGB during the cold war and he is Trump's FSB handler. Anybody who contradicts any of this is LYING!!! If somebody questions your theory on Tillerson ask for Tillerson's birth certificate, if they produce Tillerson's birth certificate, ask for the long form birth certificate, if they produce that claim it is forged. Always remember, in the post truth world you don't need proof, just have to believe. If they say Trump isn't an FSB asset, just ask them where the proof is, if they ask you for proof of your claims, ask they if they can disprove anything you said, wait until they have said two words and interrupt them rapidly with something like "...well then that proves me right!". Set up a web page, call the page "Schnurrbart" link to it everywhere so it tops the list of results for Trump searches on Google. Let's have four to eight years of endless fun watching alt-right crackpots getting hoisted by their own petard ... Dang! Cooking up conspiracy theories is FUN!! And we haven't even gottens started on trolling the alt-right over #GoldenShowerGate...
Yes, but he lies an awful lot as well; if you can't acknowledge that given the sheet volume of easily verifiable examples then although in principle one can disagree and still be rational it clearly isn't the case for you.
Doomed.
Orwell was an Optimist
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why are Slashdot editors so fascist-minded? "Alternative facts" was a bad turn of phrase, but it wasn't doublethink. It was a statement that the aggregate number which was being reported was comprised of different components depending on whether you listened to CNN or to Trump's administration. The the word "both" in the key statement "both in-person and on TV" meant together or individually. Also, whether "on TV" included streaming viewership of the inaugural address. It was a phrase uttered to the news media which is only willing to report 1-sentence utterances, which is all too willing to dismiss any nuanced explanations and which is unwilling to take responsibility for creating the idiocracy culture it has created. It was rightfully criticized. Just consider the facts vs facts. TV viewership of the inauguration was 31 million. Youtube viewership was 15 million. Together, these are higher than the highest watched TV inaugural (41 million). But putting them together *is* a fact which is alternative to the fact that 31 million watched it on TV. However, it's too nuanced. And reporting only the 31 million number is dishonest. In fact, it's more dishonest than using the "alternative fact" that 46 million watched the inaugural from their homes. It dismisses non-TV audiences as if they were just a minor component while, in fact, they were 1/3 of the entire audience. So the major news sources under-reported the inaugural and over-reported the fascist pussy-hat (their name -- not mine) riots. And these are anti-democracy pro-fascism riots. And slashdot goes along with this reporting just as it goes along with the 1-line reporting of "97% of the scientists" crap (even though majority of the scientists are horrified at the regressive left's politicization of science).
The scariest words ever spoken in the Americas.
Would bad behavior on the part of person A excuse bad behavior on the part of person B?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
However the coverage of the "hate crime" was front and center
It's still a problem: "A burst of hate incidents and crimes reported in the days following Donald Trump's election in November has eased, but hate activity remains above pre-election levels", the Southern Poverty Law Center says.Jan 5, 2017
Aneddotica Magazine presenta
QUATTRO CHIACCHIERE CON CASSANDRA
"Alternative Facts"
Marco Calamari commenta l'articolo su Slashdot
George Orwell's '1984' Tops Amazon's Bestseller List
https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/01/25/0256236/george-orwells-1984-tops-amazons-bestseller-list
Marco Calamari, esperto di privacy e crittografia in Rete, collabora a progetti come Freenet, Mixmaster, Mixminion, Tor & GlobaLeaks. È il fondatore del Progetto Winston Smith e tra i fondatori del Centro Hermes per la Trasparenza e i Diritti Umani Digitali.
Dal 2002 organizza il convegno E-Privacy ed è editorialista di Punto Informatico dove pubblica la rubrica settimanale Cassandra Crossing.
È membro del capitolo italiano di IISFA, di AIP e di OPSI e opera come consulente tecnico forense.
Home Page: http://www.marcoc.it/
HERMES Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights http://logioshermes.org/
Born 1955, nuclear engineer, sometimes know as Cassandra, at age 18 needed to decide if buy an used car or a pc; his choice was the pc and since then has not yet fully recovered.
He works as a legacy code archeologist in a big multinational company, but is passionate about privacy & cryptography on Internet, and volunteers on some FOSS software projects like Freenet, Mixmaster, Mixminion, Tor & GlobaLaks.
Founder of PWS – Progetto Winston Smith and amongst founders of Hermes association, currently write about Matrix issues both in ICT and Generalist newspaper and magazines.
He is columnist at “Punto Informatico” where manage the “Cassandra Crossing” weekly column.
Twitter: @calamarim
ANEDDOTICA MAGAZINE http://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/
The Obama administration never lied about anything?
Obviously, if anyone can find one false statement from Obama, it excuses an infinite number of deliberate lies from Trump. Right?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lVHffPOPIg
VIDEOCAST MARCO CALAMARI
Doublethink - "the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination." The very idea that there could be facts on the one hand, but officially endorsed alternative facts on the other, is an example of doublethink. Chuck Todd was refreshingly frank when presented with the notion: "Four of the five 'facts' he uttered were just not true. Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods."
Is an "alternative fact" like "Hillary Clinton has 100% chance of winning"?
That was the "consensus opinion" even going late into the election night.
if individuals had started reading 'Atlas Shrugged' eight years ago then obie would have been drawn, quartered, and incinerated long before he could have done the damage he did.
https://archive.org/details/NI...
I would have thought there would be a rush on Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion"
http://wwnorton.com/college/hi...
Thanks Archive .org and W.W. Norton.
Captain Picard ain't havin' none of it:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And thank you Trumpites for the public education, as we see Conway and her fellow merry band of sociopaths try to create Newspeak before our very eyes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't really recall them asserting that lies could be recoined as "alternate facts". That politicians and their minions lie is a given, that they would so obstinately declare outright falsehoods and then try to recast the obvious falsehoods as some variant on "facts" is a new one to me, at least in the West. This is indeed more a trick of authoritarians.
And for what exactly? Because the Mall wasn't nearly as filled for Trump's inauguration as for Obama's 2008 inauguration? Why would that matter? Even further, to claim Hillary Clinton's popular vote win was made up of fraudulent votes? Why would that matter? What counts is the Electoral College, not popular votes? It strikes me as completely idiotic, a squandering of what little political capital Trump has actually entered the White House with on moronic side issues that have no bearing on governance whatsoever.
I had begun to believe the claim that Trump's bluster was some sort of clever ploy, a strategic type of hyperbole. Now I'm beginning the man really is a fucking moron. The first rule of lying is don't lie when you can get easily caught, and don't lie when there's no advantage conferred. What the hell was the point of inauguration attendance claim? What is the point of the three million vote fraud claim? These lies are not only stupid and easily debunked, they do nothing to aid Trump's administration.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Even if you imagine Benghazi claims by the Obama Administration were a lie, then at least it was a lie that would be very difficult to disprove. Indeed, even Congress has never really been able to solidly hold the Administration to account.
And Trump's claim on the Inauguration wasn't that lots of people saw it, his claim was that the Mall was filled with people and that pictures showing it pretty sparsely attended were faked, which was easily debunked.
So what we arrive at is that Trump is actually a terrible liar. Being a liar is practically a requirement of being a politician, being a terrible liar is the hallmark of a bad politician.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The GOP has been using it as a script, with them as Big Brother, at least since Reagan. It's just now clear to everyone (except the suckers of the alt-wrong), since Trump & co say exactly what the GOP's been saying since Nixon started his Southern Strategy, except they're too narcissistic and stupid to use the Approved Euphemisms.
"You want a view of the future? Picture a boot stomping on a human face, forever." - O'Brian to Winston. And for you on the right, so, how's you're bank account looking?
Libs have been doing it for years ... Planned "Parenthood".
Nineteen-Eighty-Four: Today's year.
I love the fact that the administrations initial mislabeling of the Benghazi incident is the best scandal partisans have been able to get to stick to the Obama administration. It really speaks to just how cleanly they ran everything.
How about anything defined for the sake of political correctness. Or the term "Political CORRECTNESS" for that matter.
Also by left wing design.
That's a great list! Can you make up "Bingo" cards with those on them? Then we can all play at home whenever Trump or one of his aides is on TV. Heck, give them to interviewers, and they can just shout out "BINGO!" once they've accumulated enough rhetorical and logical fallacies. If we're going to participate in a large-scale political farce, we might as well make the most out of it.
Are you able to articulate credible support for the Trump administration without comparing it to another?
Is that a blue and black dress or a white and gold dress? Both are facts, but truth is generally ambiguous.
This is the best news that I have heard in a long time. I really think that an understanding of Orwell's finer points is one of the most useful intellectual tools you can have in an information-driven society, never mind how current events are unfolding. However, allow me to relate a story.
Over christmas I was in Coles bookstore buying something. I overheard two women, first arguing about who wrote 1984. Then one of them pulled out there phone and asked how to spell Orwell. They debated that for a bit and eventually figured it out. Then she asked:
"How many books are there in the series?"
"Um, I think it's just the one."
"What genre is it? Is it like, horror or thriller, or fantasy?"
"I'm not sure, I just know that she wants it."
At this point the cashier and I shared a look and knowing laugh.
There's misinformation, lies, and bold-faced lies.
I don't trust either, but when somebody is willing to lie in spite of obvious and outstanding facts/evidence, it makes me worry not just that they're a liar but that they have some sort of mental condition which puts them out of touch with reality.
To be completely fair, they did have such an analysts report in their emails on Wikileaks. Now, that info about the alleged video was never corroborated by later investigation, but it was something they were told way back when.
"gender"
"otherkin"
Etc...
Trump doesn't exaggerate. He lies. Repeatedly and pathetically. He doesn't even try to tell the truth.
Trump is mentally ill.
US media does read like an alternate reality. That is the inevitable result of its consolidation in the hands of a few very wealthy people. While there is certainly some freedom to publish a less pro-corporate/militaristic viewpoint, the rule of big money has resulted in a quite shameful death of credibility for most large US media companies. The blundering of the Washington Post from one fake news story to another being the most obvious recent example. As a European viviting America, I'm always amazed at how the media there covers things using what can only be described as propaganda.
because neither facts nor law are on your side.
Hate to break it to you sweetheart, but facts ARE on my side. (I don't know what you think law might have to do with it, though. If the rest of your post wasn't so magnificently idiotic, that would stand out as pathetically stupid) Conway lied, Spicer lied, and Trump lied. This is so fucking obvious only a fucking retard (everyone's looking at YOU) would think otherwise.
> Are you sure you're not talking about opinions?
No, it's not an opinion that the press leaked the debate questions. It's not an opinion that the DKIM headers show the emails weren't modified. It's not an opinion that Cuomo, a licensed attorney who works for CNN, told us that the media has special rights and that it's illegal for normal people to read Wikileaks, despite this not being an accurate statement of law. It's not an opinion that the Washington Post let the DNC add people to their WaPo party invite list after the lawyers said they could not list it on the DNC donor price sheet.
The media has lost the trust of many people. If they want any trust back, they need to come clean and act more honest. All that's happened so far is that they've dispensed with the pretense of being unbiased. I suppose that is marginally more honest, but it doesn't really help them.
Well, the copy that is currently the best seller is shown as the "Mass Market Paperback"
The issue was with Amazon recalling an eBook. This is a physical copy, so unless Amazon is going to break into houses to "recall" it most purchases are probably safe in that regard.
This seems to assert that the only verifiable and useful knowledge is that which you directly observe. In fact, human observation is in many cases rather faulty. Our cognitive machinery used to store and recall memories can be manipulated, either intentionally or unintionally, so I'm afraid observation alone is insufficient. How science works is by demanding that experiments can be repeated to produce a similar outcome, to overcome biases, cognitive problems and memory issues.
The fact is that Obama has a Hawaii birth certificate that is like other birth certificates from the state at that time. The preponderance of evidence is that Obama was born on American soil, and thus was constitutionally permitted to become President of the United States. Trying to claim that you can't tell is nothing more than a sort of "Birther lite" position.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That's it? That's all you got? Benghazi.
Trump is mentally ill. He is fcking insane. Lost touch with reality. Major parts of every speech he has given has shown to packed full of lies.
And the best you got is Benghazi?
That's my view as well, and it's why I think while the Republicans will enjoy a brief period in which they can get their agenda pushed through, in the long term he's going to be an anchor around them. Congress is probably secure in 2018, largely because it's mainly Democratic incumbents, but if he continues in this vein, he's going to end up alienating a lot of the voters the GOP needs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Are you sure you're not talking about opinions? Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable,
No. Saying "The sky is blue" is not an opinion.
But it can be refuted by saying "The sky is black when it's night time, and clouds are part of the sky, and those are white or grey."
Facts can be lies. One fun example: The average human has one testicle. It's mathematically and statistically true, but it's essentially a lie. Very few humans have one testicle.
If a news reporter, hell-bent on slandering you, asked you if you had more testicles than the average human, "which studies show, the average human has only has one", what would you say? Would you deny the scientific study like some sort of HITLER REBORN!?
That's it? That's all you got? Benghazi.
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Do you work for Hillary? You seem to have picked up all the standard tactics used by her supporters:
-Mischaracterize any statement possible
-Ad hominem the person
-Blame Trump
-Allege conspiracy
-Claim Trump is Hitler, because Trump's bodyguards are S(ecret)S(ervice) and Hitler also had an SS. Trump drinks water and Hitler drank water! Trump won an election and Hitler also won an election! WHO THE FUCK CARES IF EVERYONE ELSE DOES!?!?!??!?!?! TRUMP ====== HITLER!!!!!
-Conflate dishonesty with fact
Eat shit, you lying, partisan fuck.
Fortunately, this won't go on all that long.
I see sales of Animal Farm are trending as well. (#1 in satire fiction).
It would be doubleplusgood if people would apply the analogy to the current situation.
Most of them would still be struggling to finish it, so I don't see your point.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
That's what happened in Benghazi.
Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable, unambiguous truth?
But what good are true facts with false context?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I think its a question of timing too - we're what a week into Trump's presidency and we already have more material than 8 years of Obama...
After 8 years of how Bush was Hitler 1000x and he was definitely going to cause the Apocalypse at least during the Obama years this place got a little more bearable. Still left of center but somewhat rational. Now it looks like its back to 24/7 Buzzfeedesque hysteria, OMG the President is Satan incarnate, and jumping on every meaningless misconstrued nonstory as the end of the world. Goodbye sane Slashdot, we hardly knew you.
Yeah, planned. Like no one is forcing you to be one. But if you choose to become a parent, here are health services that will help you do so safely.
Despite the quote, "alternative facts" was not coined by Orwell, and apparently he never used it. He would, I'm sure, appreciate the delicious irony of ideological pearl-clutchers writing him into a fictional history of this phrase.
The quote from above: "The connection was initially made on CNN's Reliable Sources. 'Alternative facts is a George Orwell phrase,' said Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty."
Needlessly leaving Americans to die under siege, and then lying about the cause isn't big enough for you? Why, because it wasn't money-related? Then, how about Obama's $1.7 billion ransom payment to Iran? Or, the lies surrounding the ACA? Or Obama's own lies about his knowledge of Hillary's private server?
And, each of the people still locked up in Guantanamo might also beg to differ with your assertion.
sig: sauer
Someone should publish a reprint titled 1980 +- 40
Let's start here.
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
Just another day in Paradise
Ironic really, since the USA is more like Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty Four
True. Whereas Britain, where the story essentially takes place, actually is becoming exactly like 1984 every day.
see CNN's incredible zoomable shot of the crowd from the podium. It really does look like it goes all the way back down the mall - so I can see their confusion when they saw the overhead shots and it looked completely different.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/
Plenty of photos I've seen on the internet and from friends who were there do not indicate anything of the sort of "sparsely attended". That is not even counting the people who were not permitted to attend due to protesters and riots.
I bought that book and Catch 22 recently to better understand Trump's opposition.
All political sides use the same "playbook" to varying degrees.
What is more disturbing to me though is that when I look at what is supposed to be the enlightened, reasoning, rational and liberal side what I see is pretty bad.
We all know about Christian evangelicals, neo-Nazis the far right, ultra-nationalists and so on. There's a hot bed of extremism however on the other side that is really only coming to the fore.
There are people who believe in superior, master morality, it doesn't actually have to come from a supernatural being. There are people who think not being far-right means being far-left. There are people who take positive notions such as the movement against racism and turn them into irrational negative notions. There are people that think not being racist means hating your own race yet loving all overs. There are people who think that not being ultra-nationalistic means hating your nation and it's people. There are people in camps that are traditionally liberal and very for freedom of speech lobbying for not only speech crime but thought crime.
This kind of madness has been going on for a long time but has started to reach new heights. There are plenty of liberals that likely simply didn't vote because of it or even voted for Trump as a part of a backlash.
It's a kind of weird transition period in the west where we have been moving away from one set of extremes but are now crossing the threshold moving into the same opposite extreme. The methods these people use are pretty subversive. To take one simple example, Islamophobia when it was originally created gives a list of what is clearly wrongthink and rightthink. In schools propaganda is being taught with the aim of reinforcing the notion of blasphemy by teaching that simple words, opinions and beliefs are basically as bad as genocide, by that I don't even mean things like if someone believes in genocide, merely if people don't like certain things.
Benghazi, "The most transparent administration ever", "You can keep your plan"... those are just off the top of my head.
We get it. Your person lost. You hate Trump. Trump could fire million dollar checks from his taint and cure cancer, and you would still hate him because he is not your candidate. Your hyperbole and spittle filled rants do not help you. Your dramatic exaggeration helps nobody. At least he is trying to make his campaign promises real. Obama blustered for 8 years about Gitmo and did nothing. Is Trump great? NO. But then you don't have anyone dogging every post telling you how bad all the people you voted for are because they don't believe and act precisely as you demand. Give it up. We suffered 8 years of Obama. Deal with Trump. Next time, pick a better candidate and get real people to vote... or have you forgotten that the few recounts they did turned up fraud on the Clinton side and NOT the Trump side?
Spot on. I see that victim card being played so often when no one is doing any harassment. The average person is being left alone. People do make fun of the dumb as rocks idots out there, but those aren't average people.
To eliminate gender identification of plugs and call them 'Innie' and 'Outie' plugs, at least until the Bellybutton Equal Rights movement demands we make them belly button neutral?
Trying to claim that you can't tell is nothing more than a sort of "Birther lite" position.
Ah.. but not caring at all is not the same as being unable to tell a forgery from the real thing. By not caring at all, it really doesn't matter either way.
Did Obama ever tell a lie so completely blatantly false as Trump's easily refutable lie about having the largest inauguration ever? That was completely ego driven and is a lie about a completely insignificant topic. If Trump would like about something to silly as that, then how can you ever believe him on something of importance?
Yes, EVERY politician lies. However except for a few rare cases of brain disorder they try to make their lies sound like the truth.
The first example is subjective, you can have an intelligent argument about whether that was true or false or what percentage of culpability the video had. The second example is wrong, as Trump did not say "lots of people", he said it was the most viewed inauguration in history. Which can be objectively shown as false, nost just subjectively.
Now of course, Trump could have made an honest mistake. But with his ego he will never admit to a mistake and he will never let his staff admit that he made a mistake. He's doubling down on something utterly unimportant.
Especially since it's been proven that CNN deliberately showed a photo of Trump's inauguration in the early morning, well before the place filled.
Many images, but even a half-witted rabbit could figure out that CNN were looking to stir sh** as usual
Please stay out of politics Slashdot.
We're all sick to death of it as it is!
Part of the problem is through the years, Obama himself did not always tell the truth about his beliefs or where he came from. The church he purported to be a faithful member of for 19 years was quickly pushed away when the pastor of said church came out as a blatant anti-white militant. Trump saw Clinton's "birther" comments and research and ran with it. Clinton only let it go after Obama was elected and she needed him for power.
Well yes, if one chooses to be a nihilist, then nothing really matters. But I wonder if you're prepared to follow that particular world view all the way, or whether you just use it to justify apathy or a sort default contrarianism.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I missed the part where the Administration or the ACA stripped your doctor away from you.
You can *definitely* make the argument that free-market reaction to market dynamic changes resulting from the ACA resulted in some people losing access to doctors they once had due to rule changes within private insurance entities, but you're saying that Obama saying that is a lie, or a deliberate untruth.
The only untruth I see here, is your attempt to redefine lying to mean being wrong or naive. It would make sense, since actual lying, and attempting to forcefully alter perception of reality, something we're getting a rather sobering taste of at the moment, is a whole different level of fucked up.
No, sir, the liar appears to be you. Next up, shall we tango over Benghazi?
It worked that way with the "but Hillary uses email!" thing despite how trivial it actually was. Powell (among others) did almost the same thing but worse in using a commercial internet service provider that could have read his secret email as did a few others. The "missing emails" fuss was hilarious after all the excuses about how it was OK for the White House to lose a few years of emails under Bush.
Autocrats take the personal more seriously than the political and use the machinery of state to deal with it. That the first press conference of the administration was over something so utterly trivial as to reassert Trump's claim about crowd numbers and nothing else (one statement, no questions allowed) is an illustration of this.
Trump doesn't see himself as the leader of the American people. He sees himself as the owner of America and it's people.
I think you're confusing broken promises with outright lies.
Sometimes politicians have to make promises that they can't keep, or predictions that don't come true. Sometimes they have to make statements based on incomplete or inaccurate information, or have to hide information or its sources for national security. Those aren't lies.
For example, Obama claiming that you will be able to keep your doctor after the ACA passes isn't a lie just because you couldn't keep your doctor. Obama wasn't trying to say that he'll force your doctor to keep you as a patient against his will!
Similarly, Obama claiming that Benghazi had one cause when it turned out to be another isn't a lie. Obama isn't omniscient, and can't tell if the information he has will change based on new evidence becoming available.
Compare that to Trump claiming that his inauguration had the biggest crowd ever, or that he would have won the popular vote if not for the millions of illegals who voted, of that Obama wasn't really a US citizen. Those are all complete fabrications that Trump made up from whole cloth. He says them knowing there is no evidence to back them up, making them lies.
dom
gigapixel shot from the dais:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/
I can see why they couldn't believe the overhead shots since it looks very different. Too bad they had to use the phrase "alternative facts", instead of just explaining their view or perspective was probably different.
Benghazi benghazi benghazi!
Benghazi proves the techniques used in 1984 work.
There were very valid reasons to dislike HRC, or Hillary Wall Street Kissinger, as she's known in some circles, but Benghazi and e-mail servers are way down at the bottom, way below pant-suits even.
That there are tin foil hat folks screaming Benghazi still proves that if you say something enough times, people will believe it. I know people who think she has enemies killed and pizzagate is something that needs to be looked into.
It's going to be an interesting 4 years, or an interesting month and half at the rate Mango Mussolini is going.
There was tons of lying in Obama's administration. Tons of it from the mouth of every politician. Heck, it's hard not to get things factually incorrect sometimes oneself, and for people to (rightly or wrongly) think you're trying to push something misleading even if you're not a politician. People sometimes say things that are false without intending to mislead.
None of that excuses what the Trump administration is doing, which is making up factually incorrect stories that have ZERO basis in reality. Is it a matter of unverifiable opinion that the inauguration this time was the biggest seen in person ever? Very obviously not, by every bit of evidence. Is there evidence that millions of illegal votes are the reason why Mr. Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral college? No. None.
You've also subtly distorted the issue. Did lots of people see Trump's inauguration? Absolutely. Not in dispute by anyone. But that's not what Trump and his press secretary said. The literal quote was: "This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe." In person? No. In other ways? Maybe, but it's hard to measure and poorly substantiated. But in person? Again, no. Not both. No on the first one, maybe on the second. If they can't concede this very minor point, and spent a good chunk of the very first press meeting in a vain attempt to tell the assembled press that black is white and up is down, and continue to dispute it, then how can anyone trust them on the simpler and more important things?
Nobody expected it to be a bigger crowd, and it wasn't. The only people that really cared about this issue was Trump and his huge ego, yet he pushed his press secretary out there to tell falsehoods, and maintain them days later. Next, same thing for the popular vote, which is a somewhat more important issue that could call into question the validity of the election result, but nobody is doubting that Trump won the election as the rules specified. It's settled. But his fragile ego can't tolerate the thought, apparently, that he really did lose the popular vote while still winning.
This is not a double-standard about some controversial and difficult-to-resolve issue like the true cause of the attack on Benghazi. It's in the realm of 2+2=5 (Trump's story) versus 2+2=4. It's freaking weird.
If you truly can't tell the difference in how extreme this is, just watch, because if these two instances in only the first week are any indication, I'm sure we're going to see even more examples of complete detachment from reality as time goes on.
Whataboutism.
Touche
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Sparsely attended is, of course, a relative term. Relative to all Presidential Inaugurations in recent memory, it was sparsely attended. Relative to the protests against the new president, it was very sparsely attended. Relative to the presidents claims about how heavily attended it was, it was extremely sparsely attended.
Obama being christian is not a fact at all, I would guess he is an ateist (like me --- and I would guess Trump as well), but certainly it is debatable and not a fact.
How nice of you to bring that site up. Lets compare Obamas record
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
With that of Trump so far:
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
Obama: 48% True or Mostly True vs 16% for Trump
Obama: 26% Mostly False or worse, vs 70% for Trump
This is literally a matter of perspective. Seen from in front like that, you can't really judge where the ground is. It's much easier in an shot from the air. Also, if you look at that picture, you should also notice that there are some giant tents at the back that completely block the view of the back of the mall. From the front, you literally can't see the ground in front of the Washington monument. Anyone claiming that they could actually see all the way back there from the front either needs their eyes checked, has a problem understanding spatial relationships, or is just plain lying. The split screen views from above that show the Obama inauguration crowd vs. the Trump inauguration crowd show that it really is just plain bigger.
Yeah, GP is pretty dumb.
He should have mentioned e.g. Muslim Brotherhood financing, ISIS weapons/logistical support, Syria/Libya, Egypt "Arab spring" support.
Fuck, even "Fast and Furious," or freeing 300 drug dealers on his last day.
I don't know whether Trump is ill. I do know that Nobama was just pure fucking evil.
Obama: "Most transparent administration ever"
This is fun to watch! Post a well publicized and provable lie by our ex-president, watch some partisan zealot try to defend it and laugh, laugh, laugh!
We could go on like this for WEEKS!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Signal to noise ratio. Its really smart actually. Fill the airwaves and people's "give-a-fuck-o-meter" with useless discussions of utter horse shit (which partisan dumb asses and the media eat right up) and you deplete the ability for the public to discern what is actually going on and to really give a fuck.
Manufactured distraction, fervor, and outrage is the perfect environment and cover for an administration to do things that fuck the American people. And partisan idiots can't help but play right into it, screaming how this is exactly what they said would happen, agitating their imaginary foes on the "other side of the aisle," bringing out their broadest brush yet with which to paint half of America as disreputable and irremediable. Ha! Fools, every single one.
He has been in office less than a week and he already has the press and talking heads chasing sticks like the bitches they are. Many of the most partisan are ready and raring to fight their fellow American brothers and sisters to the death over complete nonsense. Issues are left by the wayside in the rush to condemn others and prove who is "right." Ideological differences become declarations of war instead of fertile ground for discussion. All they can talk about is what he says they can talk about. The only issues that are in the media and on people's minds, the only issues that matter, are within the bandwidth of what he has established with his antics.
In other words, you and the media have been pwnt, if you haven't noticed already.
Its going to be a long four years.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
7 pages of broken promises vs. not yet rated...http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/browse/. I'll take actions over words, and give Trump a chance, even though I didn't vote for him.
Just another day in Paradise
I was referring to a legal aphorism, and you, "sweetheart", are still pounding the table. If you had an ounce of self-awareness, you might realize how neatly you fit the stereotype of a whiny leftist throwing a fit because the leftist doesn't understand the world.
Liar, it didn't happen yet. What really happened is that 20 million of indo-chimps, sand n1ggers and other illegals received really crappy health care paid by taxpayers.
Libtards are leeching off other people, so they need to shut up.
Not unless you count the male populations of major universities as "unaverage"
Even victimhood is no fun, it's too hard to compete with Trumps enormous sense of victimhood. Like that mean media publishing those pictures of the turnout at his inauguration vs. Obama's. Or how Kellyanne told us how mean the press was to contradict Spicer's false claims.
The most victimized person in the country seems to be poor Donald Trump.
Undoing bad mod
The map is not the territory.
Not to blow you up too hard with logic here, but photos taken by people who attended were taken from where the people were standing. You can take a picture in a group of less than 10 people and it can appear crowded. It's the photos taken outside the crowd that show how large the crowd really is.
Your examples (and they can be questioned) come from 8 years of a presidency. Trump has racked up a good number of easily dis-provable lies in less than a week. If he acts this way during the honeymoon period, what's the rest going to look like?
You mean like those gigapixel photos showing a massive crowd?
B. You're in no position to make that determination.
Take a few deep breaths and calm down. Forget how much hate you have for Trump (hate blinds) and read a transcript of the interview. Pretend you're trying to wade through spaghetti code, it'll help keep activity in the rational regions of your brain and tone down emotional responses.
Who died because Trump game a speech you doing like?
Mentally Ill? Is that your professional diagnosis, or hallow patrician rhetoric I hear screaming? Capitalist in Communist Russia were considered mentally ill until the country started to climb out of that nightmare.
Trump clearly has a grip on reality, and he is changing it just like he promised. Watch that real wall go up.
Obama Lied, People Died!
I have heard many definitions of "fact" and/or "truth". That is not one of them.
I'm saying the statement was presented to you with the context entirely replaced by people with an interest in harming the speaker. As for your list, you could have gotten that from James Carville. That was his playbook when he was working for Bill Clinton. He was so effective that it became the dominant strategy for dealing with opposition to Democrats.
What do you find so threatening about being nice to your fellow humans? If little people don't like being called midgets, what's the harm in not calling them midgets? Or are you such a slave to your pride that you can't tolerate any external influence on your behavior?
were health services. im sure that cutting off their funding will have really positive effects on millions of children's lives...
You sound like a really nice person that people like and who has lots of friends and a meaningful existence.
How exactly have you "suffered" under Obama?
You're defending a proven lie and distorting facts, and you dare suggest I'm out of touch?!?!? You clearly have no clue how stupid you make yourself look. Because you're too stupid to realize it.
C'mon, I dare you to try bring some FACTS to show how Trump, Spicer and Conway ALL didn't lie. Prove that their claims that the inauguration was the biggest ever is true. C'mon, lets deal with FACTS.
CT: You did not answer the question of why the President asked the White House Press Secretary to come out in front of the podium for the first time and utter a falsehood [emphasis mine]. Why did he do that? It [emphasis mine] undermines the credibility of the entire White House Press Office.
KAC: No it [emphasis mine] doesn't. Don't be so overly dramatic about it [emphasis mine] Chuck. You're saying it's [emphasis mine] a falsehood. And they're giving ... Sean Spicer, our Press Secretary gave alternative facts.
Now, what you're saying is:
Conway was talking about facts [emphasis mine] that weren't being reported (i.e., other things Spicer said),
So, you're talking about multiple facts, several things. CT and KAC are clearly talking about a singular thing, the "uttered a falsehood" CT was asking about. This is plain. This is obvious. And the singular thing that they are both talking about is the LIE that more people attended the inauguration than ever before. The same question she over and over and over again tried to evade.
There is NO QUESTION that's what she was referring to. NONE. Unless ... You're either a) brainwashed, b) a giant apologist, or c) just plain stupid. One thing you are certainly not is rational.
Say what?
I'm not sure what country you are from but that is not the case in the US.
"Liberals" are something that began to stop being "liberals by definition" and became "The enemy" under Nixon and fully blossomed into "enemy of 'Merika!" under Reagan who went on to erase the existence of moderates and fully empower "Liberal" as a profane word..
All liberal is now, is a label that Republican moral conservatives put on anyone who doesn't mindlessly toe the Republican line.
Obama was way more conservative that Saint Reagan but is still a dirty communist liberal, for example.
The only untruth I see here, is your attempt to redefine lying to mean being wrong or naive.
O'rly? Either you're incredibly ignorant of the events, or you're a shill. In either case, it's not worth debating with you about it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
hey, we here in Africa is just glad Trump is there. Middle finger to all the Americans who always thought our leaders are mad
It was enough to put him in power over people like you, wasn't it, little leftie?
Quiver, quiver... deep in your burrow.
Nurse that butt-hurt, you'll never have anything else.
I've never really dug into it, but IIRC there was a lot of unrest going on that day, much of it probably because of the video. At first, it seemed reasonable to think Benghazi was part of that unrest, and we found out later that was not the case.
If the best you can do to claim the Obama administration liars is an unsourced (and hence undated) claim that they said something that was plausible but false, you must think it one of the most honest administrations the US has had.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That was beyond Obama's control. If you like your policy, you can keep your policy, but only as long as your insurance company allows you. That would have been better. The ACA is a very qualified success, and had a lot of unforeseen consequences, lots of them based on what insurance companies actually did.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How many of them have been policy-related? How many involved people being imprisoned or killed?
sig: sauer
Not at all, You're making a mess of a bunch of facts, that the article you cited lays out, though draws its own conclusions from.
A. The Administration knew that due to normal turnover, people in the individual market would end up on ACA plans pretty quickly. The ACA and government does not force this turnover. It's caused by *the insurance customers, and insurers*. Those people don't get to "keep" their current insurance, ACA or not.
B. The Administration erroneously assumed that the grandfather clauses would shield individual market people who actually keep their plan, which is the group that doesn't belong to the turnover group. This assumption turned out to be wrong for various reasons- one of which was that states told their insurers to cancel plans and send renewals instead of amend them, another of which was that the regulations were tight enough that anybody in the long-term individual market who's insurance carrier made significant changes to their policy instead of cancelling it would lose their grandfather status. The Administration failed to account for what the market would do in that regard when faced with the ACA.
I'm not defending the ACA here. It was, for obvious reasons, a big fucking mess. It accomplished some good things, and was made in the direction of people with a good-intentioned goal, but the resulting bill was Frankenstein's Monster with unpredictable outcomes.
I'm also not defending the naivety of the Administration from the people who wrote the regulations, to the guy who was the mouthpiece of the whole thing. But there is simply zero evidence that anyone on the executive side was lying. They were just stupid.
The NBC article is written by someone who doesn't really understand what he's reading. Simply a shitty journalist. And you just lacked the critical thought to see where he went wrong.
I kept my doctor. ACA's failing was that it was a subsidy for for-profit insurance companies. And doctors left those groups, as they changed with ACA. ACA didn't do it. ACA would have let everyone keep their doctor. But the for-profit doctors and for-profit insurance companies found it more profitable to juggle associations, so some doctors left some insurance companies, and joined others. If one under ACA wanted to, they could have kept their doctor, but may have had to change their insurance carrier to do so.
Or, for all we know the complaints were lies.
Learn to love Alaska
each of the 20-40 people still in Gitmo, yes. Obama didn't get everyone out of there, but he did get all but a handful of people out of there. That he did not do more was Congress' fault -- Obama signed the order to close it, and as you'll recall the Republicans threw a screaming fit and blocked it. But keep frothing about Benghazi, there's no surer dog whistle for a right-wing nutjob.
And for what exactly?
Why would that matter?
What the hell was the point of inauguration attendance claim?
What is the point of the three million vote fraud claim?
Have you seen any mention of Trumps divestment of his personal business lately?
How about Trumps tax records?
Or is the media focused elsewhere such as irrelevant inauguration attendance and impossible to prove voting fraud?
Keep downplaying Benghazi -- there's no clearer attribute for a Hillary apologist. Your blind devotion is typical. Indeed, this same devotion is seen on the right as well. But, when the facts simply do not support your almost religious devotion and everyone can see it, and then you engage in name calling in a feeble attempt to recover, you lose all credibility. Hillary and Obama fucked up on Benghazi. They dropped the ball before the siege. They were negligent/inept during the siege. They then lied to the family members of those who were killed. Then, they lied to the American public. Then, they lied about lying to both the family members and the public.
sig: sauer
You made that shit up.
You voted for that fucker. Don't try to make it look like it's our fault.
Hey Trump cheerleader - how do you feel about paying 20% more for cars, fruit, computers and gasoline to fund the vanity project of the wall?
I wonder how long it will take you to catch on to why we are complaining about the guy and the obvious problem of having him in charge of anything important.
read carefully. gp said people disagree on the weight of established facts with respect to their relevence in a larger formula. its a fact that someone can pull the plug on my frame and everything goes down, but is this something I should be coding for? (hint: code doesn't execute w/o electricity)
Just as it's a fact that an American Ambassador was murdered under Hillary Clinton's watch.
And two were murdered when Ford was President. One each under LBJ, Nixon, Carter. What's your point?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Trump is mentally ill.
Repeat something enough times and it becomes true, eh? Thanks for your expert opinion as a licensed mental health professional on someone you have never had a conversation with.
If you think I voted for Trump, or Hillary, you are so incredibly vapid I don't know where to start with idiots like you.
Nothing I stated is in support of Trump. I am merely pointing out the behavior of you humans that allowed him to not only take office, but to also have both his detractors and supporters dancing around on strings like marionettes.
You poor stupid creature. You can't even understand when someone is agreeing with you and providing the unvarnished truth. You are well and truly trapped.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Except that the dress was in fact blue and black. #factcheck
"Mr. Trump, you have no experience in office. In what way are you qualified to be president?"
"I have a lot of experience in lying, screwing the little guy, borrowing large sums of money, and have rich and powerful friends."
"Sign here!"
Political correctness isn't "please don't call little people midgets, it hurts their feelings." That's just politeness.
PC is: "You called them midgets. You are a BAD person and ought to be fired!"
No, it's not the best, it is just one of many.